I have, at least as of tonight. I decided to continue with my gun cleaning this evening, well after my one and only beer that I had with dinner hours before. So, I was not under he influence, nor was I feeling tired, or out of it, or confused, nor was I under any stress or anxiety - I just plumb forgot all about a gun I owned and was rather surprised, just a bit, when I reached into my gun vault and pulled it out. You see, I had just gone over, in my mind, all the guns I still had that needed cleaning and it was definitely not one that came to mind in that mental inventory. Even when I had it in hand, I did a bit of a double take, giving it another look and then for the briefest of moments wondered to myself: "Is that mine! " Virtually as soon as I had that thought, memory of it, how long I have had it, where and when I got it, flooded my neural pathways with what I can only call a refreshing spate of remembering. It was then and only then that I remembered yet another one I had not thought about in my minds accounting of the guns that yet needed to be cleaned. It is not as much that I absent mindedly forgot about owning the other one, it is more that it was one that was not worth much more than forgetting because it is pretty much a basket case. Funny coincidence, they are both shotguns. The first is a single barrel, single shot, New England Firearms 12 gauge Pardner - still a fairly decent and very useful gun. The second, the almost useless one (except maybe as a club or anchor) an Iver Johnson, Hercules grade, side by side shotgun. That one is probably better forgotten about, it is a piece of junk, most likely the product of some one's lack of proper maintenance and subsequent inept fiddling at trying to get it back to working condition.
I can easily understand how I would rather forget that second one and the mistake I made when I bought it. I bid on it at an auction. Shame on me, I thought it was another lot on which I was making the bid (or at lest thought this one was in better shape). Well, I bid on it, had the high bid and wound up paying for it and regretting it. As for the first one, that I forgot I owned, that New England Firearms 12 gauge Pardner, I got that at an auction too, run by the same auction house. It was not a bad deal. It was not what I thought I was bidding on, I got it confused, as I recall, with another of the same model and bid on the wrong lot.As it turned out, the one for which I had the winning bid was somewhat rusted on the barrel but otherwise was in good shape. I got it at a good price and cannot complain; so how in Hades did I forget I owned that one. I am guessing it was just a brain fart and nothing like Al Z. Heimer visiting me. he has not been around since several months after my chemo therapy back in 2011.
Okay, here I am writing about memory and about guns, listening to music on Pandora.com, and what song comes on but one of my all time favorites, by a sex goddess of my youth, Bang Bang (my baby Shot me Down) by Nancy Sinatra. I feel better, that song, her voice, me hearing it now in 2013, evoked memories of two sex goddesses of my youth. The first: Nancy Sinatra who sang that song in 1966 and of course it reminded me of Cher, another sex goddess of my youth (I was 10 or 11 depending on what time of the year that song was released) who first sang that song after it was written by her then husband Sony. Fuck Al Z. Heimer, he ain't got me yet even if I forgot, only momentarily, about two of my most recently purchased shotguns that I bought and shoved into the darkness of the my gun vault and the deeper recesses of my memory.
All the best,
Glenn B
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