Greetings, all

After reading the discussion about guns and the bear, I'll I could think of was the New Christie Minstrels' version of "The Preacher and the Bear" song. The preacher had a gun with him (on a Sunday, no less!) and although he was brave enough to shoot some undersized rodentry, dropped it and ran like some brainless bunny for the nearest cimmon tree (whatever a "cimmon" tree is I don't know) when he met the grizzly bear and tried the power of impassioned prayer instead. Like the preacher, I would also have abandoned gun and skedaddled, which only goes to show that it doesn't matter what kind of firepower you have, if you don't have the knowhow or fortitude to use it. Fortunately for Harrison Ford, Barbara BarBARa did.

Best regards,

Mary Armstrong

I'm puzzled by Mike R's comment about a 30-06 not being a shotgun. It isn't. But the script never says that it is:
"Shot that in Montana. Thirty-ought-six Remington. Just north of Glacier Park. Me and Harrison Ford the big sissy. The grizz came up suddenly — out of its den — we were on a narrow trail — a switchback — five-thousand feet up — sheer drop — it was March — there was a cold mist — suddenly this ten-foot bear looms up like a Mack Truck — and Harrison jumps behind me and I shot it — right in the eye. "

Where is the reference to a shotgun? I heard this show, and nothing sounded out of line to me.

Garrison - a further nudge on the thirty-AUGHT-six reference - "aught," not "ought." "Aught" means "zero, nary a one," and I ought to know, since I own one (distant antecedent: a thirty-aught-six, stay with me), and that's how my father's father wrote it back in aught-eight when he noted in his dairy (or is it diary?) that he traded two good mules for it - animals, not shoes.

Although my father actually used it, the aught-six, I keep it only as protection, since it's illegal to fire anything larger than a Zippo lighter here in Los Angeles. But I enjoy knowing it's handy on the rear of the top shelf of the bedroom closet well-hidden under some winter clothes (placed for display only), and in an emergency, such as a dastardly Canadian breaking in in the middle of the night in search of ice, I have mastered a plan:

Awakened by Rocky, our guard Rottweiler, I will quickly grope for my car keys and wallet in the dark, either on the nightstand or in the pocket of my pants hanging in the closet or tossed across a nearby chair; then using the bedsheets I'll lower myself out the bedroom window and down one flight next to the kitchen door.

I'll quietly let myself in the door, tiptoe down the stairs to the garage under the house, activate the garage door opener, fire up the Jaguar, and drive the few miles to the all night bakery and ammo store, where I'll purchase enough bullets to render harmless the intruder, speed back into the garage, up the stairs, out the kitchen door and up the bed sheet to the bedroom, get the bullets in the rifle and scare off the Loonie-pinching alien before he has time to figure out what's happening to him.

But wait, the only key to the kitchen door is hanging near the door INSIDE the house. Dad's big thirty-aught-six might not be useful in an emergency after all.

Maybe I need a handgun.