It is a gray day down at the farm, and it was a splendid morning to sleep in, once the matter of the bedside lamp disintegrating in the night was resolved to my satisfaction. Funny how seemingly solid things can just fall apart, isn’t it?

On the way down, I stopped at the Nation’s Gun Show to meet up with Van Dyke, the old-school spook I drink and shoot with sometimes. We take in the national mood at these things, the hundreds of tables set up with weapons and accessories for sale.

A note about the shows: background checks are required to be conducted by all Federal Firearms License holders. There are a few people wandering around with (unloaded) weapons, presumably for sale to fellow citizens without benefit of the background check, but there are not many of them.

I have noticed a distinct change in the demographics of the crowd. Years ago, they were mostly Good Ole Boys, but the crowd these days is diverse by race and gender. Perhaps it is the idea that we are all going to have to look out for ourselves, regardless of where we live and who we are. The mood was also not as grim and determined as in sessions past, when people were clearly alarmed at what the Government was up to.

Despite our new Governor’s declaration that he will seek further restrictions in Virginia’s firearms laws, I don’t think any of it will happen. He doesn’t have a majority in the legislature, and it seems like routine political posturing. No one in the crowd seemed particularly agitated, not like the panic and desperation that was palpable in the days of the ammunition shortage a couple years back.

I was not looking for anything in particular- I saw a magazine with the extended base that improves the handling of one of my pistols, and I got it, and there was a single-point tactical sling for one of the rifles that I found attractive. I have learned my lesson- I don’t try to buy anything requiring the background check- the volume of activity at the show swamps the poor people down in Richmond who have to query the databases for criminal or mental activity that would prevent a sale.

Anyway, Van Dyke and I had a grand time wandering around and eventually made our farewell out in the parking lot near where the Boy Scouts sell their popcorn.

The drive down to the farm was uneventful and punctuated by freshets of rain. When I got the Panzer unloaded and most of the wreckage shoveled out of the farmhouse, I answered correspondence on the computer until the screens were all clean.

The last bit was something that brought me up short. The Master Chief made a point of looking up the grave of our pal Mac Showers to ensure that it had been decorated with a wreath like the other couple hundred thousand stones marking our fallen. I don’t walk that well anymore, and in the crush of volunteers, I worked up the uplands near Arlington House, not in Section 66 on the plain below where Mac and his beloved wife Billie rest.

He respectfully moved the wreath aside to show the inscription on the white stone. “OPINTEL PIONEER,” it reads, and that is true. The Master Chief then replaced the wreath with the red ribbon correctly at the twelve o’clock position, all squared away. Just like Mac was.

I miss him a lot. Anyway, the clouds seem to be breaking up, and the sun is illuminating the leaves that stubbornly cling to the branches of the maple tree out front, and their colleagues strewn across the still-green grass. As green as the wreaths we placed on the graves at Arlington.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303