How the times have changed... Tell your story

[Hornett]

When I was 16, some 35 years ago, I carried a 22 rifle everywhere I went.
So did most of my friends.
We would take our rifles (or shotguns depending on the season) to school, leave them in plain sight, sometimes in the back window of a pickup, then after school go straight to where we were hunting and hunt til dark.
No one thought a thing about it.

Today, you would be suspended in a heartbeat.

Tell your story.
What did you do in your youth involving guns that just would not be tolerated today.

 

[NullSyndrome]

My neighbor and I used to sit on the roof of his unattached garage and shoot at grackles with our pellet guns when we were in junior high school.

We would also go down to Williamsburg Pond (overflow from the Wabash) and shoot carp at the end of the summer when the water got shallow. Shooting fish in a bucket, literally! We figured as the pond shrank, they all died anyway. Pellet guns were about all we could use since we lived in the city.

*not saying that either of these are legal, but we were in junior high and all...

The other thing was running around the neighborhood playing cops and robbers with realisitc looking guns that had some seriously loud caps. That would probably get us shot today. Heck, I remember bringing a realistic looking squirtgun to school (it was battery operated and shot water like a machinegun) and just got it taken away until the next day...it was the last week of school.

 

[indykid]

In high school (around 1964) my art class was required to do a print using charcoal. I did a 3/4 perspective of a Thompson Sub-machinegun. Teacher thought it was great and gave me an A. Today I would be suspended. Oh, I went to school in the suburbs of NYC!!!!!! How things change.

 

[oldbikelvr]

In third grade I won a bookmark art contest with a drawing of a single action revolver with the slogan, "I get a bang out of books". We got to go on a special field trip to the downtown Indy library. It seemed huge to a kid from Fortville.

 

[Cat-Herder]

I grew up in pre-PC America. There were no computers, cable TV, internet, digital anything, and real men still went to work in a snowstorm.
New York was a dangerous, filthy city and so was Los Angeles, and everybody in both cities had guns for protection.
There were no "hate crimes" laws because you didn't need them. crime was crime, not some kind of politicized garbage...
when kids acted up, they got punished. it was considered un-american to stay on welfare if you could help it. cars were made in detroit. men were made in Parris Island. The 'enemy' was communism (an idea, just like "terrorism") and we were still the greatest nation on the face of the earth.

 

[Bunnykid68]

22 years ago when I was 18 I went to K-mart and bought my first 10/22 Ruger for $119, It took just a few minutes too.

Our first VCR remote had a cable running all the way to the VCR

 

[oldbikelvr]

I grew up in pre-PC America. There were no computers, cable TV, internet, digital anything, and real men still went to work in a snowstorm.
New York was a dangerous, filthy city and so was Los Angeles, and everybody in both cities had guns for protection.
There were no "hate crimes" laws because you didn't need them. crime was crime, not some kind of politicized garbage...
when kids acted up, they got punished. it was considered un-american to stay on welfare if you could help it. cars were made in detroit. men were made in Parris Island. The 'enemy' was communism (an idea, just like "terrorism") and we were still the greatest nation on the face of the earth.

Real men went to MCRD San Diego, Parris Island was for WM's

 

[random_eyes]

In the 6th grade, my older sister dragged a civil war musket and a sword onto the school bus one show and tell day. The bus driver insisted she keep the sword in its scabbard. No police nor newspapers were ever the wiser.

 

[cosermann]

My dad and some of the other boys would hunt during their walk to/from school during season and just lean their guns in the corner of the classroom during the day.

(approx. 62-ish yrs ago).

 

[Colt556]

When I was growing up I remember being the poorest family in the neighborhood. There were 6 boys living in a 3 bedroom house. I think we had the last outhouse in the city and used coal for heat. I remember the house being condemned and having to move in with my grandmother's apartment in a way worse neighborhood in the inner city. I remember being the only white boy in the 6th grade and being called everything but white by the other kids. I remember learning to fight for survival. I remember the day Kennedy was shot as well as MLK and RFK. When MLK was shot we stayed in our apt for 3 days b/c of threats against us for being white. I remember "Duck and Cover" drills at school in case of a nuclear attack, as if that would have saved us. I remember the fear in the air during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember watching Cronkite and clips of the Vietnam war and always looking for my 3 brothers that were in country at the time. I remember going downtown and looking at all the wonderful mechanical window displays at Christmas. I remember having to obey my teachers, police or any adult, or suffer the consequences! I remember being paddled at school and then also when I got home!! I remember that when one of my older brothers returned from VN in 68" moving to a brand new house! I remember our first phone and color tv. I remember our first microwave, 8 Track, cassette player and VCR. I remember having a paper route, cutting grass and raking leaves for spending money. I remember buying my Schwinn 10 speed with that money only to have it stolen a few weeks later. I remember buying my 1st gun, a Marlin Model 60 and using it to hunt rabbits and squirrels out on 52 just east of Shadeland. I remember a lot of things from my 50 some years on this earth. We had to work for everything we got and if it broke or was stolen, well, too bad. If only I had a time machine I'd love to go back to those days. It was harder life but I think it was better overall and the world just wasn't as crazy as it is now.....

