Some fo the people you meet growing up tend to stick with you. One guy who comes to mind was named George Tomas, son of Russian immigrants who owned a resale shop in Miami,
Az. George was not stupid, he could do his cyphers and write reasonably well, he was just a basic human being. About as basic as you can get and still function as a human being.

George joined the national guard some before I did and three of the four things I remember about happened while we were in...

On one of those perfect Arizona fall mornings we decided to go flying in my brother's Cessna 140. When we got to the airport we saw a group of guys gathered around the nose of one of two Cessna 180 planes at our little airport. They were hot, sweaty, and in a general bad mood cause they had been trying to prop start the planes for over an hour as it had a dead battery.

We asked if we could help and were invited to the prop party. I went first cause I was taller. My brother yelled...

In Miami, Ariz in the fifties there were several ways to not be bothered by the various factions that roamed the streets. There were the red-necks, the Pachucos, the mixed member groups. The gang violence was not like today, but it was there. The last option was to be un-affiliated. If you chose that route you had to be on your toes. Being un-affiliated worked for me, but not so well for my brother.

He and my cousin, who visiting from the Marines, were walking in what passed...

I just finished assembling a mod 1873 Springfield rifles for a guy. I had to re-build the lock plate assy. It had one of the old ground down lock plates from a mod 1861 Springfield muzzle loader, It is most likely one of the old surplus scrap pile rifles. The breech block is marked 1873, but the rifle has the buffington sight from the late model rifle, and the S/N suggests it was made in 1886.

Contrary to one thread running on this site, the Civil War did end, and the country was...

A newly graduated Ariz Highway Patrolman was never given his first duty assignment where he grew up. The reasoning was sound. He would not be influenced by family and childhood friends. The disadvantage this gave him was that we knew all the back roads and hidey holes and he did not. It was easy to escape the long arm of the law. But, the longer hew he was there the smaller our advantage was. Luckily, about the time he could catch us more often than not, he would get re-assigned and a newbie...