Just an old box of .410

[sm]

Just an old box of .410


There is something about a grandpa and grandson heading out with eyes and ears, hand in hand , out with a old .410 single shot shotgun broken open in a grandpa’s other hand, that just warms hearts , puts a smile on faces, and maybe wets the eyes.

This young man shot this gun with grandpa’s help and busted a few balloons, and some clays on a cardboard box, and …there no way to describe in typed words the look of these two.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, just handed the young man a box of .410 target loads that had been rattling around in my truck toolbox.

I was thanked by a firm handshake, big smile and hearty “thanks!”

Time passes and this young man gets bigger.
Being a ‘big boy’ he wants to shoot that .410 more.
I mean the .22 single shot rifle is neat and all, still…well…grandpa, mom, and other ‘big people” shoot shotguns.

This old box, new shells, still the box has that character from “rattling around” was gotten out of the young man’s “ammunition stash” and started being shot.

Pretty neat for a kid, grandpa seemed to get a kick out of it too.
Grandma said it was really hard to tell which one was the “bigger kid most excited” when these hulls were reloaded the first time.

Seems reloaded hulls had to be put back in the box with ones not shot yet.

Why a kid does what they do is often due to reasons we that are older do not understand, or maybe we get bigger and forget how being a kid was.

Twenty shells were shot, and marked with a little Sharpie Marker, with a hash mark each time.
Five shells are still new.

Young man asked his mom and grandparents what their favorite number was, and they told him.
He asked how many times these hulls could be reloaded and grandpa shared about this too.
I never thought anything about it, when I was asked what my favorite number was and answered “five”.
We adults never gave it much thought when he asked how “five” looked when doing “hash marks”.

“Now that’s cool!” was what the young man said upon seeing it.

Now he has his “special spot” he keeps stuff like most kids do. He still has the first .410 hulls from the shells he fired with grandpa that day.
His first .22 rim-fire brass and other “stuff” a kid collects and puts up are in this spot.

He got to asking about that day he first shot that shotgun, and me giving him the box of .410 just rattling around in my toolbox.
I could understand why he wanted me to date and sign a slip of paper to put inside that box of shells, they had been reloaded three times, as they had three hash marks.

Now twenty shells have hash marks signifying the number five, five shells have never been fired and this box of shells are now in the “special special spot” where this kid saves really special stuff.


It was just an old box of .410 target loads rattling around in my truck toolbox….


Steve

 

[Hardtarget]

Is that real... or did you just write it?

I'm 57. When my parents moved out of the house I grew up in, I found a small "stash" of odd ball, kid type stuff. Looked like trash, kind of, but not really. It was stuff I'd collected over the years. Some of it was from my Dad, some from my Grandfather. Most was out door/hunting activities.

I kept it for a short while but it kind of drifted away.

Thanks for your post. Brought back some good memories.

Mark.

 

[darkwing]

Well said and thank you.

 

[Milkmaster]

I still got my box o "stuff". It is in my closet. Has things from my elementary years that really isn't worth anything but to me. Never have brought myself to thrwo it away even though I am 48 now.

Nice story!

 

[Caimlas]

Why a kid does what they do is often due to reasons we that are older do not understand, or maybe we get bigger and forget how being a kid was.

I have a small box full of smaller boxes - some wooden made by my dad or uncle, and a couple cigar boxes - with things I kept as a kid. It's a fairly chronologically-based change. I sometimes go back in and look through it all, to remind myself of what being an innocent kid is like, and try to recapture some of that thought process. Being as it's my "old junk", the thought process, while still foreign, becomes evident to me after a little looking. I stopped putting stuff in boxes in that fashion a couple years before adolescence, so it is most definitely "kid" stuff. I'm regretful that during my teenage years, I likely threw out some of the things I deemed "junk" at that time - and I know I lost some special things (such as a couple old knives) given to me by my dad (who got them from his dad, who got them from his dad), but on a whole, I think I'm able to learn a bit from the boxes.

I don't really care about the stuff. It's roughly 1 shoe box worth of material, most of which would find its way into the trash if someone found it sitting around their house. I'm keeping it for my son(s). It's something small, and something fairly insignificant, but I know that I often wonder what my dad was like when he was a kid, and furthermore what he was like as an adult. As such, I try to keep a diary, and write my thoughts for him in addition to trying to save things from my childhood - before I could eloquently express my thoughts and feelings. As time goes on and my father ages, and he cleans out his basement, I find he's still got a lot of his childhood things (though mostly toys), and with those toys I'm learning a bit more about him.