A Handful of Love

I've taken a handful before
I wasn't afraid
At the time.

Do you know what it's like
To force yourself
To Breathe.

To feel so calm,
And at peace,
To not miss a breath,

So content and rested
That not to take it
feels as good as taking it.

I have felt so at love;
Like a hundred massaging hands
Carrying me overhead.

I've walked not feeling
My feet touch the ground,
And turned my head without a wince.

I've counted my beats
And held my breath out of jealous pride,
Loving the loss of the hold
A small part of me had.
And felt a drum
In the back of my head
Say
Now...

And I breathe,
Feel the life swell my chest,
And feel at that moment
That I own time.
And I exhale,
And I wait again.

No pain, no hurry
Just my drummer
And a warm hand to my face
Like the one I wanted
But never met.

I always love it when I meet me,
But it always takes a handful,
To make me listen,
And count the beats;
Remind me to breathe,
Remind me to see,
Remind me to be
Me.

It only takes a handful.

Deceit

Outwardly you had me when the spotlight hit you and you filled me with a lust, a hungry need to have you to myself and to feel you on my lips then slip you in. Surely when I had you I'd feel what I've felt before with each passing whiff and taste. Call it love, the lust for your life, to become what I wanted with your help and surrender. 

So I took one to me and felt what it was like to have something without taste, without a glimmer of return, only hollow beauty of what I almost had--sadly I turned to take one more, always hopeful I was wrong at first, then trying another sweet taste for myself, but only slighting myself. Mocking myself without pity with the spotlight still on you enticing me back, guiding my hand into your deep, red-filled bowl.

You had me with your spotlight, and courageous colour you flaunted like a flag, glistening wet, as if by my sight, and cooed until I opened my hand, and parted lips to taste, then discovered your lie.

The Why's and Wherefore's

We had worked on these people's addition for a few weeks, and had done all the framing we could do for these people who were habitually changing their minds, and soon, we'd be tearing out what we had just done to redo it in some new formation that these homeowners had pulled right out of their asses. As a matter of fact, the builder they had started with quit (if you asked him) or had been fired (if you asked them) out of frustration. My boss took the job, it was, after all, work.

Anyway, eventually everyone got called away to start a real house somewhere else, but I got left behind with a guy named Tracy, and old man (I'm his age now--shit!) who was one of the slowest and laziest people I have ever met--myself included. And he stood there with the homeowner's wife (the husband was off making millions selling A.L. Williams Ins. during the day) while she praised him on a job well done.

I couldn't take it anymore and got up off my knees where I'd been working and walked over to them and interrupted.

"You know, it was a collaborative effort," I said, and her jaw dropped so fast that at first, I thought that she couldn't believe I had spoken to the all mighty homeowner, but that wasn't it.

"That's a big word!" she gasped at me. And then, for another moment, I wondered if she knew what it meant. "How is it you know a word like that?" she asked me.

I was surprised that she'd be surprised. It never occurred to me that carpenters were expected to be dumbasses. And that's a "syndrome" I've dealt with many times over the years and even named this web log after the notion.

I was reminded again when someone posted a picture of a vanity license plate with pi shown in eight characters and one of my friends thought enough of me to tell me the numbers were indeed pi. And I reckon you couldn't blame this person--everyone knows I dislike math though I consider it a dark art.

But the fact of the matter is, I use math quite a bit when building. Not the pencil to paper kind, but the kind that involves pencil to wood. The kind where what's-his-name's theory about the hypotenuse of a right triangle becomes a rafter in a system whose intervals are guided by a 16 base system--I think. It's all very mathiesque albeit empirical.

I just wish things hadn't changed so I could still brag about having found something that I liked to do for a living so I could say that I don't work for a living. And every now and then I'd get to impress someone who thought every carpenter was a dumbass with a funny one-liner--usually the final invoice!

The Countdown Continues: Greatest Implement Ever Devised*, Part I

In March, 1944, The Allies bombed Berlin in broad daylight for the first time in large numbers. Eccentric British nudist General Wingate started up his guerrillas against the Japanese in Burma and later, in the same month, would be killed in his plane's crash. On the ides of March, the allies started the second attempt to take Monte Cassino, which of course, destroyed an abbey that had stood since 524 AD. A few days later, British Mosquitoes would drop tons of bombs on Hamburg Germany in a "nuisance" raid. And in Massachusetts, in the city of Springfield, a billet of steel was becoming my U.S. Semi-Automatic Rifle, Caliber .30, M1.

This is my rifle, there are many like it, but this one is mine.

