Smokey Bear & Spanish Gun

When I was about four years old, my Mom gave me "Smokey the Bear," who originally wore a park ranger hat and a badge that said "Only you can prevent forest fires." I've never parted with old Smokey in all these fifty years. Perhaps I should be buried with him.

Above him is my Mauser rifle, an M1916 Short Rifle, manufactured at Oviedo Arsenal in 1931 and which faught at Madrid at the height of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 with the Republican forces. I have no bullets for it, and ammunition for this gun has not been manufactured for several decades. This rifle was a gift from my friend Jan O. some years before his death, because he was an extremely serious gun collector and appreciated my interest in the Spanish War (obsessive at times). I sometimes muse with friends about how an Anarchist militia fighter (a lovely young woman with flowing dark hair) killed six Fascist soldiers from a cobblestone barricade with this rifle just before she herself was felled by a single bullet through her passionate bosom. As she died in a comrade's arms she whispered, "No Pasaran!" and this rifle slipped from her hands.

By the end of the war this gun was obsolete, and it was stored in a warehouse through Franco's entire 40-year regime and many years after it. Finally the antique gun market was flooded with them around 1990. This specimen is a very good one because the numbers on all of its components match; it is "as issued."

As I grow older, memories grow warmer.