Let Me Call You Sweetheart

I have been a gun guy and a history buff for all my life, and over the years I have owned more guns than I can count. My first gun was an old Stevens Favorite trapdoor single shot .22 rifle I got when I was about eight years old. I got my first handgun, a worn out old single-action .45 Colt revolver when I was about twelve years old. It was a very different world back then. And yes, I even own a couple of those nasty AR-15s that people in the media call assault rifles. But don’t worry, I just checked and they are still locked in my safe and have not assaulted anybody.

Since I got that first gun I have seen and fired literally thousands of different kinds of firearms in my time, from tiny .22 derringers to machineguns. Once, during my time as a firearms instructor at the US Military Academy at West Point, a buddy of mine and I wrangled an assignment to catalog all of the guns in the Army Museum.

That was probably the most fun I ever had in the Army. I got to play with a couple of handguns and a Thompson submachine gun owned by General Patton, a Walther .32 semiauto pistol that belonged to Adolf Hitler, a Colt .380 semiauto pistol that belonged to General Eisenhower during World War II, and even an old Colt single action cap and ball revolver carried by George Armstrong Custer during the Civil War.

We disassembled and inspected each gun, test fired it if it was safe to shoot, wrote an inventory number in yellow paint stick on the butt or grip, and an index card for each weapon. A few years ago Terry and I toured the Army Museum and some of the guns still have the catalog numbers I wrote on. I wrote about that in a blog post titled A Day At West Point.

So, it’s not often I see something firearms related that I have never seen or heard of. But recently I came across a unique bit of gun related history I never knew about before; Sweetheart Grips.

During World War II GIs, would use plexiglass from aircraft canopies to make grips for their .45 semiauto pistols and put their girlfriends’ pictures in them. I guess it was kind of like the Infantry’s version of the nose art on airplanes. How cool is that? In close to 50 years of hanging out at gun shops and gun shows, why have I never seen any of these? I found some reproductions on Amazon, but I would love to find an original set. You can learn more about Sweetheart Grips at this link.

Speaking of sweethearts, my cousin Beverly is a real sweetie, and for her birthday yesterday Terry had our dear friend Nancy Kissack make her this absolutely beautiful purple quilt, Beverly’s favorite color. Yeah, that Miss Terry and Nancy are sweeties, too!

Terry also made her a coconut cake for her birthday. Can you tell Beverly enjoyed her special day?

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of Midnight Moonrising by Kristie Haigwood. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening.

Thought For The Day – I’m not saying your perfume is too strong. I’m just saying the canary was alive before you got here.