Introduction by Mickey Dunaway

As far back as I can remember, dredging up seldom used synaptic connections in my 76-year-old brain, the Dunaway family of which I was a member with my Daddy, Glen; my Mother, Annah Catherine; and William, my older brother, guns were a part of our collective and individual lives (once the children were about 6).  There were few winters when rabbits and squirrels were not part of South Alabama country cuisine.  Mother was a master at preparing tender young rabbits and squirrels floured and fried to perfection and served with light-as-air buttered biscuits covered with Blackburn corn syrup or dewberry jelly.  [NOTE: Dewberries are the far Southern cousin of the larger and seedier blackberry of the states further north.] Or smothering the older, tougher rodents in gravy until they were tender.  Of course, the biscuits were always there.

The two stories that follow are written by my brother Bill about two of his favorite guns—a Colt .380 and a Colt SA Frontier Scout LR .22 and how he acquired them.  These are great stories, and just the start, I hope for a compendium of all the guns currently owned and valued by him and me.

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Guns I Have Owned — Part I

22LR Colt Frontier Scout—Manufactured 1962

By Bill Dunaway — September 11, 2023

Every boy of my generation fancied himself a fast draw expert.  We were taught well by the likes of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, John Wayne, Marshal Dillon, Paladin, and numerous others.  All had one thing in common.  They all used a Colt Single Action Peacemaker. 

There were various models, but they reached for a Colt single action when they slapped leather.  A single-action pistol means the hammer must be pulled back to fire it.  As the hammer is retracted, the cylinder rotates and aligns a fresh cartridge with the firing pin or hammer.  A pull on the trigger drops the hammer, and the gun fires.   Most single-action Colts came in cartridges such as 44-40, 38-40, and 32-40, the same calibers as the Winchester 1873 lever action.  Both handgun and long gun fired the same rounds.  The first number is the caliber, and the second is the grains of black powder in the cartridges.  They were made in the thousands and helped to open the West and win wars in Mexico and Europe, but sales slowed, and Colt stopped production in 1940. 

The Colt Frontier Scout, the gun of this story, came into being 1n 1957 and went through several revisions, adding 22 magnum, a new frame, and grips material.  My Colt Frontier Scout, serial number 156227F, was made in 1962 and was blued steel with walnut grips.  I have fired hundreds of .22LR rounds through it, and it is an accurate pistol—or at least as accurate as the shooter.  My Colt Frontier is now worth $250-$300.  But that is not how much I paid for it back in 1963.

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The story of MY Colt Frontier Scout

It was 1963.  I was a junior at Auburn majoring in Pharmacy.  I moved to a nice little basement apartment on Moore’s Mill Road in Auburn.  I lived there a year or so while finishing my pharmacy studies.  The Chavis family owned the house and lived upstairs, while my roommate and I lived downstairs.  Mrs. Chavis was a kind, gentle woman and mother to two children, Gail, a beautiful high school senior, and Harold, who was about a sophomore at Auburn.  Harold was kind of a wild child.  He had owned a new Corvette but totaled it on the Interstate before I moved in, and when I knew him, he drove a new Pontiac Bonneville.  At some point, before I moved in, Harold decided to learn to be a “Fast draw” expert and bought the Colt Frontier Scout I now own and an ornate tooled leather fast draw holster.   One day, he was practicing his quick draw with a loaded Colt (dumb!) and somehow managed to shoot himself in the leg.  That ended his desire to be Wyatt Earp.

I was discussing guns one day with Harold (we took Accounting I together), and he said he had a gun he no longer wanted if I wanted to buy one.    Harold brought the Frontier Scout and fast draw holster down and said he would take $40 for it.  I wrote him a check and asked him to wait a few days to deposit it.  As a student, I was always on the verge of bankruptcy in those days.  I had about $50 in my account and had to eat for the rest of the quarter.  I worked at the Student Union Building cafeteria in those days and got paid in meal tickets, so at least I knew I would not starve.

