Gun Story

My grandfather was a postman on the railroad. He would go to work and get on a train that would collect mail bags all along the way and they would sort the mail on the train.

It was classic snatching mail bags, with hooks, as the train rolls and the bags fly by. Kicking other bags out onto the platforms.

It was an excellent job. He was lucky during the Great Depression to remained fully employed. My grand parents also had a farm with orchards and gardens. He greatest asset was my grandmother. She basically ran the 250 acre farm herself. It was easy to hire farm hands back then.

Anyway, my grandfather always carried a gun for work. Train robbers were real back then. My father told me that it was a Smith &Wesson .32 cal. He strapped it on every morning.

S&W .32 but not the actual one he carried.

When my grandfather died suddenly in 1966 no one thought about the gun. When my Grandmother died the year after and the estate was distributed the gun was no where to be found.

Out of the blue in 1991 my dad gets a call from the current owners of my grandparents house. They were renovating. They found a classic loose floor board in the master bedroom that gramps used as his stash.

It held love letters my grandmother had written to him and his revolver, rusted completely solid, with rounds still in the chambers.

My parents enjoyed reading the letters one at a time, then burning them, so private they were.

And the gun?  It was rusted closed. My dad was worried that it had live rounds still in it. He soaked it in a bucket of water for a month and then buried it.

--I wish I still had it. Even rusted closed.