HOM: More Bob

Bob's place became the place I stayed whenever I was in Washington. Lorena took me under her wing and fussed over me like I was one of her own kids, and Bob & I had a lot of quality time together. I had the kind of friendship with Bob that didn't require a lot of conversation, just being around him was fun. I hope the feelings were mutual. Bob had a few firearms I coveted, one of which was a Ruger Mini-14. I went over and spent the night at Bob's on my way to the Moscow gun show and when I was leaving the next morning Lorena handed me the keys to the house and told me that she & Bob were going camping but I could come back and spend the night at their place anyway. Bob spun around and plucked the keys away, saying to Lorena "Are you crazy? My Mini-14 is in there!" I'm still not sure if he was serious because the look on Lorena's face and her sputtering indignation at him had me laughing too hard to talk. (So I spent the weekend in Moscow sleeping in the topper. It was NOT a hardship. I had all the camping gear, water, and food I needed.) Bob got in on one of Lyn's unhappy moments when we were staying with them during the Spokane gun show and sleeping in a spare room in one of the hangers. I'd picked up a .300 Weatherby in trade at the show and brought it down to show Bob. Since I'd never fired one and he had some appropriate ammo we decided to try it out, and since it was raining hard Bob set the shooting bench up inside the hanger -- right outside the room Lyn was sleeping in. When I pulled the trigger, it touched off more than the round in the chamber: it ignited Lyn's temper. I was kinda glad Bob was there because she wasn't sure how to react when he started laughing at her and it threw her off stride, so to speak. I did hear a lot more about it later on -- I thought the episode was funnier than she did. TBC (Me) (Blacktail Books)