On Tuesday there will be an open house commemorating my father and his work. Lots will be on display. If you can get there you should go to see how busy he was in his retirement.

Featured will be the rifles and pistols he made or restored, the ships and birds he carved, the gnome houses he built, the varied stuff he filled his house with from the stone arrow heads he collected as a child to the replica viking ship candle holder he too from a book and the wax tablet he made copying one he saw in Archaeology magazine. Featured will be Rachel, the Civil War musket carried by his great grandfather, a Civil War pistol carried by Commodore Perry's physician, and the cannon that fired the first salute to this nation's (USA) 200th birthday. (My friend Richie and I did that in advance of the official salute fired by the National Guard on Mars Hill at sunrise on July 4, 1976.)

Basically if it attracted his attention he tried to make one. The house is not to be believed.