My local gang of loopholers totalled six, spread out over three generations. The youngest came home with a tactical pocket knife and a nicely carved sling shot, featuring a bear's head fashioned from a nub where the forks joined. The poor kid had to listen to the grandpas tease him about taking them to school for show and tell like we used to do.
Perhaps a stainless steel object which could have been -- but wasn't -- fitted with a shoulder thingy that goes up might have found its way into a certain vehicle. (My, don't we get weasel wordy in these days when we suspect the gendarmery trolls the internet, tirelessly alert for words suggesting badthink among the proles.)
Anyway, us older proles settled for non-bangables. In the trove is an early-1940s book co-written by Melvin Johnson (yep, that Johnson). It's a detailed guide to ammunition of the world as it existed before John F. Kennedy was (allegedly) suspected of balling a German spy and sent off to wreck PT boats in the Solomons. The book went to a comrade, and I am jealous...
...Jealous but content, satisfied with seeing old acquaintances, having a few laughs, and scoring exactly $10 worth parts which solved a cursing, hair-pulling problem. I recently wrote a bit here about scoping that Mossberg/Varberger .30-06. I'd have sworn I had the correct parts on hand, so I screwed them on. Lovely except for the bolt making minute contact with the scope. Teeth gnashed, and I was frustrated enough to consider dragging out the angle grinder and butchering the offending 1/16th inch from the bolt handle. Or, Hell, maybe the scope. I had a tot of Tullamore Dew instead.
That rare, correct judgement was rewarded in Wells. A dealer's junk box yielded a ring and base set which looked right, and was. That helped pass an internet-free day yesterday, and I happily report the Mossy is now reliably scoped and bore-sighted. Just in time for spring gopher season. Always use enough gun.
Mar 12, 2012
Mar 10, 2012
Check Point Charlie
We leave Hawkeye free soil on Highway 86, about 10 miles south of thriving Lakefield in the Minnesota SSR. There, we either disarm ourselves or become felons.
While we honor Minnesota carry permits, they scorn ours. So we must go barehanded to the big Wells loophole-in-the-school, at the mercy of any Ole-and-Lena biker gang bent on robbery and murder to finance their lutefisk habit. Pray for us.
While we honor Minnesota carry permits, they scorn ours. So we must go barehanded to the big Wells loophole-in-the-school, at the mercy of any Ole-and-Lena biker gang bent on robbery and murder to finance their lutefisk habit. Pray for us.
Mar 9, 2012
Good morning, America
1. The day of glory arrives. It is a moveable feast. Let history record that on March 9, 2012 C.E. the Master of Camp J, having read prophets in the Book of Aerology, ceremonially unplugs the heat tape.
2. Attention Willie Geist: It's none of your damned business why I'm up so early. I know. The marketing psychologists told you the way to maintain viewership is to get your audience *involved" with your show. Make them *part* of it by giving them an *ownership stake.* Look, son, I don't want to own your program. I don't want to participate in any manner at all. I don't care to be your buddy. I want you to sit your eflin butt down behind a desk and read me the news off your teleprompter. I don't need your clever exchange with the weather guy or your guesses about basketball games. (One concession. If you want to have some papers to shuffle on your desk so as to look more like a really studious and concerned journalist, why, I guess that's okay.)
3. The news this morning seems to be that the Glory that was Greece is back.. Works like this: You loaned Athens a hundred bucks. Athens promised to pay it back. Athens then decided payback would be inconvenient. So you had your Travis McGee conundrum -- settle for half or take a dead loss. More technically, you had to trade your hundred-dollar IOU for a 50 dollar IOU, backed by colllateral identical to the original: the integrity and competence of Greek politicians.
4. Actually, we get two glory days in a row. Tomorrow is the big loophole in Wells, Minnesota. We may or may not loophole anything lethal, but it's always a pleasant pilgrimmage. Imagine. Hundreds of tables of death insturments in many calibers, most of them capable of bringing down a J3 Cub. And they're all on display in a school. True, this travesty explains Wells' reputation for rivers of blood and streets of gore, but you can't have everything.
