Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles WHY I SHOOT WEATHERBYS.

What's the old line, don't tell my mom I work in the oilfields, she thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse.
Well I can resemble that remark. My grandpa on my father's side was illiterate as was my grand-ma. He ran a gang of mules and nigras on pipeline and would be gone months at a time. It fell to my dad to walk down the rail-road tracks to the local merchant to cajole him for food on credit till his pa got back and could pay. His oldest brother dropped out of high school and joined the tree-army during the depression to help feed the family. They lived in tar-paper shacks and had to dob newspapers in the cracks to keep from freezing in the winter. My grand-pa on my mother’s side was a wild-catter. His last name was Bradford. He was raised by an old single uncle, cause his dead mother's sister swore she'd never have a Bradford boy in her house. My Great grandma on my mother's side ran a boarding house and followed the oil-fields. My maternal grandpa caught my maternal grandma when she was 15. My mom was born when she was sixteen. My dad was born in Goose Creek (now Baytown). Perhaps you've heard the joke, “You know you're from Baytown Texas if you've ever used lard in bed”.

I tell folks that when I was born my parents were so po' that they couldn't afford a name, just intitials. I've been GW all my life. I can remember being about 10 years old and getting hand-me-down gun mags from a kid down the street whose dad owned a factory. I swore if I ever made any money I'd own some fire-arms. One might postulate that I’ve gone off the deep end. But if schitt ever truly hits the fan, I figure, guns, knives, hand tools, cigarettes, whiskey and such will have much more trading power than gold or silver.
I started mowing yards at 10, janitor at 16. Welder's helper, pipe-fitters helper, loaded trucks at a sheet metal plant while in high school. After I graduated from HS, I sold Fuller Brush door to door. Worked with a framing crew off and on for a year or so, 70 hours a week @ $2.50, but the guy didn't take out taxes, so I thought I was in tall cotton. Waited tables and bartended for 7 years while going to college and staying out of 'Nam. Never graduated. I got something like 170 hours with 140 or so "C" or better. Ran a steel fabrication job shop for 10 years, then went broke and lost every thing except my wife and kids. Spent three years floundering trying to sell life insurance on the debit, while delivering pizza at night and then getting up at 3 in the morning to go roll the Houston Post and throw a paper route. . I also wholesaled cars for a while during this period. Had a friend that would let me use his "P" number. I'd go buy cars from banks and Savings and loans or dealers and then give them a sight draft. That draft had to be redeemed in 24 hours. I did not have a pot to piss in but I'd buy 15 or 20K worth of cars and have to have them turned by the next day or my bud's license was forfeit. Didn't take long to get tired of that pressure. Talked myself into a Farmer's Insurance agency for a couple years till I got screwed by my DM. In 1989 I got a break (or you could say I made a break). My brother was doing commercial real estate appraisals . The owner of the shop would not hire me as I was almost 40 yrs. old, had a wife and 3 kids and no college degree (Preferably from the Texas A&M LERE program). However, my brother would hand me a file and say “see what you can do”. I’d go to the filing cabinet and pull out a report on a similar property and go to work. Because of my background I could talk to anybody from the outhouse to the penthouse. Within six months I was the top producer out of a staff of 13 appraisers. Why, cause I’d work a hundred hours a week. Next thing ya know the boss took me out from under my brother who he paid A 41% split and told me he was hiring me as a trainee at 37%. I hung in for two year till I got my license and went out on my own. I ended up doing my own thing and got lucky by availing myself of OPT, OPE and OPM and to a large degree dumb luck as the time was right. I quit doing appraisals in 96 and RE brokerage in 98 to manage my own investments. Been doing that and hunting and shooting since.

Also I don't invest in the stock market or buy gold. I used to have guys call em and want me to invest with them. I'd ask if they knew the story of "ham and eggs". Naturally they would not, so I would explain, "To the chicken it's not big deal, but to the pig, it's total commitment". They had no skin in the game. I did. If they lost my money, no big deal,as it wasn't any different than the other folks money they lost also and it weren't theirs. Nobody takes care of your stuff the way that you do.

I drive old cars, wear a cheap watch and don’t buy depreciating assets on time. I’ve used the example before. If you buy a $60,000 Ford Pick-em up truck and finance it for six years at 6% interest your monthly payment is +/- $995 per month at 3% it’s +/-$911 per month. That don’t include what you have to pay for your monthly insurance premium. I’ve never owned a new vehicle and never had a car/truck note. If I buy a rifle at 60% of MSRP each month for 72 months , at the end of that term they will most likely be worth at least what I paid for them and most likely more. The 6 year old truck will probably be worth $15,000 or less. That’s not smart in my book. I don't buy into much of what the real estate or investment guru's say but I do agree with one thing Robert Kiyosaki sez, "the man that is truly rich is the man that has more income from his income producing properties, than he has debt") Buy low, sell high, collect early and pay late. Live a life of delayed gratification. Do that for twenty or thirty years and one can let his assets support him, rather than him support his assets (and a home is not an asset, but that for another time), then one can spend time hunting, cooking, posting on the internet and taking pix.

Just sayin’

GWB