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Forty Rod SASS 3935

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Posts posted by Forty Rod SASS 3935

  1. I was 14 years old in 1956 and TV cowboys were everywhere.

     

    I rode my bike about a mile to Grant's Bike and Sporting Goods to see the guns.  I had $35.00 earned over the summer...and Grant's had a worn- out, nickel plated, 5 1/2" .45 SAA with busted ivory grips for $29.95.

     

    I asked the old gunsmith if I could hold it and he handed me a dream that has never died.

     

    "Could I buy it?"

     

    "I'll have to call your dad,  It's up to him."

     

    Dad asked a lot of questions about the quality of the gun, was ammo still available, etc.  He was assured that, while the gun looked terrible, it was sound and safe, came with a  box of ammo, a worn out old Hunter holster, and a no-name cartridge belt.

     

    Final question: "Does the boy have cash because we don't buy frills on credit?"

     

    I strapped in on, put all the rest in a bag and rode my bike home.

     

    Four years later I graduated from high school and my parents had traded in that old gun and I ended up with a 1959 vintage SAA, .45, with  5 1/2" barrel. 

     

    :D

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  2. I ask for Farmer Brothers Medium Roast Arabica and add plain old granulated white sugar.  I don't ever drink any of the artsy-fartsy yuppy stuff.  I won't paybthe proces they ask for it and I don't like the atmosphere in their establishments.

    • Haha 1
  3. 7 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

    Do you pards carry your 1911's cocked & locked?

    I do when carrying  any self-loader.  I can't speak for anyone else.

     

    Years ago when I had an office in San Dimas, CA I had Ted Blocker make me an OWB rig for my 1911.

     

    I also have a gun show ciip-on cheapie for OWB when I carry my Colt Government .380.  It works for everyday carry when the weather lets me dress lighter,

     

    A couple of years ago I got a "Vampire Holster" for my 1947 vintage Colt Detective Special,.  The pistol rides muzzle up under my left arm and is VERY comfortable an very secure.  If you lean towards a revolver I recommend one like it.  It takes awhile to fiddle around until you get it adjusted just right, but once you do it's an "all day every day" holster.

     

    I have a boxcar full of other holsters but these fill my needs best of all.....except for out doors carry for my 1911.  Then I have a cross draw holster that a friend made for me clear back in 1963-1965 for a back up piece when I have a rifle or shotgun slung on the right side. 

    • Like 3
  4. 54 minutes ago, Alpo said:

    Wowzer. I just did a search, and Complications is available on Amazon. $4 for Kindle. $100 for paperback.

     

    $100 for a paperback? That must be one damn good book.

    It's a "trade paperback".  So was mine and I was selling them for $17.95 when they first hit the stands in 2006.  I was selling them personally for $17.95 or if you wanted an autographed copy, I sold them for $16.95.  Someone asked me why I sold signed books for less and I told them I knew what my signature was worth.  :P

     

    I had no idea that either one was ever offered via Kindle.

     

    I wonder if I can still get copies from the publisher.  I don't have any left and probably should have some around.

  5. I remember that song from back before the beginning of time.

     

    I had a frat brother who had one with seats that folded down into a bed.  There wasn't a mother anywhere who would let her daughter go out with him.  His car had RAMBLER in chrome letters in the grill.  He removed some of the letters so it reAd R A M B L E R....his nickname....John Ambler.  :D

    • Like 2
  6. Back in High School a wonderful teacher made me promise to write something every day...a page, a rewrite /edit, a chapter, a book, whatever, and to never throw anything way.  I promised ,and over the next 50 years I missed a day or two, but not many.

     

    I retired in 2005 and decided to go through 27 "banker's boxes" of pages and see what I could salvage and maybe turn into a book.

     

    While doing this I started to write in earnest.  I finished a short story written to "beak the boredom" of sorting through and reading my earlier stuff,  and when editing the new story to remove any errors, in the writing, historical fact, goofs, etdangcetera,   I suddenly discovered that it wasn't a short story at all, but a final chapter.  At the same time I had written another short story, but it didn't grab me as the first one had, just a few pages.

     

    I had shared it with an Oregonian, one Charlie MacNeil, who really liked the story and asked if he could incorporate into a story he was writing.  Sure!  Why not?  I wasn't going to use it.

     

    It became the first chapter of his story Complications: The Deputies Book 1, which actually beat my book Legends off the presses and onto the market by about four weeks.

     

    He did a marvelous job on his book and even kept my character, a drifte named Harvey Palmer, alive and at the head of the line.

     

    I took it down and reread it last week.  Now, I humbly submit that his book wasn't as good as mine (But then again practically no other book ever written is.)

     

    We have both written other books since then but I encourage you get Charlie's first book, and mine, too.  Let us know what you think, and Charlie, if you're out there somewhere, drop me a line.

    • Like 2
  7. 3 minutes ago, Boggus Deal #64218 said:

    As for headlights, my 2021 Tacoma, I have set the  the headlights to come on automatically when I start the engine but I leave that feature on all the time.  They stay on for 3-4 minutes after I turn off the ignition. 
     

    My Impala has headlights that I have set to come on when the engine starts or when I unlock the doors with the remote.  When I shut the engine off the headlights stay  on for four to ten minutes, my choice.  I can open the trunk with the switch on the key chain or a lever  on the left side of the dash, or with a conventional key

    • Like 1
  8. While I was working in a sporting goods store in Pekin, IL an old man came in to buy a replacement stock for a Nylon 66.  His grandson was helping him clean the garage and backed over the gun breaking the stock at the wrist.  

     

    We called the distributer who had a factory rep drive down from Chicago.  We called the old man and had him bring the rifle back.  The rep gave him a new rifle and expedited the paper work (this was in 1972...I doubt he could get that done today).

