Those were the days

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Dmath

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Back in the late 1930s there was a series of Nancy Drew movies, one of which featured a Luger that was supposedly too complicated for anybody to figure out. (She was a teenager who went around solving crimes and stuff. My wife tells me she was reading Nancy Drew books when she was a kid.) Anyway, in this one movie I caught a few minutes of some years back, several people, including the chief of police, try to figure out how to put a field-stripped Luger back together, with comic results. Everything falls apart. (I know, very lame.)

Once you know how to field-strip anything, including the Luger, the Ruger standard, and certainly the 1911, it seems like a piece of cake. But I bring this movie up because it was apparently such an innocent time. Everybody in Nancy's fictional town is handing a semiautomatic pistol around as a joke. Which is as it should be. Here's a movie in which a gun is just used as prop comedy, and there is no anti-gun message. Those were the days, eh?
 
Maybe not an exaggeration. I remember my dad had a .22 imported Luger, and that thing seemed like the height of German engineering. Which means that it only goes back together for the original designer on the equinox.
 
I must admit I'm not old enough to remember the "good ole days". I'm only 30. But I was raised on old movies and classic tv like Andy Griffith. A time when life was good, parents not only spent time raising their kids, but just spent time with them, and when people weren't so scared of everything. When people not only knew their neighbors names, but actually knew them.

It really saddens me when I look at what my country, our country, has "progressed" to.
 
Dmath said:
Those were the days, eh?
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Yeah, they sure were. People of color and women were openly discriminated against. Spousal and child abuse socially accepted. Sexual molestation of children just someone's little dark dirty secret. The innocence of that time over shadowed by the beginning of a new regime in Germany. While it's fun to reminiscence about the good things of the past, one cannot forget about the mistakes we made. If I remember correctly, the NFA was enacted in the 1930s .
 
I'm reminded of a few years ago, I went to two Thanksgivings with two sides of the family. I had dinner with family that after showing my grandfather a new gun I had bought (can't remember what) I was asked to put it away when we were done and not to leave it out while we ate. :)

I then went over to the other side of my family to spend some time with them, they had eaten as well and when I showed up they had the entire dinner table (usually a lot of us at Thanksgiving) covered in the new guns that everyone bought since the last time we got together. So I brought my stuff in and we all looked over everything, did some swaps and just caught up and had a good time. What a difference in mentality, I'm certainly thankful for that side of my family that doesn't think twice about enjoying our freedoms.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmath View Post
Those were the days, eh?



Yeah, they sure were. People of color and women were openly discriminated against. Spousal and child abuse socially accepted. Sexual molestation of children just someone's little dark dirty secret. The innocence of that time over shadowed by the beginning of a new regime in Germany. While it's fun to reminiscence about the good things of the past, one cannot forget about the mistakes we made. If I remember correctly, the NFA was enacted in the 1930s .
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There most certainly were flaws in the old days, as you have correctly pointed out. However, There were better aspects, like more family time, religion, and a general way of life that didn't revolve around self. Wouldn't it be nice if we could combine the better aspects of both.

I grew up in a rural setting where I brought my .22 to school so that I could hunt on the way home. The comparison of that to today's overreaction to a child being suspended if he points his finger like a gun, just doesn't swing me over to being delighted to live in such an enlightened society.
 
CZguy said:
I grew up in a rural setting where I brought my .22 to school so that I could hunt on the way home. The comparison of that to today's overreaction to a child being suspended if he points his finger like a gun, just doesn't swing me over to being delighted to live in such an enlightened society.
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I too grew up in that time. I remember having a jackknife in my pocket from the third grade on thru High School. I also remember watching kids get beat with a paddle by the principle simply because they were mentally challenged and couldn't sit still in school or by the Gym Teacher because one forgot their Gym Shoes. I also remember the girl who left school in the eight grade because her step-father knocked her up and the black eyes that a friend got from trying to stop his drunken dad from beating his mother.....again. The day the first student took a gun to school to hunt his classmates instead of squirrels on the way home, is the day that part of rural Americana changed forever. It's unfortunate, but it's life.

There are the good times that are fun to remember and the bad times one wants to forget in every time period of history. One needs to remember both tho in order to not repeat those mistakes we made once before. Unfortunately, you cannot have one without the other, so folks need to be careful what they wish for.
 
"While it's fun to reminiscence about the good things of the past, one cannot forget about the mistakes we made."

I am aware of the "mistakes" of the past. Most of them were not mistakes but deliberate moves. At the time these movies were made, Stalin had been murdering people for over a decade, intentionally. Hitler was about to swing into action. I was talking about a specific aspect of our culture -- the easiness around guns -- that was then considered normal, and is no longer.

Are you saying that many things were bad in 1938, and therefore everything in 1938 was bad? What is your actual point?
 
When I reminisce about this country before 1963 when I think this country began to drastically change, some often bring racial and gender discrimination. I don't understand why we can't want a society more like pre-1963 WITHOUT the social issues of that time. What happened to being neighborly, respectful, kinder, not demonizing inanimate objects like guns, being less judgmental, etc. Society has become very coarse, controlling, and just plain difficult. I would prefer it was more like pre-1963 America.
 
I drove 28 miles round trip to go to highschool from the fall of 1949 thru the spring of 1953. There was a firearm in the pickup most all of the time. Id stop to shoot at a varmint going into town and hunt birds and rabbits going home. I dont recall ever locking up the pickup and at lunch time I showed the guns to some city kids who liked to hunt. That was in the school parking lot. In 1952 I purchased a Win Mdl 70 270 from the local gun shop and in 1953 a hand gun. I dont know what the ranch and farm kids do now but if they did what I did the could go to jail, how sad.
 
