Forum Mid-year Giveaway: 2018. WINNERS POSTED UPDATED 7/6/18

    There have been a good many inspirational people in my life.  Teachers, mentors, my mother, my wife but the one I'd like to introduce to the forum was my father.

     My father John Remling had a genius IQ and a started out as a auto mechanic.  His father ran a garage and it was shortly after WWII.  My dad was a little too young to fight in the war but served in the reserve after.  He went to work for his father and when Occupational Education was starting in the normal school system, they needed teachers.  At the time all you needed was seven years in the field.  He immediately applied and was accepted.  The teachers then had to good to school to work toward their Masters Degree.

    My father was well respected and liked as a teacher not just because he new the materials but because he was one of those rare Educators that could take a new concept and break it down into sub-concepts you already knew or could at least understand.  

    As a child he was an experienced hunter and was known to hunt small game, skin and bring the meat home.  He always ate what he shot whether opossum, squirrel whatever even if the rest of his family would not.  He was the oldest of 4 kids, 2 brothers and 1 sister and when he was in his late teens his mother passed away due to cancer.  His mother met my mother but didn't survive till they were married.  My parents were married in 51 and had my older brother David in 53, me in 55, my two younger brothers, Mike in 61 and Jeff in 67.

    My father's passions were mechanical devices.  All kinds of machines intrigued him from internal combustion engines, steam engines, wind and watermills and firearms.  I believe the mechanics aspect was what drew him to firearms.  He was a decent shot as a kid and became a competition shooter throughout the 50s and early 60s.  He learned all he could regarding military arms became a collector of and after much research wrote a guide to Nazi Ordinance Codes.  One of the workers at the printers, thought it was something Pro-Nazi and reported him to the FBI.  The agent sent to interview him and been in the war and knew that Ordinance Codes simply are a record of the manufacture of a firearm and subsequent dispensation.  Whether it was used for military purposes, what branch, what time frame and if it was decommissioned and sold and to whom.  Not the thing an average person would care about for very useful for a collector.

    After the guide, he wrote several articles for gun magazines and eventually wrote "A Collector's Guide to the Tokarev Pistol".  One of our neighbors at the time spoke and read Russian.  His parents were from Russia and he assisted in translating many pieces of correspondence from museums in Russia.  Another red flag during the Cold War and another interview with the FBI.  No problems once they saw what it was about.

    My father got his FFL (Federal Firearms Dealers License) to support his hobby and would buy up whatever he could find and resell.  During the mid 60's he bought up the entire remains of the Pretoria Arms Factory as it went out of business.  A huge lot of parts showed up at the house and I remember clean gun parts at 10 years of age.  He had to have some of the missing parts made in the States to complete the remaining guns.  

    With all the firearms in the house in the late fifties and (at the time) two young boys he took us to the range and taught us how to shoot and firearms safety.  He cut down a bolt action, magazine fed .22 to an 18 1/2" barrel, welded the sight back on, cut down the stock and welded the mag port closed so it could only be a single shot.  I was four when I was first taught to shoot.

    I've touched on his career only briefly so far.  He taught until he retired at 56, continued his education and was sought out to help write the first Auto Mechanic's Certification Test.  The test was widely received as at the time there were no requirements to be an auto mechanic and the industry took a big hit due to all the unskilled labor. 

    Once the Certification Test was completed, he was approached by Wiley Publishers to write text books on the subject.  He wrote the first book for them and was then asked to write and edit others, which he did.  My mother was receiving royalties checks 20 years after he passed.

    My father was awake every week day morning  by 6:30 and was at work before 8am.  Home in time for dinner and then upstairs in his office to correspond with other collectors or write either articles for magazines or another chapter in one of the text books.  He'd be up till at least 1 am every night.  My mother would let him stay in bed on Sat mornings till 9am  , then it was up and do work in or around the house depending on the weather.  Sundays was church, lunch or dinner and then more work around the house/yard. 

    Four boys a house and a single income (teacher's salaries were not what they are today) and we never went hungry, had what we needed and due to mom's economics had a Christmas morning just like the Macy's or Sears catalog.  You probably have to be an old fart just to know what I'm talking about.

    We'd take road trip vacations, not every year but when we did they were memorable, Gettysburg, Niagara Falls, roadside museums, camping, Lake George etc.

   Regardless of everything he did to put food on the table and a roof over our heads, he always had time for us.  When I was little he took us to gun stores looking to make a purchase, I'd take the change or dollar bills I'd have (at six) and buy a bayonet.  I always liked blades thanks to the old Swashbuckler films. Eventually I got into commercial knives and as I was an avid reader of fiction, one of the characters in a book I was reading had a Randall Smithsonian Bowie.  I went into my father's office (it was around 11pm and asked if he'd ever heard of the Randall knife Company.  He reached over and handed me a copy of the Shotgun News.  He was directly and indirectly responsible for me getting into bayonets, then commercial knives, then custom knives and eventually swords.

    He had been a smoker since he was a teen but gave then up at about 50.   He passed away from cancer at 59.   

    Miss you Dad!

    My current favorite is a sword I've had for about 10 years my Atrim 1557