Category: Well I thought it was funny!
Shooting Times Magazine
June 1980
General Delivery
Horsethief, NM
(Sunday Night)
Alex Bartimo, Editor
Shooting Times
Box 1790
Peoria IL 61656
Dear Bart:
This isn’t actually from Horsethief. I’m camped in the big timber about halfway up the side of San Miguel mountain. Saint Mike, we call it. You may not be able to read my poor handwriting because of the the watermarks on the paper. I know I should be weeping about missing the deadline on this month’s gun review, but I’m sorry to say these splotches weren’t made by tears.
Rain and snow did that.
I’m trapped here, and it’s my own fault. Down at the house in Horsethief, I contracted cabin fever. No pals had visited in more than a month. I don’t take a newspaper (you can get bad news anywhere). I’d read every book on the place at least twice, and Horsethief has no library or newsstand. We get one television station from Albuquerque via a repeater in the mountains, and it runs Bozo the Clown, As The World Flips, intriguing situation comedies about the family problems of New York taxi drivers, and wilderness stories about mountain men who feed themselves and their pet mountain lions with mushrooms and rosehips gathered in the dew.
My set is still like new-it never gets turned on.
The fact of the matter is, I was bored stiff when I got this foreign .380 you wanted shot and decided to make it my excuse to come up to this big stretch of forest belonging to a friend of mine. I was going to stay a couple of days, shoot, and drowse in the sunshine.
Didn’t work out that way.
I like to carry extras, so I packed my old pickup with sleeping bag and big tarp, groceries for two or three days-including canned corned beef hash, chili con carne, coffee, bacon, eggs, and a sack of fresh biscuits. And one jug of Henry McKenna redeye to ward off the weeps around the evening fire. Luckily, I also brought a Coleman camp stove and lantern because I planned on cooking on an open fire.
I stowed the camera equipment, figuring on getting pictures of .380 on tree stump and (using a selftimer) heroic poses of my classic profile looking off into the horizon.
The trip up was nice. Plenty of sunshine. Few melting snowbanks left from winter. Jeep road a little tough on pickup, but made it to campsite okay. Strung lariat rope between two trees and wired end of tarp to it. Made lean-to. Took rocks from clear, cold stream and built fireplace. Gathered enough dead wood to last two days. Unrolled sleeping bag, laid holstered Ruger .44 beside it. Was home.
Built fire, had hash and biscuits, raunchy coffee. Took tot of McKenna while looking at stars. Wondered what city folks were doing. Turned in early.
Up before first light. Drizzling rain. Get GI poncho from truck’s toolbox. Trouble getting fire going with wet wood. Pour on Coleman fuel. Burn fingers…..Biscuits, bacon and coffee.
Sitting in lean-to, I examine new .380. Most unusual. Called the Mama Mia. Made in Costa Rica by Hijos de Basura, S.A. and imported by Larson E. Rippoff Inc. Homossa Springs, Florida. Price: $469.98. About five inches long. Ten-shot staggered magazine extends one-half inch below butt. Double action with pull of approximately 20 pounds; single-action pull about 25 pounds.
Shiny plastic grips. Shiny plastic trigger guard (combat style). Shiny plastic sight rib and sights. Rear sight adjustable for windage. One click equals 12 inches at 25 yards.
Extra 48-shot magazine is curved. Might not do much for feeding but looks jazzy, making pistol five inches long and 1 ¼ feet deep. Optional flash hider and grenade launcher supplied with my review gun. Extras cost only $189.98.
Many cast parts in pistol. Nothing wrong with well-cast parts, but these of somewhat lesser quality than lead soldiers I made as a boy.
Can’t shoot, must wait out rain. Wait all day. Except for small supply under tarp, wood is soaked. Crank up Coleman stove. Chili and biscuits. Wish had brought tortillas and refried beans. Hit sack early. Sleeping bag feels damp.
Third day now. Raining harder. Decide to go home. Dismantle camp, pack truck. Trouble starting engine. Drive 10 feet from camp on muddy trail, skid, nose into boulder. Rear wheels spin. No four-wheel drive. No tire chains. Stuck. Rebuild camp. All wood wet. Hunker around Coleman stove. Things have to get better. Feast on bacon, eggs, soggy biscuits. Long pull at Henry McKenna, then dream in wet sleeping bag. Fourth day. Bear sign around truck. Glad I hadn’t woke up. Might have made mistake and shot bear with .380. Wish I was in Horsethief, watching taxi driver program. Still no interest in mountain man and lion.
Go to stream for coffee water and wash. Bank full, running fast, water chocolate brown. Wash in muddy water and get gallon jug of emergency water from truck. Use sparingly. Going nuts.
Sun peeps through in afternoon. Rain stops, but pickup still stuck. Grab opportunity to shoot the Mama Mia. Staple dry targets from toolbox to big conifer pine. Have W.W. R-P, and Federal factory loads. Load 10 round magazine. Brace against tree now. Squeeze off first round at target. Low/left in 7 ring. Empty case smokestacks. Feed next round into chamber manually. Not on paper. Now shooting low/right 6s. Go through 20 shots, all hand operated. Group is high, right, low, left, 16 inches (diameter of tree).
