I was the Fastest Gun Alive!

W H E N   I   W A S   Y O U N G … A n d   f a s t !

I got a Have Gun, Will Travel holster set when I was 8; the twin holsters and felt hat were Christmas gifts from my Grandfather. I wore them proudly, the only two-gun kid in my neighborhood. We played Cowboys all the time, those days; not so much “Indians”, except as an occasional threat. We had forts and kept an eye out of Injuns on the warpath, but we were more interested in gunfights, mimicking behavior from the many westerns on TV. Every kid I knew had a holster set, usually the Gunsmoke set or the Lone Ranger set, and we terrorized the neighborhood, reliving those thrilling days of yesteryear, holding shoot-outs that put the Gunfight at the OK Corral to shame.

I was a dual threat, capable of drawing and firing off a string of caps with either hand; my friends inevitably fell before the firepower from my matching set of pistols. My friend Larry and I would stride toward each other, hands at the ready, steely eyes intent on the other’s, watching for any sign of reaching to draw. At the slightest movement, my hands would flash to the holsters and draw the pistols, the sound of caps exploding rapidly as I fired, the smell of the cordite filling my nose, the sweet smell of victory. Larry would drop his pistol, grab his chest and stagger back, “You got me,” he’d gasp before falling, a death rattle that went on and on as he rolled on the ground. I would stand over him, saying properly manly things like, “Let that be a lesson to you, Bad Bob, not to mess with Paladin!” He would twitch, a death spasm that brought additional shots from my cap pistol as he jerked and recoiled, until finally I would have to reload. Then< I would offer him a hand up, and we would stroll away, arms over each other’s shoulders, friends for life!

My holster set was eventually torn beyond repair by the repeated jerking of the guns from it, in fast draw “contests” and I moved on to other games. Recently, I saw the same holster set, new in the box, the way it had been that long ago Christmas, and the price was only $350.00. Who knew? I amsure, though, that I got far more value than that the three or four months I was the ?Fastest Gun Alive?, in my neighborhood, that winter and spring of 1958. I don?t think I would have passed up the opportunity to strap on those twin pistols, for the promise of even that much money almost 50 years later.

No children were harmed in the retelling of this story. All characterizations are colored by the effects of time on the memory.