chaded

I always enjoyed the conversations that Ray and I had. Other than muzzleloading and hunting, we had another pleasure in common and that was getting Muley Hunter fired up. LOL. I will always remember Ray and miss him.

builder459

For somebody who quit school in the 9th grade, he was the smartest man I ever knew. He loved to learn new things and learn them right. He could do just about anything. He was my hero. I only had 8 years and 10 months with him and a lifetime would not have been enough.

Some pics. Ray and my grand daughter Kylie, she called him The Big Guy. Me and Ray Easter 2011, Ray and his 2x3 he got November 12. 2011

MountainDevil54

Oooooh hes lucky he never posted a couple those pictures or else i'd have given him just puuuuure hell! LOL. He always ragged on me when i'd take a posing shot with a gun or something.

Muley Hunter

You'll be sad to hear Ray and I became good friends.

chaded

Thats great.

builder459

I'm glad he had friends on here who could talk intelligently about hunting. I just listened to him. He would tell me "Your not really getting this are you". Nope, but keep talking mostest, cuz I love the sound of your voice.

pluckit

I am relatively new to this forum in comparison to a lot of others who visit this site. Being so I never got a chance to know builder459. I am sorry for your loss and I'm sorry I never got the chance to chat with him. I hope you don't mind but I would like to suggest that you keep all of his muzzle loaders, or at least pass them on to his son. I hope I'm not mistaken in the fact that you mentioned he has a son. If you do or do not decide to keep them I don't think I would be wrong in saying that all of us here would love to have you as a member in the forum. And if you were to keep them we would be more than happy for you to share all of your experiences with them. From range trips to maybe even hunting successes in the future. I'm sure they were as special to him as mine are to me. I have already discussed with my wife what should happen to my muzzle loaders if something should happen to me. Unfortunately my wife has never shown any interest in shooting anything. And neither has my only child, my daughter. But I have instructed my wife to pass my firearms on to my daughter in hopes that one day she will have a child that one day will acquire an interest in them and learn to shoot them. I feel that all of my guns are like a part of me and in passing them on I am passing on a part of myself. Hopefully one day my grand child will shoot one or all of my guns and think "Gee my grandfather use to shoot these guns, how neat." When I was just a child there was a pump action .22 caliber rifle and a single shot .410 shotgun in my mothers closet that had belonged to my father. I couldn't wait until I was old enough to be allowed to take them out and shoot them. And when I did it was the beginning of a long love affair with hunting and shooting. I apologize for rambling on and of course these are just my opinions which I hope are not out of line and I wish you well with whatever you decide.

builder459

I fear, that even though I am trying, I will eventually lose touch with his son. Mom is very unstable but can clean up her act just long enough to hang on to her son each time CPS is called. Trace had zero interest in the guns. I have kept an old .22 that me and Ray used to spend hours out shooting with and when Trace is around 18 or so I will pass it on to him. I have the most memories of me and Ray together with that gun than I do the black powders. I am still undecided whether to sell his Jeep or sell my truck. According to the counselor it is rather unhealthy for me to sit in his Jeep in the middle of the night and cry. But it is the last thing he touched before he died and it is where I feel closest to him. I would sell everything and my soul to have him back. I did not think it was possible to hurt this bad and continue to breathe. I can't understand how at 6:30 a.m on April 17th I had a beautiful man and a wonderful stepson and at 7:53 a.m. I no longer had a family. I went from a house that was full of love and happiness to house that is silent and filled with sorrow. It is mind boggling how much my life changed in less than 2 hrs. On the flip side I was always very scared of the dark (Yeah I know at 43 I should have been over it) Now it doesn't scare me anymore. I have learned there are much scarier things in the world. I just want to come home from work and have him come out the door yelling "peepers" as he opens the gate for me. I just want my world back!

txhunter58

One other thing I would maybe discuss with your therapist is your son. And he is still your son too. From the description of his mother, you may have a shot to get him back. If you hound her to try to get him back or even spend time with him, she will dig in her heals. But act like you don't care (to her only, not your son). If she is what you say, her son will probably start to be an inconvience and she may want you to take him back. Just drop a suggestion that if she ever needs him to stay over so she can go somewhere, you are available and leave it at that. I am probably meddling where I shoudln't and you should definately run any ideas by your counselor, but backing off might be productive. Push too hard and she will do whatever it takes to keep him.

builder459

She will never give that child up. He is her meal ticket. She uses him to live everywhere for free. She's done that for 8 yrs. Also now she gets Ray's SS for Trace. She loves Trace in her own way, but is just not a good parent. She see's nothing wrong with letting him stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning on school nights and thinks nothing of pulling him out of school so they can go on a trip for a week or two. When we got custody of Trace in 2010 he had missed 37 days of school and had 52 tardies in one year. The school had SARB'ed her 3 times but the sheriff would not serve the papers to fine her as "they had better things to do". Literally the child was stunned when he found out that you had to take a shower everyday, not just Sundays. (true! no lie, he only showered on Sundays and if wanted to on Wednesdays, but only if he wanted to). If he didn't like what was for dinner he could have a litre of soda and a family size bag of chips instead. He lives at Disneyland and unfortunately at the age of 10 is not going to choose to live somewhere where he has to go to bed at a decent time, shower everyday, make his own bed, do his homework and go to school everyday. As of April 17th, he had missed 1 day of school and he was on the principle honor roll, almost straight A's. Ray was so proud of him. I am visiting him every week and will continue to do so. Mom won't let me have a second alone with him, but I hope that will change with time. Trace trusts me and has always felt he could talk to me. If I can have alone time, he will let things slip that, hopefully will help me get custody of him. She can keep the SS. I just want Trace to have a chance at a decent, normal life.