A Little On Two Upcoming Seasons

I've never written anything here about the second amendment. I've never written just about guns, either. I think in my archives you will find a couple of articles about hunting, though. I love upland bird hunting. There is so much to be said about watching a well trained dog work a field, not to mention the dinner that often results from such a day.

Here in Virginia we are in the midst of a campaign for the Senate. Both candidates on the surface appear to be "gun friendly", one holding NRA endorsements since forever, and the other being an ex-Marine and action fiction writer. For myself I'm going with the one that had the NRA's blessing in the past, and is most likely to have it this time, as opposed to the candidate that will owe much to Senators Schumer, Kerry, and Kennedy for his campaign.


Enough politics for now. Allow me to tell you about my favorite weapon.

Born in Springfield MA, and spending it's working life with the Martinsville City Police Department, I obtained my model 686 357 Magnum upon its retirement. I don't know which officer carried it daily, but he obviously treated it very well. It shows some holster wear, but the trigger work he had done to it is awesome. It has been with me on most of my hunting trips (I think I can hear it whimpering during black powder season when it has to stay at home), both as a camp gun and as a tool for harvesting game. It has several deer to it's credit and one turkey. That does not include, of course, all of the various snakes, foxes, other vermin, and one bat.

About that bat. A friend and I often go frog gigging. A canoe, a very good light, a farm pond, and a long stick with a barbed fork on the end. You get the idea. On those occasions I am loaded with .38 rat shot, a miniature shotgun shell that works in my revolver. On one such trip Joe's dad, Russell, was with us and a bat kept swooping down toward us in the canoe. It wasn't a real threat, just annoying as hell. After one of those dive bombings I muttered something about "shooting that bat out of the sky" if it made another kamakaze run on us like that. Russell, who did not know I was loaded with rat shot came back with a typical "yeah, right. Like you could hit a bat in flight with a 357". Well, just a few minutes later the bat started another series of passes down toward our light and I unholstered that revolver and splashed the bat into the farm pond. To this day Russell thinks I'm the greatest pistolero in Virginia. And no, I will never tell him it wasn't a 145 gr. Winchester Silvertip that did the deed.

Oh yeah, one other thing. It sleeps daily in a readily accessable location, always prepared to defend my little homestead.