Winter, Christmas, guns & a young lady in red

Back on November 30, you might recall, I ran a post entitled, "Seven, there were seven .... waiting for eight." The reference was to the number of revolvers pictured. Well, here is eight. I have had him for a while, but just got around to taking his photograph. He is a Smith & Wesson, like the others in the November 30 photograph; a Model 29-4, .44 magnum; another like the "Dirty Harry Callahan" revolvers, but with a short, three-inch barrel. This guy is twenty-eight years old and in what I would estimate to be ninety-seven percent "like new" condition. A handsome lad, is he not ?? He has been fired a bit, but never carried. More importantly, in a world where guns are manufactured in the multi-thousands and often in the millions, there are only 2,532 like him. He was a "special order/special run" for a distributor. The ring, incidentally, is my current left hand "pinky" ring; the shades have been around (like really around) and sort of qualify as memorabilia.

Some of the lyrics from
"Forever Young"
composed by Bernhard Lloyd, Frank Martens & Marian Gold

Let us die young or let us live forever
We don't have the power but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music's for the sad men

Can you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders we're getting in tune
The music's played by the madman

Is there any wonder why she lives in my mind?

Welcome to the first day of winter. It began at 4:44 a.m. for me. The weather told me winter actually had arrived a few days earlier. When I awoke last Sunday morning, a foot of snow was on the ground from accumulations the past few days and the thermometer read minus twenty (­-20) degrees Fahrenheit [minus twenty-nine (-29) Celsius]. I dislike everything about winter other than its beauty, but I cannot imagine living without it.

I really have nothing I wish to write -- to say -- but I wanted to mark the official beginning of winter and I wanted to publish the photograph of Smith & Wesson No. 8, as I said I would .... and, I guess, I wanted to say Merry Christmas.

 

The season is a battle for me. I have written here before, so you may have read here before, that I have not been inside a church since I was fourteen other than for weddings and funerals. Every Christmas, I think about going to a service sort of to relive and, maybe, to reawaken the religious spirit of Christmas I felt as a boy .... but, I never have made it yet. Never will, probably. It is not important, but it is bothersome.

My memories have been working overtime lately. Too much music from the past, possibly. Songs evoke memories and bring back people and places .... faces, especially. Like right now, the song, "Lady in Red," is playing. It brings back Sandy.

Sandy was a married girl who left her husband and moved in with me. Mind you, I did not ask her. We had a few "encounters." Then, in the middle of a summer night, she called me. She had been fighting with her husband. She asked me, in a whisper, to come and get her. I did. She ran from her house to my car wearing only a nightgown. She stayed with me that night .... and, the next day, the next week, the next .... 

I went downtown to a saloon one evening, leaving her behind. An hour or so later, the bar fell silent. Imagine the proverbial "little black dress," except in red. Sandy, in such a dress -- red and short and tight -- and wearing red, spike heels, was strolling down the length of the bar, looking for me. All eyes in the bar were on her when she spotted me and when she walked over to me and when she sat down on my lap and when she gave me a long, sweet kiss. Such a moment .... is there any wonder why she lives in my mind?

That was in August. I was a poor, college boy, too non-committal for her because finishing college was my priority at the time. She eventually moved in with a girlfriend, the person who originally had introduced us, and we saw each other a few times a week. Early in December she went back to her husband and they moved to California. The girlfriend who had introduced us talked her into it, I think .... going back to her husband, I mean. The girlfriend had her own "plans" for me .... I know.

Baby, this story came out of nowhere. Well, not exactly. It almost certainly would never have happened in this post had not the song, "Lady in Red," come up on my "classic rock" radio station .... and, and, and if I had not learned a bit about the characters in a novel entitled, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," by Milan Kundera, through reading a post on another blog a while ago. It got me thinking about "characters" in my life .... and, then, came the song playing on the radio.

This story is considerably longer and more complicated, of course. In fact, I just cut most of what I had written here from the post. One of the more "combative" elements occurred when Sandy's husband went after her in my proximity; two of the more "intriguing" elements involved me working for her mother at a resort and, much later, hoping to encounter her at the funeral of her father some years after our parting.

Sandra Kay H. was a magic girl, but magic never seems to last for me .... I still see her face clearly, smiling at me, pledging love that did not last .... an absolutely beautiful, blue-eyed, blonde girl personifying her German descent .... whatever .... so, now, back to the snow and the cold of winter and guns and classic rock and books and who knows what ....

One of those books probably will be ".... Lightness of Being." Kundera reportedly did not like the film version and said it did not do his book justice; so, I will skip the flick. I am curious, though, to learn if the novel's characters are more fascinating than my own ....

.... my own .... those who have mingled within my own reality .... hmmmm .... imagine that ....

Uffff .... "Lady in Black," just came on the radio and memories are stirring .... uffff ..... I am laughing .... no more thoughts this evening other than ....

.... Merry Christmas ....