"Precious Memories" I spoke w/my son yesterday. He was ask

by Murphy , Monday, February 18, 2013, 12:46 (4242 days ago) @ Rob Leahy

Those precious memories are priceless.

While I have no children, I have one nephew who grew up being raised by his stepfather 260 miles away. 'Craig' was born when I was a senior in high school. My brother and sister in law divorced 2 years later and she moved away. I treasured everytime he came to spend time with grandpaw and grandmaw. I still lived at home off and on so I got in all the visiting I could with him.

He one day caught me in the barn reloading, he was about 8 years old at the time. He was growing up in a rural area, so guns were part of the family farm life for him. He'd never seen ammuntion reloaded before. I was in the barn reloading some .44 Mag's for my Model 29 6" when he came strolling in. As soon as I explained, his eyes lit up and he was all eyes and ears.

I started explaining the process to him step by step, then got up and seated him on my stool. You ready to learn young man? Boy was he ever! I explained 'light/medium and FULL HOUSE loads to him. And that we would make him some light loads and he could should Unka's gun. We got 6 cranked out and out the back door of the barn we went to send them down range.

I opened the gun and asked for the 6 rounds he was holding in his hand he was so proud of. I gave him earplugs and showed him the proper grip. I stepped up behind him and watched. He cocked the gun and steadied himself and let the first round go. I waited for his reaction and it was good, all smiles. I told him to keep on going. What I didn't tell him, was Unka had slipped a full house load in on the last chamber. After the 5th shot I asked if he was sure he had a good grip on the big ole gun, 'Uh huh'. I stepped in about a foot behind him while he concetrated on the gun.

He indeed had a good grip. When the round went off, the muzzle rose about twice what it had been and he came back about 6-8"s. Then there was about 3 seconds of silence. I was almost afraid I'd done the wrong thing, until he turned his head up and back towards me. The grin on his face matched the exuberance in his voice as he shouted...FULL HOUSE!!! It still brings a huge smile to my face sitting here remembering that day.

I just wish he hadn't moved to Arizonia 20+ years ago, sigh.

Murphy