The Last Stand of Fall

Start with apple pie.

Yes, I usually forgo sweets in the morning but I WILL relent for a piece of apple pie for breakfast.

The recipe is in the sidebar. Make sure you have a pastry cutter. I was watching this documentary about how the invention of the pastry cutter was what allowed Cro-Magnon man to surpass and eventually entirely supplant the Neanderthal in the chain of human evolution. Or it might have been greater linguistic competence, cultural sophistication and the Colt 45. I don’t know, I wasn't watching that closely. I was making pie.

But there's still the issue of lunch. Slow roasted pig with your favorite barbecue sauce is always good. (According to the Weight Watchers guide, dinner will now have to be a 3 inch piece of celery and one pinto bean).

Oh dang, there's that pie again.


Shooting burns calories right?

There's just something about the golds of Fall against the last green remnant of summer.

The burnished brass of leaves, the silver glint, an icy sheen, on a puddle deep in shade.

I love those last few days of Fall.

Afternoons with friends. A shot or two.


And evenings with an old friend and perhaps a another small shot.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend. Sleep well my friends.

Post Holiday Wish

Travel safe everyone. Click to enlarge, bonus points if you can name the airport.

Square Pegs, Round Holes.

A couple of readers have asked me what planes I have flown. A few, some of them small and nimble, some of them, not so much. Yet many of them, like my favorite side arms, are like old and dear friends.

In going through some old photos, there it was. The C-23A. It was stable, surprisingly fun to fly, given its ungainly appearance, almost like flying a REALLY big Super Cub, except in a crosswind. In a crosswind it was frankly a Son of a *#(#@. We didn't call it the flying billboard for nothing, and on gusty days it took a lot of muscle to keep the sort of pointy end forward.

It was where I first met Old NFO, when I flew him to an assignment at a base in the Bay area. I was just a kid, early 20's. He was older and handsome. I was too shy to say hello, he was smart enough to notice the red hair and take a seat way in the back. Years later we've crossed paths more than once on the internet and in professional conversations, still remembering those flights long ago.


People made fun of the Sherpa. You couldn't help it. It just invited ridicule. It looked like a shoe box with wings stuck on as an afterthought. The cockpit was wide, the cabin was HUGE, yet it could haul an amazing amount of stuff at an incredibly slow speed. Awesome! But it was the first ship I was a Commander on.

But we still suffered the indignity of the remarks. . . ."hey - ya build that yourself"? "Ma'am, can you take a lower altitude, you're just kind of a speed bump for the tankers behind you".

One day, coming out of the Bay area, my copilot spotted a couple of F-4-s on our wing. We were in an area of low altitude training, and weren't too concerned, but they were close enough we figured we had better ask the controller if he was working all of us. I asked "uh. . ya know what these F-4's are doing?" to which he replied "Oh, they're just looking for something big, slow and square to use as a target".

But it was a new role for me. It was the first airplane, outside of a trainer, where I looked into the mirror one morning, in uniform, proud of what I was doing, and for whom. I earned my stripes in the copilots seat, and to this moment, I remember the day I got my qualification for that left seat.

The airplane looms into view. I breathe deep, gathering courage, as I walk across the ramp to start the preflight. I knew I was prepared, but I was nervous. I don't know a pilot that takes a checkride that isn't. I stood there on the ramp and closed my eyes, praying I'd open them and it would be over and I'd be home, lying beneath a cozy roof under the long, slow sound of rain. But I open my eyes, and there it is., looking bigger, as if it somehow grew in the night. The inside of it was as dark as space, as if marooned somewhere in the cosmos, waiting to simply swallow me up in the big black hole of failure. My hands were damp, my uniform shirt stiff, and I knew I had to make that decision, to stride forward now and show that aircraft who was boss, or remain forever still. I stood, the small, motionless form of a young woman, a hesitation in cooling space, across which blew the dense oily smell of jet fuel, laying like cold smoke against my tongue, so thick I could taste it.

Calm down now. It's just a big box with little wings on it. You know her, you've flown her a whole bunch from the right seat. She's familiar. There, I spot the few familiar scratches on the paint; she's been brushed by more than one piece of ground equipment, though not seriously, and the faint scuffs are like small laugh lines as she waits in eager anticipation of the flight. This isn't a duel, this is an old friend.

