Tex Jones, SASS 2263

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Rye. I'll get the next round.

Happy New Year to you and the "down under" crew!

Reminds me of the engine room scene in The San Pebbles.

From the commentary page in today's Wall Street Journal: By Bob Greene Dec. 29, 2022 6:24 pm ET Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.Photo: NBCUniversal via Getty Images As we start the new year with well-intentioned resolutions, there’s a voice from the past we may want to heed: Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys. Between action-packed chases on his golden palomino, Trigger, and fistfights with bad guys on dusty Western streets, I’ve been struck by the wisdom he managed to slip into his episodes during the early days of television. Boys and girls who watched the wildly popular “Roy Rogers Show” from 1951-57, or modern viewers who come across cable reruns, may have been unaware of how diligent Roy was about artfully inserting a life lesson into each day’s story. His words (in a strangely Midwestern accent for a cowboy—he was born in Cincinnati) bear listening to. In an episode called “Uncle Steve’s Finish,” Roy—with his Arnold Palmer squint that predated Palmer—tells a boy that it’s dangerous to idolize flashy hucksters: “Joey here found out that there’s the wrong kind of hero worship, and that his father the schoolteacher is a much better man than his uncle the outlaw.” On “M Stands for Murder,” Roy, catching a thief, explains how avarice can ruin a person: “He didn’t want some money. He wanted all of it. You know, that’s the funny thing about greed. It sort of grows on you. It starts out when you’re young by wanting somebody’s baseball bat or football that doesn’t belong to you, then later on wanting somebody’s job. First thing you know, you’re wanting everything in sight.” The beauty of how Roy worked these lessons into the episodes is that they went down smoothly—they never interrupted the plot. In “Quick Draw,” a man hesitates to shoot, then laments that he must be a coward. Roy tells him: “You’re not a coward. You just won a great victory over yourself. Maybe now you’ll know what guns are really for. To protect, not to kill.” In “The Scavenger,” Roy teaches the value of charity. He tells a miser: “The church needs a new steeple and the school could use a new library. . . . Wouldn’t you rather that people remember Mose as the grand old man whose money did so much for the town?” Occasionally it seems that Roy’s messages may be ad-libbed. In “Big Chance,” when Roy’s comical sidekick, Pat Brady, is putting on a slapstick Shakespeare recital for Roy and Roy’s wife, Dale Evans, Pat emotes: “To be, or not to be—that is the question.” Roy instantly interjects that the question is eternal: “It always has been, Pat. To be on the side of justice and the law, or to be against everything that’s honorable.” There were 100 episodes of “The Roy Rogers Show,” and if you listen carefully you will find the stuff of New Year’s resolutions in each of them—on everything from neighborliness, to not judging people by their appearance, to refraining from spreading hurtful rumors. As 2023 begins, here is my fervent wish for you, and for all of us—a sentiment that Roy, who died in 1998, summed up perfectly in two words: Happy trails. Happy New Year.

If that doesn't work give Jimmy Spurs a call. He's up in your neck of the woods: Cowboy Gun Works Jim McMahon aka 'Jimmy Spurs' 3107 Head of the Pond Rd Island Pond, VT 05846 Shop Phone: 603-425-1189 Cell Phone: 603-490-0312 Email: cowboygunworks@aol.com

According to the news, it reopened in October.

At around 3:52 minutes notice the short barrel '73, and a better view at 24:25.

Merry Christmas, Cap!

1. With the amount of brass you're priming, the machine is the way to go, based on the number of high primers you have noticed. I use the word notice because you may have had any number of primers that were not fully seated, but they went off anyway. If your experience with high primers to date has been with the 750, I would make sure it's clean and properly set up. 2. 3. I used the primer seater on the 550 for a while, but I was having primers not seating evenly, i.e. one side was slightly higher than the other. I started using an RCBS hand primer and now the Universal model with no issues. Of course I haven't loaded more than 3-4,000 rounds a year, on average, over the last 40 years. It seems to me the primers seat better using the hand primer. To me the "feel" of the primer seating fully is better than it was with the 550. 4. I have never had a high primer using a hand primer, although I don't recall having any with the 550 either.

Thanks, Bob. Merry Christmas.

Timely Christmas present. Merry Christmas!

It's -10 degrees here now at 6:50 am, and the dogs who are usually up at 6 haven't stirred. They don't want to go out. They may not know time, but they know cold.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose.

Congratulations. Looks good.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

About young people in general: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” Socrates.

I doubt that work could be done now.

We're at 11 degs now from -4 this morning, and it's snowing.

Not a good idea. As far as I know, presently UPS will only ship through a service center and to an FFL. Sounds like the guy doesn't have an FFL or else why would he do that?

Nice. The knife on the right has a Camillus blade. Old time knife maker, high quality.

Started snowing here again last night, but not heavily. About 3" this morning and it's still coming down at noon. Temp is 32-33 degs and still, so it's not so bad. Maybe 6" before it's over, added to the 3+" from yesterday. We have been lucky so far. Temps are going to drop to below zero and highs into single digits next week.

One million pounds? Does that include the trailer? No worries about someone stealing it when you stop for the night.

I watched an episode last night, wherein the lead character (Hondo) is going to show his girlfriend how to shoot. Apparently the woman wants to buy a firearm after her place of business is broken into by a couple of men and she is threatened. Hondo doesn't try to talk her out of it, which I thought was interesting, although at the end of the episode she decides against it. They're in an enclosed shooting range and he puts his 1911 style duty pistol in her hands, takes it off safety and tells her to keep it pointed in front of her. Neither one is wearing safety glasses or ear protection, so it was a good thing she didn't pull the trigger. It's a TV show, but still disappointing that they don't even try to be realistic.