Blast from the past

[Allen Lone wolf]

I was at that same gun show Rosebud! Don't forget Jack O'Connor and Howard Hill. When I was in the 9th grade I took my dad's 22 Ruger with blanks on the school bus and some of us boys put on a western play for the entire high school. Yes complete with firing blanks on stage. Try that now!

 

[VTbluegrass]

Last Step of the Whitetail

See the link for my favorite hunting video. Actually found the VHS copy of this video while dumpster diving during moveout when I was in college in 2001. Some of my favorite old hunting videos have been uploaded to YouTube.

I miss the ESPN morning shows with Jerry McKinnis and Tommy Sanders hosting the programming, probably because I am an 80's, 90's kid who remembers watching these with my dad on the days we weren't out fishing. Also liked when the shows were kinda educational/how to versus destination and product plugs.

 

[Mike6158]

we sure have ALOT MORE social malcontents. " Keep staring at your palms kids, it helps! " The joke is on us however, we helped RAISE this new generation. I tried to make my kids "masters of reality" .

The TV and computer helped raise them. I have examples...

My oldest son and his wife literally bought their house because it was in an area with fast internet. Their 2 oldest (and probably the twins) go to schools with rainbows and other unsocial nonsense. My oldest daughter, divorced, has two boys that spend way too much time on the screens. They get some exposure to outdoor life via my youngest daughter.

My youngest daughter and her husband live out of town (town, btw, only has a few hundred people in it), on 80 acres of woods that buts up against a river, with 4 dogs, plus the hog dogs in the kennel, 5 horses (my daughter barrel races. It's an affliction), 2 cats, and a recently added flock of chickens. When her husband isn't working they are hunting or fishing. The oldest boy, almost 7, has a 1/2 sized Ranger. The other day she sent me a video of his Ranger nose down in the river. He and his 3 year old brother were using it as a diving board If you look for it you can find spent .22LR brass on and around the back porch. There's a feeder about 75 yards from the back porch. There are two more feeders and stands down in the woods. The oldest boy shot his second deer last year. He has hunted hogs at night, all night, with his dad since he was 4. The youngest is already shooting (not without help but it won't be long). The youngest has one of those plastic electric "Rangers" and he chases the roosters around the yard with that lol

When they decided to get married I gave him my 14' flat bottom boat (Express) with a new 25HP motor. I had it rigged out for salt water fishing and wasn't using it much because of work. I told him that if they split up I wanted my boat back He still has the boat. He put a jet drive on it <-- I don't see them splitting up ever, and I wouldn't want them to, but... man... a jet drive on a little flat bottom boat? The things I could do with that when I retire

 

[Orange Dust]

Remember that and having a rifle and shotgun in a gun rack in the back window of my truck with the doors unlocked and windows down

AND parked in the high school parking lot. I remember one day when we all got detention. High school was on the edge of town. There was a big blackbird roost close by. Several of us went in early and pass shot them in the parking lot. Completely safe, we were shooting straight up with small shot. We thought it would be good practice for ducks. The crime? We didn't pick them or the hulls up and put them in the trash. Granted, there were a lot of them. We were busted. Had to pick them all up after school and then sit in the library for a couple of hours... Worst punishment ever! It was during the opening week of duck season and the practice did no good. Instead of getting out @1:30 and going to shoot ducks, we all had to stay @ school until 4:30. Back then, adults knew how to make the punishment fit the crime.
Years ago on my first trip to Canada it was the same way. Now, it is the same as it as it here, without the self defense laws we have. We need to go back to those days. We don't need to more of what this world is becoming.

 

[Orange Dust]

Or building cross bows in shop. GONE FOR EVER.

I got an "A" in shop for a shooting bench I built on a 4x4 sled frame. Try building that in a shop class now. Wait, I don't think they even have trade classes in High School anymore. Kids now days can't even read a ruler. I know this for a fact from doing job interviews.

 

[M77Fan]

Yeah, back in the day NY was not so gun unfriendly, especially in the northern tier that was mostly rural. In summers when I was probably 12-13-14, I had a couple pals in a small town where the family summer place was. We would ride our bikes around everywhere exploring and poking around, including transporting our .22 rifles around on our handlebars to go shoot rats, pigeons, and frogs. We would pool our money on a box of ammo, then go shoot it all up. I had an old Nylon 66 bolt action that Dad had bought that I used, a surprisingly accurate little rifle that I think a nephew now has. The only reason anyone would have given us a second look might have been my flame red hair and the fact it was two boys and a girl.

 

[Frenchie1]

Not sure what thread to put this in but it involves deer hunting. Who remembers when there was no internet, no YouTube, if you wanted to see a hunting video or movie you had to wait for a professional hunter to come to a local high school auditorium. People like Dick Idol. Sometimes you were lucky to get in to see it. The good ole days are long gone.