The Check pilot greets me planeside, tall, and stony faced, with a stern "well, are you ready?" to which I reply "Yes, Sir" in a voice that sounded too light, too trivial, for what we were about to do, like a leaf falling into silence , without any weight. As we board, there is no sound left, but my carefully controlled breathing and the steady drilling of insects as afternoon deepens. As I buckle in the six point seatbelt, he looks at me intently, hands at his side, an alert rapacity about his eyes, his countenance one of a great stone statue of Easter Island, but without the warmth.

Fear trickles up along my sleeve. Some of it is from the checkride itself. My advancement in the ranks is riding the line this afternoon and no matter how much my friends tell me to relax, part of me is picturing the job I'll get if I don't pass this ride.

But some of the fear is the normal fear I feel every time I crawl on board an airplane. It's not a fear that I can't handle it, but more of the feeling we all have when entering a realm that man originally wasn't intended for. I think about screwing up. I think about dying; the feeling of immortality that is the luxury of youth long having left me as I took on responsibilities not meant for children.

But I am not afraid of dying, and I know that with the training training and some of the best mechanics in service, I am not going to die today. The fuel truck drives away and I know that I will see him tomorrow, and the day after, as I am ready for my command

Being in command isn't about being a good "stick" as the pilots say. It's not about the uniform or a confident ego. Being in command is about responsibility. As good as you may be, it can't be found in those days spent in the right seat. There, the responsibility just haunts the edges of your subconscious. You think. . "Oh I could do it, no big deal". Then the day comes and you're in the left seat. And the weight of what's on your shoulders suddenly hits you. It's a different way of looking at things, just as the panel you've stared at for years looks completely different; how you look at everything around you looks different as well. Every mistake, every decision, every delay, it all boils down to you, and despite the best or the worst copilot in the world; make the wrong choice, and you'll be lucky to be alive to do the carpet dance in the office of someone with a lot more shiny stuff on their uniform than you do.


I was always told as a copilot that if I needed anything, if I needed to learn, to grow, or I simply needed help, then I had no further to look then to my left. Then suddenly, there I was in training in the left seat, and when I looked to my port side, when things were going to hell in a hand basket, all I saw was a reflection. Mine.

That visage stares back at me as we finished the last single engine approach into base. At this point, after two plus hours aloft, I knew that I had passed. The exhilaration was such as I had only experienced at one time in my life, when I was rafting down an Oregon river and my single man raft flipped and I was trapped underneath the rushing water, bumping against rocks much bigger than I was. Many things could panic me - bills, dirty diapers, the mystery burrito at the quickie mart; but being upside down, under water in the cold and fading light, did not. If there was panic there, it quickly trailed on behind me in the water and I simply pushed my little raft off of me, grabbed onto a rock and pulled myself up as hard as I could. To dancing light, to precious air, and water that calmed down to quiet pools further downstream, crickets chirping in encouragement.

Here then, years later, the same feeling of just being alive flowed through me as the the gear was lowered and we too headed down into the quiet pool that was the airport. Had the Pratt and Whitney's not been making so much noise, I might have heard the crickets hum alongside the runway as we headed into open sunlight.


I had not panicked, I had held my ground and my seat, mustered my strength and pulled myself back out into the light. As we exited the overcast, flaps going to full, I glanced at the reflection in the left window. All I could see in the brightness of sunlight was the smile of a new pilot in command, the voice of the controllers, the soundtrack of the best adventure I'd ever had.The airplane is just at the edge of my field of vision. . . . . where I leave her back on the flight line where we started, checkride over, battered flight bag in hand; sweat drying on the back of my neck. I've stepped out of one seat, one world, into another and as the Check Pilot finally grinned at me and other pilots stopped by to shake my hand, I felt it welcoming me.

People still made fun of it, but it served us well. I remember just cruising along over the Tahachapies on the way to the Los Angeles basin, gazing at the new fallen snow, not all that far below us, as we coaxed everything we could out of the engines to climb a wee bit higher, like salmon fighting their way upstream, then basking in the air as the whole of the lower state came into our huge windshield. I remember sliding open the big cockpit doors after a flight, and after a particular good landing, just to see the "deer in headlights" stunned look on the guys in the back when they realized their Captain was a young redhead with a ponytail. I remember those crews, and the friendships we formed from it.

When I left the airplane for the last time, as I was leaving to go train to fly a swept wing jet, it was a rare gully wash of a downpour, big drops that somehow were being blown down off afternoon thunderstorms. It was falling heavily enough that there was almost a cotton stuffed in my ears sense to my hearing, and I could barely hear the voices of those around me, I can barely see the visage of the "motor home with wings", through the rain. I was moving on to much bigger and better things, pressurization, speed, jet engines, the lack of people snickering and pointing.

