You'll be surprised and dismayed that my Fiddy was lost in a tragic boating accident, but through tears of loss I remember seeing my first .50 cartridge. It was in Milwaukee and I was maybe 7; there we were at a party in the next door neighbor's house.
The boys who lived there had just got back from Vietnam and I remember one of them showing me a cartridge case, we were by the kitchen sink. "What's that?" I asked, being 7 and curious, he replied, "That's a Fifty and it'd go right through this sink, through the wall of this house, through the wall of your house and out the other side."
This, gentle readers, has stayed with me for something like half a century.
Arma Virumque Cano,
LSP
10 comments:
Mine wasn't Molon Labe...
I thought of you, LL.
Peace through superior firepower.
Ah yes, those childhood memories.
IIRC, it was my first time shooting a gun. I was 8 or 9 years old. He was the father in a family visiting us on our ranch. Salt a pepper hair, a quick smile and wit to match, a psychologist by profession. He had a Stevens No. 35 single shot pistol, and took me out behind the woodshed for my first marksmanship lesson. I was hooked. Thanks, Bill.
Right on, RHSM.
Nice one, RHT.
Me? 7 years old in Denton at a tenant's place in Denton featuring a tin can and a Browning .22 takedown.
Shot that can to bits.
And PS. everyone -- why would this memory have stuck for all these years, like no kidding. Because it was powerful.
I sensed that at 7 and sense it now.
Then there's the Church of England.
I want's me some of them Browning 22's yesh-yesh. But I was brought up in somewhat more proletarian surroundings, with my Uncle Glenn's Sheridan air rifle at about 7 and my daddy's Mossberg at 12.
Then I was introduced to my Uncle Sammy's Ma Deuce at 18. Shazamm!
Hey, Wild, nothing wrong with air rifles at all. I got to shoot my uncle's nifty Browning in Texas but a BSA pump air rifle was the deal in England. I graduated from that to .303 and then SLR (L1A1) or, as my IDF pal calls it, "Broomstick." (!)
Today? More inclined towards shotguns and rimfire (cheap to shoot) but hey, love it all. Maybe it's time to brush up on hideously rusty pistol skills...
And yes, LL, always.
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