JUST THE FACTS
The Legend of Gringo
When I was young I had a red cap gun. Once it stopped working I was tempted to throw it out but I didn't. That choice would turn out to be the moment that a legend was conceived. I didn't know what to do with my broken cap gun so I decided to tape an empty toilet paper roll to the barrel of it. Just by this one addition my new gun made me feel mean and tough like a 8 year old Dirty Harry. I decided that my new law-making friend needed a name and that name was GRINGO!
Gringo and I patrolled my jurisdiction which was 1 block of Millersville, MD. That was the space that my mom let me travel around my house by myself. Don't be fooled by the small radius, there was a lot of law to be spread in that area. Gringo and I struck fear in all that crossed our paths for a few months and then, after a run in with a particularly unsavory mail man, I decided that I needed more firepower. That brought on the creation of El Gringo!
El Gringo was an addition to Gringo that used paper towel rolls instead of toilet paper rolls to make up the barrel. El Gringo was nearly two feet of unadulterated hand cannon. El Gringo also marked the first time that I added "Death Lines" to a Gringo model. Death Lines were words or phrases that I wrote on Gringo's barrel that horrified all that read them. The first was a tip of the hat to Harry Callahan "Go ahead... MAKE MY DAY!!!"
The story went on like that for a few years with upgrades coming to Gringo ever few months. The Gringo model line went: Gringo, El Gringo, The Return of Gringo, The Mark of El Gringo, and Gringo Rides On. Each new version brought a longer barrel and more Death Lines. It came to the point that I would always hit my opponents with a non-lethal shot and let them read the paragraph long death lines before I finished them off.
It all came to a screeching halt soon after finishing my final gun: Gringo, The Gun, The Myth, The Legend. It was about 8 feet of paper towel rolls, duck tape and death lines. Ever since the barrels hit 5 feet I had been adding supports to them because the paper towel rolls would only hold up a week or two before they would collapse under their own weight. Well my final Gringo was constructed in the living room and the first time I picked it up to test it out it's barrel fell to the ground in a very non-Gringo type of manor. That was it, the death blow. I knew that I could not go back to a shorter barrel and I also knew that I didn't have the materials to support a longer barrel so it was time for Gringo to be put to bead.
During Gringo's reign, my jurisdiction had the lowest crime rate in all of Maryland. We lived by Theodore Roosevelt's motto: Walk softly and carry a big... GUN!! Long Live Gringo!
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