1927 - 1935+

He was my Mother's father and he lived with my Grandma on a 160-acre farm east of Osborne. He was a big man with a burly mustache and a deep growly voice. He had a great chuckle -- I can hear it yet -- something like a John Deere tractor trying to get started. He was a big tease with all his grandchildren. We went to visit the farm every summer and at a few Christmas times. I recall asking my Dad once when I was quite small if he knew any giants. "Well," he answered, "your Grampa Galley is a giant." Of course.

I don't remember this story but my mother told me about it years later. As I said, Grampa was a big tease, words complete with little pokes and nudges. I must have been very young, but he was teasing me to the boiling point when I turned on him and said "GRAMPA! DAMN YOU!!" Grampa nearly rolled on the floor he laughed so hard. My parents were both chagrined, I'm sure, because they had taught us kids NEVER to use swear words. We couldn't even say "darn" or "Gosh". Can you believe that?! Even "doggone" was forbidden because it was merely a substitute for "G__ d___". Grampa thought it was completely hilarious that their little boy had any words like that in his vocabulary.

Grampa was addicted to chewing tobacco. It was always Beechnut and it came in a little packet that he kept in his left hip pocket. His body smelled like that tobacco and I loved the aroma. Well, one day when I was following Grampa around the bard yard, he took out a big chaw of those leaves and threw the empty bag off into a ditch. I snuck off over there and retrieved that bag, smelled that wonderful aroma in it and decided I'd try a leaf that was still in the bottom of the bag. I put that leaf on my tongue for a taste, and I couldn't get it out of my mouth fast enough. It was burning a hole right through my tongue, and the burning didn't go away for several minutes. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "Boy, my Grampa is something else! He can take a whole wad of that stuff and keep it in his mouth forever!" That's my hero, thought I.

I had been named after my two grandfathers: David Richard McGuire and Charles Elmer Galley. It turned out to be: David Charles. My paternal grandfather died back around 1908, so of course I never got to know him. My Dad talked about him occasionally but not a lot. His death was a terrible time in their family life. They lived on 160 acres and his Mother had had 14 children, 3 of whom died at birth or early childhood. I'm not sure what caused the death of David R. but it was appendicitis that took Dad's favorite brother at his age 23. Kosciosko, who was called our Uncle Kossy, was musical like Dad was and they were in the family household at the same time. He was a few years older.

My Grandfather McGuire had been a leader in his country church and was a member of the school board. He was a community-minded person and my Dad got most of his traits from him. Anyway, that grandfather was out of the picture as far as being a hero for me.

Grampa Galley was a flesh-and-blood hero, so when I got back to school that fall in the third grade, I changed my name to give greater honor to my idol: I became "David Charles Elmer McGuire"!! and that's how I signed all the papers I turned in to Miss Lohmeyer, my teacher. I heard no objections from my folks for the name change. As a matter of fact, Mama thought it was a neat idea.

My introduction to the weapon came one summer evening, just after dark, when we were visiting the farm. We were all in the old farmhouse when Grampa came in from the barnyard and announced, "Willis! (that was my Dad) Come on out here with me. I think there's a skunk getting into my chickens!" He did not yell -- I never heard him yell ever -- but he was moving a little faster than usual and I can see him now reaching up over the kitchen door to get the gun. He and Dad hurried out the kitchen door and I was going to follow to get in on the action. I was 9 or 10 then. Grampa turned and said, "You kids must stay in the house. We don't want anyone to get hurt!"

We couldn't follow them but we sure could keep our noses pressed into the screen of the kitchen door, waiting to hear the shot and watching out toward the chicken house.

In about 10 minutes they were back in the house reporting all was well. They did not see a skunk or anything but chickens. But they did get the door closed on the hen house so no predator would invade.

February 1987 (Scene change here): Katherine and I were on a post-retirement trip through KS and CO, and Osborne was one of the overnight stops. We visited the farm so Katherine could see it. My cousin Clyde Noffsinger had been operating the farm ever since Grampa died in about 1949. He took me on a tour of the old place and I recalled climbing in the hayloft, climbing up the silo, and seeing the chicken house. Then the shotgun "Moment of high excitement" came to memory. After telling Clyde the story, I asked innocently enough, "What ever happened to that old gun?"

He answered, "It's in the upstairs bedroom of the old house. Do you want it?"

(DO I WANT IT! I said to myself, barely able to contain my enthusiasm.) I calmly inquired, "Does anyone else want it?" I held my breath until he answered "No... It's yours." IT'S MINE!!

It was right where he said it was and I was glowing when it got into my hands. It hadn't been fired in years and the barrels were filled with wasp nests. It was a 12-gauge double-barrel with a "Genuine Damascus" set of barrels! Damascus steel was originally invented in the Holy Land centuries ago and was of super quality. That particular steel barrel was the best you could get for a shotgun in 1850.

On a trip later that year (1987), Katherine and I were in Toledo OH and in the City Library where we found information on the old gun. It had been made by the Colt Firearms Company in 1894 which was about the time Grampa and Grandma got married and moved from Ohio to Kansas for their lives on the farm. It was obvious that some of the parts, if not all, had been hand made. It came apart in three pieces and I had great sport cleaning it, preparing to show it off. A local authority warned me that it should not be fired ever again because the nature of the Damascus steel could not stand the pressure of today's shotgun shell loads.

The old gun now leans against our living room wall with a photo of Grampa and his family right above.