# Grandfather's shotgun



## redbirddog (Apr 23, 2010)

http://redbirddog.blogspot.com/2013/03/grandfathers-shotgun.html

Sunday morning story. Pictures on my blog. 
If this is overly sappy excuse me.
I cried when Old Yeller died. Did you? ​
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Grandfather's Shotgun​
Funny thing when you come upon sixty years old. You meet your mortality. Ten years? Twenty? No more that thirty and my life will be a memory of just a few people. Thing is: I am fine with that.

I think about how I found hunting behind a Hungarian Pointer just five years ago. Hunting, itself, had never held any special place in my life. Did not grow up around hunters and in the outskirts of the city of Riverside in Southern California, the only field game were scrawny jack rabbits.

Now I am a grandfather of four great young grand kids and life is good. A friend, who also owns a Vizsla, and I were talking about the current generation of Vizsla owners. How the vast majority of them will never hunt or explore field trials or hunt tests. It just isn't important to them and their relationship with their pet.

So that got me wondering that when I leave this body to start again, I wonder what happens to my little 20 gauge over and under shotgun? Like my Bailey (Chloe is gun shy), my little shotgun has gone with me on a some wonderful fall walks through harvested fields of grain and landscapes a poor Southern California boy from the 1960's would never had expected to experience.

I was a Boy Scout from about 10 until 14. Once a month we would go on a camp out. We learned how to shoot a .22 rifle at camp one year on a rifle range (I liked it). We learned to start a camp fire, pitch a tent, pack and once we hiked 50-miles into the mountains. I was the Senior Patrol Leader and the thirty or so fellow very lower-income family boys I was responsible for. Survival and being good stewards of the wild places we went to were important. Our adult leaders tried to install into boys who, for the most part, had little chance of going to college or breaking free of poverty. Most didn't and some never saw 40..

Learning to be an honorable man was taught and we learned that there was nothing wrong with hunting for food as long it was done in a ethical and humane way. The Boy Scouts get a donation from me every year. A very worthy organization.

But what will be the fate of my little CZ 20 gauge that has and will serve me the rest of this life? Will one of my grandchildren want it? Will it be cut up in some government required turn in of all firearms? 

I don't know the future, I only know the present. The Hungarian Pointer is a hunting dog. The shotgun goes with the Hungarian Pointer like the left shoe goes with the right.

If you are reading this, you most-likely have a Vizsla. You may never have hunted or even wanted to. Guess I would ask, "Why not?" Fear of the gun? Fear of hurting something? Fear of failure? 

Some will read these words and not understand why I hunt now. It is not because I can't buy food almost as good as pheasant. It is not because I love to kill things. It is not to prove I am a man.

The reason I hunt is to be part of nature. Not the cute caricature of "Mother Nature", but the nature that does not judge right or wrong but only understands survival. To hunt and to fish are to be able to survive on your own terms without the NEED of some outside force or entity bringing heat, power, food and water TO you. To be able to take care of yourself and your family no matter what, is where hunting comes in for me. 

Grandpa's shotgun will always fire straight and true because that is what a good shotgun does. Who pulls the trigger after me? Time will tell.

I heard someone say once on the radio a few years ago: "On your headstone after your name will be a date of birth and a date of death separated by a little dash. That dash is our lives."

Live it to the fullest and let your Hungarian Pointers join you in that adventure we call life.


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## mswhipple (Mar 7, 2011)

Not too sappy at all, Rod. Touching, but not too sappy. Just right!  Great sentiments.

I cried a lot when Old Yeller died. Not only that, when we got back home, I threw up. :'( I was pretty young, but I remember it well.


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## mlwindc (Feb 8, 2013)

My husband grew up in the country and got a shotgun for his 10th birthday. I grew up in the city and have never fired a gun of any kind. We have a vizsla now and I am going to learn how to shoot (not necessarily to hunt, but because if we are going to have guns in the house, I need to know how to use them). And, when my son is of age, he will learn how to shoot too. I am pretty sure he will want daddy's old shot gun when he turns 10. =)


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## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

RBD - still shoot the 12ga 1896 Olympia single barrel hammered long gun given to me so many years ago by my grandfather - kicks like a mule plus has a steel kick plate to add to my misery - comes out opening day of dove season and I take my first two birds with it - all of my long guns have memories with them - family friends pups and long guns - it just happens !!!!!!


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## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

The bore is still bright - the barell & stock well dinged - the bead still shoots true - a life time in the field & life should be this pure !!! just a small part of a upland hunter


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## Rudy (Oct 12, 2012)

9 shotguns I proudly have

My 1st from Grandpa meant the most to me

I was 5 or 6

eyes were like xmas lights

He was the 1st Nordic farmer across the mountains from the east and settled in Indian lands

He gave me the Thunder Chickens he called her not even a stock pad and said it don't bruse you you did not earn your game
he died of strokes the next winter

Even as a kid I greased her real good and would spend hours cleaning her

those years the Valley was shotguns and trout rods and not 1 school or town shooting

We respected are tools and followed before us rules


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## Ozkar (Jul 4, 2011)

Lost for words mate.......awesome post.......


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

I seen guns past down. They have been sold, traded, lost, stolen, and then there are the ones that are cherished for a lifetime. Its not the cold steel and hardwood we feel when we pick up these guns, its our grandfathers hands.


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## dmak (Jul 25, 2012)

I love this post. I often think the same things RBD. about 4 years ago, when my grandad hit the ripe age of 90, he decided he could no longer shoot his dad's 12 gauge so he handed it down to me. Its a 1924 Ansley Adams side by side. Of all the shotguns I've shot, this is the truest shooter. It goes on EVERY bird hunt I go on. I tether it to me when on the boat or in the swamp for fear of loosing it to the bayou. The reason he gave it to me instead of his other grandsons is because he knows I'll continue to use the thing. He didn't want to see it lost to a closet, hung as a show piece; he wants it to continue to be used as a rifle that provides. It provided my family and friends with 90 ducks this last season. I look forward to passing it on to my grandson/daughter once I get too old to shoot it

BTW - I too contribute regularly to the BSA and am glad to hear that others support it. Earning my Eagle Scout rank is still one of my greatest achievements of my life (or - as you've eloquently stated!)


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## datacan (May 15, 2011)

Rod, I wasn't going to post this, but reading TexRed's post gave me courage. 
My grandfather traded his old shotgun, for a shiny new bicycle and gave that to me after I lost one of his dogs. 
Took 32 years to finally find Sammy....


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## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

the long gun I still shoot today -Olympia 1896 - made by Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle works for a hardware store in Michigan - Pap got it for cutting and splitting a cord of wood at the age of ten - carved a H in the stock ( Holterman ) history is what we learn from - to me and my sons - the long gun is priceless !!!!! original cost $6


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

I used to spend my summers out of state with my grandparents. I had missed them terribly after they moved from Texas. My grandfather was known to be a gruff old man. He was feared by most kids that lived close by, but not by me. My summers were filled with us hunting, fishing, and keeping the crows away from his fruit trees. To my grandmothers dismay, we were inseparable. I wasn't always a great prize, and I'm surprised he didn't want to trade one of his guns for a stack of switches. 
I don't know how many minnow traps I lost in a pond he told me not to use them in. He was right, they get caught on the rocks. The worst was trying his snuff. You'll puke for what seems like hours.


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## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

next pic


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