 

[Titanium Man]

Always carried my Boy Scout pocket knife to school. Never even thought about it being wrong back in the 70's. When we had the yearly outing of shooting 22's at the local conservation club, we had "meetings" after "meetings" on gun safety, that to us seemed endless. In hind sight, those "trainings", were priceless, because many of those things stuck with me to this day. Back in the 70's, boys could talk about "guns" freely without fear of being expelled or suspended for "frightening" or "offending" someone.

 

[Duce]

Being in the late sixty's and in high school, carrying a knife everyday. Social Studies teacher borrowing it to cut open some type of news paper for students. The knife was a butterfly knife that my father brought home from the Philippines. Using a Victors No 2 coil spring trap to do a demonstration speech in English class and no one raising an eyebrow. Being told the truth without it being spun to fit a situation............Duce<><

 

[quicksdraw]

Back when I was about 10 or 11 (mid 60s) my friends and I would grab our .22s and walk out the railroad tracks to hunt squirrels. And nobody in town thought a damn thing about it.
I also remember dad ordering new 1911 from a catalog and the mailman delivered it to the house.

 

[shftn6]

Back in the late 40's and early 50's, in Monroe Co., the local bus driver in our area was a farmer and avid coon hunter. The only "truck" he owned was his school bus. He would coon hunt all night till morning, then run his bus route. When the kids got on at each stop, there would be the two wet coon dogs, curled up asleep in the first seat behind the driver, several dead bloody coons on the floor directly behind the driver's seat, and his gun propped up next to him. The boys couldn't wait to get on and see what Lee had gotten the night before! "We didn't think nothin' of it" they still say!

The same guy would hoist the bus body off the chassis once school was out, put on a couple log bunks, and haul logs all summer! Then, come fall, put the bus body back on! They took that bus to Washington DC for a senior class trip one year - no interstates!

 

[edporch]

Back when I was in 3rd grade (1964-65) growing up in a small NW Indiana town, a lot of us boys had an interest in WW2.
Many of us read books, collected military badges, empty brass and other militaria appropriate for kids our age.

There was a glass display case by the door to the gym, and each class got to put their own display in it for 2 weeks.

Our 3rd grade class decided to put militaria collected by the kids and brought from home from parents that contributed to it.

Our display was pretty cool, among the militaria we also had all kinds of deactivated ordnance, and even a WW2 Italian issue rifle that a friend of mine's dad brought in.

It was VERY well received without ANY negativity at all.

The times have sure changed....

In my day, I remember reading "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" in the 3rd grade, as well as other books of this type.

We were taught about things like Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier.

I remember one day when a bunch of us boys were drawing WW2 battle pictures on our free time, with the American soldiers fighting the Nazis, our 3rd grade teacher had us stop drawing for a moment.

She proceeded to tell us of how EVIL the Nazis were.
i can remember she ended by telling us with TEARS welling up in her eyes,
"DO YOU REALIZE THAT IF YOU LIVED IN GERMANY IN THOSE TIMES YOU WOULD ALREADY BE BRAINWASHED BY THE TIME YOU'RE THE AGE YOU ARE NOW...?"
(that's my first memory of the word "brainwashed")

I never forgot the lessons I learned from that teacher and other teachers I had that were of the "old school".

 

[Sticky]

I used to go hunting before school, take the gun to school, and sometimes go hunting on the way home.

During recess and lunchtime I would often sit outside by the basketball court and whittle. I remember starting the whittling while in Kindergarten.

Grandpa started me on pistol shooting about the same time. He always thought pistols were meant to be carried all the time. What a novel idea...

 

[ghitch75]

12g and 10/22 in rack back glass of my truck at school even....

would go to jail these days....

 

[ThrottleJockey]

It brings tears to my eyes thinking about the good old days and how my son will never know the likes of such a time.

 

[rooster007]

Folks , growing up in L.A. (Lower Alabama) everything you guys have said was my chilhood . It brings back some great childhood memories . But the world has changed in the last thirty years or so . The only way that we can reverse all of the B.S. that has occured over past 3 decades is preach to the choir and vote . Tell your kids and grandkids how it use to be . They will catch on . Because they will long for the way things use to be , just like is was when Grandpaw was growing up. TEACH

 

[mojo2530]

i must agree with throttlejockey! i know many things are easier now but it does make me somewhat sad that simplier times are gone.