Visiting Old Friends and "Making" New Ones

D and I made a trip down to Nashville, AR yesterday to visit N, a friend of ours from college. N has had a rough time of it in the last few months with a twice mis-diagnosed case of gangrene of all things. He came quite close to dying on us at one point. He's back at work now, though, and all seems to be progressing fairly well for him. He, D, and I all went out to the back couple of acres of N's property and spent about an hour and a half shooting. We really stunk it up out there. None of us has had much range time recently and it really shows.

N's son, E, was a little handful. He's at the point that he has full mobility and a (very) small vocabulary. He ran ninety to nothing the entire time we were around. Near the end of the evening, he really seemed to take a liking to me. At least, I think he did. He had a small toy drill that he kept poking me with. I told N that E would either be a great mechanic some day or a mass murderer, one of the two. N seemed to think it would be the latter.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear that N and Mrs. N intend to home-school E until he is old enough to figure out when a teacher or administrator is trying to push their own agenda rather than actually trying to help him learn. They intend to try to present opportunities such as museum visits, historical sights, practical applications of problems, etc. into his education. I think this is a great idea. I just hope they can handle the extra workload this will involve.

D and I went to the fun show today in L.R. I managed to find a Stag Arms stripped lower for $135. That might seem a little expensive compared to the $100 lower that I mentioned in one of my previous posts but after accounting for shipping and local FFL transfer fees, I actually came out a little ahead. D and I both picked up some magazines. The show was actually pretty good this time around with only two jerky booths and only one booth that had Nazi memorabilia. Unfortunately, there were three booths where the operators were sitting around and discharging stun guns to get passers-by attention. One fired one off as I was walking in front of him and I had to repress a sudden urge to take the device away from him and shove it down his throat. Being around a potentially lethal weapon that's in the process of being needlessly discharged in a crowded room makes me irritable for some reason.

Other than that, the only noteworthy addition was a young man who we saw several times around the show. He was decked out completely in woodland camo fatigues and desert tan boots. At first, he had some sort of pistol in a "tactical" holster on his belt. He later had what appeared to be an AR that had a belt-feed magazine underneath it. I looked at the barrel and did not see an orange marker to differentiate it as a toy gun but the more I think about it, the more I believe that he may have been an airsoft enthusiast. At least, I'm hoping he was. He just looked too ridiculous to be for real.