But I was also leaving something that meant something to me, the place where I first realized that courage sometimes comes with a price and responsibility has to be earned. It was probably the slowest, ugliest airplane on the ramp, but it was reliable, honest, trustworthy. It had no artifice or hidden agendas, just like the best friend you would want to have. So I blinked hard that day I flew it for the last time, so no one would give me grief about "acting like a girl". I simply gave it a crisp salute and turned slowly away, one last look over my shoulder at the big square outline of it, and in it, all that were my first years of earning my stripes, the form and weight of it, through the heavy rain, soon to be memory.

Your Morning Choice

Get up before dawn for Black Friday shopping?

Or sleep in and have some homemade croissants?

click to enlarge, have napkin handy

I thought so.

Home for the Holidays

My family has often gathered in different homes in different years. Some years we would have Thanksgiving and Christmas at Dad's. Sometimes they would go to my step mom's sister's house with an invite for us. With the children all in military or squirrel service of some sort in our younger days, getting together each holiday was not always possible, but there was always a home to go to. This year is different. With Mom gone this summer, Dad didn't want to be at the house with the emptiness, so he was delivered by a brother up to my favorite cousin Liz, who has a log home way up in Sierras, with land, horses, tools and an open view. Her Dad, my Uncle G., died in a fishing boat accident when we were in college, so she and Dad are really close. For that time for them, that peace for him, I'm deeply grateful.

Going home is always different for people. Some have parents already gone, and there is no childhood home. Others have memories that are painful. I am lucky. My memories of childhood are good. Laughter and exploration wrapped in an warm blanket of sight and sound and tastes that are still on my tongue. Memories of the past are like that, often having that impossible quality of perfection we often give to materials things, a favorite book, a favorite gun, sometimes to a whole relationship we can never get back to.


If we could only get there again, have that again, shoot that again, hold them again, our life would be somehow better, as if some cold case crime was finally solved, and the events that dragged us into a dark alleyway in life, are behind bars, never to bother us again.

We've all talked about it. I have often written about it, some small trivial thing of the past that appear to contain the sublime and there's no explaining it to everyone as much as you try. Still in your minds eye it's there, and will always be. Clear and as sure as if it were yesterday. That perfect day. For me it was simply the holidays.

My family never had a Thanksgiving feast for twenty people with Martha Stewart decor. We'd gather and all help in the preparation. Turkey, perhaps from the forest, not the freezer, sweet potatoes and pie, homemade bread and green beans. Though my Mom would make this green Norwegian jello dish that can best be described as a mayonnaise-based science experiment gone bad, but it was tradition. It was HOME. At Christmas, we never partook of the great debauchery of glut that crowds a home with paper trash and moments of surprise that pass like some race car past a stand; a streak of color, a exclamation of sound. Then gone so fast, leaving only a smell of something in the air that is burnt and past saving. Our Christmas was never like that, mine still aren't. They are slow, old-fashioned and savored. Their memory always haunts the edges of a busy, busy life.


Meals at Christmas were not a theatrical production, but elegant. Nothing that took all day, as it was a holiday for my Mom as well. Never something out of a can. Growing up in the depression, Mom learned to make up a delicious meal out of almost nothing left in the fridge. To this day, I still prefer a meal made myself, even if it's an apple and sharp cheese and a small dish of pickles, to something fast food-like, believing that the only creatures that should eat something tossed at them out of a window are seagulls.

Christmas day was special. We'd start with a breakfast of Bear claws from the local Scandanavian bakery and coffee. Well the adults anyway, for them, as myself now, coffee was a food, not a drink. I always begged for some, because that wise looking man on the Christmas-y looking red Hills Brothers can, brightly colored and studded with little stars, always looked so happy and full of knowledge as he drank from the coffee bowl. The decided grown up act of the Christmas coffee consumption and the robed man with his deep drinking pleasure was likely the reason my parents lingered over the table, whispering the quiet whispers of long lovers, while we snorted and charged around them, playing soldier and spy with our new toys.

