Thanks everyone. She (my wife) is a gem.
I told this a few years ago when I was first here, but I probably should add it again.
When I was a kid, which was a LONG time ago, all the old men I knew and admired used double guns for almost everything. They didn't have a safe full of guns, one for each different thing, they usually had one, maybe two guns. It served for everything from bucks to bunnies and everything else that walked, flew, ran, or crawled. I can still remember standing around some farmers yard early in the morning, listening to the deer dogs growling in the boxes in the back of the pickup truck while the men argued over who's Fox, Lefever, Ithaca, "Elsie" or Parker was the best.
My grandfather did have two of those guns. He had a A.H. Fox (It was always an "A.H.Fox", never just a "Fox.") 12 ga., with 30" barrels, full and full. I remember him always making a big thing out of its "Krupp Steel Barrels." That was the gun I most often saw him use. With No. 1 buckshot, it was a deer killer.
But he also had a Parker, 20 ga, with shorter barrels. I never knew the details of that gun, what grade or chokes and so on. He didn't hunt with it much, as a matter of fact, I don't know that I ever saw him use it. I know he did, I just don't remember it. I mostly saw my Uncle using it. Beautiful gun.
He did tell me the story often enough. He was born in 1898. He got the Fox about 1918 (IIRC) and the Parker a few years later. He got the Parker from the old Watkins-Cotrell Hardware Store in Richmond, Virginia. It seems he told me he paid $129.00 or so for it which must have been a LOT of money in those days (that price may be wrong, but it's the way I remember it). He then sent it back to Parker and had automatic ejectors installed.
The details may be fuzzy. He's been dead for many years, so I haven't heard the story since I was a teenager at best. But he always spoke reverently of that Parker and I knew it was the pride and joy of his collection.
And I just knew I wanted a Parker of my own someday.
I also remember him telling me about catching the train in Richmond, putting his beagles in the baggage car, and riding the train out to Fair Oaks in Henrico, which was way out of town in those days I suppose, and having the conductor stop the train, and let him and his dogs get off. He'd then hunt all day, and flag the train down late in the evening and load up and ride on back to town.
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For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him, would not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 NKJV
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03-02-2016, 05:31 PM
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