capguns
so much depends on a well-working body! this body hasn't worked well since it developed congestive heart failure (28 August 2012). of course, I've also had something to do with that. I dropped my Harley on my left leg twice in one year (October 2012 and August 2013) and shattered both bones in my lower left leg the second time. I've never walked quite right since then, which led to peculiar aches, pains, owies, hurts, and so forth. I don't know that this bilateral sinus tarsi syndrome is part of that not walking quite right, but it fits. what, you might ask, has any of this to do with capguns? and maybe it doesn't. you see, up til CHF, I had a good (I say it was good) habit of going to the firing range and shooting thirty rounds of ammunition at a target, then coming home and cleaning my gun. I haven't done that since. wait, I think that isn't true. I think I did it a few weeks between CHF and shattering my leg bones, but I certainly have not since I broke my leg. you see, there's a certain amount of walking required to get to the gun range, and it was avoidable. I could do it later. whenever the hell later comes along. so I haven't shot my real gun in three years. damn! but cap guns? yes, I have capguns too, a matched pair of six-shooters. they are designed for a first-grader's hand, so I can just barely hold or shoot them. but I did, back before 9/11/2001. I helped people celebrate July the Fourth and Halloween and Veteran's day and New Year's day with my capguns for years. Halloween? yes, Halloween. I was a cowboy on Halloween, of course. but people kind of lost their sense of humor about guns and things like guns after 9/11. so I don't use my capguns any more, but now and then when I'm looking for something else entirely, my capguns float up to the top of the heap, and I hold one in each hand and go through the motions of shooting each. yes, I still appreciate capguns. and I have to admire what happened to capguns between 1954 and 2000. when I was dumped in this country in about 1954, capguns were white and chrome and shiny and silly. the trigger and the hammer worked - that's all you needed to work to pop the caps. boys didn't care. they looked like the guns on Saturday afternoon shoot'm-ups and made a shooting noise. yea! by the late 1990s, when I got my matched pair, they were black and looked like real guns, only squinched down to the size of a kid's hand. the cylinders turned like a real six-shooter's. and on mine, you loaded the caps inside little fake shells, put the little fake shells inside the chambers in the cylinder, then shot your caps and had to reload, first the little shells, then the cylinder. I loved those little guns! still do. still love my real gun for that matter. but capguns! what a kick!
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