Gary Reeder
to get away from the crowds. Sarasota is a great town but
Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 21:37

was getting crowded. I lived 10 miles away in Bradenton and even on a 4 lane hiway it took me 40 minutes to get to work. Blue haired old ladies would lock up all 4 lanes in their Cadillac doing 20 MPH under the speed limit. If I honked my horn all I got was half a peace sign.

As far as moving from Tennessee to Florida, I was still in radio back then in '81 and the owner of the station in Nashville bought a new radio station on an island off Sarasota and wanted me to get a crew together and go down there and take over the station, change the music, fire all the old goats that were running off the listeners and so on. Tennessee was still reeling from the effects of Jimmy Carter and not in real good shape so I told them I would do it. My old shop is still in Dickson, a "suburb" of Nashville and being run by some great folks and doing real well. When I got to Florida I set up a shop in my garage doing TC barrels and custom XP-100s. I retired from radio after 22 years in '85 and that was when I got into doing this full time.

I had hunted out here in the past and liked the mountains, the snow and the lack of blue haired old ladies. The only thing I didn't check on was the hunting regs. I don't know if it would have changed my mind if I had known that if I didn't get drawn I don't hunt. All I can hunt is small game. But that was really no big problem as it gave me an excuse to start doing the HHCs and continue with the Celebrity Handgun Hunts and the African hunts. So really no big deal.