Your joy reminds me of my fathers delight when I was young.
His pleasure at going down into the
town Pharmacist & Gun dealers store basement.
The sounds of this one or that's, foot steps coming down with
the joshing that was to be expected. To set on those old stuffed chairs
who's service in our small Vermont town's parlors had seen their better
regal use long ago. To smell the smoke and gun bluing with bags of gun
powder and ammo reloading tools about.
Jawing with the men there as they all overtly wished and dreamt of this
gun or that and the hunting season uPon them with visions of the game to
be had. They all looked uP and DOWn the rows of rifles and into the cases
of pistols every time, straining to see if there was one anew. Thinking
themselves like the Rifleman or the Gunsmoke of James Arnest.
To have a pistol and carry it into our bank or store was and is excepted. And a
mans right of passage was and is tied to the cold blue steel with that smell of
cleaning and maybe a whisper of WD-40 that is tell tale of no moister here.