Rough hands

There's an old saying that goes "rough hands, soft heart."

Actually that isn't an old saying because it's not on the interwebs.

What is on the interwebs is what a pretty girl told me one time, "cold hands, warm heart."

I'll tell ya, she had a wa... er, well, anyway...

The rough hands saying might better go like this, "rough hands, soft head."

What does any of this have to do with anything?

Okay. First of all I picked up a new shooter yesterday. It's an AL-15 Stingray. What that means is that it's an AR pistol, a pistol version of the AR-15.

When I first heard of and saw pictures of AR-15 pistols I came close to throwing up. They look stupid and they're way to big and unwieldy to be any good as a pistol, while at the same time being worthless as a rifle.

Sometimes my initial judgments are a bit, er, off.

Anyway, these great people built me a new Stingray. Right here in Kimball. It's one of the things they do. For customers all across the nation.

Now I know what you're thinking. "Hey now, that don't look like no pistol, Bubba."

And you're exactly correct. It doesn't look like a pistol. But it is a pistol. Trust me, I got a letter from the ATF and everythang.

I'll go into more detail tomorrow, including the first horrific tragedy I had with my new infernal machine.

But back to the rough hands. When I picked up my pistol yesterday, I had to fill out all the paperwork and show my driver's license and concealed carry permit. Whenever I pull that permit out, I think back to the process of getting it, which included a visit to the regional State Patrol office to be folded, spindled and mutilated fingerprinted and photographed.

I did not like that experience. The place is nothing less than an armed bunker. The people who work there evidence (in my experience) an "us against the criminal hordes" bunker mentality. They actually use hidden cameras to take your mugshots. It's an odd, strange, discomfiting place. I kept thinking of The Lubyanka.

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Now when they did my prints, there was no ink or roller or paper. No, they used a scanner. "Hands on the glass plate, scumbag! Don't move!"

When the, er, person looked at my prints, she gave me that cop glare and said, "Have you tried to alter your fingerprints?"

Turns out that my palms and fingers are covered with scars. That only ever happens when a felonious person attempts to alter their fingerprints so that they can rob banks and run drug cartels and stuff.

"Can't even turn it off when you're in the bunker," I replied. "can you?"

Puzzlement washed across her face. Not for long, only a few microseconds. But it made me feel better. There was a human in there somewhere.

Heavy sigh. "I'm a rancher. I use my hands for actually doing stuff." It was an acceptable response.

So that's what I thought about when I pulled out my permit.

Also that it's calving season. It's a very dry time of the year and my hands are constantly out in the cold, working with newborns, in and out of soap and water. They get red and sore and cracked and painful.

Par-TICK-you-larly sore today.

Happens every year. And I'm really glad it's happening this year, because it might not have.