Tomorrow

On December  7, 1941,  it started for us. 

McGee: "With every passing year  it will seem more quaint, the little tin airplanes bombing the sleepy giants." 

Not many months later, sergeants barely old enough to shave crept through the western Pacific island  jungles. It was not quaint for them. It was ultimate struggle. 

 For personal survival.  For revenge. And yes, for Mom and apple pie.

Fools are  willing to forget these men and women. No one else.

Loophole AAR

I shillied and shallied and came home only a few small-denomination Federal Reserve Promises lighter.  The headline buy was a vintage Pacific case trimmer.

I know I mentioned wanting another .38/.357 shooter, but I got emotionally involved instead with  a pretty  $900 SW 25 in .45 Colt. I made no long-term commitment, though a return to re-fondle and re-consider is not totally out of the question.

(Is Providence telling me to quit fiddling with minor calibers? )

To make my fellow WW2 arms fans feel better -- if you bought yours long enough ago --  the offerings were limited to one so-so 1911A1, a Remington Rand at $2,200.  No Garands. No Carbines.

Savage 99 prices caught my eye. There were several, about $800 to about $1,900, the latter for an 80 percenter in .250.

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If I do go back, I'll  try to come home with, at least,  the ratty Mossberg 144LSA, one of the more underrated  target .22s.  The price is too high, $150, but maybe I can negotiate well enough to make a refurbishing worthwhile.

Tamara and the Sailor

When Tam graces a fellow's thoughts  with a link and  kind words , the readership curve goes vertical, and I like to browse through the site meter to see where some of these new readers are.

I was especially taken with a hit from UTC + 3, which is the sand box, The origin was a net openly identified with the United States Navy, and I picture a tired sailor in a dim compartment,  braced in his work chair against the chop of a shallow sea, taking a moment to look in on the rest of the world and divert his mind from  the dreariness of a sea warrior's environment.

Which, as older guys say too often, takes me back.  Years ago I spent most of Advent aboard a pitching little ship on an Asian sea and Christmas itself among throngs of people speaking a strange and chattering tongue, people to whom it was just another day. To  a man -- boy, really -- raised in the  American tradition it was disorienting and disheartening. To be homesick at Christmas is to have a real disease.

And so, Unknown Visitor, I wish you the strength to endure the season in your haze-gray box and an early return to the land of your parents. Merry Christmas, Mate.









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Show Time

Another weekend, another show


   Another Loophole, where we will go...

(With apologies to Cole Porter, PBUH, too.)

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This is one of the small country shows, at the Jackson National Guard Armory.  We expect a high proportion of hobbyists behind the tables, trying to unload their old surplus  stuff. That interests us more than acres of dealers loaded down with black guns or, at best,  the latest factory output of ho-hum quality attached to birch stocks.

My inner thug is telling me I really ought to own another handgun or two.  For one thing, my shelves are fat with .38 Special and .357 Magnum rounds, and the only shooter I own for them is a Taurus snubby. I hear Pythons are pretty nice.

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My loopholing  habits have changed.  When the world was a better place, I'd always toss in a few pieces I was tired of for trading stock. No more. I and most of my comrades have adopted the never-sell-a-gun philosophy. We keep them all  on grounds that the Messers Bernanke and Geithner can't press a computer key and create 60 billion Colts and Winchesters out of thin air.