Took today off, went to gun show
First, some good news. My new computer arrived yesterday and went into action with very few glitches. It's a Compaq Presario with an AMD 3100 Sempron processor and an 80 gig hard drive. The machine it is replacing is a 5-year old Pentium 400 with a 2 gig hard drive. Back in business!
Since I had help for most of this week (I'll write about that some other time) things are reasonably caught up enough that I took today off. I can't really remember the last day off. Wendy and Caleigh went to see "Disney on Ice" in Manchester with a local group, and I went to a gun show up in West Lebanon. (the locals say "West Leb")
First I went to the dump to unload pretty much all winter's worth of trash. Paper stuff we burn, food scraps go outside for the critters, but everything else goes to the dump. I never seem to be able to get away while the dump is open, so I accumulated a pickup load of trash bags.
The dump is always fun because I get to scavenge stuff from a little shed they call the "swap shop". If you have something you want to be rid of, but is still useful, you put it in the swap shop for whoever wants it. Today I got a case of Mason jars that I will sort screws etc into and a sterling silver piggybank in the shape of a clown's head. The clown is kind of evil looking, and if Caleigh doesn't want it (she has a little piggybank collection) then it is a good candidate to be cut up and made into trade silver or something similar.
After the dump I headed over to Springfield VT to gas up and pick up Rt 91 to go to the gun show. I was having a good day, shades on, leather hat (called "the Outback", made by Minnetonka, not a fedora, but not a cowboy hat either, it was Wendy's idea but has grown on me) and classic rock on the radio. I was reflecting on just how cool it is to live here as opposed to the city. I get to see farms, snow covered peaks, the Connecticut River (much more unspoiled than the Merrimack where it passes through Middlesex Village in modern-day Lowell, MA) and people are just plain friendlier because of the slower pace of life and uncrowded little towns here.
So I pull into the Mobil station/truck stop and it's full of ski people from everywhere else. They are in all sorts of SUVs with plates from NY, CT, NJ etc. All of them are dressed in sparkling new ski clothes and very much have a "tourist" look to them.
I don't look like a skier. I'm wearing the above mentioned leather hat, sunglasses that I got in 1987, a quilted flannel shirt/jacket with obvious fatigue since I've been wearing it for 6 or 7 years, a pair of worn, bleach spotted and paint stained Dickies work pants, a blue and white striped shirt that used to have "Sears Homecenter" patches over the pocket (got a few of them brand new from a uniform place for $2.50 and pulled off the patches) and my ancient winter boots that are of the rubber-bottom, leather upper type.
Of course I pull up to the pumps in my old truck (just exactly when did a 1988 Chevy become OLD?) that has the requisite right-wing bumper stickers sagging cab mounts, "vintage" inspection sticker, rope tie-downs on the bed, and a big American flag tinted window thing on the rear window.
Many of the skier people smiled at me, many more than I am used to. I was baffled. When I lived in Massachusetts, people would usually just steer clear of me, but these folks were smiling and nodding to me. Then it struck me that back in Massachusetts, I was just eccentric, but here, at least to these tourists, I was a "colorful local". Why did I waste all of those decades in the city? I should have been a colorful local all along!
Then it was off to the gun show!
Pretty small, as gun shows go. I've seen smaller, but am used to much larger at places like the Big E down in Springfield and the great show that used to be at the Manchester National Guard Armory. It was still fun. There was a guy there who had a 1919a4 Browning with a crankfire unit mounted on a German AA tripod like mine.
I bought a couple of gun books, some targets for the spring shoot (see post below about the shoot ideas) and about a case of assorted ammo. (9mm Luger, 8mm Mauser and some 45/70)
Even though I deal in muzzleloaders every day, I am into pretty much anything that goes "bang", with particular fondness for military surplus weapons. I grew up watching Rat Patrol and Combat on TV, and as a kid knew many, many WW2 vets who showed my their "bringback" guns, patches, flags, occupation money etc. and this fostered an appreciation for 20th century historic arms as well as the antique stuff. Since the 20th century is now history, I'm finding the later stuff (cold war era) to be interesting as well. Sooner or later I'll get things straightened out here so that visitors can see some of the funky stuff in my collection.
The 9mm that I got was mostly FN marked, from the late 1940's and early 50's. One of them that I picked out of the box at random was RWS marked with a 1935 date. I got two kinds of 8mm; some Turkish stuff to shoot out of a WW2 Czech Mauser and some Egyptian stuff that I'll link up for a semi-auto MG-34 that I'm building. The Egyptian stuff must have been left over from the conflicts with Isreal, it has a headstamp with a character in Egyptian and the letters OY. OY? I wonder if that is short for "Oy Vey!"?
