Dave DeLaurant
Member
A discussion/argument on a different thread put me into a reflective mood about my exposure to firearms in general and rifles in particular during my youth. Seems like a fun topic to swap stories about.
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I'll start by saying I didn't have anything to do with handguns, centerfire rifles or shotguns until I was well into my 20s. Grandpa owned a couple of shotguns for birding, but most recreational shooting or hunting was done around me with a .22 rimfire.
For my sins, I've lived my entire life in a city (gasp) in Central California (wince). My dad was a country boy from Nebraska who grew up around guns, while mom grew up in urban Chicago; both families were Danish-American, and since the gene pool was too shallow in his home town for my dad's taste, he did his courting at Lutheran church socials in the big city. Mom and dad only moved to Central California in the late 1940s because mom had survived TB and needed a warmer, dryer climate, especially in winter.
I cannot now recall whether my first shots with a .22 were at a midway shooting gallery, with one of those Remington/Browning .22 Short semiautos that loaded through the butt, or at my Grandpa's farm in central Nebraska. Dad's family was loyal to Monkey Wards, so Grandpa's rifle was probably purchased from their catalog. It had a box magazine because I remember it hanging by it's sling in the hallway with the loaded magazine stored separately.
Mom didn't hold with guns, so when Grandma bought me a Daisy BB gun it stayed in Nebraska and only got used during visits. In addition, Grandpa let me take the .22 for supervised plinking at his farm, where I also learned to drive the tractor. Grandpa Jake was a USPS rural lettercarrier, but he had a windfall in the early 1940s and ended up with a quarter-section farm. His tiny town of Wolbach only had a couple of retail stores, so during visits I went to the hardware dealer to buy my BBs and rimfire ammo.
When I hit my teens I joined the Boy Scout troop that met at our church.
We did a few dedicated shooting events, but most of my opportunities to shoot came during summer camp. Camp Chawanakee had dedicated shooting facilities for both archery and rimfire rifles, and whenever I had free time I spent much of it on their rifle range.
When I turned 16 I got a summer job at the camp teaching archery, and for the next three summers I spent quite a few hours becoming a better 50-foot shot from the prone position. At the end of my last summer there I bought a Savage single-shot .22 from the camp for $15, well-worn but still functional. This joined a Marlin-Glenfield M25 magazine repeater that I'd badgered my dad into buying at K-Mart for my 16th birthday. Later that year he showed me the three old milsurps (a postwar Czech Mauser K98k, No.4 Lee Enfield, and an 1893 Ludwig Loewe Spanish Mauser) he'd purchased at Wards some years earlier -- they were kept well-hidden from mom and she never found out he'd bought them. Since mom kept the household books, there must have been an interesting, untold story about this.
California wasn't quite so goofy back when Reagan was Governor and S.I. Hayakawa was our US Senator. For example, our high school had a rifle team and the school library subscribed to The American Rifleman. I used to carpool with dad, getting to school around 7 am and then killing time in the library from 7:30 until first class. Over the course of three years I read every back issue of American Rifleman they had at least once.
I did my Hunter Safety training course while in high school at Herb Bauer Sports, one of my favorite haunts for the next 40 years. The staff soon knew me by name, and did a fair job of mentoring my interests. I spent a lot of my disposable income there, even though they were a tad pricey. They did at least give the NRA discount. It was a fairly nice store that did other things like skiing, bicycling, backpacking and fishing, but the owner's first love was their gun department. It had been around long enough to accumulate bits and bobs for their bargain table. The owner died a few years ago and sold their building to Turner Outdoorsman, where some of the staff later found new jobs. I miss the bargain table.
There were several other gunshops locally, but the other one I liked to frequent was Gilman-Mayfield. I bought my first centerfire rifle from them in 1984, a H&R Topper in .357 Magnum; they closed in 2012, and my last purchase from them was a Ruger Single Six Vaquero in .32 H&R.
The only time I hunted frequently was during a two-year period following graduation from university. I was twiddling my thumbs while looking for permanent work and dad's friend Leland Iversen (another Dane) needed someone to caretake his family farm on the edge of town. There were about 11 acres of aging almond trees that dad and I broke our backs trying to make pocket money from, but most of our effort was spent turning fallen trees into firewood. In between chainsaw sessions I took my Marlin into the orchard to reduce the ground squirrel population. The previous renters hadn't collected the last harvest, and the squirrel population had exploded with nearly unlimited free food. I mostly used CB ammunition since our neighbor on one side was a Catholic cemetery. I bungeed a piece of PVC drain pipe into the old Case tractor to serve as a rifle scabbard, since the squirrels always seemed at their most plentiful while disking up the weeds. I taught myself the rudiments of handloading while my wife and I were living on the Iversen farm, beginning with a Lyman 310 tool and a paperback by George Nonte.
After I found full-time work with the local public library in 1985, firearms became my most engaging hobby. Shooting was limited to holes in paper on public shooting ranges, and I became more involved with handguns than rifles. Things stayed that way up until retirement in 2011, when my interests broadened from handloading and shooting to include minor-league milsurp collecting.
