The other old shotgun I picked up at the Lachute gun show this past weekend was a remarkably well preserved H W Cooey model 84. The bluing is mostly there, with some nice case coloring on the receiver. Bubba varnished the stock sometime way back and it is peeling where it may have had scotch tape on it at one time or another. It is as Canadian as it gets. From a time when we made things. Here. In Ontario!
I can close my eyes holding it, and go to a time when there were no Tim Hortons or cell phones. I can smell the coffee brewing in an old camp coffee pot. I can smell Export cigarettes and pipe tobacco in the cool morning air. Leaded gasoline is cheap and car batteries are still 6 volts. Wipers are vacuum operated. We used to make things in Cobourg Ontario with fire and steel and wood. We employed good people with families who made these guns. I have a piece of Canadian history. The seller has four twenty dollar bills that are likely already spent. No wonder he looked a little sad as he let it go.........
I can close my eyes holding it, and go to a time when there were no Tim Hortons or cell phones. I can smell the coffee brewing in an old camp coffee pot. I can smell Export cigarettes and pipe tobacco in the cool morning air. Leaded gasoline is cheap and car batteries are still 6 volts. Wipers are vacuum operated. We used to make things in Cobourg Ontario with fire and steel and wood. We employed good people with families who made these guns. I have a piece of Canadian history. The seller has four twenty dollar bills that are likely already spent. No wonder he looked a little sad as he let it go.........
