Some fool cleaned it
Finally happened, and perhaps its because of my locale, but I ended up with an insatiable appetite for a shotgun. I mean ya just gotta fit in, right ? Walmarts of course has the best deal on Mossbergs at $227.00 but they won’t sell to a chump flat lander with a Florida drivers licence and so it was back to our old haunts….the flea markets. Now there are some deals there, but on the whole, every thing looks hard used as every one here believes gun oil is for internal applications only and is too precious a commodity to be wasted on the non moving outside parts of a gun….hence, rusty.
Well there is one old guy that does the the flea market circuit selling just shotguns and one Saturday as I passed his table there was a pump gun that just looked odd….I mean it looked new compared to the other clunkers, and as I didn’t recognize it I just passed it by thinking it was some new cheapo. Next week we see the guy again with a fresh batch of beaters to replace those he sold and the “new cheapo” still there unsold. Next week we see him yet again with yet another batch of 12 gauge beaters and this time I reached down to turn the “new cheapo” over and discovered it was a new unfired Ithaca model 37 Featherlight manufactured in 1968…….all the beaters sell and this cream puff sits unwanted
“How much ?”
“Three Hunned”
” Two Fifty”
“Two Seventy Five” and it was done and I quickly scurried off to the truck to stash it before returning to the flea market to shop for ammo. During the ammo search I was alarmed when an obvious local sidled up to me and asked……
” You buy that 37?”
”Maybe”
“Ah looked atit twice these past two weeks”
“Why didn’t you buy it?” I asked, “The price was fair”… and he answered with true Apalaichan logic…..
“Figured if nobody wanted to use it for 42 years it cain’t be no good”
I couldn’t help it, that night for the first time in 42 years, that Ithacas voice could be heard echoing down the holler……..
P
