... and there also used to be packs ... yes packs ... of a half dozen or so not-legal-to-drive pre-teens and teens wandering down roads and woods with BB guns, 22s, 30-30s, and single shot shotguns.
People would drive down the road and .... wave.
Sigh.
Hat tip Paul.
35 comments:
And the town was called San Leandro/San Lorenzo/ Hayward, California. Our Dad's worked at NAS Alameda.
Ahhh. safety, safety uber alles.
The beginning of the feminization of the American male. Adventure and risk are being legislated away, and the skinned knees or split lips are as likely to be treated by litigation as a sandwich bag full of ice cubes.
I miss my childhood at times.
Screw the guns - we went for the heavy stuff -- cherry bombs, silver salutes and hand tossed bottle rockets. Surprised I still have my sight and all my fingers...
w/r, SJS
Was gonna ask if you see the old gang now and then. Lefty, and Two-fingers, and One-eye. And Stitches.
Good thing neither my Navy recruiter nor the Boot Camp personnel office never were able to look at my 9th and 10th grade local city police records !
Today's kids better not get caught for any misdemenor(s) at all if they plan to someday join up.
My brothers and I used to play war with BB guns and shot each other. I still have a BB embedded in me.
Also used to get paid for shooting rats in the city dump. Today we sould have been arrested.
But we learned how to be MEN and not pseudo-men.
Yeah, we had BB gun battles all the time. Though we were smart enough to require the wear of down jackets, levis and ski goggles. And we were limited to "3 pumps" - yeah right.
We also made pistols with Bic lighters that shot bottle rockets. We had botle rocket duals "at 20 paces".
One time we tried to use gun powder to make a fuse for setting off a bunch of fireworks. Turns out that gun powder burns much faster in real life than in the movies.
URR,
Dead on with the pussification of the American Male. Any injuries nowadays, though, are more likely to be treated by litigation than such a simple thing as a sandwich bag full of ice.
We had BB gun fights, apple fights, rock fights, played motorcycle tag that made the "Road Warrior" look like a sissy, tackle football in the street (concrete, not nice soft asphalt), dragged each other down the street hanging from the car door (at first backwards and then forwards), the "cocktail hour" at the railroad tracks a la "Molotov", good old fashioned fist fights (I don't know how many sets of temporary caps for my front teeth were lost - the Old Man got tired of that fast), setting stuff on fire, playing hide and seek on ships in port, digging tunnels in sandbanks, seagull hunting, taped marbles to the bottom of shotgun shells and then threw them up in the air to set them off, using the rope swing at night (thwap and a cry of pain indicated a pass too close to the trunk of the tree, climbing to the top of the bridge to urinate on the cars passing 100 feet below, trimming our friend's Mom's trees with a shotgun...jeez, not only is it a wonder that we survived, but that none of us are in prison. I wouldn't have had it any other way - I got the stupid out early.
These wre my people. Our playgrounds were built upon asphalt, and you learned early on to NOT fall off of the monkey bars or the jungle gyms.
Th quickest and most certain way to return us to the land of our childhood is to put a limit upon lawyers. None are permitted to pass the bar untill those most senior retire, or go to jail.
These wre my people. Our playgrounds were built upon asphalt, and you learned early on to NOT fall off of the monkey bars or the jungle gyms.
Th quickest and most certain way to return us to the land of our childhood is to put a limit upon lawyers. None are permitted to pass the bar untill those most senior retire, or go to jail.
It always amazed me that my city cousins, surrounded by all that 'culture', never learned that you don't normally pull both triggers on a double barrel 12 gauge, you don't actually try to hit the electric fence when nature calls and that chocolate milk doesn't really come from the darker cows.
testosterone makes you stupid and estrogen is a poison that infects the emotion part of the brain.
Speaking of guns, an old girlfriend called to let me know that she missed me, but that she had tightened her scope rings and felt she would do much better next time.
A co-worker of mine told me that the first time she fired a shotgun, no one had told her abount pulling the triggers one at a time.
My bike had no brakes... and it was solidly built wide-tire cross country similar to US BMX. My fave sport was to find downhill trail too small for cars and check the max speed I could achieve (I dreamed about becoming pilot back then...)
But without them we would be extinct... we have to make best use of what bodies given to us by God (or evolution if youre in the other camp).
Me with my 2nd grade pals almost derailed a train by placing a large chunk of metal on the rails. Only time in whole childhood I got serious (and well desserved) spanking.
No bag limit on Lawyers, maybe a bounty.
We did lots of stupid stuff that woule have us on the TV or in DSS custody. Or today, viral on YouTube.
Tom Sawyering ice floes on Bodkin Creek? C'mon.
Those packs of teens with guns still are out there. We seldom see them but we hear them at night in many large cities. They're not driving Schwins, They seem to prefer other peoples Acuras in Newark.
1970's.......I wasn't even born yet.
But I do remember my BMX bike. It was awesome. I almost rode it off the top of a 4 foot tall retaining wall when I was 4 years old (no training wheels). My dad lept over the porch railing, chased down my bike, dove, and grabbed the spokes of the bike to stop me. He broke all of his fingers but he did stop the bike...unfortunately, I flew right over the handlebars, off the wall and landed on the sidewalk. The good thing is that because of my dad, I didn't fly into oncoming traffic. Tore myself up pretty good. Was out the next day riding my bike.