I know this by the serial number and armory name etched on the rear of the receiver. This rifle has passed through a few hands like all of the American Veteran Rifles, but this one had been under the tender loving care of a friend and fellow Rockingham County Gun Club member. And surprisingly he said yes when I asked him if he'd sell it. It was handed down to him by an even older club member who had purchased it (are you sitting down?) through the government agency created after The War Between the States to promote civilian marksmanship!


By the way, the Civilian Marksmanship Program is alive and well today and, in fact, if you wanted to, you could purchase an old battle ax too--after you fulfill certain obligations. Heck, they'll even mail it to your house. Be warned though, when you get them fresh from the CMP, it's coated in cosmoline, and it will look like it's been to Bataan and back. Not many pristine wall hangers left from the heyday of M1 Garands.


John C. Garand, who invented the thing in the early 1930's, was from Canada, and he wanted a 7mm caliber cartridge, the .276 Pederson, for his auto loading rifle, and even had a working model. But none other than Douglas MacArthur himself decided, for the nation, that the United States would stick with the cartridge we'd been using since 1906: Cartridge, Ball, Caliber .30, Model of 1906. So Garand went back to work and came up with my rifle.


It's an eight shot, honest to goodness "clip" fed, semi-automatic rifle. If you've seen Band of Brothers, you've seen them "in action". The cartridges, held in the clip, are jammed down into the receiver and then the bolt's slid sharply shut, chambering a round thus making you ready for firing. And, when the clip is empty, the follower spring, which pushes the cartridges up to be caught by the bolt, ultimately flings the clip out with a distinctive and satisfying "ping!"

The eight cartridge clip loaded with hunting cartridges.

I won't quote General George S. Patton* who loved the rifle because you've heard it before. And I won't mention the rifle's "flaws" everyone laments because frankly, they won't matter to me and what I'm going to do with this machine, and that's hunt. So far the deer have never shot back so my life doesn't have to depend on the Garand, but even if the deer did (or a sleeper cell of cornfield-raiding Al-Qaeda), I'd feel secure enough carrying this rifle. It will serve very well sitting in a tree or under my burlap poncho, of that I am sure.


I can't say with certainty that this rifle has ever seen combat. When I bought it, it had new wood on it, so if there were any battle scars on its original stock I'll never know. Manufactured in 1944, with just over a year left of hostilities, it would have had to hustle to get to either theater before May 8, 1945 or September 2, 1945. I can only guess and figure it did not. However, in 1951 it received a new barrel at the Springfield Armory so perhaps it made it to Korea for the awful mess that still haunts the world to this day.

Whether or not it's been fired in anger, or if it were a training rifle for its entire time of service doesn't make a difference to me. Again, like the other battle rifles I've hunted with, and plan to hunt with, I want to put to rest that feeling that the rifle I hold now was a killing machine in the hands of soldiers or Marines.


Sure, I plan to kill with the same rifle, but it's not a desperate fight for my life, and I'm not shooting in anger at my fellow man. It's the management of wildlife populations and, perhaps, if given the chance, the eradication of invasive coyotes who, along with feral cats, decimate smaller-sized wildlife populations that I hunt.


At the range, I've used three different loads in the rifle with three different bullet weights and haven't had a single failure to feed or "jam", but then, I'd be shocked if I did--it is, after all, an M1. I have just started tinkering with this rifle and while the load I've worked up is plenty good for taking deer, I still need some practice precisely placing projectiles in paper.

The sights are military "peep" sights that I'm pretty familiar with, but I just need more time at the bench. So like my buddy Bill says, "Shoot more, more often." I'm at the point now that I can hit a 5"x7" card at 200 yards, which surpasses what I feel comfortable with attempting on game using the 1903 Springfield bolt action rifle, but I'm going to work on that too. And what the hell, when shooting at the range, for eight shots, you're feeling and hearing the same thing the greatest generation heard countless times, all the way to the "Ping!"

Walking the Dog

We walk our dog old school...before sunrise and after dark we let her out of the house. We don't know what she does, we don't know where she goes. And we don't even know if she does her business--we just hope so and watch her for the tell tale signs of imminent poopage. One hint of unfinished affairs and she's whisked out the door. That's what they mean when they say, "It takes a village to walk your dog."

Dreamed a Line

The Lights I see

When I close my eyes, 

In the green background,

Are Braille.

And if I could read them,

They'd spell big words like

"Stratosphere"

And big ideas like

"Humankind"

The Countdown Continues: The Ugly French Duckling Part 1

Recently I hunted with old military workhorse type rifles in their battle ready state reflecting the time when they were called to duty. That means I hunted while utilizing their "primitive" sights while firing a cartridge in each that was developed over a hundred years ago.

