NEW THREAD (old topic): Condition Diminishing With Use

[Alfred Greeson]

I like the thought. So much learned on this forum and yes it seems you know people you have never met. Worth a lot some days. I always think of a note in a letter from Gene Hill to Michael McIntosh as he was loosing the battle with C! "Enjoy all things, for the bullet with your name on it was fired a long time ago!" We are caretakers of some of the greatest guns ever built and I think we share a responsibility to enjoy and care for them for the next generation. I like to think so anyway, wish my Dad was still here to enjoy them with me. He would have loved this forum.

[stumpstalker]

Garry and Alfred. So true.

Alluding to your father, Alfred, resonates with me. It is kind of what it’s all about: Successive generations appreciating experiences and things of quality.

My father introduced the “Parker mystique” to our home from the 1950s into the early 1970s. I can still picture him settled back and enjoying his copy of Peter H. Johnson’s PARKER -America’s Finest Shotgun; or, arriving home and uncasing for family viewing a newly-acquired gun.

I took no particular interest in the shotguns then but noted that there must be something special involved. The fact is, he was repeatedly characterized by others as being a perfectionist (which is not all bad, especially if you were his dental patient). And, when someone who is known as having such a punctilious bent really likes something, it warrants notice.

These guns connect people and do so on a finer plane. So, I am motivated, as I use them, to maintain their originality as much as my conscience dictates is practicable.

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Russell E. Cleary

Garry and Alfred. So true.

Alluding to your father, Alfred, resonates with me. It is kind of what it’s all about: Successive generations appreciating experiences and things of quality.

My father introduced the “Parker mystique” to our home from the 1950s into the early 1970s. I can still picture him settled back and enjoying his copy of Peter H. Johnson’s PARKER -America’s Finest Shotgun; or, arriving home and uncasing for family viewing a newly-acquired gun.

I took no particular interest in the shotguns then but noted that there must be something special involved. The fact is, he was repeatedly characterized by others as being a perfectionist (which is not all bad, especially if you were his dental patient). And, when someone who is known as having such a punctilious bent such really likes something, it warrants notice.

These guns connect people and do so on a finer plane. So, I am motivated, as I use them, to maintain their originality as much as my conscience dictates is practicable.

Russell, you have some wonderful family history made in a place where some of the most important and significant American history was made - a stone's throw from Concord Bridge where colonial American's exercised their own form of guerilla warfare on the highly regimented British Redcoats...





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[mobirdhunter]

[QUOTE=Dean Romig; a stone's throw from Concord Bridge where colonial American's exercised their own form of guerilla warfare on the highly regimented British Redcoats...
.[/QUOTE]

I'm envious of those of you who grew up with Parkers and other fine shotguns. I recall Pop talking about Foxes and Parkers, but we had J.C. Higgins and the like in my early days, all we could afford growing up in coastal Virginia. We belonged to a poor man's hunt club, a group of church guys who knew a rich judge who owned 400 acres. This was near Williamsburg, VA (my home town) and sandwiched between Yorktown and Jamestown, we also were close to some early American history (I had to mention this for Dean and those members from New England). My best deer stand was from the top of a Revolutionary War embankment within a stones throw (literally) of the Colonial Parkway (a national park). We hunted squirrels and deer using guns a cut or two (or more) below a Parker. I do remember Pop shooting deer with a Stevens 311 20 gauge, but that's as close as we came to a fine double in my youth. Missouri writer Joel Vance and his buddy from Missouri (at the time), Michael McIntosh, turned me on to fine American double guns through their books and articles. I never thought I'd own a Parker, and feel very privileged to do so now. I also wish my Pop could see and use my Parkers now. I'm sure he'd appreciate them and what it took to acquire one.