I suppose the gun shouldn't mean so much to me. I have others. They all work equally well if you point them at the birds and swing through.
But this was Dad's gun, an old Browning A5 20-gauge, made in Belgium. It was the only shotgun I remember Dad buying new when I was growing up.
Dad and his father were Browning guys, although my grandfather had a few L.C. Smith side-by-side double-barrels leaning in the corner as well. Dad and my grandfather hunted quail in northeastern Kansas over English pointers, and pheasants when the opportunity arose.
Money was tight in our immediate family, and I'm not sure how Dad ever persuaded Mom that he ought to buy that 20-gauge A5. I was fortunate enough to inherit it when Dad's guns were distributed among us boys after he died.
I didn't really need it. I had the old Browning "Sweet 16" A5 _ a 16-gauge _ that Dad had acquired _ used _ when I was a teenager. He'd given me that gun when I was old enough to begin hunting. But I find myself reaching for the 20 for ruffed and sharptail grouse hunts. It carries easily all day long. It's easy to swing. It ejects empties dependably.
Of course, the reason I take satisfaction in using it is that Dad once carried it doing something he loved and something he taught me to do.
Sometimes, walking a north woods tote road or some Montana prairie, I find myself thinking about Dad and the old gun. I can see him in his canvas hunting pants and his faded L.L. Bean hunting coat, working some hedgerow with his buddy Doc Stone. Chico, Dad's pointer, and Jane, Doc Stone's, would be ranging far ahead.
There were birds in those days, lots of them. Big coveys that exploded off the dogs' staunch points. The singles would disperse in lighter cover and allow the dogs to work them up one at a time.
I don't think Dad was ever happier than when he was afield with Doc Stone and their dogs. He shot well _ far better than I shoot now. When I was old enough to hunt, I'd get to accompany them. We would pack Thermoses of soup and make a pile of sandwiches, and if Chico didn't get into them first, we would eat tailgate lunches on sunny pull-outs along country roads.
A coming-of-age kid couldn't have asked for much better times with his dad. I didn't realize it then, but those days spent afield together cemented a kind of unspoken bond between us that would last his lifetime. These days, Dad's old 20-gauge carries a lot more than grouse loads.
I think I am not alone in this reverence for goods passed down from those we loved. My wife has an old denim jacket she wears once in a while for gardening or raking. It's tattered and mended on one sleeve, with a wool lining. It's far too big for her, and she has to roll up the sleeves a bit. But her dad had worn it on the farm where she grew up. On fall and winter days, he must have worn it while grinding feed for the cattle and throwing bales of alfalfa hay down from the hay loft.
I don't know what Phyllis thinks about when she wears that jacket, but I'm guessing that it takes her back to the smell of the chicken house, to the smooth idle of the old Farmall "H" that Joe drove and to the metallic clank of the lids on the hog feeders.
We are both a half-century removed from that time and those places. But it's good to have something that will take you back.