Lunch was Lefse in which was wrapped meats and cheeses with the ever present plate of cookies. Something to hold us through the afternoon of board games and music, perhaps carols I'd play on the piano. We'd have sung, but my family all bore the same family voice - all volume, no tone. So they would listen as I simply played and with the notes of that old piano resonating in us, we'd build the fire. Then, when the fire was blazing and the light outside began to fade, we would sit quietly and spend the rest of the late afternoon watching the Grinch or perhaps White Christmas and read books we'd all received, while Mom would put the dinner together. It's the dinner that I will still make, even if just for myself and a couple of friends who have no family in town.


Roast beef with gravy, green beans with lemon butter, mashed potatoes and a old fashioned "bun warmer" full of homemade cloverleaf rolls. The smell would lead us into the kitchen like horses from the range, my siblings and I would chomp at the bit while Mom put it all together, placated with a slice of dill pickle or an olive from the ever present relish tray.

When the meal began after a moment of Grace, words spoken for those serving far away, it was a silent flurry of roasted meat, the creamy blanket of potatoes, and perfuming us all, the deep seated comfort of garlic. The meal would last until every last morsel was taken. It seemed as if we could eat endlessly, as if we'd had some successful inoculation at lunch time and could consume not only two plates of food, but more cookies. My youngest brother and I would help my Mom clean up as they gathered around the table for one last cup of coffee

As we bustled about, washing up and blowing bubbles at each other with the dish soap, we could hear the older members of the family, the laughter, and the comfort of a family together for a holiday. As we finished, I went to pick up from the table the can of coffee with the little man and the stars. But instead, I sat down beside it, full to bursting and worn out from a day of enchantment, lay my head on the table and my eyes drifted shut. Whatever laughter there was, there was, whatever deep worries my parents may have had about life, about a family member fighting in Vietnam, were outside our door. Now it was Christmas and there was something deep and starry in the kitchen. Simply moving the can to one side, I lay my head down beside it, nestled into my folded arms, stomach full, warm, happy safe. Despite my very young age, I knew that whatever happened to my family in the coming days, I could live for the rest of my life on this measureless family security.

Tonight, a cup of coffee and of an acoustic guitar playing the first strains of Christmas music brings that all back in small ways, as I gather those I love near me in spirit and thought, the smell of good coffee awakening something in me .

I will not be "home for the holidays", but I will be home in spirit, with a day off to rest, with conversations with loved ones. Not family by blood, but family all the same, with that same tangible connection, silent invisible, like the draw of a bright flame that doesn't need immediate presence to warm you. Simple, loving human contact. Laughter with like minds and spirits. For the holidays are not simply about being "home" to a childhood memory, that for me and many others, does not exist any more. It's not about who or what have at your table, but what you have in your heart. It's more than the faith that you actively practice, or the faith that sits in quiet silence, waiting. It's sometime else, a connection to our friends and children, to the one who quietly loves us, to our creator who gave us a wonderful gift. It's a visceral reminder that we are all connected, we are all worthy of love.

We can't all go home for the holidays but we can all let in a little bit of that old fashioned holiday spirit. Let in that feeling of succumbing to something that laps at the edge of your life all year long, something that will wear away the hard edges of stress, so for a moment, you can be a child again.

Tonight, as the light seeps out the sky, the Range up for sale, my family changed in ways we didn't expect quite yet, a momentary longing of homesickness welled up in me and threatened to spill over. I just stopped, and for a moment my world was still. I looked at the photos around me, friends, family, Barkley. I look out onto the frost twinkling on the ground like tiny lights in the sun and breathe in deep the beautiful world around and my homesickness disappears like tears melting into snowflakes. I realize that, just as love is not a lover, being with your relatives at home does not make it a Holiday. For the love that we expect to gather round us on these special days is there all of the time. It is a smile, a laugh, a certain special way of being alive. It is an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness that seeps into the broken spaces in our spirit like fresh fallen snow, making us whole.

Deer Camp Culinary Creations

Are you headed out to deer camp and need something tasty for supper? Here's an idea from the HOTR hunting trip archives.

It won't win you any photography awards, coming out of the oven in the casserole dish it was about as attractive as. . . . . . . ? (you pick)

(1) Roast Spamalope

(2) The Webley & Scott Mk. IV .38 (making Glocks look gorgeous since 1887).


(3) The Florida Wild Boar or your ex spouse (often mistaken for one another in the wild)

But how about a casserole? I'm half Norwegian so we don't call it casserole. It is known as "hot dish" and has been a part of my life since childhood. What IS a hot dish, you ask? In a nutshell, in its pure form, it's the bastardized offspring of a can of cream of mushroom soup and leftovers.

