What DON'T you like about your carry gun?

KevinGibson,

Some of the other "EOF" here know that my FIRST center-fire handgun (My dad had given me a Colt's Woodsman for my 16th birthday.) was a PRE-WWII .38SPL revolver, with holster, Sam Browne belt, handcuffs, cuff-case, etc. for FORTY BUCKS with a 1/2 box of shells.
(I was in NOV 1965 a "red-hot 18YO rookie" Deputy Constable & my MOTHER had to buy my revolver/ammo for me, so that I could "start work". = I liked to have NEVER "lived that down", as I think that the owner of People's Hardware told EVERYBODY in the county about my mother riding the Greyhound bus to town, so that she could buy it.)

Btw, the Sheriff gave me a copy of the State Penal Code, a "sawed off" Parker 10gauge DB, "a tin star" & a county credit card (for gas, oil, tires, etc.), shook my hand, wished me LUCK and sent me out to enforce the law in Pct.3.
(In those long-ago days/DAZE, city/county officers had NO police academy to go to. - New LEO "learned by doing".)
I'm ashamed now to tell anyone about my "fumbling about" trying to enforce the law, as I had essentially NO HELP in that BIG but sparsely populated Pct. - I didn't even HAVE a "county 2-way radio" for nearly a year & carried a roll of dimes to call the SO for "back-up", from a pay-phone!!!!

Note: My "first real case" (I suspect that every LEO remembers their "first case".) was reported to me on my home phone about 0400 on 08NOV65. = It was the night-time theft of HALF of a "Winter pig" from a small farm "out on the Katy Road".
(Fwiw, I caught the 2 thugs "red-handed", arrested them, testified against them & they got 120 days "hoeing vegetables" on the prison farm, for "theft over 50.oo".)
My college-GF was a reporter on the local newspaper & you'd have thought that I was Sherlock Holmes from the "write up" that she got published that Friday!!!
(I never got "GOOD PRESS" like that ever again in 3 decades of "being pinned to a star". = CHUCKLE.)

yours, sw

KevinGibson; Skeptic49,

As a Deputy Constable (I wasn't old enough to be a Constable.) I got 2.10 a DAY as salary (I was then a college sophomore & FLAT BROKE.) & thought that I was RICH, when I got my first county check.
(I also made 2.50 an hour "moonlighting" at football & basketball games.)

At that time, Constables could design their own uniform & I was "so broke" that I usually wore a khaki work shirt, blue jeans, cowboy boots & a baseball cap. In the wintertime I usually wore an old Navy peacoat, that came from the Goodwill store.

Constables were NOT then allowed a county vehicle, so I drove my 1959 red/white Nash Metropolitan until the local Chief of Police "took pity on me" & "saw to it" that I could buy an old, green, "city unmarked" Plymouth Fury for 200.oo. He got the city treasurer to let me "pay it off" at 10 bucks a month. = My friends in/out of LE called it: "BIG UGLY".
(My "roomie" rigged-up a pair of 8" red lights & a siren under the grill, that came off a wrecked FD car. - A few months later, he also "acquired by somewhat irregular means" a "low band" GE MASTR II radio, that had 2 channels: 37.260/Inter-county & 37.380/Tac 1.)

Note to "City Kitties" & "Staties": In the rural Southland of the 1960s, my experiences as a "rookie" county officer were quite typical, as "make do" was common in departments that had NO money. = Over 170 square miles of "country" was "my beat" & working Pct. 3 allowed me to finish college. ======> NICE memories of my "mis-spent youth", too.

yours, sw

KevinGibson,

NOPE. Two-tone BRIGHT red over white roadster, with black/white "checked cloth" interior. = I paid 50 bucks for it in 1965, to drive to/from college in the town. = It ran fine but was slower than molasses, with NO emergency equipment or 2-way radio.

And strangely enough FEW people, "out in the county", seemed to care what I drove, after the former Constable died & wasn't replaced until I got "hired-on" several months later as "a deputy to nobody".
(I had graduated & was "overseas with the Army" for over a year before the county finally replaced the actual Constable.)
The "country folks" were just glad to have someone who would "show up", when they called for help.

In theory, I was "supervised by" a LT with the SO but I seldom ever even saw him or even talked to him by phone. = It was "just easier" to ignore the remote/poor part of the county and "let the kid take care of it".

For the first year, I spent most of my time "corralling" drunks, looking for prowlers, "getting livestock out of the road" & finding/returning strayed cows & horses. - I also served a lot of court papers.

yours, sw