     

    The old man was so happy he went to a pizza place three doors down in the mall and brought back  five pizzas because the rep told him "That stock is supposed to be indestructible even if your grandson did back over it in the driveway".

     

    I don't find that kind of thing much any more.

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  9. 16 hours ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

    Probably wasn’t thinking about driving!!

    A frighteningly large percentage of people behind the wheel don't think about driving.

     

    I was taught that when you were driving the most important thing in your life is DRIVING THE VEHICLE!

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  10. Hell, we had it won until the "Peaceniks" got to congress and took over the news media.

     

    Is everyone aware that the United States has never fought a war, much less won one, since 1945?

     

    We bailed out in Korea, turned our tails and ran in Vietnam, and have been fiddly-farting around all over the middle east ever since.

     

    We fight everyone else's wars and finance their do-nothing militaries all while we have the power to put an end to it all.

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  11. When they actually go into space or show me something worthy of recognition THEN I might take then seriously.  Until then I consider them to be a really tasteless bad joke.

     

    And every branch of our services exceprtthe Marines badly need some new "songs" for their hymns.

     

    And I'm still angry with whoever came up with the Army's cute little Kindergarten star on a black background with a little yellow trim.  I spent from 1957 to 1972 under the Army's colors, but NOT ONE PARTICLE OF A SECOND WAS I UNDER THAT EMBARRASSINGLY STUPID DRAWING WITH NO MEANING WHATSOEVER.

  12. A lot of the "front line journalists" sent their stories for places like the Metropole Hotel in Saigon.  

     

    My wife was living in Layton,Utah while I was there .  Her apartment was one of about three doze in a complex pretty much filled with wives and families of guys in 'Nam, mostly USAF type because Hill AFB was right there.  The ladies would get together for company support, and socializing.

     

    She told me that they were watching the news when one woman saw her husband killed on TV.

     

    She never watched TV news again as long a she lived.

    • Sad 3
  13. 7 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

    From an Irrigon Oregon FB group 

     

    Paterson Ferry 1949 pulling into Oregon landing, tug Roxana , looking north west.

    FB_IMG_1738786200241.thumb.jpg.cc2365ce57715b3b65a1aa42f5269863.jpg

     

    I question the date on that.  It looks way more sophisticated than I remember.  This one has side rails or nets, appears to be a lot larger, and different ramps.

     

    I don't think it had any life boats when I was last on it in 1952 or 1953 and it appears to have a radar mount on the top.

     

    Somehow it looks a whole lot larger, too.

     

    Of course I was only a wee laddie then and my much more aged mind may be messing with memories,  It has happened, you know....A LOT!!!

    • Like 1
  14. 5 hours ago, Pat Riot said:

    I will remember this and use it for the rest of my life. :D


     

     

     

     

    My brother and sister-in-law were talking about having my wife and I over for dinner soon. My sister-in-law mentioned fried SPAM and I couldn’t say “NO!” fast enough or forcefully enough. She thought I was kidding. My wife told her “He’s not kidding and if he gets just a whiff of it he will leave.”

    SPAM is one thing I will get rude over. I was forced to eat it as a kid. Ain’t happening now. 

    After WWII a lot of public schools got surplus rations for the school cafeterias.  Now after all these years I still can't stomach SPAM, stewed tomatoes, potato soup, cooked cabbage, strawberry jam, lima beans, navy beans, and a number of other delicacies.

     

    I picked up the "S.P.A,M." from a kid from Arkansas who was my bunk mate the second time I went to 'Nam.

    • Like 2
  15. ....the Patterson Ferries that ran between Prosser, WA and Irrigon, OR?  Even better, can anyone produce pictures of them?

     

    There were two tiny tugboats, each pushing a steel barge with maybe a ten car capacity.  I remember them being white with red trim, no railings of any kind, and being so afraid we'd wash away because the tugs would turn upstream and make a huge curve back to exactly the right spot once the current took over.  It felt like we we were out of control.

     

    They built a bridge downstream a few years later, but I'll remember that  ferry forever.

     

     

  16. My family went back and forth from Utah to Washington several times.  We always stopped at the Maryhill Museum but I don't remember seeing that monument.  I guess at ten / twelve years old I was interested in other things.

    • Like 1
  17. My Grandfather, a man who died long before I was born, left a 1923 Studebaker electric car that several of us cousins found and finally got running.

     

    It ran on 14 or 16 glass lead and acid cells and was very nearly silent.  The tires mad some sound and once in awhile you would hear an electric crackle.

     

    It didn't have a steering wheel but used a tiller and ratchet system.  It could be moved to either side so both front seats could be the on "the drivers side"

     

    There was a rheostat in place of an accelerator and it could be reached fro either side, too.

     

    There were no brakes.  When you wanted to stop or slow down you'd use the rheostat to reverse the current.

     

    It looked like a phone booth on wheels: the roof was high enough to clear a top hat, there were windows all around, and the front and rear were very small curves so it was easy to see both ends.

     

    There were roll up windows in the doors and all the other windows (except the front  and back windshields where the bottom 10 inches opened from the bottom on hinges) were fitted with hinges. 

     

    There was a single wiper on the front and back windows, each powered by a separate dry cell battery.

     

    The interior was nicely upholstered and had wall papered walls and a padded ceiling.

     

    It was grass green with yellow wheel and trim and a lot of black gutta percha for handles and knobs.

     

    There had been an electric heater but we never found all the parts for it.

     

    The rear end had a luggage rack that was detachable.

     

    We drove in a parade one, but I never saw it more than a block or two from Grandma's home any other time.

     

    I have no idea what became of it

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