You asked for it

He lived 2 doors down from us. One of the little collections of homes on a major highway through the middle of the Mojave desert. We did everything together from before kindergarten to 4th grade. Motorcicles, mini-bikes, go karts, BB Guns and jack rabbits, church, and school until 4th grade. Dad gets new job, off to the beach we go until 8th grade and back to the desert. Now he's on the other side of town from us and different schools, contact was limited until we started driving. Late teens, "Have you still got that old 410?" he asks me. "I want to borrow it and go chukar hunting." No worries, bring it back when you're done. He must have hunted chukar for a year

. He even got married to the daughter of the minister of the church we attended as kids, she was smokin' hot

. I had started my apprenticeship and work was over the hill in LA. I ran into him at another buddy's music store on a Saturday, greetings and catching up for a while. "Hey, have you still got my 410? It's chukar season and I want to go blow up some birds." "Well, no

I think my wife sold it. We were short of cash and she wanted to get high

" "

That's ok, it was old, you can pay me back sometime, see ya later." Turns out his hot wife, the minister's daughter had a drug problem. Shortly after they fled the scene to Idahohoho.

Lesson 1.. Stay away from minister's daughters

Lesson 2 .. Keep the firearms nearby