I grew up in a mid sized city during the 60's. My family always was involved in hunting or fishing. I remember during my junior year at a Catholic High School, my cousin and I went duck hunting on a school day until about 10am. He drove that day and when we'd finished he dropped me at the front door of my school. I took my stuff, my shotgun (cased) hunting coat etc. and two Mallard drakes and walked into school, walked past the office and went to my locker. Walked right past the assistant principal who stopped me and told me only that I needed to nock off the BS and quit skipping school.
Not a word about the cased shotgun.
He did ask if the two ducks were all I had to show for the mornings effort, but yeah, things were different.
 
I had a shotgun locked in my truck during hunting season when I was in high school. We would hunt till dark after school. Nothing was ever said about it, I didn't keep it a secret either, and this not so long ago, I'm only 41. Something went off the rails in the last 20 years.
 
That gun was later manufactured as a Ruger Mark & 22/45 series handgun, wasn't it? I'm pretty sure quite a few people have carried a bag of those parts back to their gunsmith for reassembly.
 
yep, there were mistakes in the past but I don't think they're much worse than the ones today.

Back in my day I ran with scissors, rode bikes without helmets, shot firearms....you name it and I did it. Too many ill-informed are enacting too many regulations for too poor of reasons.
 
Buck460XVR, you must be disconnected with reality, because according to Obama racism is still widespread in this country and some lady exec from facebook who makes millions says that women are second class citizens in the workplace.(sarcasm)

Rape, incest and abuse are just a sad fact, you knowing a victim doesn't mean it's prevalent everywhere. Lest we forget, in the mid 90's the Balkan peninsula was a scourge of deathcamps and Sub Saharan Africa in general is just blech. Everyone likes to mention Hitler and Stalin for their atrocities, but leave out their friends like Bokassa, Amin and Duvalier because their actions never interfered with our white western European friends.
 
Dmath said:
Are you saying that many things were bad in 1938, and therefore everything in 1938 was bad? What is your actual point?
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CZguy said:
I too could use some clarification.
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No where did I say anything about everything in 1938 being bad. My point is that when "wishing for the good old days" folks need to consider everything those "good old days" had to offer. Yes, it would be wonderful to have all the good things from back then and combine them with all the great things we have now.......but one can wish in one hand and collect dust in the other. We all know which one fills up first.

I too wish we could go back to those days when as a boy I could walk out the back door of my house with the .22 and walk as far as I could in any direction and hunt without the fear of being kicked off and accused of trespassing, even when on land of folks I didn't know. I also wish there were still the barrels of M1 carbines in every hardware store selling for $59. At the time, like many, I couldn't afford $59, but I did have the $25 for the M1917 Eddystone. It was my deer rifle for over 4 decades till I went to hunting them solely with handguns and bow.

It's human nature to remember the good and to forget the bad. But in order to appreciate what we have now, we have to remember what we lacked in the past. Like modern medicine and cheap transportation. All the recreational time to enjoy our family, friends and hobbies along with the extra expendable cash to spend on those things. Very few folks had these back in the 30s. That is my point...simple as it is. Sorry, didn't mean to burst anyone's nostalgic balloon.
 
Buck,
When I read your first post the other day I was thinking "man this guy is a MAJOR buzzkill". But you are correct in you line of thinking. But there always has and always will always be evil in this world. Seeing the bright side of things isn't always bad. Your right. It's human nature. We shouldn't ever forget the bad. But this world is filled with so much negativity. Just look at the threads on here. How many positive threads to how many negative? I'm not ignorant of our past. I doubt many on here are. But sometimes we just want to be able to not have all the negativity. To be able to say "Yeah, those were the good old days". I would love if someone would do a thread about their favorite memory shooting. I bet that would be a good read. But it may have been done before I was a member here.
 
How about when most major department stores, like Sears, J.C. Penneys, and Montgomery Wards, along with smaller discount stores like Woolworths, and many hardware stores, all had a sporting goods department which sold guns, ammo, and accessories?

Now those were the days.
 
Yep things were still normal through the 1980's in my hometown. We showed off our Christmas or Birthday Guns at our HS parking lot. Now days It would get you jailed.
 
Let's not forget- the worst School Massacre in the USA was in 1927

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster )

We have changed as a nation, though- no doubt in that. If I have to pick a moment when things started to go wrong, it was around 1974...

I blame Monday Night Football.

Maybe it's more of a symptom than a cause, but consider- Football, previously a sport, really became a Business when someone decided that showing it Monday nights would give them a great advertising slot.

Growing up in the suburbs of NYC, I can say that it was right around then, plus or minus two years, that Guns started to become something that some neighbors would object to- prior to that, a trip to the range, or to the dump for a rat shoot would involve most every kid in the neighborhood- after, there were more kids whose parents didn't like them being around guns...
 
Buck, you have come up with an unbeatable formula: Whenever anyone says that such-and-such was better at some particular time than it is today, you can trump that with, "Yes, but minorities were oppressed then, and women were treated like dirt, and we didn't have the kinds of medical treatment and great cars we have today.''

And you will be right every time. You won't have commented on the actual topic at hand, but you will have said something vital and important that everybody should remember.
 
Personally, I have fond memories of the 'duck and cover' drills in school!
A roomful of 7-year-olds convinced that a nuclear blast could be survived by hiding under our school desks. Ahhhh....simpler times :D

But yes, I too miss riding a bicycle down the road with a .22 slung on my back, taking a percussion long rifle on the bus to school as part of my Halloween costume, buying guns at Western Auto (bought my first new rifle at one and my first couple of handguns too), buying ammo at Woolworth's, etc etc etc. Never did get to mail order that Lahti M39.
I miss watching 'Space Patrol' on TV too.
.
 
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