Toy pistol found after 82 years
Oran Dixon of Horseshoe Road got an early Christmas present last week — or perhaps a better way to say it is this present returned to him after 82 years.
“My parents bought me a cap pistol when I was seven years old,” he said. “It was the first real toy I remember getting for Christmas.”
Dixon, now 89, was reluctant to share the story, but related the basic details to The Times.
“I don’t like to draw attention to myself. I prefer to just stay in the background,” the modest Dixon says.
He recalls that back in his childhood, as the country was emerging from the depression and was in the midst of World War II, Christmas presents were hard to come by.
“My parents worked hard, but we were poor,” he said. “Christmas gifts were generally fruit or something like that — and even that was a treat. We didn’t get things like that often.”
That’s why he was very excited the Christmas morning he received the silver cap pistol.
“I was so proud of that pistol,” he said. “I had never received any gift like it before. It was very special to me.”
Unfortunately, Dixon relates he lost the pistol when he was about seven years old.
The family moved from the Horseshoe community to Otter Creek for a couple of years, but eventually, he moved back to his original home and bought the property.
“I had thought about that cap pistol many, many times over the years,” he said. “It meant that much to me.”
Dixon admits that he never thought it would turn up again.
That is, until recently. Dixon’s grandson was out just looking around an area of the farm that Dixon recalls was once used as an area to dump trash and yard debris.
“My grandson noticed something sticking up and when we pulled it out it was the toy pistol I had lost 82 years ago,” he said.
Dixon says his grandson believed it to be a real pistol.
“When I first saw it I knew it was the pistol I had lost all those years ago. I told him it wasn’t a real gun, but it was the real cap pistol I had received for Christmas all those years ago. I was just so happy,” he said.
Oran Dixon is shown with the toy cap pistol he received for Christmas 82 years ago — and that he got back just recently.
