Tales Of Rifles, Shotguns and Pistols...

  The great Texas singer Steve Fromholz died back in 2014.  I only found out recently how he died…he was putting a loaded rifle in a pickup truck, going out on his central Texas ranch to hunt feral hogs that were killing his baby goats.

The rifle slipped and a bullet went flying.  The bullet hit Fromholz and he died on the way to the hospital.

  Fromholz wrote and sang good stuff, back in 2007 he was named Texas’ “Poet Laureate.”

  Helluva way to go…in a rifle accident. 

  It got me to thinking about rifles, shotguns, pistols and such.           

  There aren’t any firearms at my house.

  It’s not a big deal.  I don’t preach about my position.  It’s kinda like politics and religion…once upon a time it wasn’t polite to talk about either amongst friends lest arguing ensue.  Once upon a time that was a rule of etiquette.

  But having said that, I never understood folks who have to have a bunch of weapons in their home.  I understand some folks having a rifle, shotgun or two.  But an arsenal?

  I come from a time when if The National Rifle Association crossed my mind I thought, “Oh yeah, the guys who come to our Boy Scout meetings to teach us gun safety.”

  There were no firearms in my mom and dad’s home.

  If I ever wanted to do some shootin’ I knew folks who had a rifle or a shotgun and they’d let me shoot.

  I don’t know why Dad didn’t have a pistol, rifle or shotgun…it never came up in conversation.  There was never any big statement, no political stance, nothing.  There just wasn’t a rifle, pistol or shotgun in “the old home place.”  I mean the closest thing that WAS there was an old .22 rifle from around 1900 or so.  It didn’t work.

  Now my dad did have a BB pistol under his socks in his top drawer but that’s about it.  Then it turned up in the glove compartment of the family car. 

  One time, when I was about 12, my mom and sister left me in the car while they went shopping.  I played with the radio for a bit, then I opened the glove box and there it was...the BB pistol I was forbidden to touch. 

  I got it out of the glove box, turned it around in my hands, admired it, then I pulled the hammer back.  I wondered what would I do with it now. 

  If I fired it in the car it might ricochet around and hit me.  So I put my thumb back on the hammer and eased it back into a safe position.  But the hammer slipped, then a BB flew and smacked against the windshield leaving a small nick.  My dad had quite the temper so I never said a word, but he couldn’t figure out why the car’s windshield was nicked from the inside.

  It seems I’ve had some close calls with firearms.

  Shotguns were always around when I went camping in the Boy Scouts.  I belonged to what some have termed a “rogue” troop, meaning it wasn’t like any Boy Scout troop I’ve ever heard about.  I assure you, 99 percent of America’s Boy Scout troops are unlike this one…it’s seed-bed of many tales that I may make into a book someday. 

  One of the guys in the troop, Woody*, seemed to always have a shotgun or rifle of one type or another when we went camping.  One camp-out he might have a .410, another time a .20 gauge and then there was that time he brought his 30.06 rifle, won a big box of candy with a busty “nekkid” lady on the cover and got into some mischief with a stick of dynamite.  

  One camp out night inside the troop’s big three sided shelter back in the mountains, after the younger scouts had hit the hay, some of us older scouts and the adult leaders were kicking back. Woody produced his .20 gauge inside the shelter.  While I sat nearby, Scoutmaster Pete and Woody proceeded to get into a terse discussion about the weapon’s safety being on.

  “Sure it’s on,” Woody said.

  Suddenly there was this loud “BLAM” and little pinging noises all over the place.  The shotgun had gone off.  And the cabin had a new little skylight about 4 inches across.  We were still finding shotgun pellets inside the place for the next few months.

  In high school I had a friend, Monty, who was always going dove hunting.  I was invited on one “big hunt.”  I even went out and bought some shotgun shells at the local Sears store.   

  I arrived at Monty’s house unaware that he and my buddy Catfish raided the fridge at Monty’s and enjoyed a few of his daddy’s “brewskis” therein.

  Out into the fields we went on our merry hunt.  Suddenly a covey of quail took to the sky.  Catfish was behind me, over my right shoulder.  There was an explosion in my right ear.  Catfish had fired on the quail, the muzzle of his shotgun just inches from my right ear.  I didn’t hear well out of that ear for a few days.

  In my late 20’s I decided it was time to have a pistol.  I couldn’t think of a good reason why I shouldn’t have one but then I really didn’t have a good reason why I should have one.  I went to a gun shop and bought a classic .22 revolver.

