Josh it sounds like your friend Ray was a multi-faceted gentleman- cars, basket weaving, banjo (I am guessing a 5 string- maybe like Earl Scruggs?) and both Parkers, LeFevers and other great guns no longer made. Gene Hill, alas now also gone, had a way of writing about his friends that had left that somehow made you wish you had known them, shared a day in a duck blind or behind pointing dogs on a quail hunt-- Ralf Coykendal comes to mind, among others- I think you may also have the late Mr. Hill's way with words, and I'll sip a dram tonight in your friend's memory- any man who likes Parkers is my kind of man--