===
I'll start by saying I didn't have anything to do with handguns, centerfire rifles or shotguns until I was well into my 20s. Grandpa owned a couple of shotguns for birding, but most recreational shooting or hunting was done around me with a .22 rimfire.
For my sins, I've lived my entire life in a city (gasp) in Central California (wince). My dad was a country boy from Nebraska who grew up around guns, while mom grew up in urban Chicago; both families were Danish-American, and since the gene pool was too shallow in his home town for my dad's taste, he did his courting at Lutheran church socials in the big city. Mom and dad only moved to Central California in the late 1940s because mom had survived TB and needed a warmer, dryer climate, especially in winter.
I cannot now recall whether my first shots with a .22 were at a midway shooting gallery, with one of those Remington/Browning .22 Short semiautos that loaded through the butt, or at my Grandpa's farm in central Nebraska. Dad's family was loyal to Monkey Wards, so Grandpa's rifle was probably purchased from their catalog. It had a box magazine because I remember it hanging by it's sling in the hallway with the loaded magazine stored separately.
Mom didn't hold with guns, so when Grandma bought me a Daisy BB gun it stayed in Nebraska and only got used during visits. In addition, Grandpa let me take the .22 for supervised plinking at his farm, where I also learned to drive the tractor. Grandpa Jake was a USPS rural lettercarrier, but he had a windfall in the early 1940s and ended up with a quarter-section farm. His tiny town of Wolbach only had a couple of retail stores, so during visits I went to the hardware dealer to buy my BBs and rimfire ammo.
When I hit my teens I joined the Boy Scout troop that met at our church.
We did a few dedicated shooting events, but most of my opportunities to shoot came during summer camp. Camp Chawanakee had dedicated shooting facilities for both archery and rimfire rifles, and whenever I had free time I spent much of it on their rifle range.
When I turned 16 I got a summer job at the camp teaching archery, and for the next three summers I spent quite a few hours becoming a better 50-foot shot from the prone position. At the end of my last summer there I bought a Savage single-shot .22 from the camp for $15, well-worn but still functional. This joined a Marlin-Glenfield M25 magazine repeater that I'd badgered my dad into buying at K-Mart for my 16th birthday. Later that year he showed me the three old milsurps (a postwar Czech Mauser K98k, No.4 Lee Enfield, and an 1893 Ludwig Loewe Spanish Mauser) he'd purchased at Wards some years earlier -- they were kept well-hidden from mom and she never found out he'd bought them. Since mom kept the household books, there must have been an interesting, untold story about this.
California wasn't quite so goofy back when Reagan was Governor and S.I. Hayakawa was our US Senator. For example, our high school had a rifle team and the school library subscribed to The American Rifleman. I used to carpool with dad, getting to school around 7 am and then killing time in the library from 7:30 until first class. Over the course of three years I read every back issue of American Rifleman they had at least once.
I did my Hunter Safety training course while in high school at Herb Bauer Sports, one of my favorite haunts for the next 40 years. The staff soon knew me by name, and did a fair job of mentoring my interests. I spent a lot of my disposable income there, even though they were a tad pricey. They did at least give the NRA discount. It was a fairly nice store that did other things like skiing, bicycling, backpacking and fishing, but the owner's first love was their gun department. It had been around long enough to accumulate bits and bobs for their bargain table. The owner died a few years ago and sold their building to Turner Outdoorsman, where some of the staff later found new jobs. I miss the bargain table.
There were several other gunshops locally, but the other one I liked to frequent was Gilman-Mayfield. I bought my first centerfire rifle from them in 1984, a H&R Topper in .357 Magnum; they closed in 2012, and my last purchase from them was a Ruger Single Six Vaquero in .32 H&R.
The only time I hunted frequently was during a two-year period following graduation from university. I was twiddling my thumbs while looking for permanent work and dad's friend Leland Iversen (another Dane) needed someone to caretake his family farm on the edge of town. There were about 11 acres of aging almond trees that dad and I broke our backs trying to make pocket money from, but most of our effort was spent turning fallen trees into firewood. In between chainsaw sessions I took my Marlin into the orchard to reduce the ground squirrel population. The previous renters hadn't collected the last harvest, and the squirrel population had exploded with nearly unlimited free food. I mostly used CB ammunition since our neighbor on one side was a Catholic cemetery. I bungeed a piece of PVC drain pipe into the old Case tractor to serve as a rifle scabbard, since the squirrels always seemed at their most plentiful while disking up the weeds. I taught myself the rudiments of handloading while my wife and I were living on the Iversen farm, beginning with a Lyman 310 tool and a paperback by George Nonte.
After I found full-time work with the local public library in 1985, firearms became my most engaging hobby. Shooting was limited to holes in paper on public shooting ranges, and I became more involved with handguns than rifles. Things stayed that way up until retirement in 2011, when my interests broadened from handloading and shooting to include minor-league milsurp collecting.
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Sooner the better. This body is only temporary for be..and I want to go home to my Lord! 
