Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man,
play a song for me
I'm not sleepy
and there ain't no place I'm goin' to
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man,
play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning,
I'll come followin' you
Take me for a trip upon
your magic swirling ship
All my senses have been stripped
And my hands can't feel to grip
And my toes too numb to step
Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin'
I'm ready to go anywhere,
I'm ready for to fade
Unto my own parade
Cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it
I started with a BB gun age 4-5, then a .22 at about 6-7. Under my dad’s supervision. All 5 of us kids the same way.
Every Christmas, Birthday, etc., the boys got guns, bow and arrow, rubber-plastic knives and spears, trucks and cars. The girls got dolls, kitchen sets, books, dresses, etc.
We never hurt anybody with weapons.
I started shooting young also, like Ghost. Got my first .22 rifle at 12 years old. An old Colt Colteer 4-22. I still have it and the bluing is still 95%+. I kept it oiled and clean. I bought my first Colt AR15 when I turned 18. My first Colt Gubmint Model at 21…then over the next ~40 years it kind of snowballed. I have four gun safes.
My whole crew shoots guns.
When I am engaged in that stereotypical and usually unproductive conversation with a Gun Control type, I will sometimes ask them to ask me how many guns I own.
I do this to set up the conversation to give them this answer: “I’m not really sure.”
Of course, I am sure of the number. It is a number that will fit into my one gun safe…a Liberty Fatboy….but none of that is any of their business.
Thanks for the reminder….before it gets blazing hot around here, I should dig through the safe, and give a couple’o favorites in the back a chance to see some daylight at the range. And then, spend a good couple three, four hours cleaning as many guns as I can.
I’m of an age where you could bring your first deer rifle to school for show & tell, usually in 6th grade. Rifle racks in the rear windows of pickups in high school. No one stole them …
Now I think you get arrested if a gun is anywhere in a sight line from a school.
My whole building is my gun safe and it is 24′ x 36′. Some guns are in their air cases along the wall over there, most ain’t. Couple are tore apart, most ain’t. What about cross bows, are they guns? I have 3, and some of the broadheads will go through stuff most ammo won’t. Class IV plates for example.
No kids around here so safety isn’t in issue. Ease of access is. I tend to start stuff, then walk off when something else crosses my mind. One side of a workbench has (2) S&W M+P’s in pieces and I was checking interchangeability of parts than got distracted. That was a couple weeks ago so they still lay there.
Next to my desk is a 2 drawer file cabinet and my Beretta’s live in there. They are always ready to go to work right now. Maybe 30-40 mags, mostly loaded, spare holsters, a shoulder rig in the bottom drawer, all Beretta all the time.
Another workbench has a .50 cal flintlock pistol kit I’ve been dikkin with a for a year. Been reading up on how to do the cross hatching in the grip and bought the files from Brownell’s. I’ll prolly do a “brown” blue on the barrel and hardware, then burn the wood to temper it, sand it, then hit it with beeswax. Thinking about ordering a .50 brown bess kit. Gonna need a bigger workbench…
Then there’s the edges. Got over 300 of various types, from 1″ to 8′. My 2 daily carries are kept razor, Gerber QuickDraw, and Buck Ranger 112. I got a full Lansky rid a few years ago and when I get bored I surgeon up some edges. Hawks fly faster when they’re sharper. When my pappy gave me that Daisy 66 years ago he had no idea the inner fire he lit. Or maybe he did. Anyway, I am oldskool Appalachian American and can’t help it and don’t GAF.
“Appalachian”: Up one particular holler in Kentucky – and the ridges on either side – my name will get me invited in for dinner … or shot. Next holler over is more likely to get shot. Strangers don’t go wandering up those back roads. Don’t come a knocking when the window shades are … up, down, or midway, depending. Otherwise: “Sit down, son – have a snort”
NAD will be on semi-hiatus come August when I head back to visit the cousins. Maybe some strangers will come wandering up our holler.
I went to a shooting range once. Wrote about it here.
I did well, had fun. Later I realized my head was not in a good place.
Would’ve been too easy. Never went back.
When I go to the range, I put up simple paper bullseye targets. No distractions, no emotions. Just watch what I’m doing and always trying to figure out how to be better, and keep bad habits from forming. It’s mental exercise, and mental coupling to physical control. There’s so many factors to control and I can’t concentrate on all of them at once: grip, trigger control, stance, breathing, sighting, follow-through, recovery back to sight picture, aiming compensation for range and windage, and so much more.
You play like you practice. Pick a target, hit it. If you practice staying calm while operating, when the time comes for real, you’ll be able to keep the demons of emotions and adrenaline and fear and distractions at bay.
When I was a teenager and young man, we all had firearms. None of us ever thought that we would use them for bad purposes. It was just another powerful tool that we had to learn how to use for specific purposes. Those purposes and no other.
I used to own several guns.
But then came the horrible day when they were all lost in that terrible boating accident……
Sounds like there is a story waiting to be told, WWW.
Ha. Nope, no story. That’s just an old joke about what you’re supposed to say when “they” come to confiscate your guns. I don’t know the origin.
Clever 🙂