Back when I was 18 and was driving an interstate truck summers and over the Holidays, I carried a handgun with the knowledge and consent of the company (and the laissez faire attitude of Great Plains state governments - this was about 1969) - I generally carried cash payments for the loads on the return trips. Because the gun would spend its life under the seat or in a gym bag I didn't want something that would make me cry if it got scratched up. That four-inch Highway Patrolman was the first centerfire revolver I ever bought brand new. It was a bit of vanity, as I had a perfectly good 1928 Argentine .45 Auto that could have continued to do the job just fine.
One night just after midnight in the warehouse district of one of the largest cities on the Mississippi I was in the trailer sorting it out after unloading and paying off the labor. A presumed bad man climbed in the back and started approaching me. He was carrying something that I thought was a knife, but could have been a tire iron, or for that matter, almost anything. It was dark. He didn't respond to my squeeky 18-year-old voice when I demanded he get off the truck.
My gym bag was there with $2400 (I remember that figure very well, as it was the largest sum I'd ever carried) and the Highway Patrolman. I reached in, removed the revolver, fired one round double-action into the warehouse wall out the door and over his shoulder (it was real dark, so it wasn't as much aiming as pointing), and he decided to leave. Quickly.
I stuck around for an hour waiting for the police to come arrest me for something, but after that hour buttoned it up and drove until I was two states away.
A year or so later I traded the Model 28 against a Model 19. Wish I hadn't - never liked the Combat Magnum anywhere near as much. But it was lighter.
Sorry about going off-topic, but the Highway Patrolman carries a lot of nostalgia for me.
-Don
