Sun's Out, Guns Out

One of my friends took me to a gun show yesterday. Not my first time, I've been to my share of questionable events, but certainly my first gun show since moving away from Texas years ago.
   I gotta say, I missed the atmosphere. Definitely not the Algonquin Round Table, but there is a certain poetry in hobbyists - gun nuts, right-wing crazies, call them what you will - indulging in their passion. I'd nearly forgotten how familiar an afternoon at the Joe and Harry Freeman Coliseum with the 'from my cold, dead hands' crowd can be.
   You have your cranky old coots... lots of them. And with them the intolerant bumper stickers, the grousing conversations about how the country isn't going the way Rush Limbaugh thinks it should, overheard remarks about prostates in various states of disrepair, etc. You have the rednecks looking for a good hunting rifle, you have the rednecks looking for a rocket launcher. You have the occassional black man. You have the 'not a gang member' young Hispanic guys trying to spot the undercover cops in the crowd and not realizing I can understand the bad Spanglish they're speaking. You have the for-real historical gun hobbyists, who know waaaaaaay too much about the provenance of the their WWI Browning rifles. And there's the patch guy, the ammo guy, the taxidermist, and - best of all - the candied pecan vendor.
   Along with the enormous pickup trucks in the parking lot, this was a really good welcome home. It'll make me think twice next time I decide to have tofu back in SoCal. Don't want to stray too far from my roots.