Forty-eight-round magazine loaded and put in place. Will not feed first round. Note for first time that loading ramp is very steep-about 45 degree-and narrow. Get screwdriver kit from toolbox and dismantle pistol.
Many tool marks inside shiny exterior. Horseshoe rasp, maybe. Springs all piano wire type. Apparently from very small piano. After some difficulty, reassemble and try 48-round magazine again. No dice. Big magazine apparently meant to be handy place to carry ammunition.
Shoot single shot for a while. Groups don’t improve. Curious square holes cut by bullets. Perhaps due to quadrangular rifling in bore. Try all brands of ammunition. Results the same.
See squirrel munching acorn in nearby tree. Very fat. Squirrel out of season, but I get an evil idea. Rations low. Squirrel rolled in biscuit crumbs and fried in bacon drippings would be great morale builder.
Sight seven inches high and left on squirrel with Mama Mia. And miss. Squirrel munches acorn. Hold upper right quadrant or rodent. Does not disturb dining squirrel. Working slide by hand, fire five quick shots. Squirrel looks on with interest. Think of going for .44 Magnum, but don’t believe squirrel tail and ears would make good supper.
Fifth day. Grub low. Biscuits turning green. Hunting squirrels, porcupines, and even bears with .44 Magnum. Mighty hunter in magazine articles; dripping dud in wet forest.
Sixth day. Definitely in deep trouble. Old bones won’t stand up to 40-mile walkout. Wife home from Flower Arrangers Convention in Santa Fe by now. Will find me gone and cats unfed. Will be mildly irritated. Probably throw things. But she will call friends in State Police and Forest Service. They will check out jails, hospitals, then Kelly Canyon, Desert Saloon, El Paso. Then they will settle down to look for me. Shouldn’t be longer than one more day….
Down to dregs of coffee by seventh morning. Broken clouds. Mama Mia WD-fortied and put away. Reading labels on empty hash cans. Stomach growling.
Suddenly hear chopper working way up canyon. Use Coleman fuel. Make smoky fire. Helicopter hovers, lands in mud near pickup. Pilot is Dick Shaw, a State Police friend.
Embarrassing situation. Shaw disgusted. Dismounts from machine, walks toward pot of weak coffee, gets dirty cup, and drinks. Sees I’m cold, wet. Gives me a cigarette.
“How’d you get yourself in this fix, Skeeter?”
Mutter something about big job I had to do-caught by weather. Shaw not at all sympathetic. Says he will radio for four-wheeler with chains and winch to come get me. Will probably cost at least $100. I say okay.
Shaw blasts off. I start breaking camp again. Must go home and face music. Will mail this letter tomorrow.
Might be just as well if this was one gun review that didn’t get printed.
Su amigo,
Skeeter
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Huh!
Steve McQueen was undeniably cool.
What exactly does it mean to be cool? Though difficult to define, you know it when you see it. Guns are cool. So was Steve McQueen. You get kind of a gestalt about such stuff.
Some of us spend our entire lives striving mightily to be cool yet fail quite to get there. However, many’s the young man’s unscheduled trip across the river Styx ’twas precipitated by a poorly reasoned effort to be cool.
Behold, the world’s coolest teenager-mobile. Will’s little brother perched
so adorably on the hood is 6’3″ and a federal prosecutor today.
The Perfect Day
It was one of those torrid Mississippi summer afternoons when the sun burned like a furnace and the air was so humid you could rip off a chunk and gnaw it. School was out; I had not a care in the world.
In my day you got your driver’s license at 15. I wouldn’t trust today’s 15-year-old males unsupervised with gum, much less an automobile. However, this was a different time.
While I have indeed never been mistaken for cool, my dad did see to it I rolled in a cool car. A young man’s ride is so much more than transportation. It is style, personality, character and status all packaged up on four spinning wheels. My car was pure unfiltered awesome.
The year was 1981 and the car was a 1970 Buick Skylark convertible. The sole ragtop in my small Mississippi Delta community, it was metallic blue and immensely, nay ludicrously, powerful. I would frequently go sit in the back seat and read science fiction tomes with the top down while parked in the driveway. As I said, being cool was more a journey than a destination with me.
On this particular day I was sporting cheap, mirrored aviator shades while tearing down a preternaturally straight stretch of Lee Drive, so named for the esteemed General. Like all adolescent males I was young, bulletproof and immortal. Harm could never befall me.
Classic machineguns are undeniably cool.
The Power Of Stupid
Overcome by the moment, I pushed myself up such that I was sitting atop the headrest. A gangly, long-legged lad, I manipulated the accelerator with my right great toe and kept the wheel nominally managed with my fingertips. My face was fully in the slipstream above the windshield.
Seatbelts were not the religious sacraments they are today, so mine were tucked down out of the way behind the seat so as not to interfere with my signature dynamic entry into the vehicle — vaulting over the door to land gracefully in the driver’s seat, ready to rock. During such a maneuver, one does not desire the painful inconvenience of seatbelt buckles. As a result, I perched atop my charging metallic blue steed, restrained not one whit.
