In response to a thread recently seen on the C-R-FFL Mail List, a number of people wrote responses to the question "why do you cruffle". I thought this one was the most eloquent:

Since you ask, I am a cruffler because:

By the age of five I was sleeping in a room full of my uncle's guns. The walls were festooned with rabbit eared SxS shotguns, a couple of early Browning self-loading shotguns, two rolling block .32 rim fires, a pair of 1906 pump .22's (one in S-L-LR, one in Short), a Kar98k, a 1903 Springfield, a model 1895 Winchester cav carbine in 30/06 and other assorted goodies. In a chest by the bed there resided Lugers taken as trophies in the First and Second World War, aC96 taken as a trophy in the Great War, a 1911A1 left over from family service in the Pacific, a Savage .32 ACP, a Unique in .32 ACP taken as a trophy in France, a *tiny* Italian self-loader chambered for the .22 Short captured from an Italian officer in North Africa, an old Colt DA .22, and others.

I slept soundly, as the smell of gun oil, Hoppe's #9, and old leather were slowly absorbed into my blood, and into my soul. At rest, those fine firearms would whisper to me of gravest peril in far off places. Their remembered sounds of artillery became only the sounds of distant thunder in my dreams; the screams of the dying only the wind in the trees.

My sleep was undisturbed, for they comforted me with the whisper, "Sleep well, my son, for we have purchased your safety at the ends of the Earth. Sleep tight, my child, for still we guard. Rise rested, my boy, for your time at guard shall come as surely as the sun."

Cruffling is not something I do - it is what I am.

Kyrie kyrieellis@aol.com