DEDICATION

I would be remiss if I did not thank Felicia, without whom I would not be the sane, happy, well-balanced and stable gun writer that I am. Some of the parts of my background before meeting her and getting into this gig should give you some idea of the less than normal career path I was on: radio disk jockey. At least before all the stations in the country became clones, and vassals of two or three conglomerates, being a DJ was being a gypsy. Repo man. The only thing more soul-deadening than repo man is working as a carny, and that I somehow escaped. Photo stringer as a freelancer. That career combines the rootless existence of DJ with the continued exposure to the worst in life that a repo man sees. Begin a gunsmith was a bright spot, but I immersed myself so deeply in that that I ended up burned-out from the grind.

And that’s just part of it. I don’t want to get too maudlin, but without Felicia I’d probably be a paparazzi in southern California, taking photos of down-and-out celebrities to keep from living in my car. Oh, and had I somehow become a successful gun writer without her, both you the reader and my Editor have much to thank her for. My writing was, shall we be kind and say, “quirky” before she finished the job my grade school teachers had started; she taught me to write.

Ah, the good life: work worth doing, the love of a good woman, standard poodles and port. You should be a tad envious.