Harkrader
Member
You Can Choose One Gun
I suppose it’s a consequence of living to “old age”. More people we know, die. It seems to me as though this is a second wave. The first one came as my cohort reached our mid-50s to mid-60s. A startling number of people I knew died in that age range, mostly from cancer and heart attacks.
Accidents took the lives of people I knew as far back as my 8th year. The first person I knew to be murdered happened when we were 13. She was beaten and raped before being killed by a mentally retarded young man who had the misfortune to also be born into a degenerate family.
In high school there were two suicides that I knew of, both girls. One was having an affair with a teacher. The other lived in a sicko fundamentalist religious home and, believing the lies her minister and parents told her about what a sinful girl she was, jumped head first from her second-storey bedroom window. The fall did not kill her, but left her a mental vegetable. This was the dawn of the ‘60s and long-term life support did not exist. She was whisked away to a distant city where she withered for about a month before succumbing, her sister told me.
Then there was Vietnam. I knew 28 of the names on The Wall.
It seemed as though those of us who made it to our 30s were healthy, less prone to accidents, less likely to engage in risky behaviours. We were settling down to life and living. There were still accidents and I lost some close friends to them.
Then as we began reaching our mid-50s, life-long smoking caught up with some. Maybe diet did, too. Certainly genetics did. Bad genes killed a lot of otherwise healthy people. I sat at the side of a distressing number of friends as cancer finished eating them.
As we went beyond our early 60’s it again appeared we were healthy people destined for long lives and the rewards of hard work. Of course that wasn’t universally true, but could be said as a general description of our cohort.
Now we are again attending funerals, this time in a run that will not end until the last of us has died. There are reasons to be sad, and reasons to celebrate the good things we have passed on.
So it was that a week ago I was benefiting from such a passing.
Darrel, spelled in the fashion that now seems so out of fashion, made it to 79. He had married in the late ‘60s after returning from Vietnam. He parlayed the GI Bill into a college degree in engineering and worked most of his life as a civil engineer in Third World countries I preferred to avoid. He and wife produced four children who are now in the prime of their own lives. All married, giving Darrel and his wife nine grandchildren and one – so far – great-grandchild. His was indeed a life to celebrate.
I attended the wake and remembrance, and the graveside service in his hometown. One of his last requests was to be buried there, in a small plot with his parents. I thought it odd that he would do so, but relieved to know his family was OK with it.
Darrel was quite knowledgeable of guns. Somewhat like me, his initial interest in them was for working purposes. Not in the least sentimental about them, he chose ones he felt were effective and became highly proficient with them all. We used to compete informally quite often, rendering many a bottle and can to splinters in a nearby gravel pit, and “playing golf” with salvaged golf balls.
It was only as he neared death that I learned he had become interested in guns as objects unto themselves. He had more than 100 when he died. Some were profusely engraved and even gold inlaid. His eldest son, of the same name, told me he bought many of them at auctions. High-end double barrel shotguns, drillings, old English hunting rifles, revolvers and semi-autos of every description sat in neat rows in drawers and on racks in his basement. I think he had one of every double-action revolver Ruger ever made.
“Dad said you could pick any one you like.” Darrel’s oldest son had the same name and looked much like his father. We were in the basement man cave amid all those guns. It never occurred to me to ask for one, or even buy one. The high end ones were beyond my budget for sure, and I never was a collector, having no use for anything I couldn’t shoot. Some of Darrel’s guns were unfired and even unhandled. I’ve had a couple guns with gold in the engraving, or plating on some of the parts. Eventually it begins to flake off. I NEVER pay extra for gold.
I just looked around, marveling. I could have one! “Any one you like,” Darrel Jr., now Sr., repeated.
I looked at a Model 29, fully engraved by the factory. It was under glass. A Winchester 1873; Probably worth as much as my car was when it was new. Or more. An English double gun, a “fowler”. The drilling, a fascinating idea for a gun.
Another 29, a dash 2 duplicate of the Dirty Harry gun. A pristine 27 “no dash” and an equally pristine “Pre-Model 19” that gleamed in the soft lights trained on them. All would be wasted on me.
