Two guns given as gifts leave lasting memories

The Christmas season is inseparably linked to giving and receiving gifts. Some of the most wonderful gifts I ever received were firearms. Not all of them were Christmas gifts but two of my most memorable guns were given to me as gifts.

For Christmas, when I was 8 years old, my parents gave me a Benjamin pump B-B gun. The Benjamin could be pumped-up until the compressed air shot the B-B at a high velocity. Most of the boys in our neighborhood had single-shot Benjamin’s.  Some shot B-B’s. Others shot .177 caliber lead pellets.  The pellet guns were more accurate than those that shot B-Bs. But my new gun was not a single-shot.  It was a 25 shot repeater. I could get off two or three shots to the one shot of my friends. It definitely gave me more "fire power."

Hundreds of English sparrows, rice birds and black birds went to their graves (or to the cat) because of my little gun. Often after school I would go “bird hunting” until dark. My love for hunting was developed as a little cotton-headed boy with that Benjamin.

My greatest fame as a boy of about 11 years old was the slaying of a giant "chicken hawk." All the hawks to us in those days were chicken hawks. It was probably a red-tailed hawk.

Across the highway from our home was a vacant subdivision that had never been developed. One Saturday morning I was hunting on the dirt streets that someday would be paved. On a telephone pole in the distance I spied the hawk.  A long sneak through tall Johnson grass brought me near the telephone pole. The hawk never saw me. I pumped the little Benjamin several strokes tighter than usual. Taking careful aim for the big body of the hawk I squeezed off a shot. The B-B struck the hawk right in the chest and he glided onto the Johnson grass, not yet dead but unable to fly. Two quick shots from my repeater sent him to hawk heaven.

My mother called our newspaper, the Groves Gazette, and a reported came to our house and took my picture with the big hawk. My picture with the hawk appeared on the front page of the paper. I was a hero, at least in my own eyes.  Today, they would put me (or my parents) in jail for killing a raptor. All raptors (hawks, kites, owls, etc) are federally protected today.  But in those days many people raised chickens in their backyards and “chicken hawks” were evil creatures.

I still have the little Benjamin. It is nearing 70 years old. Years ago I had the air chamber rebuilt and it still shoots hot. I can’t shoot it as good as in my kid days.  The gun is too short for me now, and my eyes are not so sharp. But it can still dispatch squirrels that try to steal my peaches.

At age 14, I received my grandfather’s shotgun. He died nine days before my 14th birthday and my grandmother gave me his gun as a gift. Granddad had retired from Texaco at age 65 and this Stevens model 311, 12 gauge double barrel was his retirement gift. He died at age 70 so the gun was almost new. The gun was special to me.

I used that Stevens double barrel from age 14 until I bought one of the new Remington 1100 gas operated semi-automatics at age 24. In 1965 those new Remington’s were the cat’s meow of American shotguns.

But I had always loved the double barrel. It was a little large for me at age 14. But I grew into it and became a great shot looking down those 2 barrels.

I carried the 311 many miles behind our squirrel dogs in the Big Thicket.  The barrels were choked modified and full. If a squirrel was getting out of range, that full choke barrel often knocked him down.

Today, I have moved far beyond the double barrel — at one time or another, owning Remington’s, Benellis, Brownings and Franchis. But if I still had that old Stevens 311 double in my hands I know I could shoot it well.