I just learned from a mutual friend that an old friend recently passed away. Cliff was a great guy and a good friend. We met in 1999 at a gun store and became close friends pretty quick. Many days spent driving around for hours to every local gun store within 100 miles.
Cliff was always looking for something new. He considered himself a man of very high tastes but often didn’t pay much attention when buying. He often told me and a friend about his much Loved Winchester 101 shotgun. He was so proud of it. He swore it was an original and would often grumble about how much he paid for it. One day he finally was showing it off and our friend said ” Cliff you sure this is an original?”
“Damn right it is!” Cliff proudly said.
You should have seen the look on his face when Benny rolled the gun over into better light and showed him the ” MADE IN JAPAN” roll mark. I will never forget that.
Cliff was a very hard headed stubborn guy. In the funny way. As you can see from his name, he is 2nd generation Russian. My Dad called him ” Little Khrushchev”.
Cliff served in the USMC before the Vietnam war kicked off. I think he always regretted that he was out before it started but it wasn’t his fault. No way he could have known. His stories about the Marine drill instructors praying with the med the night before rifle qualifications hoping their platoon would get perfect scores across the board still cracks me up. As you can imagine Cliff was a big fan of the M14. He was much chagrined when I finally took him to a true 1,000 yards and it didn’t cut the mustard.
The guy had a colorful life. After the USMC he was a cop for about 10 minutes, then got into the coal mine business. He became rich then lost it all from a bad business partner. He worked I’m sure damn near till he died. He was always trying to get back to being as rich as he was in the 1980s before the local coal boom went Tango Uniform.
We hunted together many times. Me, Dad, Cliff and another friend named Mike who died of a heart attack in 2003. Mike and Cliff lived next door to each other and many nights were spent in Cliff’s garage just talking and having fun. Now all dead but me.
I am sure going to miss Cliff.
Scattered Shots 
R.I.P. ”We are diminished.”
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I remember Cliff from his coal mining days of the 1980s. We sold and serviced water pumps used in the mines. He and his partner ran contract mines for Island Creek Coal Co in eastern KY for years. Our company did all of their pump work. A couple of times they would work out of an area and have to wait a few months until another mine was available for them. If they owed us money, we would get a check every week or so, paying the bill down. Then, one day we’d get a call that they were going into a new mine, he had a check to pay off the old bill and some pumps to pick up and inspect for them. He was a great guy to work with! I’ve often wondered where he ended up, and I’m very sad to hear that he’s passed. He was one of the good ones.
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Thanks for checking in with memories of the old days, Monty.
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