I wrote this for my greatest mentor. He's retiring from the trade in November.
Listen up lads, and i'll tell you a tail of a man who traveled the earth from heav'n to hell.
Not much height was stacked up on his frame, but the altitude of the deeds he accomplished, few men can attain.
Every day, he plied his trade to the job he was cursed with, cause you see lads the man was a dammed salty gunsmith.
Salty is as salty does, but dammed salty was he indeed because, there was hardly a barrel rifled or smooth he hadn't heated in his adventurous youth.
Tammaro was his name, a right fitting handle, for his grasp on history made him a pretty bright candle.
See lads, its easy to forget what you never knew you needed to hear, but go to the gunsmith, button your lip, and he'd fill up your ear.
You might go in with a gun you got at a right fair price, and other than that busted trigger, it looks real nice,
But you'll leave with, a knowledge, an understanding or perception, of the wars it was fought with, from now to inception.
Youd leave an inch taller after talking to the fellow, and your mind was made broader and a little less yellow.
A tough old sourdough was the gunsmith Tammaro. He'd lived it and seen it both heartache and sorrow.
The sands of time had bleached his perspective, and he was dry as a bone and mighty selective ---
of the fellows he'd converse with whether old or still growing, you'd better figure up how to make yourself worth knowing.
He wasn't unkind, just hell set against foolery. Talk straight, listen close and he'd give you some schoolry.
On places he'd been, and critters he'd hunted, of wars he'd fought, and big men he'd runted.
All of it was true the tales were not tall, he'd actually been on every hunt and in every brawl.
So lift a glass laddies and give a hey ho! for a dam salty gunsmith named Bill Tammaro.