But sometimes I get a little creative, especially in looking for something I can make at Deer Camp .

Camp Creole Casserole (recipe in the right sidebar). It's an adaption of a recipe I found in a Taste of Home Church Supper cookbook with some HOTR touches. All you need is some dehydrated beans and rice, Cajun seasonings, hominy, corn and some pickled jalapeno, cheese, meat and look, there's a bag of Fritos the squirrels didn't run off with for the topping. With a dutch oven you can cook this right over a camp fire. (and you know, it's prettier after dark, and a couple of beers. . . . . just saying).


But it was really TASTY and if you click to enlarge the picture I bet you will drool just a little bit. Best of all it's inexpensive and can be made easily over a campfire or at home. Plus no cans of Cream of Mushroom soup lost their lives for it.

Yes, those are big chunks of diced smoked ham and sausage in there, no Spam allowed.

Before there was Mythbusters

There was Red Green.

"If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."

"If it ain't broke, then you're not trying hard enough."

"If it works, don't lend it."

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati.
(When all else fails, play dead.)

"If at first you don't succeed, then use more duct tape."

"It's a million dollar idea that you can make out of a $40 car."

(Red is trying to get Glenn Braxton to guess the word "work")
Red: "After breakfast, you say to your wife, 'See you later, I'm going to...'"
Glenn: "Lie down."

"Oh God, what man has put together, let no pot hole rend assuner. Amen."

"Lower your expectations, and live a happier life"

"Remember, you may have to grow old, but you don't have to mature."

"One of the things that changes as you get older is your attitude towards parties. That's because after you've been married for a while, you realize that men and women have totally different approaches to them. The woman wants to know who's coming to the party. The man just wants to know who's bringing the beer. The woman cleans up whatever is lying around the home so the guests will think she keeps a neat house. The man actually leaves tools lying around the home so the guests will help build a deck. The woman wants to know what's going on with everybody. The man avoids that information. It's safer. It prevents him from blurting out something he's not supposed to know in front of someone who's not supposed to hear it, especially if that someone is carrying one of the tools I mentioned earlier."

To teenagers:
"If you want to dress like a sack of potatoes, wait until you look like one."

Duct tape is like the force, it has a light side, a dark side and it holds the universe together.

If life gives you lemons, throw 'em into a quart of vodka.

And finally:

THE MAN'S PRAYER: "I'm a man...But I can change...If I have to...I guess."

Lagniappe. 2001-2010.

Lagniappes Lair

Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains
of one
Who possessed Beauty
Without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man
Without his Vices.

When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below.
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master's own,
Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth --
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power --
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on -- it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one -- and here he lies.

- Lord Byron

Smith and Wesson M & P

The Smith and Wesson M+P9c. For a new shooter, or anyone, male or female, considering something to carry concealed for the first time, it's a nice alternative to the G-22 and has less recoil due to a low bore axis. Like the G-22 it will stay tight and accurate, but even more so, necessary if you're using it for self defense.

This is a review that's got a lot of attention. Almost as much as my recipe for Guinness cake. There are a couple of features that make it worth a look at for anyone looking for a nice concealed piece. Something going for it that is gaining favor in law enforcement work. It has replaceable backstraps for the grip, and comes with three different sizes. I have pretty big hands, though they're small boned, and the "small" is too small but would be perfect for the average sized female shooter. Get your dealer to let you try all three, see which one works best. If you found the smaller G22 backstrap did NOT fit your smaller hand, this one will.

These can be replaced in moments, and chosen to suit the hand size and comfort of the shooter. Here it is with the backstrap removed to show you how easy it is. Twist and turn one part of the grip base, pull it down and pull off the backstrap and there you go.

Law Enforcement departments like this feature as one model of pistol can be tweaked to fit many hands, and female officers appreciate being able to change grip size to suit their smaller hands.

The weapon is easy to clean as well. The sear must be released before the slide can be taken off. S + W built the M + P so the sear could be deactivated by moving a lever in the magazine well. Other guns of such similir action types including the trusty Glock require you pull the trigger for disassembly. I probably need not remind my readers, that the most basic step before disassembling a gun is to ensure it is completely unloaded INCLUDING A CHAMBER CHECK. In any event, the M+P9c can be disassembled without pulling the trigger, a nice feature. S + W also went ahead and built in a tool to do this, the lock rod for the replaceable backstrap is just right to reach in and move the sear deactivation lever. Release the slide, and it comes right off the frame. Easy as can be.