I continued around the room. One glass-front cabinet stood open at the center of a side wall. There was a small round table next to it, and a chair. I looked in to see a bone-stock Colt Government Model decorated with dings, scratches, holster wear and rust dots, sharing shelf space with a Combat Commander and an Officer’s Model, all showing the wear of long-term use. I fondly remembered shooting against Darrel and his GM. I usually won, but then - - -
On the second shelf was a Model 65, a 4” Python with rubber grips, and two Detective Specials. I recognized one of the DS; I had given it to Darrel in the early ‘80s. On the top shelf at eye level in a stand was a scratched up 9mm Kurz Walther PPK with no importer stamp on it. Darrel was the “importer!” Next to it a Browning Hi-Power with that complex adjustable rear sight and a well-used Beretta 92. Furthest to the right was a S&W K22 with 6” barrel and wonderfully worn grip panels.
To the right of this cabinet was a tall one with one door. Inside was a Ruger 10/22, a Stoeger over/under 12-gage turkey gun, a Winchester 94 .30-30, and a Benelli Cordoba semi-auto.
I continued on to look at the Ruger revolvers. I lingered over the GP-100s, excellent guns, and one of the first revolver models I owned. A SP-101 in .357, another in .38 Special, a third one in .327 Federal Magnum. Four-inch barrels, six-inch, DAO, night sights. A half dozen three-screw Single-Six revolvers and an older Bearcat. I noted a GP-100 with Novak-style fixed sights. Interesting. Next to it a .454 Casull Redhawk and a battered Service Six with a cracked grip panel.
After a bit I stopped trying to catalog them, and just looked.
I could have any one. After my second pass around the room I knew exactly which one. I told Darrel and he shook his head in disbelief. “Yeah” I said, “but it’s the only one that would mean anything to me, and I can shoot it without guilt.”
“OK,” he said. “You’re welcome to it.”
I got it home and just rubbed my hands all over it. Then I took a shooting hold, remembering Darrel sighting over it at golf balls, beer cans and pop bottles. I imagined it holstered on his belt in Africa. It came with five magazines. No box, no wrapper, no manual. Darrel, the engineer, knew it well enough to detail strip it from memory. He got it at a time when he had no sentimentality for the stuff important to collectors. It was a working gun. A man’s gun. A tool for an engineer.
So now I have another Colt GM nestled next to the ones I accumulated over the years. One that means something to me. One that survived with Darrel and me through a lifetime. I’ll take it to the range now and then. As I shoot it I know I’ll wish I could see it in Darrel’s hands just one more time and hear it CRACK from off to the side. I’ll stick a note on it so when my children dig it out of the safe for the last time, they’ll see another survivor.
I suppose it’s a consequence of living to “old age”. More people we know, die. It seems to me as though this is a second wave. The first one came as my cohort reached our mid-50s to mid-60s. A startling number of people I knew died in that age range, mostly from cancer and heart attacks.
Accidents took the lives of people I knew as far back as my 8th year. The first person I knew to be murdered happened when we were 13. She was beaten and raped before being killed by a mentally retarded young man who had the misfortune to also be born into a degenerate family.
In high school there were two suicides that I knew of, both girls. One was having an affair with a teacher. The other lived in a sicko fundamentalist religious home and, believing the lies her minister and parents told her about what a sinful girl she was, jumped head first from her second-storey bedroom window. The fall did not kill her, but left her a mental vegetable. This was the dawn of the ‘60s and long-term life support did not exist. She was whisked away to a distant city where she withered for about a month before succumbing, her sister told me.
Then there was Vietnam. I knew 28 of the names on The Wall.
It seemed as though those of us who made it to our 30s were healthy, less prone to accidents, less likely to engage in risky behaviours. We were settling down to life and living. There were still accidents and I lost some close friends to them.
Then as we began reaching our mid-50s, life-long smoking caught up with some. Maybe diet did, too. Certainly genetics did. Bad genes killed a lot of otherwise healthy people. I sat at the side of a distressing number of friends as cancer finished eating them.
As we went beyond our early 60’s it again appeared we were healthy people destined for long lives and the rewards of hard work. Of course that wasn’t universally true, but could be said as a general description of our cohort.
Now we are again attending funerals, this time in a run that will not end until the last of us has died. There are reasons to be sad, and reasons to celebrate the good things we have passed on.
So it was that a week ago I was benefiting from such a passing.
Darrel, spelled in the fashion that now seems so out of fashion, made it to 79. He had married in the late ‘60s after returning from Vietnam. He parlayed the GI Bill into a college degree in engineering and worked most of his life as a civil engineer in Third World countries I preferred to avoid. He and wife produced four children who are now in the prime of their own lives. All married, giving Darrel and his wife nine grandchildren and one – so far – great-grandchild. His was indeed a life to celebrate.