The fast-draw holster and the gun belt were too big for my skinny butt, I found someone at the Union Building who wanted a fast-draw holster, and I sold it to him for $15.  So, I deposited his check for the $15 and supplemented my meal tickets with many meals at the Sani-Freeze in downtown Auburn.  Since WWII, the Sani-Freeze was a fixture for students and was lovingly called the “Sani-Flush” or just “The Flush.” For about $1 or less, one could buy a foot-long Chili Dog and a banana milkshake with real pieces of banana in it, and that’s what I lived on if I ran out of Union Building meal tickets.

So, for $25, I bought Harold’s Colt Frontier and added it to my little gun collection.  I purchased a surplus Army 45 holster for a dollar, and the Colt Frontier fit nicely.   These days that Colt has some holster wear but is in very nice shape. 

As I settled after Auburn, I moved this to a secure location.  Later, I added a U.S. Army web belt and a couple of 30 Cal Carbine clip holders I obtained from my brother-in-law’s father-in-law, Bob Tyler.  I can’t really tell this story of this special gun without telling the story of a special man in my life.  Simply, Bob Tyler was a great patriot who deserves his own story.  So here it is.

Bob was a large man, an Army Sergeant during WWII, stationed in the Philippines.   After the Japanese agreed to the terms of surrender, General Douglas MacArthur was chosen to accept the surrender of the Japanese Empire aboard the Battleship USS Missouri.  Typical of Gen. MacArthur, he selected very large soldiers to be aboard the battleship to witness the surrender and to intimidate the physically smaller Japanese.  Bob Tyler was one of those large soldiers who witnessed the surrender.   I don’t know if my WWII web belt was on the battleship USS Missouri that day, but it could have been.  It makes for a good story, and I am sticking to it!

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Only one time did I actually use my Colt in self-defense.  It was a chilly but clear early November day in Baldwin County, Alabama, when I decided to drive down a ridge road to the Tensas-Mobile River Delta swamp.  I loaded the Colt with six .22LR hollow point bullets, placed it back in the holster, and laid it in the back seat of my 2003 4Runner.  The swamp is still there today, dark, wet, and intimidating.  After checking the game cameras and replacing the chips, I headed back out of the swamp and along the ridge road.  As I eased along this sandy road, it was mottled with sunlight filtering down onto freshly fallen longleaf pine needles.  I drove around a small bend, and there, stretched across the road, was a huge Canebrake Rattlesnake warming up in a sunny spot!  That’s not something you see every day!  Just seeing the snake while in the 4Runner flooded me with visions of just how many times I had walked these woods and stepped over cousins of this big boy that must have been at least four and half feet long and as big as a baseball bat across

I stopped the 4R and quietly removed the Colt Frontier from the holster.  It seemed that I was hyper-ventilating!  Such is the intimidation factor of this creature in the minds of Southern hunters and woodsmen.  I eased around the open door, laid my Colt across the hood of the 4Runner, and squeezed a shot off.  Missed high.  Missed low.  Dammit, I could not hit the snake to save my life, although I shot all around his head.  Finally, with my pistol empty, the big snake crawled back into the brush.  I quit shaking long enough to reload the pistol and eased up to the brush to see if I could see where the big snake had gone.  You DO NOT want to go into the brush after a rattlesnake.  It’s impossible to see with its coloration; therefore, the advantage goes to the snake!

As I eased up to the brush to look for the snake, I noticed movement just up the road.  The snake had crawled back out onto the sandy road and into the sun.  I have always assumed that it was the same snake I had shot at 6 times without damage, but now, thinking about that morning, it could have been a different snake.  They travel in pairs, I’ve always heard.  Anyway, a big snake was back on the sandy road, basking in the warm November sun.

 This time, my nerves under control, I carefully aimed and placed a .22LRHP into the head of the snake and, for good measure, five more.  Big snakes don’t die quickly, and he continued to writhe for a long time.  I watched for a while and then went and got my brother-in-law—Bob Tyler’s Son-in-law, Bubbie—to tell tales of my marksmanship.