2. Attention Willie Geist: It's none of your damned business why I'm up so early. I know. The marketing psychologists told you the way to maintain viewership is to get your audience *involved" with your show. Make them *part* of it by giving them an *ownership stake.* Look, son, I don't want to own your program. I don't want to participate in any manner at all. I don't care to be your buddy. I want you to sit your eflin butt down behind a desk and read me the news off your teleprompter. I don't need your clever exchange with the weather guy or your guesses about basketball games. (One concession. If you want to have some papers to shuffle on your desk so as to look more like a really studious and concerned journalist, why, I guess that's okay.)
3. The news this morning seems to be that the Glory that was Greece is back.. Works like this: You loaned Athens a hundred bucks. Athens promised to pay it back. Athens then decided payback would be inconvenient. So you had your Travis McGee conundrum -- settle for half or take a dead loss. More technically, you had to trade your hundred-dollar IOU for a 50 dollar IOU, backed by colllateral identical to the original: the integrity and competence of Greek politicians.
4. Actually, we get two glory days in a row. Tomorrow is the big loophole in Wells, Minnesota. We may or may not loophole anything lethal, but it's always a pleasant pilgrimmage. Imagine. Hundreds of tables of death insturments in many calibers, most of them capable of bringing down a J3 Cub. And they're all on display in a school. True, this travesty explains Wells' reputation for rivers of blood and streets of gore, but you can't have everything.
Mar 8, 2012
Britain. Bacon. World War 2
In late 1940, the port of Liverpool in Merreye Olde was not a nice place to be. The noise of the ship yards. Rowdy sailors on shore leave and their impure thoughts as they eyed our maidens. And especially the shortages. There was little enough of anything to eat and almost nothing *good* to eat.
U-boats sinking too many of the food ships from the colonies, don't you know?
By late November the war had shut down many of Britain's other ports. Liverpool became even more crowded with freighters which survived the North Atlantic run . It became a juicy target for Luftwaffe Heinkels. The concentrated bombing created a bit of a stir. But one night, perhaps, some of the calorie starved civilians might have had one small good word for the Nazi bombers:
"There were, Adams recalls, some bizarre scenes. 'I can remember the warehouse outside the docks being on fire. The bacon fat was running down the gutter, and several women were running out of the houses with their pots trying to save the fat'."*
Fast forward the the time of those ladies' grandchildren whose passion in life is avoiding bowel cancer by banning bacon. Along with the usual Albionic hand-wringing and pants-peeing, our cousins seem, somehow, to connect it with their clever "rear of the year" award.
Okay, sweetheart, even though it's a small picture, I can see you have a delectable rear. Still, all in all, forced to choose, I think I'd have preferred life with your grandma.
----
*From Andrews Williams, "The Battle of the Atlantic." 2002. P. 107. ISBN 0 563 53429 x.
My review: Excellent.
U-boats sinking too many of the food ships from the colonies, don't you know?
By late November the war had shut down many of Britain's other ports. Liverpool became even more crowded with freighters which survived the North Atlantic run . It became a juicy target for Luftwaffe Heinkels. The concentrated bombing created a bit of a stir. But one night, perhaps, some of the calorie starved civilians might have had one small good word for the Nazi bombers:
"There were, Adams recalls, some bizarre scenes. 'I can remember the warehouse outside the docks being on fire. The bacon fat was running down the gutter, and several women were running out of the houses with their pots trying to save the fat'."*
Fast forward the the time of those ladies' grandchildren whose passion in life is avoiding bowel cancer by banning bacon. Along with the usual Albionic hand-wringing and pants-peeing, our cousins seem, somehow, to connect it with their clever "rear of the year" award.
Okay, sweetheart, even though it's a small picture, I can see you have a delectable rear. Still, all in all, forced to choose, I think I'd have preferred life with your grandma.
----
*From Andrews Williams, "The Battle of the Atlantic." 2002. P. 107. ISBN 0 563 53429 x.
My review: Excellent.
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