May 26, 2017 – Unusual knowledge for a new secretary

        Yesterday I blogged about hearing gun shots and I am sure I piqued your curiosity about me being on a pistol team when I was a single woman.

        The gun club was only a couple miles from my home and my boyfriend at the time was big into pistol shooting.  I caught the bug quickly after I had the unique opportunity of actually shooting a Thompson Machine gun.  That was fun . . . rat, tat, tat, tat!

        I had to get a firearm license before I bought my first handgun, a used .22 target pistol.  I remember the night I proudly brought it home and plunked it on the kitchen table to show my parents.  I opened the case, cleared it of the cartridge and set it out for their review.

        “I thought we’d got past this with the boys, but I never expected my girl to buy a gun!” My Mom exclaimed. [My Dad didn’t own any guns and I had two older brothers who had never gone hunting and my father didn’t go hunting – so this was a surprise to both of my parents.]

        My Dad, a Purple Heart decorated veteran of World War II, didn’t have much to say and he didn’t even pick it up to look it over.  He told me my Uncle Willie might be impressed as he was the head of a nearby gun club which was news to me.

        The reason I got the target pistol was for competition.  I practiced diligently and that year I aced the women’s competition because the other gals were lazy and not practicing.  If they’d know I was in the wings, they’d have practiced more.  As I was one of the winners, I was invited to Uncle Willie’s range for advanced competition.

        My Uncle Willie was impressed when we meet and how I cleared the pistol, put it on safety and set it out for him to look at.  He liked the way I had done it correctly and vocally pointed that out to other team members.  He wished me luck, but I wasn’t naïve – his gun club had fine women shooters and I didn’t make the cut. But, it was an experience.

        Memories flooded over me after yesterday’s Blog . . .

At my first job – my pistol packing experience came in handy and made a big impression on my first boss.

        The day after high school I started my first secretarial job at Charles A. Perkins Company in Clinton, Massachusetts, a surveying and engineering firm.   Charlie died in 2007 at the ripe old age of 94, after an active life and career.   I worked for him in the early 1970s and at the time I didn’t know that all secretaries didn’t typed numbers [which is another story].  It was great experience for me and I honestly enjoyed most of the job. I have many fond and funny memories of Charlie and the guys at that surveying and engineering firm.

        One day Charlie asked me to look in his top desk draw for a screw driver in order to fix the back door latch to his office. He noticed I paused as I saw a handful of brass .32 caliber bullets.  I handed him the Phillip’s head screw driver which was directly behind them.

        “Do you know what they are?” He quizzed as he spurted out the words at the same time he clamped down on his ever-in-his-face pipe – lite or un-lite.

        “.32 caliber.” I answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

        He finished fixing the loose door knob while I sat patiently waiting for him to dictate some letters.  YES, the old fashioned way – he dictated and I took it down in shorthand on a pale green steno pad which rested on my crossed knees.  That was how it was done back in the 70s.

        When he sat down at his desk he looked at me carefully.

        “How’d you know?” He asked with a curious twinkle in his eye.

        “I’m on the pistol team . . . .” I said and he let me go into great detail.

        I could tell by the look on his face that he was impressed.  It was actually unusual for a young lady of that day and age to have a handgun license and be a member of a pistol team.

        “Just so you know, my .32 is in this drawer.”  He raised up the hand gun briefly and then put it back in its hiding place.

“It’s loaded – in case I need it.”  He cautioned.

From that moment on, I suddenly had a different caliber in his eyes.