Old Photos

Old Photos

Ran across two old photos. Have no idea why I'm carrying these around instead of having put them in storage before I left. Anyhow, thought they might be amusing. The resolution and focus aren't great as I shot them with my camera, so don't try to blow them up.

The first is me at my 40th birthday party (1983) in Tucson, thrown by John Gaines. I'm holding the bottle of vintage port he gave me. It was a splashy affair, with a champagne fountain, a tub full of ice and bottles, fabulous food like salmon mousse, and a bunch of us winding up naked in the garden hot tub about 3am with a police helicopter circling overhead. We all waved.

The second is from 1978 in Tucson. Chuck's cousin and his girlfriend came to visit us from Chicago. Their first visit to "the West." Neither had ever so much as touched a firearm of any kind, so a bunch of us decided to take them out into the desert for some target shooting. We brought every gun we owned (I brought my shotgun, a 20-gauge pump, and I brought the .38 revolver Chuck gave me for my 35th birthday -- which I still have). We laid them all out on pickup beds and watched their eyes pop.

Anyhow, we decided a "wild west" photo would be a good souvenir. Don Young, the guy in the photo (our next-door neighbor), outfitted me with the holster and the rifle and I'm holding my own shotgun. I'd bought the Coors t-shirt at a 7-11 store (orange! shudder!). Don't we just epitomize the rabid western gun nut?

The girlfriend, small and thin, wanted to try shooting, so Don, out of pure meanness, gave her a .357 for her first shot. You could see the recoil ripple through her body. The shock made her really want to throw that pistol as far as possible but she hung on to it, to her credit.

Ah, the good old days.