I credit that hometown spirit as being a big part of why I am able to both like guns for their own sake, yet favor stricter gun-control laws.

As a kid growing up in the in the 1960′s, in the small town equivalent of Andy’s rural upbringing (just a few miles down the road from my house, by the way), I was constantly reminded of the dichotomy that existed between gun-owning and non-gun-owning culture. My friends were about equally divided as sons of hunters/sportsman and sons of gunless folk. I was drawn to guns in a curious sort of way. I was a moderately adventurous kid, and I really wanted to be in the ‘gun-club’ but happened to be the son of unarmed parents. I remember asking my dad about that: “Why don’t you want to hunt like Mr. Lindquist (my best friend’s dad, the ultimate outdoorsman)?” Dad always responded the same way. He had had his fill of guns and killing during the war (WWII), and that was enough for him. He never discouraged my curiosity, and even bought me the pellet rifle I begged for, but he remained aloof and distant when it came to guns.

So to really understand my dad’s answer, you have to understand my dad. Al was a tough and tenacious, sensitive and tender, thinking kind of guy. As a young man, he enthusiastically quit college to pursue temporary employment with the US government jumping out of airplanes into enemy territory in the face of fire. Since competition for pilot jobs was fierce and dad wasn’t quite skilled enough as a pilot to rise to the top, he accepted his second choice. “If I can’t fly the plane, then the least I can do is jump out of it” he would say.

Dad survived his tour of the South Pacific as a paratrooper in the 503rd Regimental Combat Team, which included the air assault and retaking of Corregidor Island, as well as a slew of other nasty combat operations on Negros, Mindoro, Leyte, and New Guinea. He was mainly quiet about his experiences, but he would pipe up during WWII movies and TV shows depicting paratroopers freezing with fear during a jump (“that would never happen, your nose was shoved into the back of the helmet of the guy ahead of you and there was another guy at the back of the ‘stick’ pushing us all out the door”). He told a few stories, but always in a quiet, introspective kind of way, and only when we pressed him. “You can always tell the guys who didn’t see much action” he would say, “they’re the ones with the biggest mouths”. I could always tell that he was uncomfortable in the telling.

My dad did his duty, but he hated war and the violence and killing that he was party to. He understood what needed to be done, was perfectly willing to do it, and was never judgmental of another man’s desire for recreational firearms. But if he had lived long enough to witness the rise of a public scramble to arm ourselves to the teeth in fear of being over-run by criminals, I know he would shake his head in disgust. That was not the kind of freedom he risked his life for.

It is funny that you should bring this up, though, because I have been organizing the thought of doing a series of posts on concrete. The first one is should be coming soon which features concrete monuments from former east-block countries, mostly fmr. Yugoslavia pending posts will be on the concrete architect.

BTW. Thanks for checking in as often as you do. I really appreciate your support.