At age 8 a neighboring plantation owner asked Dad if I could ride with him down to his house. We drove into his yard in his Chrysler Imperial and he told me to wait while he went inside. He came out with the most beautifully marbled Tenite stocked J C Higgins. 410 you can imagine. There was a pigeon sitting on the ridgecap of his barn and he loaded it and told me to shoot him to "see how it fits". I missed the pigeon, but allowed as how it "fit just right". He said "It's yours as long as you take care of it".
I was able to thank his oldest son a few years ago for his father's kindness to a snotty nosed kid. Both he and his son have gone the way of all flesh, now, but the kindness will never be forgotten. That was 54 years ago. The fascination with doubles has never waned.
