hunting for a parker

[charlie cleveland]

many years ago it was a dream of mine to own a parker shotgun...as a boy i would set and read about the great hunts of years gone by and the guns that were used..in north mississippi the lc smith rained as the supreme gun to own and shoot...my dad traded guns a lot and had owned and hunted with lc smiths.. mostly these guns were field grade guns due to the fact that mississippi was a very poor state in the terms of money...
i think this is why i never seen a parker shotgun till i was in my late 30 s.i knew of the parker because of readsing about them andhearing from someone that they had seen one of these guns..i m sure there was probably a few parkers in my area but i never saw one being hunted with or at trade days which were forerunners of gun shows or at any gun shops.. but one day when a friend of mine and i had went to a gun show in tupelo miss it was the first gun show i had ever attended..we left the gunshow and on the way home we stopped at my favorite gun shop and was looking the gun inventory overand my friend says heh looky here he hands me a parker brothers 10 ga boy was i excited been looking all my life for one of these guns and here it was in my hands i handled and looked this gun over like i have never done any gun before or since..the gunwas tite as a fiddle string sure she had been hunted with a many of a time..at the time i did not know what this gun was other than it was a parkers brother double barrel hammerless 10 ga with twist steel barrels...the bores were as clean as the day she left the parker factory.. i looked at the price tag it was marked 600.00..man i might of had a hundred..the owner of the store new me well my dad had traded guns with him a many of a time..i took it over to the counter and asked what was the low dollar on this gun .red the owner said 600.00 was bottom dollar well i knew i was going to get this gun some way or another...i ask RED if he would put this gun in the corner till monday where my dad could come over with a coupla guns to try and trade in on the parker...RED agreed to do this..yes sir it was a long week end for me for sure.well monday finally arrived i gave my dad a 45 long colt six gun that was a off brand name and a 30 remington pump rifle and a hundred dollar bill..well come monday evening after work my dad came by and handed me the big parker 10 and 25.00...finally a dream come true i was the owner of a 10 ga parker..this gun became my main turkey gun for years it has killed its share of turkeys in fact it killed one last year..well as the tears went by i find out a little bit about the old gun but it was not till i found the parker collector assiation did i know completely what the old gal was and how old she was..she is a ph grade 10 ga with 32 inch twist steel barrels a pistol grip stock on a 3 frame...to most people she would be just another old gun but to me she s the apple of my eye...come turkey season she ll surely be with me at some point... charlie