My nemesis lurked anonymously within the tall Johnson grass that lined the rural road, happily munching his mid-afternoon snack. Whether driven by boredom, hunger, or love will never now be known, but he did for some reason then spontaneously take flight. Spreading his broad green wings, this massive 4″ Delta grasshopper flexed his powerful legs and leapt into the ether.
I perceived a scant flurry in the periphery of my vision and my entire world exploded. The gargantuan insect caught me squarely in the forehead and detonated like an antitank grenade, knocking me bodily back into the rear seat and leaving my legs draped limply astride the headrest. At this point my trusty Skylark was still making some 70 miles per hour, though now charging randomly sans pilot.
I clawed violently back over the seat and dropped in behind the steering wheel again, seizing the appendage in an involuntary rictus. By some miracle throughout it all the car remained within the two white lines of its own accord. No doubt the vehicle was guided solely by my guardian angel, himself a both overworked and underappreciated spook.
Denouement
I carefully coasted to a stop on the side of the deserted road and took stock. My sunglasses were gone, never to be seen again. A not insubstantial gash tracked rakishly across my forehead, now most liberally adorned with splintered chunks of chitin and copious pureed pest. I wiped away the gore with an oily towel and puttered meekly back home.
I crept stealthily into the house and retired to the bathroom to attend my wounds. My dad inquired concerning my injuries over dinner, and I not untruthfully explained I had been struck by a grasshopper while out driving with the top down. All involved thought it comical.
The truth has remained suppressed to this very day, and now, my friends, I share it with you.
Monkeys make good pets in theory. In practice they are usually
more trouble than they’re worth. David Jensen.
Had I gotten my way you guys never would have heard of me. I had planned 25 years in the Army followed by a second career teaching high school physics someplace. As a mechanical engineer that seemed a good post-Army retirement plan.
God had other ideas. As a soldier I averaged eight months out of twelve away from home. It seemed I could be either an Army helicopter pilot or a Dad, but I couldn’t be both. Like an idiot, I decided to go to medical school. Eventually I wrote enough to land this gig, and the rest is history. However, it certainly wasn’t my plan.
I had a high school physics teacher — Gene Barbor — who had a powerful influence on me. I saw myself following a similar path.
My formative world was liberally dusted with World War II veterans. Sixteen million served out of a population of 137 million, so they were literally everywhere. My senior math teacher packed a Browning Automatic Rifle all the way across Europe. Mr. Barbor was a Navy officer serving aboard a destroyer in the South Pacific. They’re all gone now.
Every now and then Mr. Barbor would wax nostalgic in class. Most of his tales were funny or harmless. There was the one where one of his gunners got his head literally blown off in front of him during a Japanese air attack, but that was an outlier. Most of his stories were more benign.
The United States produced 377 destroyers of all types during
World War II. For a time one of them had a pet monkey.
My favorite orbited around a monkey. A WWII-era Fletcher-class destroyer carried a complement of 329 officers and men. Most were either conscripts or recent volunteers. There was subsequently an extreme shortage of proper experience. As a result, many times you might have a warship cruising about looking for trouble crewed primarily by souped-up teenagers. This was one of those times.
Mr. Barbor’s ship once happened upon a deserted island. The skipper dispatched a landing party to scout the island for fresh fruit with which to augment the mess. The away team returned with mangoes and such as well as an unexpected passenger. These guys had captured a monkey.
The little guy was undeniably adorable, and the ship’s complement took to him immediately. Mr. Barbor said regulations were quite specific concerning the inadvisability of bringing illicit fauna aboard a US Navy warship, but the ship’s commander was a soft-hearted soul. He thought it a bit pirate-esque to have a monkey onboard. The thing was apparently fairly personable and spent his days frolicking on the bridge.
Mr. Barbor’s ship spent most of its time on isolated antisubmarine patrols or on missions to retrieve downed aircrew. Without a great deal of adult supervision all involved saw little harm in keeping the creature. Then came one very hot day.
This was, after all, the South Pacific, and the temperatures were blistering. The crew had therefore opened the windows on the bridge to take advantage of the scant breeze produced while underway. The ship’s monkey scurried about playfully.
The most important single item on the ship was the code book. Codes changed regularly according to a set timetable. For a given period encoded messages would come in over the wireless, and the commo guys would use the code book to decode them. This information told the skipper where the ship should go and what its particular mission might be. Loss of the code book would compromise the security of every ship in theater. As a result, the book itself was weighted so it could be thrown overboard in the event the ship might be boarded. You can see where this is going.
On this fateful day the ship’s monkey spontaneously snatched the codebook off of the chart table and casually tossed it out the window. Before anyone could react, the weighted document splashed off to meet Old Hob. Understand this was a really big deal.
Now if they got orders to do something important they had no way to decode them. Careers died over less. Commanders could be court-martialed over such. They still had several days until the new codes kicked in.
The Captain had the ship steam in circles until the new codebook took effect, and the monkey was given his leave at the next handy landfall. No one was the wiser. However, the tale of the larcenous monkey did ultimately add great levity to Mr. Barbor’s fifth period physics class.
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