What do you keep in the other pouch?

I was on the phone a while ago talking to my friend Steve, a gun enthusiast who’d just gotten home from the range. He and his wife had been shooting a pair of 38’s; an inch and a half barreled Smith and Wesson and the other a snub nosed Charter Arms. I told him that I couldn’t hit the side of a barn with my old short barreled Smith, the one I’d bought as a back up pistol back when I was graduating from the Houston Police Department academy.

That brought to mind the fact that I was basically a welfare case while in the Academy; I just didn’t know I was poor until many years had gone by. I was making all of $ 600 a month, a modest increase from what I’d been making at Montgomery Ward. I was able to pay for my apartment rent and a car payment with plenty to spare for food and entertainment. I was doing fine; just didn’t have any money.

Before graduating from the Academy they explained that the City was supplying the uniforms; but that we needed to pay for our pistols. I waited for them to ask for a down payment on a patrol car next; wondering how I was going to pay for what I considered an expensive piece of equipment. I ended up buying two pistols that day, a Smith and Wesson K frame 357 as my primary weapon and a snub nose Smith and Wesson 38 Special as a back up. I figured they wouldn’t have suggested it if we didn’t need one.

I was a fair shot with my regular duty weapon, nothing to write home about; but nothing to be ashamed of either. I’d shoot about the same score with or without practice, in the mid to high 80’s every year. I shot exactly the same score several years in a row; could have saved the City the cost of a box of bullets by simply changing the date on my card.

On the other hand, as I mentioned earlier, I couldn’t hit the side of a barn with the snub nose 38; a slight exaggeration since I did qualify, just not near as comfortable a score. There was a Homicide detective who would come down to the Capitol Street Bridge shooting range with his snub nose pistol just to pick up chump change. He’d place a pasty square on the target down range at the far end and bet any comers that he could hit it with the first shot. That pasty looked like a small dot at that range and so he’d generally get a few takers. I have no idea how he learned to control that short barreled pistol so well; but he’d win more times than he lost.

Upon graduating the City sent us down to Supply to be fitted out in our gear, a worthless piece of garbage for a holster that had been tagged as the “Kennigy Holster”, a handcuff case, 3 “keepers” to hold the “Sam Brown” to our regular issued belt and a double pouch to hold extra ammunition. Memory has faded to some degree and I’m not sure if the City supplied all of that or if we had to buy some of it on our own; not that it’s all that important now. I remember wrapping the barrel of my brand new Smith and Wesson duty pistol in a soft cloth on the night we graduated so that the barrel wouldn’t have the blue rubbed off; that’s how crude the Kennigy Holster was. ( Anyone out there; please correct my spelling on the name; in honor of Julius Kennigy who was a police Sergeant at the time.) I know for sure that I went down and purchased a much nicer holster, one that was lined with soft leather that wouldn’t destroy my fancy looking blue job.

I later found that neither of those early generation holsters were worth a tinker’s damn when it came to pistol retention. I’d have to chase some fool down on a run holding my pistol to keep it from falling out; not exactly a cool feeling to arrive at the show down without your pistol. The City eventually phased out the Kennigy Holster in favor of one that actually had been designed for modern police work; retention and ease of use for the officer were built in; but that isn’t what I wanted to write about since I’d posted about this a couple of years ago.

http://tfsternsrantings.blogspot.com/2005/06/police-holsters.html

I was telling my friend Steve, the one who’d just gotten back from the shooting range, about the spare ammo pouches that were on my belt; I was already laughing as the memory came back. I kept six spare bullets in one and in the other I had a small box of Bayer Aspirin. It made for some interesting conversation when talking with others, police personnel or regular folks.

“Why on earth would you keep a box of Aspirin in there?” They’d go bug eyed, as if I were keeping a pet hamster in there would sound as silly. I’d go on to explain as best I could.

“I figure if I get into a real “storm” (expletive omitted) and used up the six rounds in my pistol, reloaded and then emptied the next six then I’d probably have a severe headache and it would be nice to have some aspirin handy”, followed by a quick smirk of a smile to indicate how much fun it was to make it up as I went along. The fact remained, had such a situation come about; there’s no doubt I’d be looking for something to make it all go away.

Steve was howling on the other end of the phone; I was about to say “phone line” and it dawned on me, in this day of cellular calls that the expression might not mean anything. I changed from the Model 19 Smith and Wesson to the much heavier 586 after a few years and found it stayed on target better with a little less kick. I still prefer a revolver to an automatic; call me an old fart, I’m old enough. (link in title bar)

While looking up the linked postings I noticed that June of 2005 had a few other police related stories if you get bored watching television and have nothing better to do try clicking on the Archived 2005 articles. Just scroll through until you find them.