"clips of my marriage from 1954 to 2005. involving "Reloading from the beginning!
Met her at college in 1951...got married in (1954) Her favorite uncle gave me a 30/40 Krag so I could deer hunt in those Iowa River Bottom Counties while attending college and worked 3 part time jobs. She had three other uncles that each had their respective farms there in eastern Iowa.................some of the best pheasant and quail hunting I ever had. She would help me reload for rifle & shotgun and enjoyed being out in those Iowa Corn Fields........ She would go on about half of my bird hunts and had no problems with helping cleaning what me & my buddies shot.
Her grandmother lived in the same BIG old house that she (my future wife) lived in along with her mom & dad. Hardly a week-end went buy that the whole family took part in the Sunday meal (cooked to perfection by GrandMa)/..consisting of either Pheasant, Quail, Rabbit, Duck or Geese.
Usually got my deer (WT) in one of the alphalfa field that had the 3rd cutting done and a fair amount was left along the hedge rows and fencelines.....so finding one to shoot was not a great challenge.........The deer usually ended up beening the main course for a mammoth Christman Holiday Dinner.......usually about 18 in attendance. The future wife loved those situations and provided her share of help.......even "acting as a "Blocker" at the end of certain corn fields!! ....My widowed mother even would make the 190 mile drive (from our home in far northern Illinois) for several of the bigger special occasion dinners............
Got married in 1954 (last year of school)......started work seven days after graduation in the marketing & sales engineering portion of the steel-fab requirements of many, many mining & milling operations out west: CO; UT; WY; ID; MT, NV; NM & AZ. Traveled a great deal and the wife traveled with me about half the time... Bosses were always in agreement that "it was a good thing" that a man-on-the-road" had his wife with him..........any way, it worked for us. (40 years of working out in the Boonies with mining & construction folks..........and always getting 'new tips and info on some new hunting places.and always doing my reloading when and where I could...................................................Lost her to cancer after 51 years of marriage, but pushing 81 .....I've got some fabulous memories.........Like the one and only time I had her shoot a 4 point buck with a Colt SSA loaded with a 240 gr Keith HP set on top of 9grs of Unique. At about 40 feet she couldn't miss and the look on her face when that deer fell over where he stood was price-less!!!
Ok......that's enough of this old man dragging memories "out-of-the-vault!!