The good old days

[Chut1st]

Found a great article that reminded me of what my own younger days were like. Remember traveling by Grayhound bus at the age of 14 to visit a friend in Kentucky, carrying my Remington 552 with me. That was a long time ago, in a much different country. We've lost or surrendered a lot since then.

Three Boys, Two Guns, One Sheriff.
By Larry Simoneaux

http://americandaily.com/article/4834

 

[Stand_Watie]

It was quite a few years later than 1963 (1985 to 1987 to be exact) - but I remember pedaling my bike to the local hardware store to buy a few shotgun shells for the old 20 guage, even in a time when my buying them was technically illegal. The owner knew my dad though, and usually I was buying just 4 or 5 shells of #6 birdshot at a time with a check my dad had written for just a dollar or two.

Sure, I could have used those shells to murder a couple people, but I didn't. In retrospect, that time alone in the woods, killing nothing but a rabbit or a couple of squirrels or more likely, a tin can or an old tire or washing machine was time I could have spent in a lot more negative activities like getting into the same sort of trouble that kids of my own generation and today's can get into.

Thank God the boundaries built by my parents were tight enough to keep me alive and out of prison and the evils that ran through my teenage mind were of the petty, garden variety that all teenagers experience rather than the minds of teenagers who don't have good supervision and moral guidance.

Guns can be used for moral, immoral and ammoral (ammoral probably best describes my own teenage experience, although this tended toward the moral in that it kept me away from the immoral in the time in which I was using them) purposes.

 

[fallingblock]

Thanks for that link, Chut1st....

It brought back memories of the early 1960's for me....

The nearest ammo source for me was about a mile from our farm, and once my Mom gave the O.K., I purchased ammo on my own from the third grade on. All those long summer days spent walking along the river, 'plinking' at sticks and cans.

The Railway Express Agent in town, from where I would pedal home with my latest mail-order surplus rifle with no more problem than the cosmoline on my shirt and trousers.

One of the deputies stopped me one day, to ask what I had. It was a low-number Rock Island 1903. He admired it for a while and sent me on my way with a caution not to drop it.

Maybe that numbskull Mike Moore does have a valid question in the title of one of his venom volumes:

Dude, Where's my Country?

 

[sm]

Chut1st,

Thank you for posting and providing the link.

I am grateful I had a chance to grow up in and be a part of that Era.

How we were raised. What we were taught. " Just what you did".

Regards,

Steve

...times may have been tough,....but I had a real good time as a kid...- Robert Ruark

 

[Mike Hull]

Yes, thanks for the link. I too grew up in those times. I remember myself(13, in 1957) and a few friends getting our .22 rifles and riding a few miles with them, on our bikes to the small foothills outside of town, where we could plink, and hopefully get a crow or two. There was a .50cent bounty on crows then, and we would use it to buy more ammo.

The cops would wave at us, and often would stop and give us some .22 ammo they got somewhere. It was a good feeling to know that the cops were our friends then. A lot has changed since, unfortunately.

That was in OC, California, BTW.

 

[theCZ]

Things are still the same in the small town in Nevada where I did almost all of my growing up in the mid to late 90's. Shotguns and rifles in the gun racks in the truck at schools. Sherrif cared more about if you'd found any good places to hunt than the reason for having a gun at school. Guns are a "tool" there for hunting, varmint hunting, self defense, and pleasure, and not something to be ashamed of.

 

[Darkside]

I can still remember when the first day of dear season opened on Friday and school was closed that day.

I can remeber when there was a BAD problem with birds around the county courthouse. On sunday after church everyone with a shotgun would suround the courthouse and shoot the birds as the passed overhead.(would make the Autoban Soc. loose their minds) After all the shooting was over the street dept. would come with their dump truck and everyone would pick up the dead birds, toss them in and they would be hauled to the "Dump". ===not landfill=== I can still remember the Oldtimers sitting on a "case"(500 rounds not 250) of shells, taking a break.

Once in highschool I was going to ride the schoolbus out to a friends house that was on the other side of our town. I wanted to take my .22. My mom called the principal and asked if it was ok for me to take it a part and roll it in my sleeping bag. He said that was ok aslong as I could put it together at school for him to look at. I can't even think what a principal today would say if asked the same question

Darkside

 

[Sam Adams]

I can't even think what a principal today would say if asked the same question

Say? Nothing - they'd have to call the morgue for the guy, as he'd drop stone cold dead right on the spot.

All of these stories remind me of ... nothing in my childhood. I grew up in the late '60's and early '70's in the PRNJ (which actually wasn't so bad back then, as it is now, but there was no gun culture to speak of). My only memories are vicarious, through my uncle (who's only 11 years older than me) who recalls walking throught the streets of Queens, NYC back and forth to school, with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He was on the high school rifle team (mid-'60's), and no one thought it unusual, nor the fact that he stored the gun and ammo in his locker. So did all of the other boys on the team, and no one ever shot anyone else (ain't that amazing ).

Times have changed just a bit.