Since I had help for most of this week (I'll write about that some other time) things are reasonably caught up enough that I took today off. I can't really remember the last day off. Wendy and Caleigh went to see "Disney on Ice" in Manchester with a local group, and I went to a gun show up in West Lebanon. (the locals say "West Leb")
First I went to the dump to unload pretty much all winter's worth of trash. Paper stuff we burn, food scraps go outside for the critters, but everything else goes to the dump. I never seem to be able to get away while the dump is open, so I accumulated a pickup load of trash bags.
The dump is always fun because I get to scavenge stuff from a little shed they call the "swap shop". If you have something you want to be rid of, but is still useful, you put it in the swap shop for whoever wants it. Today I got a case of Mason jars that I will sort screws etc into and a sterling silver piggybank in the shape of a clown's head. The clown is kind of evil looking, and if Caleigh doesn't want it (she has a little piggybank collection) then it is a good candidate to be cut up and made into trade silver or something similar.
After the dump I headed over to Springfield VT to gas up and pick up Rt 91 to go to the gun show. I was having a good day, shades on, leather hat (called "the Outback", made by Minnetonka, not a fedora, but not a cowboy hat either, it was Wendy's idea but has grown on me) and classic rock on the radio. I was reflecting on just how cool it is to live here as opposed to the city. I get to see farms, snow covered peaks, the Connecticut River (much more unspoiled than the Merrimack where it passes through Middlesex Village in modern-day Lowell, MA) and people are just plain friendlier because of the slower pace of life and uncrowded little towns here.
So I pull into the Mobil station/truck stop and it's full of ski people from everywhere else. They are in all sorts of SUVs with plates from NY, CT, NJ etc. All of them are dressed in sparkling new ski clothes and very much have a "tourist" look to them.
I don't look like a skier. I'm wearing the above mentioned leather hat, sunglasses that I got in 1987, a quilted flannel shirt/jacket with obvious fatigue since I've been wearing it for 6 or 7 years, a pair of worn, bleach spotted and paint stained Dickies work pants, a blue and white striped shirt that used to have "Sears Homecenter" patches over the pocket (got a few of them brand new from a uniform place for $2.50 and pulled off the patches) and my ancient winter boots that are of the rubber-bottom, leather upper type.
Of course I pull up to the pumps in my old truck (just exactly when did a 1988 Chevy become OLD?) that has the requisite right-wing bumper stickers sagging cab mounts, "vintage" inspection sticker, rope tie-downs on the bed, and a big American flag tinted window thing on the rear window.
Many of the skier people smiled at me, many more than I am used to. I was baffled. When I lived in Massachusetts, people would usually just steer clear of me, but these folks were smiling and nodding to me. Then it struck me that back in Massachusetts, I was just eccentric, but here, at least to these tourists, I was a "colorful local". Why did I waste all of those decades in the city? I should have been a colorful local all along!
Then it was off to the gun show!
Pretty small, as gun shows go. I've seen smaller, but am used to much larger at places like the Big E down in Springfield and the great show that used to be at the Manchester National Guard Armory. It was still fun. There was a guy there who had a 1919a4 Browning with a crankfire unit mounted on a German AA tripod like mine.
I bought a couple of gun books, some targets for the spring shoot (see post below about the shoot ideas) and about a case of assorted ammo. (9mm Luger, 8mm Mauser and some 45/70)
Even though I deal in muzzleloaders every day, I am into pretty much anything that goes "bang", with particular fondness for military surplus weapons. I grew up watching Rat Patrol and Combat on TV, and as a kid knew many, many WW2 vets who showed my their "bringback" guns, patches, flags, occupation money etc. and this fostered an appreciation for 20th century historic arms as well as the antique stuff. Since the 20th century is now history, I'm finding the later stuff (cold war era) to be interesting as well. Sooner or later I'll get things straightened out here so that visitors can see some of the funky stuff in my collection.
The 9mm that I got was mostly FN marked, from the late 1940's and early 50's. One of them that I picked out of the box at random was RWS marked with a 1935 date. I got two kinds of 8mm; some Turkish stuff to shoot out of a WW2 Czech Mauser and some Egyptian stuff that I'll link up for a semi-auto MG-34 that I'm building. The Egyptian stuff must have been left over from the conflicts with Isreal, it has a headstamp with a character in Egyptian and the letters OY. OY? I wonder if that is short for "Oy Vey!"?
posted by MVTCoPete | 12:33 AM
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