The 67A

[simplepeddler]

It stayed on the gun rack at my grandparents home.
I dreamed of the days I would be old enough to use it. For as long as I could remember, "Rock" my aptly nicknamed grandfather, because he was hard as a rock, would tell me it was mine, but I was not old enough.

Guns, especially rifles, are dangerous in the wrong hands and he had to trust me enough. It was okay, heck I was a little runt for sure and wanted to grow into the rifle because I was really, if I was honest with myself, scared of it.

It was a model 67 A Winchester. An unassuming weapon but deadly on robins I was told. It was my uncle's gun. I had never met him. On his way to being an eagle scout, and just a damn good kid from all accounts, he was in an accident that left him as a quadriplegic at the ripe age of 16 in early 1962. Two years later, when I was 8 months old he passed away. This rifle was my connection to him. I was told I looked like him and acted just like him. We both were similar in quietness and our ability to be alone and happy at the same time.

I proved to be a marksman like him. It made Rock proud. And, my great uncle Pocohantas, who at the time was a Wildlife officer, even let me shoot robins with it! Right off his front porch!! You see my uncle was his godchild, and somehow even in death, letting me get away with the infraction was like letting Clay do the same.

I took it everywhere. I rubbed it, cleaned it and would admire the simple mechanical miracle it was as much as I would shoot it.

A couple years passed and I was killing everything that I wanted with it. I used it with open sights on rabbits and squirrels. Squirrels would be the unwinding of my dream gun and the beast that forced me to grow up in a day.

Rock was letting my older brother and I use his boat. Rock was a master carpenter and folks would come from around the parish to have him build the little wooden skiff with the "fishing" platforms.

Before Skeeter and Terry craft was popular in this area, Rock was mounting chairs on the elevated decks of wooden 16 foot boats.

He even had sand in the paint to keep from slipping.

That particular day, in January, on the coldest day in my memory till this day, that deck was my perch with the little 67A.

We cruised Blind River after leaving the camp just idling around and I was taking shots at squirrel.

Have no luck in the Res Pon Pas, we headed to Bayou Secret. All the way in the back of that canal, while perched on that deck, we hit a log. We where just idling but it was enough to throw me over the front.

When my John Denver sheep skin denim jacket saturated with freezing cold water I literally froze and in my fear I dropped the 67A.

I was crushed, my older brother, sensing my shame and fear and knowing what that rifle meant, dove and dove and dove again trying to find it. All I could do was weep.

What was I thinking.....had Rock given me the rifle too soon? Did I ask too often? Was I never going to be as good as my legendary Uncle?

I had disappointed myself, my mom, my dad, and mostly My grandparents.
They had given me their only son's favorite rifle and in a moment of bad judgement, I lost it forever.


When we pulled in the driveway of my grandparents home on Ruby street, my grandmother Ruby could see I was crushed over something. She always knew me best.

As I walked to her, she came to meet me. After clearing the snot and tears and trying to catch my breath through my heaving cries, I was able to tell her my story.

She frowned. I cried more. She then loved me more.
With courage from Maw Ruby, I walked in the house to tell Rock.
He was eating supper, smothered pork chops and turnips, and a huge class of milk.

He knew that I had done something I thought was terrible.
I told him, his lips quivered and my butt cheeks did the same.
It would be the first and last time I would see him show a tear.
He got up, thanked me for not lying to him, and hugged me.

I was twelve when I truly learned forgiveness and from the least likely person I thought would give it out.

Later, when I was an adult, Rock would let me know in his own way how much that rifle played a part of both me and my uncle's growing up.

I know that rifle was placed in my hands to learn way more than how to kill animals. It was there to teach me courage and forgiveness all in the same day.

My youngest son, Clayton, is showing the same gentle personality that my uncle had, even looks like him, uncanny actually.

He and I shoot quite a bit together, but he will never shoot from the deck of the boat. I can damn well guarantee that!!






Just a true story. Don't know why it came out.