Old Guns

My two oldest guns are worn out and broken but I can't find parts. I took them to a gunsmith but he can't find parts either. He said that if I really want to use the guns I would have to go to a machinist and have parts made, because no one has made parts for either gun since the 1970s. I think I'm just going to trade them in at one of those "gun buy back" events. Maybe, I'll get baseball tickets for them. One is a 50 year old pistol I bought used for $85 when I was 24. When I was homless or living in one of San Francisco's Tenderloin flop houses in the 1990s I used to sleep with it duct taped in my hand. I used this gun to teach my two oldest sons to shoot in my Uncle Fred's (Link to every mention of my Uncle Fred.) eucalyptus grove.

The other is a 80 year old double barrel shotgun. My fiend Jeff's dad bought it during WWII. When he died about 13 or 14 years ago Jeff's mom sold it to me. I used it to take my first two turkeys and to go clay target shooting with Kathleen, Anselm, and Basil.

I am sad to be losing both of these guns.

Coast to Coast

I was leaving the gym the other night (I like the steam room) and accidently hit the "search" button on my steering wheel. The next thing I know, I'm listening to Coast to Coast but it wasn't Art Bell (He's been dead for 20 years.)it was some other guy talking about the Rothschilds and global conspiracy.

I remember the first time I heard that show. It was sometime in 1997, '98, or'99, and I was driving down the San Juaquin Valley on Hwy 99 to see my parents. (I just found out that my Uncle Fred's place out near Ivanhoe where my parents spent some of their last years, before they got too old and sick, is vacant. I'm thinking about making an offer.) It was captivating. Over the years the show talked about space aliens, Atlantis, the CIA plot to kill JFK, and dozens of other conspiracy theories. It was nuts. The one thing I liked about Art Bell was that he was never critical of his guests. He would just let them say whatever their bizaare theory was and act like they weren't crazy but were, really, scholars and experts. It was a lot of fun. I'm glad the show survived it's founder.

The Boys and a Shooting Club

Basil has been accepted by all of the universities to which he applied but he is really only interested in two: Cal Maritime (business/logistics) and San Jose State (accounting). Personally, I hope he chooses Cal Maritime. The student body and the teachers seem much less radicaly leftist than the student body and teachers at San Jose State. Maybe the accounting department won't be too yucky. But I think he is looking at the cost of housing at Cal Maritime as opposed to living with me or his mom here in San Jose.

Anselm is under the arctic ice right now. (I got a notice from the commander of the pacific submarine forces.) He's been at sea for a month and won't be back until April.

Today during the meatfare lunch after liturgy Fr. Basil said he wants to go shooting with kathleen and I because he inherited all his dad's guns and hasn't shot them in years and years. So I asked when. He said after Pascha. And a whole bunch of other people said they want to go, too. And someone suggested a parish shooting club, and Fr. Basil said "YES!". So it looks like we are going to have a parish shooting club.

Oh! That reminds me, Kathleen bought a new gun a couple of weeks ago. It's a Sig Sauer P365.