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Guns I Have Owned — Part II

380 Colt Auto Model 1908

By Bill Dunaway — August 26, 2023

In the summer of 1963, I interned for Mr. Clyde Smith, a pharmacist/gun collector and owner of a country drug store in Citronelle, Alabama.  Citronelle is a small town of a few thousand people north of Mobile on U.S. 45 and west of the Tombigbee River.  It had one doctor and two drug stores.  Everyone in a two-county radius knew Clyde Smith loved guns and would buy one if you had one to sell.  Every drawer behind the prescription counter was filled with pistols, and every corner had several long guns.  During that internship, Clyde taught me much about pharmacy and how to treat people.  He also taught me about guns.  

I had a 16-gauge Remington 870 Wingmaster, but I hankered for a sidearm and set out to get one.  A popular place near my father’s workplace was Eddie Nassar’s Pawn Shop on Royal Street in Mobile, Alabama.  He was known to have a good selection of guns and would bargain with buyers.  I visited him and found a nice little Colt 1908 Pocket Automatic in 380 ACP.  

Although I didn’t know it then, the little pocket auto was a famous gun.  In WWII, Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton carried one (and Patton carried two).  Gangsters, including Al Capone, Bonnie Parker, and Clyde Barrow, loved it.  Bonnie taped the gun to her thigh and smuggled it into prison for Clyde to use to break out.  John Dillinger was said to have had one on his body when killed in a hail of .45 caliber bullets.  Humphry Bogart flaunted one in Casablanca and in several other movies.

I told my Daddy, Glen Dunaway, about the gun I had found at Eddie’s Pawn.  He said he knew Eddie Nassar, the owner, and had bought guns from him before, including my brother Mickey’s dandy Winchester Model 1216-gauge pump.  He said he would go with me to buy the gun.  

He asked how much Eddie was asking, and I told him, “$60.” I gave Daddy the three crisp twenty-dollar bills I had gotten at the Merchants National Bank, and he put them in the pocket of his Trail Pontiac work shirt.  

We drove down to Eddie’s Pawn on my dad’s lunch break, and as we pushed open the door with steel bars across it, Eddie, a weather-beaten-looking Syrian, said, “Hey, Mr. Glen, what can I do for you?” 

Daddy pointed out the little automatic in the glass case.  Eddie passed the pistol over the countertop for us to handle.  The pocket pistol was in excellent shape, and Dad said.  “This what you want?”  I replied, “Yep.” Dad called Eddie over and said we wanted the Colt. 

Then it got interesting. 

 “How much?” My Daddy asked. 

Eddie said, “Sixty dollars.” 

Daddy quickly replied, “Eddie, that’s too much.” 

Eddie responded, “It’s a nice gun, Mr. Glen.  Sixty dollars.” 

Daddy then pulled out two, not three, of the crisp twenties from his pocket, laid them on the glass countertop, and said, “This is what I will pay.  Take it or leave it.” 

Eddie said, “Mr. Glen, you’re killing me.  My children will starve.”  

Daddy turned to me and said, “Come on, Bill, let’s go.” 

I turned and started for the door when Eddie said, “Now, Mr. Glen, if I take this price, you have to pay the tax on it.” Daddy added the remaining $20 bill, and Eddie picked up the three twenties, took out the tax, and returned the difference to Daddy.  He gave us a little bag for the Colt 1908 Pocket Automatic in 380 ACP, and we left smiling!  

The Colt I bought from Eddie Nassar was Serial #62231, manufactured by Colt in 1923.  It’s a hundred years old this year!  I have kept it oiled and close at hand for self-defense for the last 60 years, and only once have I been close to using it, the night my house was broken into at 3 a.m. in the morning.   This historic pistol my dad got for $40 now sells for $800-$1000.  Individual guns for much more.

Sad Addendum.  Eddie Nassar met a tragic end when John Lewis Evans and Wayne Ritter, thugs from Indiana, robbed him on January 5, 1997, and killed him in front of his daughters.  Evans pled guilty and told the jury that he killed Eddie, and if they did not convict him, he would get out and kill every jury member.  The jury convicted and gave Evans and his accomplice the death penalty.  Evans went to meet the “Yellow Mama” electric chair at Holman Prison in April 1983.

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I don’t think we need more gun control laws. – John Kennedy