- Slices of Life: Jazz Professor Chip McNeill throws himself into his work
- Slices of Life: Jessie’s first fight
- Slices of Life: The longings of … a beautiful boy
- Slices of Life: Former pastor now hand-crafting beautiful furniture
- Slices of Life: Bishop seeks life for his church despite bleakness of neighborhood
- Slices of Life: Still missing his wife of 36 years, man keeps himself occupied at Champaign laundromat
- Slices of Life: Iraqi woman relates tale of her ‘rebirth’ in America
- Slices of Life: After meeting on dance floor, Harrises waltzing through life
- Slices of Life: Entrepreneur has spent much of his adult life belying a label from his high school days
- Slices of Life: Danville woman adores her flock of feathered friends
- Slices of Life: A sacred fire: The last of a farming line, a father soldiers on
- Slices of Life: University of Illinois student grateful for his journey to belief
- Slices of Life: Dave’s Firearms is a place for camaraderie — and camouflage
- Slices of Life: Never give up: The constant message at Restoration Urban Ministries
- Slices of Life: Area families struggle to find life after a soldier’s death
- Slices of Life: Missing the music
- Slices of Life: Willie Summerville: “Somebody say ‘Amen'”
- Slices of Life: Longtime local rabbi remains forever grateful for ‘sparks of holiness’ during a dark time
By Gabrielle Irvin — The sooty, unpolished wood floor in Dave’s Firearms hasn’t been refinished in years. Laid with random planks of different widths and lengths, it stretches across the small shop, supporting thinly stocked shelves that hold Hodgdon’s Longshot Powder and Blackhawk! holsters. Safely guarded in a smudged glass case are Nighthawk Dominator and Falcon pistols. Along the shop’s back wall lean Winchester and Benelli shotguns.
Although Dave’s Firearms, in the country outskirts of east Urbana, remains stocked with shotguns, shooting targets and camouflage rifle slings, President Obama’s recent gun control proposals have triggered a surge of firearms and ammunition sales, leaving Dave Costley’s ammo shelves nearly bare because gun owners are buying ammunition in bulk, fearful of new weapon control laws.
This story was written by a University of Illinois journalism student in Professor Walt Harrington’s Literary Feature Writing class taught in collaboration with The News-Gazette. Funding for the class, which was taught at the newspaper’s headquarters in downtown Champaign, came from the Marajen Stevick Foundation. The story was part of an occasional series titled “Slices of Life” that ran in the newspaper’s Sunday Living section. All the stories in the series are also collected in the book “Slices of Life.”
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