  And it sat in my home.

  I took it camping in the West Virginia mountains one time.  I would take it out and look at it and wonder where I was going to shoot it.  I remembered stories of people being hit by stray bullets in the forest.  I put on my holster and walked boldly through the campground.  I had become “The Great Outdoorsman,” exercising his “right to bear arms,” going off to find an embankment to shoot into.  I found such a place deep in the woods away from the campground.  I fired a few rounds, knocked off a few pine cones.  Then I sat there, wondering why I had this thing.  The pistol was holstered and The Great Outdoorsman marched back to his campsite. 

  Later that evening while I was grilling up some sausages, peppers and onions a guy moseyed into my campsite.  He was younger than me, slender, beard.  Hell, if we had been suddenly transported 30 years into the future I would have called him a “Millenial.”

  “Hi there,” I said.  “Somethin’ I can do for you?”

  “Yeah, ummm,” he paused.  “Me and my friends were wondering if you might not walk through the campground with your pistol strapped on.  It’s pretty intimidating.”

  I locked eyes with the guy and smiled.

  “Hell, buddy,” I said, “It’s just a .22 peashooter.”

  “Well, okay,” he said, “But we’re just visiting here and it’s pretty intimidating.”

  “Where y’all visiting from?” I asked.

  “Northern Virginia,” he said.

  “Ah, D.C.,” I said. 

  “Well, that IS where we all work,” said the visitor.

  “Well welcome to ‘Wild, Wonderful West Virginia,” I said, laughing.

  He smiled.

  “Okay, buck-o, you got it,” I said.  “Ain’t nothin’ that says I’ve GOT to wear my pistol around the campground.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said.  The visitor turned and walked away.

  Like I said, I didn’t know why I had the thing.

  I had a girlfriend back then who used to get “spells” where she’d fly into rages.  It was with her in mind that I stored the pistol in one place and its cylinder, you know…the spinny-thingy that holds the bullets…in another.

  One afternoon, an afternoon that featured one of those “spells” I mentioned, I woke up from a nap to find her standing over me, the pistol pointed at my head…the pistol minus the cylinder.

  And she was pulling the trigger over and over again.

  CLICK * CLICK * CLICK *

  I kept the girlfriend for a bit longer figuring all she needed in life was a heavy dose of good times.

  Months later I found out I was wrong, another story…one I may or may not tell someday.

  But I got rid of the revolver right away.

  I took the pistol back to the gun shop where the owner bought it back.

  I lived in a remote place one time so I bought an air pistol.

  “What good will that do you against a burglar,” a friend asked.

  “I figure if I shoot the guy with a pellet gun it will hurt and he’ll run away.”

  “That’ll just make the guy mad.”

  I did like the way a friend handled an intruder in the Hondo Valley west of Roswell some years ago.  He was awakened by the sound of someone in his ranch house.  My friend grabbed his shotgun and went out in the hall where he found the burglar down the corridor a ways.

  He did the pump action thing on the weapon, racking a shell into the chamber.

  He kept staring at the intruder down the hall.

  “You see what I got here,” said my pal, shouldering the shotgun, aiming it at the burglar.  “Now if you turn around and get the hell out of here we can both forget this happened.”

  The intruder turned and ran.  After that my friend started locking doors…he hadn’t before.

  Truth be told I DO have a rifle in the house…an air rifle.

  It’s a nice, solid thing…wood stock, steel barrel and workings.

  I haven’t fired it since the day I bought it, a dozen or so years ago.

  I bought it because I had one just like it years ago.

  The guy at the store where I bought it said it was a Chinese import that recruits in the Chinese Army practiced with for starters.  I have no way to check on the truth of that.

  But it’s got a wee bit of kick to it.

  Truth be told if someone broke into my home I probably would break out my air rifle…except…I’d be more inclined to use the butt end as a weapon ‘cos I’d be pissed someone was messing around in my home.

  I suppose there are all kinds of reasons to have a pistol, rifle or shotgun.  But you know, aside from the safety questions, you really have to take care of them with cleaning and oiling and such and I’m kinda lazy.

  Then too, I remember the lyrics from a Waylon Jennings song “The Devil’s Right Hand.”  The guy in the song gets his first pistol, “but I soon found out, it’ll get you into trouble but it can’t get you out.”

                                                            -30-

*Names changed as a CYA maneuver on my part.  I reckon the proper acronym should be “CMA maneuver.”