It was a brown grocery bag of loose parts...
Mine is quite an odd story. Dunno how old I was. 1st. or 2nd. grade.
Went to friend's house after school one day. First he showed me RNL .45 ACP's bigger around than my fingers. He hadda handful and gave me couple. Had 'em for years, but lost 'em someplace.
After the rounds came something a bit more interesting: a paper bag full of parts. It was a 1911 that my buddy had somehow dis-assembled.
"All of a sudden this big spring just went 'twang' out of it. I dunno how I did it. I can't get it back together." was all he told me.
I think it took me about half an hour to figure out how to un-fieldstrip a 1911.
It was a neat puzzle.
The hardest part was compressing the recoil spring back in and snapping the bushing in place. That took both hands and body weight. I was a skinny little kid.
I dunno if I got the slidestop through the link or not. Never seen a gun before then. But I got it to look like a gun again, instead of a bag of parts. I don't think I could've racked the slide, but I didn't try to. I didn't know you were
supposed too. I remember the gun seemed huge, and heavy!
So we had a .45, and ammo, but we little first-graders didn't even THINK about shooting the thing. We knew it would be much too loud to get away with. Or I did, anyway.
I think my buddy showed the gun to his mom later, who apparently gave it too the police. I barely remember, as I didn't much care. I had satisfied any curiosity about that gun by putting it back together.
For the life of me, I never even knew where my buddy got the thing. Hindsight says he must have stolen it from someplace. (Rotten, larcenistic little wretch!) He was forever poking around in "abandoned" houses, as he called 'em. (There were some in the neighborhood back then.) He might have gotten it out of this converted schoolbus/RV he told me about. It'd had one of those skinny windows in the folding door broken out, and he could squeeze in. He had a pile of other stuff too, as I remember, just little kid loot, like the pack of round playing cards he gave me. A right angle flashlight, like the Scouts use. That sorta stuff.
And that .45. Little creep.
He said it was 'bandoned. I was too naive to recognize thieving when I saw it. I think I was six. That'd be about '73 or '74. Back when Palo Alto had a "seedy" side, on the wrong side of the tracks over by the adult bookstore, massage parlor, card room, 3 bars that were at the Stanford University 2-mile dry zone border, and the triple-x theatre. (Shhh, don't talk about that 'round here. Palo Alto's the Heart Of The Silicon Valley. Our motto is Gentrify, Gentrify, Gentrify! We COULDN'T have had a Colored Past, that contradicts my Liberal Wishes! We're Re
SPECtable, I tell you!......It worked, too. Palo Alto had the most expensive real estate in the country not too long ago. Everyone in Palo Alto's a millionaire, provided you sell your house and leave. Or if'n you could afford to buy one.)
Haven't seen that guy for nigh on 25 years. Wonder if he's in jail? Hindsight gives me a 'spicion he robbed a Vet.
The rotten little fink. One of the first friends I had. Glad he didn't rub off on me.
Now I pick 'em better, hence my presence riding The High Road.