I attended the wake and remembrance, and the graveside service in his hometown. One of his last requests was to be buried there, in a small plot with his parents. I thought it odd that he would do so, but relieved to know his family was OK with it.
Darrel was quite knowledgeable of guns. Somewhat like me, his initial interest in them was for working purposes. Not in the least sentimental about them, he chose ones he felt were effective and became highly proficient with them all. We used to compete informally quite often, rendering many a bottle and can to splinters in a nearby gravel pit, and “playing golf” with salvaged golf balls.
It was only as he neared death that I learned he had become interested in guns as objects unto themselves. He had more than 100 when he died. Some were profusely engraved and even gold inlaid. His eldest son, of the same name, told me he bought many of them at auctions. High-end double barrel shotguns, drillings, old English hunting rifles, revolvers and semi-autos of every description sat in neat rows in drawers and on racks in his basement. I think he had one of every double-action revolver Ruger ever made.
“Dad said you could pick any one you like.” Darrel’s oldest son had the same name and looked much like his father. We were in the basement man cave amid all those guns. It never occurred to me to ask for one, or even buy one. The high end ones were beyond my budget for sure, and I never was a collector, having no use for anything I couldn’t shoot. Some of Darrel’s guns were unfired and even unhandled. I’ve had a couple guns with gold in the engraving, or plating on some of the parts. Eventually it begins to flake off. I NEVER pay extra for gold.
I just looked around, marveling. I could have one! “Any one you like,” Darrel Jr., now Sr., repeated.
I looked at a Model 29, fully engraved by the factory. It was under glass. A Winchester 1873; Probably worth as much as my car was when it was new. Or more. An English double gun, a “fowler”. The drilling, a fascinating idea for a gun.
Another 29, a dash 2 duplicate of the Dirty Harry gun. A pristine 27 “no dash” and an equally pristine “Pre-Model 19” that gleamed in the soft lights trained on them. All would be wasted on me.
I continued around the room. One glass-front cabinet stood open at the center of a side wall. There was a small round table next to it, and a chair. I looked in to see a bone-stock Colt Government Model decorated with dings, scratches, holster wear and rust dots, sharing shelf space with a Combat Commander and an Officer’s Model, all showing the wear of long-term use. I fondly remembered shooting against Darrel and his GM. I usually won, but then - - -
On the second shelf was a Model 65, a 4” Python with rubber grips, and two Detective Specials. I recognized one of the DS; I had given it to Darrel in the early ‘80s. On the top shelf at eye level in a stand was a scratched up 9mm Kurz Walther PPK with no importer stamp on it. Darrel was the “importer!” Next to it a Browning Hi-Power with that complex adjustable rear sight and a well-used Beretta 92. Furthest to the right was a S&W K22 with 6” barrel and wonderfully worn grip panels.
To the right of this cabinet was a tall one with one door. Inside was a Ruger 10/22, a Stoeger over/under 12-gage turkey gun, a Winchester 94 .30-30, and a Benelli Cordoba semi-auto.
I continued on to look at the Ruger revolvers. I lingered over the GP-100s, excellent guns, and one of the first revolver models I owned. A SP-101 in .357, another in .38 Special, a third one in .327 Federal Magnum. Four-inch barrels, six-inch, DAO, night sights. A half dozen three-screw Single-Six revolvers and an older Bearcat. I noted a GP-100 with Novak-style fixed sights. Interesting. Next to it a .454 Casull Redhawk and a battered Service Six with a cracked grip panel.
After a bit I stopped trying to catalog them, and just looked.
I could have any one. After my second pass around the room I knew exactly which one. I told Darrel and he shook his head in disbelief. “Yeah” I said, “but it’s the only one that would mean anything to me, and I can shoot it without guilt.”
“OK,” he said. “You’re welcome to it.”
I got it home and just rubbed my hands all over it. Then I took a shooting hold, remembering Darrel sighting over it at golf balls, beer cans and pop bottles. I imagined it holstered on his belt in Africa. It came with five magazines. No box, no wrapper, no manual. Darrel, the engineer, knew it well enough to detail strip it from memory. He got it at a time when he had no sentimentality for the stuff important to collectors. It was a working gun. A man’s gun. A tool for an engineer.
So now I have another Colt GM nestled next to the ones I accumulated over the years. One that means something to me. One that survived with Darrel and me through a lifetime. I’ll take it to the range now and then. As I shoot it I know I’ll wish I could see it in Darrel’s hands just one more time and hear it CRACK from off to the side. I’ll stick a note on it so when my children dig it out of the safe for the last time, they’ll see another survivor.