Having shot one deer with the old 1903 Springfield, and another with the close cousin of the WWI era M17 Enfield, The Model 30 Express Remington last season, I have to say that I'm addicted to the cheap thrill of sighting game down the same focal planes of warriors and soldiers before me as I take a shot.

The 1903 Springfield's Doe in the snow.

And that leads me to the next challenge I'll undertake, hopefully, in the coming deer season of 2011-2012 provided I live long enough. (Those who really know me, know there's always a distinct possibility that I will not.) I write deer, but who's to say that I couldn't kill a coyote or some other varmint with another war-horse rifle. Given the chance to rid the world of an invasive species, I, of course would try.

So, who's up next? Remember too, that I have a buddy who's challenged me to hunt and kill, at least once, with every rifle in my safes before I can use any rifle again. So far, it's been a really neat challenge, and works well to keep me motivated to get to the range, practice and stay on top of shooting many different types of rifles chambered in many different chamberings.

Only dropped once! Get it? It's French.

The next is a rifle I've had for a very long time as a shootable oddity. It is a French, MAS (Manufacture d'Aremes de Saint Etienne), Model 1936 in 7.5 X 54mm. Developed a few years after the cartridge was developed (in or about 1932), the M36 was to become the French weapon in WWII and beyond. It's an ugly affair with a metal, slab sided receiver and two piece wooden stock. A nifty rear "peep" sight and hooded front sight.

The forward bent, dog-leg bolt is held in place by two innovative twin rear locking lugs. And the extractor is a very serviceable and very large cartridge-rim-catching hook that could've changed how some people view push-feed rifles had the design not been used and lost in such a forgettable rifle. It also has an integral bayonet that rests inside a tube under the barrel when one ain't stabbing Germans or Viet Minh.

Dog legged bolt? Rear Locking lugs? Pretty.

Mine is in great shape. ("Only dropped once," Brian likes to say.) I paid a whole $89.00 dollars for it at a Greensboro Gun Show before 2000. It was so odd, and in such good shape that I had to get it. I remember the guy smiling/laughing at me when I bought it. After the paperwork, he sneered, "You can't find ammo for it right now, but check back with us in a few months." I sneered back (on the inside) for as a reloader, I knew I could manufacture my own ammo...

I tucked the cosmoline covered rifle under my arm and headed for the reloading vendors on the floor of the gunshow and learned I was gonna have to work harder than I thought to feed this rifle. At the time, the bastard was right, there were no commercial loads for the rifle. There was no brass to be had, and dies for the cartridge would have to be ordered off this thing called "the Internet". The only thing I had going for me was the bullet diameter of .308 inches...that I could handle.


Old timers from the club told me to get "Swedish" brass and resize it to 7.5mm X 54mm, and that is just what I did. Along the way, I got suckered into getting hundreds of 6.5mm x 55mm cases which in turn opened another chapter in "ancient" but useful cartridges in brett's big gallery of guns--but that's another story (you'll see). 500 pieces of brass later, and some dies from Lee Precision, Inc., I was off to the races.


The cartridge boasts a rim at the bottom of .482 inches so one cannot use good old 30-06 cases as they're only .473 inches. The Swede has a rim of around .480 so you'd think it'd work as a substitute for an honest 7.5mm case. The load data from Lee had the powder charges the same as for the (even) old(er) 30-40 Krag and upon firing, the sooty, bulging cases came out of the chamber and I swore I'd bought a stinker! I mean, I was scared these jury-rigged cartridges were gonna blow my pretty face off by leaking propellant gases by the case (and into my face) even though, by the lack of recoil (and sooty cases), I could tell the cartridges were terribly underpowered!

Wee knurled handle for bayonet.

Bayonet extended.

I decided to hang it up, until a few years later when commercial brass in 7.5X54 was for sale right here in America--mail order! By this time, this Internet was alive and well and easy to use. And after my box of brass showed up, I ditched the weak-ass Lee Precision loads and followed the loads listed in Cartridges of the World, 8th edition. With these loads, I put the cartridge and rifle right up on par with the old .300 Savage round. In other words, this dog will hunt.

Model 30 Remington's Doe.

And then, inexplicably, I left the thing sitting in the back of a safe until shooting the above doe bolstered my confidence in open sights, and 44 year old eyes! If this rifle can hang in the accuracy department with the 1903 and M30, we'll be in business next fall. Because now I know, I can shoot deer without any help from Mr. Leupold...well, maybe I'll hang onto his binoculars.


Now my plan was to take this rifle out today and shoot it at some paper, but the showers that came after brunch changed my mind for me. I can handle being cold without too much whining, and I can handle being wet with the same aplomb, but not wet and cold at the same time. The range time will have to wait...and so will I.