Flatgate, Carl Laco called home to the lord...

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Carl steered me onto SR 4759 for my 44s and 45s decades ago. I sent him many Ruger ads from my 1950s American Rifleman collection. Hopefully I'll be reunited with him and fresh supplies of 4759 before long...

RIP buddy....Dennis
 
Wow. Sad news on one hand, but on the other he hadn't really had any quality of life to speak of for the last few years. Let's hope he's in a better place.

When I joined this forum, I was a newbie collector with a handful of SA Rugers and had just acquired my first .44 flattop. It had no box and I found this forum and innocently posted a want ad for old model Ruger boxes, specifically for a .44 flattop. I said if anyone had a pile collecting dust in the attic, I would pay what I thought was a good price. Carl "laughed" at me (in a friendly way) for being so naive and we started chatting. He kind of took me under his wing as an apprentice collector and we became good friends. We used to swap a dozen or so emails in any given day. Carl was in charge of snow making at Jackson Hole and he would wake up really early for work. He would be up drinking coffee in front of his Mac out in the Mountain time zone before my alarm ever went off out in Eastern time where it was 2 hours later. By the time I got up, I would generally have at least one email from Carl waiting, usually in response to something I sent the night before, plus color commentary on the local happenings in the "wilds of Wyoming". He had a Masters degree in geology with a special (and professional) interest in meteorology and the weather was one of his favorite topics (aside from Rugers, skiing, Jeeps, dogs, and whiskey).

I think the first time I met Carl in person was in Denver when I was back home visiting family and he was coming to town to go to a gun show with another Denver area collector who was also a forum member. The 3 of us got together for a few hours over breakfast and had some fun gun talk, but I had my then young son with me and we had family plans that day, so we couldn't join them at the show. I think that was 2003. Then in 2004 Carl and I shared a room in Tulsa when we both went to that show. In 2005 I drove to Denver in my then new (to me) 2004 Silverado with the "SIXGUNS" license plate and then we took the "long way" back to Vermont by way of Carl's place in Star Valley. Carl took us to Jackson Hole and showed us around, got us free passage on the gondola up the mountain, and a free ride on a bungee jumping contraption for my son who was 12 at the time. My son and I then headed up to Yellowstone, out to Cody, and across South Dakota toward home. I remember being surprised to find that that was the week of the Sturgis bike rally and there were no motel rooms open anywhere from Cody, WY to Sioux Falls, SD. There was one room in the Sixguns Motel in Cody, but because of the demand, they had jacked the rates up to something ridiculous and my license plate didn't even qualify me for a discount (I tried). Carl and I got together a few more times over the years. He came to Vermont once on a sales or repair call to a local ski area after his days at Jackson Hole when had gone to work for the outfit that made the snow guns. That was before he went to work for Freedom Arms. Last time I saw him was 2013 on another long road trip through Wyoming, this time with my fiancee. We had dinner with Carl and his wife at our hotel restaurant and then went to our room where we all had many, many drinks while Carl and I talked guns and the ladies talked and giggled like schoolgirls about who knows what on the other side of the room. He had hurt his back real bad in 2010 in kind of a freak accident getting firewood and ended up on disability, never to go back to work. The cancer and other medical problems followed. I don't think he was able to make more than a handful of posts on here after about 2014.
What a nice tribute! It almost makes me feel like I knew Carl even though I did not. He sounds like a guy that had lived life to its fullest. It's a shame that truly good people have to endure health issues like Carl did.
 
Nah, Carl didn't start it, but he owned it for a few years. Guy who went by Parabelum started it plus a bunch of other forums, then when he realized he wasn't able to moderate them all, he put rugerforum on eBay for 50 bucks but no bidders. Then he just wanted to give it away and that's when Carl took over. Carl went by username flatgate and was a pretty serious old model collector, especially the Single Sixes.
 
Nah, Carl didn't start it, but he owned it for a few years. Guy who went by Parabelum started it plus a bunch of other forums, then when he realized he wasn't able to moderate them all, he put rugerforum on eBay for 50 bucks but no bidders. Then he just wanted to give it away and that's when Carl took over. Carl went by username flatgate and was a pretty serious old model collector, especially the Single Sixes.
This is what I remember but most of that was before me. My first forum was the GM Tech forum I can still get to but not many of you can. That was 2001. I was a mod there for a bit until I got cross ways with the admin over a stupid post by an engineer. flatgate had some sweet Single Sixes for sure. Likely more other stuff too. Six year old topic won't stop.
 
In 1971 my nephew was killed in a helicopter crash at Ellsworth AFB. Carl was he son of an Air Force career officer and knew of that crash.

Bob Wright
 
Here is some of Carl's handwriting, this was my official parking permit when I went to see him at Jackson Hole in 2005.

Guest-of-Snowmaking.jpg


I just ran across that paper the other day when going through a file cabinet in the basement, but the above pic is a few years old.

RE Ellsworth AFB, I had to visit there once in about 2000 when my company did a software update on the B-1B fuel system. I got to crawl around inside one for testing, but sadly didn't get a joy ride. The first job I ever worked at the company I retired from in 2021 was a minor software change to that same system in 1986. I got to go to Tinker in OK once for B-1B as well, but I forget what year that was. I had patches, pins, and medallions from most of the military aircraft programs that I worked on, but this was one of my favorites, from Ellsworth:

1736973073201.png


B-1 jockeys fancied themselves as fighter pilots once they swept the wings back.
 
God bless you Carl! You always seemed to know "Stuff" and cordially detailed sharing of that information and opinion when contacted for those long conversations. While sorrowfully, you transferred ownership of this Ruger Forum.com to me and I treasure that action that allowed the continued presence of our beloved Forum. In your name, I continue to share information on things I know and Rugers we love. I will miss you until we meet again. Please, take care of my dogs at the Bridge. SPLITZ
 

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