Ah yes. That does bring back some great memories. I remember skipping school as a teenager, to go hunting and riding our dirt bikes to the school first just to show off that we were skipping. Rifles slung over our backs and doing wheelies in the parking lot. A couple of times, a few teachers came out, knowing we were skipping and just wanted to know which mountain we were headed to that day. Ya, times have changed a bit.

 

[dwcars]

Yes sir, back when kids knew how to fix fence and wore a plyers on a pair of pants that fit em. We even drank out of the garden hose and rode in the back of the trucks. This world is really gonna miss them days cuz they are gone for sure.

LOL~! And swam in a branch of the Delaware River which was supposed to be polluted~! I never had a pick-up truck, but at age 15 I would walk home, grab my 1890 Winchester, walk up the middle of the street between 15 houses to Malcolm's house (nobody ever said anything about it) where he would come out with his JC Higgens semi-auto .22, and we would head for the woods. We shot pine cones, fallen tree branches, river rats, an occasional squirrel, never pointed the rifles at a human being, never had an accident, and just had a great time,,,,,,,,,,, OFTEN~!! A box of .22s cost about $1 or less at App's Hardware, 12 gauge shells were .25 each, and unlike NY State there was no background check to buy ammo. I still have the 1890, but my grand kids will never experience wonderful days like that. Where is my America~??

 

[SargeantE5]

I was able to refinish gunstocks in my Freshman Shop Class. One time the old "Hunters Lodge" WWII surplus dealer had an ad for German surplus Lugers with a big discount if you ordered three. The shop teacher wanted one and asked a few students if they were interested.....after talking to me, he only needed one more. They were sent to my house. I lived across the street from the school. You could actually see my house from the Industrial Arts shop window. When they were delivered, I ran across the street and picked them up and distributed them during class (that was the same year that Kennedy was assassinated)....no paperwork.

Later in life, my wife was a Home Ec teacher in another school district. I conducted Hunter Safety Classes in her classroom. Same school district.... my son brought an AR-15 to school for a Speech Class (demonstrating take down and re-assembly).

Now he's a detective in a large city and I am an FFL holder....

It's a different world now......Last night there was a botched school shooting at a school in a city not far from where I live.

 

[dwcars]

Yep, they say the later years in life are the golden years. But it seems the years gone by are the golden years. It just gets worst with each passing year.

"Golden years" have turned to "scrap iron years".

 

[island2019]

Back in 1969 when I was ten, we would go to the local movie theater in downtown Greeley Colorado and watch hunting movies. I remembered watching Fred Bear shoot a Grizzly bear with his recurve. Other movies were safari in Africa where they hunted every species from warthog to elephants. I also saw movies about duck and goose hunting where the flocks were enormous. Went to junior college in sterling Colorado. During fall and winter semester went pheasant, dove , duck and goose hunting. Didn't have a way to store or cook them. Made friends with a girl working in the chow hall she put the birds in the freezer and a farmers wife working there would cook them. Best two years of my life. Everyone had a gun in there rear window truck rack. Boys and girls. Miss them days.

 

[pacowboy]

I got my hunter safety card from the local fish and game organization. Was given by members of the club but there were several game wardens there as well. Was a good class back then.

 

[J Brady]

I remember in the 60s walking into my sixth grade class room. The teacher had 2 tables end to end that were covered with numerous rifles. He went on to explain how they worked and the educated the class about them. Can you imagine this happening in today's woke world ?

 

[del2les]

I do. And the days before ATV's! I also remember the trucks in the high school parking lot with rifle racks in the back with 870's hanging in them, cause guys were going hunting after school! Nobody batted an eye! Now, they call in the National Guard if a kid brings an aspirin to school and most of them don't know which bathroom to use!

Yep! In my youth, several schools had smallbore and skeet shooting teams, hunter ed was taught in class rooms with actual firearms and then to the range for live fire, and many of us had shotguns and rifles in our old trucks and cars during hunting season. Most everyone had a pocket knife in their pockets, and no one ever was stabbed nor shot. However, we were in small town America surrounded by farms and woodlands and people who were peaceful and responsible for their actions.

ATV's? What were those? LOL.... I remember the first one I saw, a Honda 90cc "3 wheeler", and then a 110cc. I thought they were great for dragging out deer from the deep woods and swamps, so eventually, I bought a Honda 110cc that stayed in the back of the truck until I needed it for the long drag. After replacing the tires with a thicker and larger set, I could float that 110cc across varied wetlands while wearing my chest waders and get into some fairly secluded hunting areas with great duck and deer hunting.

After a several years, the 4x4 ATV's came out, and hunting was never the same. Those things allowed lazy hunters to infect my deep areas and soon ran off much of the game I hunted.