[tabs]

Long ago in another lifetime I went into a gun store that I used to frequent in SO CA. There was a pair of WW1 German Binoculars sitting on the shelf. There was an inscription written on the inside that went "Zimmerman Coblentz, Germany 1919, 4th USMC Regt USAEF.

The story was that Zimmerman took the Binoculars off a dead German artilleryman and later as he was dying of Influenza asked his friend to take them to his wife in WI. When his friend tried to give them to the wife she refused them, he kept them and his son was the one who sold them to the store. I bought them for $75.00. On the leather case is a palm and finger prints in dried blood, presumably the German Artilleryman was wounded and was moving them.

The point of this little tale I'm telling is that I REMEMBER THE STORYS connected to these items. Another thing is the Otto Voit rifle I own, I have done quiet a bit of reserach on the battle without much success of finding mention of him after his MOH citation and Obit. I also have written the definative Biography on a CA Plein Air Artist. Whenever one of his paintings come up on the Bay, they quote my information. I am probably the only person in the world who has collected his works.

I have listened to people tell the storys of their lives all my life and I remember those stories. Most people just don't stop and think about the meaning of things they would rather just be ignorant.