I never got to know my Grandpa well. He died before I turned three years old. My only memory of him, apart from a few
photographs, is his giving me a spanking in the bathroom of his home in
Northern Kentucky. As a boy, I enjoyed
staying at that home with my saintly widowed grandmother.
I was in my mid-teens when Grandma had to break up
housekeeping and move in with my parents.
Actually, Grandma had two rooms, one at our house and a second at my
aunt and uncle’s home in Ohio. My dad
and my aunt shuttled Grandma back and forth between their homes every two or
three months for the final 10 years of her life.
When Grandma moved out of her home that she had shared with
Grandpa, my brother James and I helped dad move load after load of furniture
and possessions. Some things came to our
home in Kentucky. Other things went to
my aunt.
Among Grandma’s possessions was a shotgun that had belonged
to Grandpa. Grandma opened a cherished
ancient tin box labeled “Sucrets” to reveal trinkets and treasures. She lifted a slug of scared lead, and
informed me that this slug had been fired from Grandpa’s shotgun when he killed
a deer in some ancient hunt. Curiosity
and wonder filled my young mind as I felt the weight of the lead slug in my
hand.
There were two old firearms that belonged to Grandpa, an H
& R 12 gauge shotgun, and a 22 revolver.
Dad informed James and me that these two treasures were our bequests
from Grandpa, our memory, our connection to an ancestor we would never really
know.
James and I cherished our guns. I laid claim to the shotgun, and James laid
claim to the revolver. I shot my first
squirrel with that shotgun. I blasted cans
and glass jars with it.
When James was about 13, he took the shotgun out into the
Appalachian foothills that we called home.
He had spotted a lone domesticated goose whose ownership was
unknown. The goose was wandering the
river bottom farm land along the North Fork of the Kentucky River. James helped work on that farm. The goose proved to be an irresistible target
to a 13 year old boy with a shotgun and a pocket full of shells.
James brought the goose home to Mom and asked her to cook
it! The tough old bird surprised our
teenage teeth. The longer we chewed, the
bigger that goose meat grew in our mouths.
The only thing that James got out of the goose, besides a good story,
was a nickname, “Goose,” and he bore that moniker throughout his early high
school years.
James and I thought that the old gun needed a makeover. Someone suggested to us that the barrel needed
“blued.” We found the supplies at the
local Maloney’s discount store, stripped down the shotgun in Dad’s shop, and
set about an ambitious project as gunsmiths.
Carefully following the directions, we cleaned the barrel of its bluing. We sanded the wooden stock, removing the
ancient varnish. We re-blued the steel
pieces of the shotgun, put a fresh finish of varnish on the stock, and admired
our restoration of Grandpa’s cherished shotgun.
James decided that the newly refinished shotgun needed a
trial run in the woods. We had
discovered a loose firing pin in our restoration project. If not handled carefully, the firing pin
would fall out of the gun when the hammer was cocked. After that trip to the woods, we never found
the firing pin again. Now, the old gun
was simply a useless piece of décor, a sad reminder of a grandfather we would
never get to know.
It was twenty years before I discovered a friend with
incredible handyman skills. Among those
skills were metal work and machining. I
told him about my grandfather’s old shotgun.
The gun had followed me from youth to marriage and fatherhood. The gun had been stored in one closet after
another in different homes in which I had lived. Suddenly, there was hope that it might fire
again. My friend Jim expertly held the
old gun. He studied the firing
mechanism. He said that he thought he
could make a firing pin!
I watched as Jim took a heat-tempered drill bit and cut it
to size. He placed it upon a metal lathe
and began shaping. Once shaped, he fit
it perfectly in its rest in the firing mechanism. We just needed a spring. A spring from an ink pen would do! Hope was birthed that the old treasured
shotgun would fire again. It did. I inserted a shell, locked it into place,
pulled back the hammer, and the 12 gauge roared to life!
A few years later, my wife and I bought a little cabin in
our Appalachian hills. One of the rooms
in the cabin became the cowboy room. I
made a log bed out of limbs from an old beech tree. Lariats, horseshoes, worn out cowboy boots,
hats, and bandanas graced the décor. And
there, above the window, grandpa’s shotgun graced the room from its rest in a
couple of horseshoe hooks. I pulled the
shotgun down at Christmas to shoot some mistletoe out of a black gum tree. Apart from an occasional firing, it enjoyed
its slumber.
After 10 years in the old shotgun’s place of honor, my wife
and I moved from Kentucky to Mississippi.
We rented the cabin in the hills to vacationers. In preparation for renting the cabin, we
removed our most cherished possessions, including the shotgun, which found its
temporary home in the bottom of an old cedar chest. That bothered me. I was bothered that I did not have a place to
display the old gun.
At Thanksgiving, our family always gets together in the
hills of Kentucky. My sisters come home
from Florida. My brother, James, lives
in the Bluegrass. My wife and I make the
pilgrimage to our homeland. We have a
Thanksgiving feast, followed by an early Christmas gift exchange. One year, my sister said, “Next year, let’s
not spend any money on gifts. Let’s just
bring something from our homes. It may
be a useful something that we give. It
may be a family heirloom that we share with one another.”
I knew what my gift must be.
The shotgun. And I knew whom I
wanted to have it. My brother,
James. I placed the shotgun in two large
gift bags. No one knew the contents of
the oddly shaped package. It was
overlooked by one family member after another.
Finally, it came James’ turn to pick.
I urged him toward the package.
He moved that direction, and lifted the awkward weight. Seated, he began to open it. He knew the contents immediately. Tears glistened in James’ eyes as he caressed
the smooth stock and broke open the barrel.
Memories flooded his mind and mine.
A look of understanding passed between us.
Cherished stories of youth filled the next moments, and
continued to flood my mind. As children,
my closest sibling in age was my brother, James, as we are separated by a mere
20 months. Sibling rivalry, competing,
rooming together, fighting, living, and loving had been a part of our
youth. Now, as graying, middle-aged
executives, we were bound together yet again by family, Christmas, shared
experiences, a cherished old shotgun, a grandfather we never really knew, and a
legacy of love—brothers.
At this Christmas Season, give. Give generously.