Like all firearms, the M+P should be cleaned before it's first use. Like all auto pistols, it benefits greatly from an initial cleaning and lubrication. Since much of the trigger mechanism is exposed by a simple field stripping, its a great time to apply a light lubricant.

The compact pistol comes in 9mm, .40, and .357 sig (a fairly hot round).In either case I would suggest the 9mm version for the lighter recoil and less expensive practice.

The trigger is quite workable, cupping the finger nicely, with a manageable 6.5 pounds of trigger pull. Out of the box, the trigger isn't perfect, slightly better than the Glock, but like the Glock, smoothing out even more after about 250 rounds through it.

Like a Glock, the S+W M+P has no external safeties (except some of the full size .45 models).

The concept is simple - if there is a round in the chamber and the trigger is deliberately pulled, it will fire.

Don't want it to go off? Don't pull the trigger.

It's much like a revolver in this way, only easier to shoot well and holds 13 rounds of hot 9mm in its 9c compact form. I wouldn't promote this for a concealed choice someone who had limited or no shooting experience. This is neither a huge power tool or a bucking bronco but I wouldn't recommend it as concealed if you don't have basic shooting safety down cold. If you shoot often enough to develop really solid handling habits, the lack of external safeties and light pull double action should not deter you. All guns you have access to, you need to be practiced with, but this piece requires enough practice to be ready to use it without hesitation. This is a handgun designed with an experienced shooter in mind but frankly, the trigger safety system on the M + P is great and less likely to have an accidental discharge than other smaller weapons you may have looked at.

I had a discussion with someone about the lack of safety and I brought up one point. I'm considered a bit of an expert in human factors engineering (and some forensic things) by trade, and I can tell you this. When all starts going to hell in a handbasket, the first thing to go is fine motor skills. The mental coding repetitive training offers is what keeps one alive.Frankly, I DON'T want to be fumbling for a safety when being rushed by a home invader twice my size. I want to release my weapon aim and pull. Period.

Factory sights are good with a sight length of just less than 6 inches and the weapon unloaded weights a mere 21.7 ounces. My little bag full of assorted flavored lip gloss weighs more than that.


Holster options are comparable with Glocks, in other words... folks -anything goes! Blackhawk does not make a Serpa for the 9mm compact yet. I have one of theirs for my P220 and like it a lot, but almost anything else is available. If you are looking for a concealment purse or bag, there are lots out there, many incredible overpriced. Make sure whatever bag you use for this gun, that it has an internal holster. I would never recommend this pistol for bag carry with a round in the chamber, otherwise. If there is a round in the chamber, the trigger needs to be covered for safety. My carry bag has a minimal holster inside it that wraps around the trigger guard area and protects it.

It's rugged, not just pretty in pink. Stainless construction coupled with Melonite should make for a rugged carry in the long run. Gunsmithing, if ever necessary is readily available and spare parts are available from Brownells and others.


But like chocolate cake - with the calories, there is one drawback to this fine piece, one someone has already commented on.

The magazine has been known to "drop out" when in use. Yes, you get good action going, things are tight and grouped well, and the magazine falls out. Ladies, you know what I'm getting at here. This is NOT someplace you want to be. Preliminary research suggest somewhere over 15% of the older M + P compacts had this issue and Smith and Wesson redesigned it several times without any great joy until this last year. The one I shoot has never done this, but it did drop out while in the holster. Not good for a law enforcement weapon. Not good for self defense. Any semi-auto can have that happen, a good reason to always carry a spare magazine, but this particular magazine had it happen more than others.

The problem appeared to be threefold.

• The catch has a very small engagement area with the magazine.
  
• The metal of the magazine is harder than the catch, and it was a sharp edge that was being engaged.


• The spring which holds the catch engaged is a torsion bar and could be stronger.

Smith and Wesson's answer was to make the new catches with some kind of coating which resists wear. It seems to do the trick. I believe the new design catch has been standard for about a year and all M + P pistols come with it.

Don't let this put you off this fine piece. If you are buying a used one, and can't ascertain if it's been updated Smith and Wesson WILL provide a new magazine catch. (or if you're really handy with tiny elfin type tools and Scottish with the "thrifty" gene as some of us are, you can also make a small nylon spacer tube to strengthen the torsion bar spring and increase tension on the magazine catch).