My dad is insane. That was the second time he had to make a diving save for his son.....the 1st one was when I was 2 years old and almost went off a cliff. But that is another story for another day.
Love it..I might have been in that picture. Big Wheels aren't too aerodynamic ! Was part of the BB gun pack -- we eliminated every frog along the creek within 5 miles of my home one summer. (It was really cool when on of my friends snuck out with his brother's shotgun).
What happended to those days, when boys could be boys and grow up to be men ? You can tell it wasn't all that way back then though - must have passed over senior Navy leaders !
I think I had tha same Big Wheel ... got it about 1980 or so, I think.
good times were had.
Yep...and I remember LOTS of kids in plaster casts! Myself included.
I wonder how many of those senior leaders grew up in urban settings.
I remember in high school when it was not uncommon to see shotguns and rifles in racks inside pickup trucks in the student parking lot during hunting season. Never gave it a second thought.
That was before going to church, being a veteran, owning a gun and believing in the Constitution made you a terror suspect.
Greetings:
<p><span>I grew up in the Bronx of the last '50s and '60s but was fortunate to be in a family that had a summer bungalow about 60 miles north in Putnam County. Thus, I had the benefit of both an urban culture and a country culture. </span>
</p><p><span>Spending summers upstate, my friends were country boys, used to going into the woods, camping overnight, and having our days to ourselves with no threat of nearby adult supervision. Before long, I wanted to acquire the local accoutrements, guns and knives being my highest priorities. </span>
</p><p><span>My city-girl mother wasn't having any of it; my father, born in Ireland and a WWII graduate, quickly became my only chance for a successful acquisition. Initially, I separated him from his "war-knife" and subsequently began working on him for a 22 caliber rifle. When my mother found out that my father was having me join a gun club in preparation for my new tool, he and my mother had an intensive dinner time discussion about the appropriateness of a relative youngster having his own firearm. </span>
</p><p><span>My mother insisted that this was no way to raise a child. My father's conclusionary statement was "I'm not raising a child; I'm raising a man."</span>
</p>
Greetings:
<p><span>I grew up in the Bronx of the last '50s and '60s but was fortunate to be in a family that had a summer bungalow about 60 miles north in Putnam County. Thus, I had the benefit of both an urban culture and a country culture. </span>
</p><p><span>Spending summers upstate, my friends were country boys, used to going into the woods, camping overnight, and having our days to ourselves with no threat of nearby adult supervision. Before long, I wanted to acquire the local accoutrements, guns and knives being my highest priorities. </span>
</p><p><span>My city-girl mother wasn't having any of it; my father, born in Ireland and a WWII graduate, quickly became my only chance for a successful acquisition. Initially, I separated him from his "war-knife" and subsequently began working on him for a 22 caliber rifle. When my mother found out that my father was having me join a gun club in preparation for my new tool, he and my mother had an intensive dinner time discussion about the appropriateness of a relative youngster having his own firearm. </span>
</p><p><span>My mother insisted that this was no way to raise a child. My father's conclusionary statement was "I'm not raising a child; I'm raising a man."</span>
</p>
When I was a wee lad (which was not very long ago, maybe ten years) my best friend and I built a flamethrower out of a super-Soaker (the old kind made from high density plastic before they started building them paper-thin) by epoxying one of those long grill lighters to the muzzle. I'm happy to report that it worked perfectly for about five seconds before the fuel (a mixture of rubbing alcohol and non-aerosol bug spray, we didn't want to use kerosene until we knew it worked) leaking through the trigger mechanism and the joint of the tank caught fire (somehow :0 ) and burned the tops of my hands. Obviously I dropped the thing and it burned up. My parents would have probably kicked my ass if they had ever found out. This is what you get when you let your sons watch 'Aliens', mothers.
I just give you one photo to verify the 'pussification" ....
I never lacked for entries on the physical exam form in the block where it asks for distinguishing scars or markings...
w/r, SJS
Snort!
He makes this guy look like Rambo!
Columbus GA...1973. A ramp just like the one in the picture except with 3-4 of us "little kids" (8-12) laying crosswise at the end while a "big kid" (13-15) on his 3-speed with ape-hanger handlebars and 3 ft sissy bar jumps us. Oh, and grown-ups that stopped to watch and cheer us on. Today that situation would end up with a collection of police and child welfare advocates carting us all off. Maybe that would have been better since I bet we probably went off and had a rock or a roman candle fight once we were bored of the Evel Knievel antics!
Somewhere in the middle of the Midwest, mid 1970s. Our houses backed onto a creek and a large gully. The parents set up a phone chain so that when they wanted to locate the pack, it could be done with a minimum of parental effort. It is amazing the amount of chaos a half dozen or so 6-10 year olds can create using only natural, all organic materials (nettles, for example. And large pinecones.). All done without adult supervision or interference. Those were glorious days to be an imaginative kid, boy or (in my case) girl!
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