Brigid reports photographically on turning a powder measure into a lamp. Since her ranch is on the market, that leads to a funny discussion of the predicament shooters face when they decide to sell their homes. I've been there, and it isn't fun to get your butt all culture shocked by suddenly having to deal with the general public and a particularly objectionable subset of it -- the dreaded real estate peddler.
They +always+ insist that you change your house around to a sterile nothingness that would bore even a Nebraskan. I guess the idea is that any personality evident in a home scares the bejeezus out of house lookers, and that even a hint of gun grizzardry sends them screaming madly for their mommies.
So, as the photo suggests, I'm in trouble if I ever decide to leave Camp J. The "good" weapons are vaulted up, but I have a hard time living without reminders of the American frontier close by. For as long as I can remember I've had a lever gun hanging purdy in the living room, and sometimes a six-shooter keeps it company.
What you see is what's current in my Cowboy Corner, though I must apologize for the bland white behind the BL22 and the 94. The drywall is doomed, firmly scheduled to be replaced by honest pine very soon.
A very naughty two-word response is available for house peddlers and tire kickers who find it useful to tell me all this is offensive. (Actually, I need to trot it out for a couple of cousins every once in a while, too. It is a family curse that too many of my extended kin get their ideas -- decorating, manners, politics and all -- exclusively from Redbook, HGTV and Oprah. )
(APPENDIX 1: The framed item left is a copy of a Kentucky land warrant for direct ancestor John __________, a three-percenter who earned it as a soldier in the Virginia Continental Line. The stuff hanging is another self-conscious coup-counting device -- credentials from national political conventions and junk like that. The little revolver is one of Bill Ruger's early products, in the family for 41 years.)
1 comment:
I dunno, it looks plenty homey to me. Sad, isn't it, when glass-fronted gun cabinets used to have pride-of-place, and now even bookshelves are rare.
Post a Comment