S + W Customer Support is great, even if they don't get too wordy in their responses. The fix for the Home on the Range weapon was a thin coating of something dark and mysterious. It's pretty thin, the steel shows through. There doesn't seem to be any other change - engagement tension feels the same, release distance still measures a hair over .030".


Hundreds of rounds later, there has been no evidence of any further problem and others I know who had the same fix, report the same. I would not let it scare you off this piece and frankly, it's one of the best concealed weapons out there for the price. If you are looking for a tight, designed for the pro's but simple enough for the average law abiding citizen, weapon - this is it. People that own them, wouldn't trade them.

I'm not really a "pretty in pink" type of gal, but I agree that this is a fine offering in the concealed department.


Be it a piece of paper tacked to a tree 30 feet away, or a bad guy that a .22 is only going to piss off, this is one of several good choices if you are in the market. Not a bad grouping for "from the hip" with a 3 and a half inch barrel. (and no, it shot neither high nor low, there needed to be a blank spot on the paper on one end to pose the gun :)


Self defense with the M+P9c. A Piece of Cake.

Notes From the Road

"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is." - Winston Churchill"

I've learned that some people can't grasp the truth of the world until they are willing to know themselves. And knowing yourself is a lifelong process, with your biggest lessons often emerging from your biggest mistakes. Truth about the nature of man and the world isn't always pleasant, some things we don't want to know - where our tax money goes, how many calories there are in an apple fritter. What all that beer in college did to our liver. Whether that person really loves us or not. Some things we cannot bear to know. And that knowledge of some things, no matter how hurtful to ones' spirit, is absolutely essential to our well being, for only with truth do we have the resilience, the capacity to continue on, alive in the moment, unbound by shame or regret.

In disaster, the nature of truth, and how we face it, asserts itself.

Those who take charge do, those who choose to hide from things do, be it disaster, heartbreak, the economy, crime or a terrorist attack. After 9-11, I had one acquaintance who refused to watch the news, heading out on a planned vacation and pretending it never happened. Another watched sitcom TV non stop, staying home from work with a bowl of popcorn. Both of these individuals were in denial, afraid to accept the truth.

I lost a colleague several years ago to cancer. He was fairly young and healthy up to diagnosis, a strapping man, with an exuberance for living that just radiated from him. The doctors felt a mass during a routine exam. It was already at late Stage 3. I used up my vacation days from work and tried to spend as much time as I could with him at the end, as he had no family around.

My memory of that time was simply of a hospital rooms' fluorescent light spilling in, a monitor beeping, the IV pump clicking. I could almost hear the whoosh of the pain medication pushing into his body - a duet with the dulcet tones of his labored breathing. Although my eyes were brimming with fatigue, they couldn't stay shut, for I was afraid that if my fingers failed to gently touch his skin, he'd leave us.

I couldn't remember if I had ever lived a day as long as that one, not when I buried a parent, not when I buried someone I'd hoped to spend a lifetime with. I wasn't his lover, just his friend. He'd been very much in love with someone, and she'd left him when he got sick. People asked why I, and a couple others who worked with him, stayed. For myself, I didn't stay because of duty or guilt. I stayed because I hoped, that had it been me, someone would have been by MY side if I had no one else there.

So by that hospital bed I stayed, with my only light that from medical equipment and that small beacon of faith in my heart. My priorities clear; this is where I wanted and needed to be. I fumbled from a half sleep, bleary and dreamless as an alarm clock beeped. Reaching over to shut it off as if it was time for one of those 4 am hotel wake up calls, I realized it was simply the sound of the IV pump. T. was awake and looking at me solemnly. ". . .am I going to die?" he asked quietly, his face turned towards me, waiting for some kind of answer, some kind of hope.

I forgot about my lack of sleep, the work piling up for me back in my office, as his question sucked me, awake with nerves raw, back into my body. What could I say? I wish I could have told him that no, he wasn't going to die, but I knew that wasn't the truth, and I knew he knew it as well. I knew that the question, though simple, was a drop of clear rain falling into a dark, deep lake.

Looking into his blue eyes I remembered the time someone told me something they thought I wanted to hear, even if it wasn't the truth and how it hurt when the truth was revealed, a painful moment like skin pulling away, exposing nerve endings to the cold. As T's question echoed in the room and the weight of the moment crushed against my heart, I spoke carefully and softly. "Yes - but you know where I'll be?" my question spilling another drop in the pool ."Where?" he said. "Right by your side", I replied.

I sit here tonight, exhausted from hours of travel, and a long day, a very long day ahead of me tomorrow. On the table by the computer is a small blue stone with a moose on it. Hundreds of miles away is a black stone just like it, held by my best friend, who would await that call that the mission for the day is over and I'm in my hotel room safe.

This is not quite the life I expected when I hung up my wings back in 96 for another four years of grad school and a return to service. But it's the life that fits what strengths I have. I've come home with brain matter on my shoes. I've come home with images a person should never see, playing in my head like a bad film, until sleep comes fitfully. Yet I come home with purpose. With resolution. I collect those moments of lives, of loved ones, in the minutes before they leave us. I collect what is left, carefully, gently and with reverence, cataloging the bare bones of all that is truly important, so that it doesn't happen again. Then I go back to an empty hotel room.

On that day years ago, while we watched our friend and coworker buried as taps played, I thought that truth is fierce and unrelenting. We cannot ignore it or change it, but we can change the way we live with it. The truth of 9-11 is that the world is a dangerous place and being politically correct to the point of ignoring the facts of who attacks us, while frisking a four year old from Des Moines, won't make it any better. But denying to the point that we do nothing, won't make it better either.

I finished at the Academy late summer of 2001 and September 11 was one of my first real "I'm actually trained" days on the job. Looking at the images on TV of Ground Zero, we sat, stunned, waiting travel orders while I tried to not let it out that my big brother worked at the Pentagon, there smoking on TV. There was no talk, just a breathing that bordered on keening, looking at one another, our team leader, with an alert, profound justice as though we had already seen through the flames to where we would be, the shape of the disaster of which we could not speak. That day was trial by fire.

On the day my friend passed, I experienced the same sense of still I felt on that terrible day. For there is something about a room in which someone has passed, that bears with it the same quality of a piece of ground in which many fled this earth, as though the air itself is speaking to us. It speaks to us in silent and profound significance, whispering its own truths. Around us there is only musing sound, as shadows hang aloft, as if from invisible wire, hovering above what remains for us to see. A place severed from the living, spectral shadow among that place of circumscribed desolation, filled with the voice of wasted lives and murmuring regret. There, only those left who will gather what remains, cataloging it for infinity.

It's not easy but we go into it with our eyes wide open, for that is truly the only safe ground to stand upon.The truth is that both attacks against what we believe in and dying are inescapable experiences of being human, as is our fear of them. But by facing those truths, we can step beyond them, we can be honest with ourselves and others about what we stand for, as individuals and as a nation, and what truly matters to us in our hearts. Only then are the lives we have made for ourselves truly our own.

Why I Don't Write Advice Columns

Dear Brigid:

I'm so upset I just don't know what to do. It started this morning. My husband asked me to take our favorite pistol and drop it off at the gunsmith. Apparently it had an issue with the hammer falling to halfcock when he took it to the range last week and he wanted to have someone look at it. I said I'd drop it off on my way to work and he could pick it up later.

I took his truck as mine needed gas and the stop at the gun shop would add time to my commute. I didn't think he'd mind. On the drive I dropped my cellphone. At a stop light, I reached underneath the seat looking for it. I found a smaller sized pair of women's pink thong panties. Oh Brigid, They weren't MINE!

I'm only 36, we've been married 17 years, no kids. I thought maybe it was the weight I put on or the fact we've been together since high school and he was bored.

Oh Brigid, how did this happen? I don't know what to do.

Please help me.

Troubled in Toledo


Dear Troubled:

First, I am so sorry.

But there are several reasons your gun may fall to halfcock. The sear/hammer surfaces could we worn, and you might have to re-cut/sear/hammer bearing surfaces. The disconnector might be binding - just remove any debris that might be causing this, making sure there is enough pressure on the middle finger of sear spring. The sear spring or the overtravel might just need a little readjustment.

Lastly, check your safety - with empty gun cock hammer, engage the safety, pull the trigger (the hammer shouldn't' more or fall) and disengage safety (hammer should not move). If it fails this test I have to tell you girl, get it fixed immediately.

Trust me, I understand your distress, your gun is a finely tuned, precision instrument that is comprised of numerous components designed to function in one precise way. When it doesn't, it is very upsetting. If these diagnostic activities don't help, you DO need to see a competent gunsmith to make the necessary repairs.

I hope this helps.

Brigid

Quote of the Week

"You cannot build character and courage by

taking away a man's initiative and independence."
Abraham Lincoln