Just Reminiscing

[Maverickx50]

I'm getting old. 60 this month but how many of you remember when.

• Archery (unsupervised mostly) was a part of high school phy-ed activities
• We brought out .22 cal. Rifles to school put them in our lockers and did target shooting in the basement shooting range after school.
• Kids all had pocket knives. If caught with them out they were taken away and returned at the end of the day.
• At the age of 10 you could find and trade in enough pop bottles for the deposit to go to the local hardware store and buy your first .22 rifle without a note from dad.
• All kids went around the neighborhood with very realistic looking cap guns strapped to their hip.
• Switch blade knives could be purchased by anybody at the 5 & dime stores.
• Long guns did not have serial numbers
• A 7 year old child could catch a trolley up town to see a movie alone and not be in danger.
• Everybody without a car (kids mostly) hitch hiked everywhere all the time.

There are so many more. You oldsters can add your own for the wonderment of the kids here.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[ronwill]

Remember all that and my high school had an NRA sponsored rifle club. Believe it or not, I went to high school in San Jose, CA.

[NDS]

Yes, I remember when people had better sense than today. If we discuss this too much the realization of how much we've lost could make me lugubrious.

[Maverickx50]

If we discuss this too much the realization of how much we've lost could make me lugubrious.


I can tell you watch The O'Reilly Factor on Fox news LOL

[NDS]

Not a big fan of O'Reilly. I actually think he's a fraud when it comes to freedom. He is too much in favor of government intrustion into our lives.

My love of lexical items predates his appearance in the national media by decades.

[Maverickx50]

Pretty good use of the English language for a guy from Vegas LOL. My mother was an English teacher. I learned the words just not how so spell them. Never forgave me for that I think.

[NDS]

English teachers work hard. I teach science and math at the Junior High level. I enjoy my work but the English teachers tend to burn out before anyone else--it's a thankless task. Remember when we were young and we wanted to look and sound adult; we wanted jobs and success. Times have really changed. Most of today's students don't have a value system remotely like the one we were raised with. Most of them mature and become okay adults, but the others are a problem for us all. I keep hoping that things will come full circle and parents will abandon recent attitudes and return to the idea of individual responsibility.

[Supertac45]

Sounds like my childhood, but they didn't take away our knife if caught since it was no big deal.

[AutoFan]

Archery isn't part of P.E. anymore? My son is gonna be pissed!

I remember as a Cub Scout you had to earn a particular badge and you were given an official Cub Scout knife.

My school had hunter safety courses every fall (after school) and driver's ed every summer.

We'd finish our homework, get on our bikes and disappear until dinner or the streetlights came on, whichever was first. No big deal. In the summer we'd be gone right after breakfast. Some poor mom would get all of us for lunch! We'd carry our .22's to a field and plink at cans set up on an old stump.

[EW3]

My HS, (this was the late 80's into early 90's) had Metal Shop where we could arc weld, forge red hot metal bars, run lathes, drill presses, saws, etc mostly unsupervised. I built my own side pipes for my Firebird there.
I even made a small samurai type knife and won an award for it!

Could you imagine that today in the nanny state we live in?

[Betty]

Heck, I'm only 29 and in high school the guys had their hunting rifles in their vehicles on school grounds. They went hunting with the teachers.

But they stopped having shop class. Too much liability.

[Mtbiker]

I'm only 35 and I was on the rifle team when I was in 4th grade.

[SilenceDoGood]

i grew up in the wrong generation. I have more friends my dad's age than i do my own. Oh well.

[1911NM]

Crud, this is gonna date me. When Colorado first instituted hunter safety programs, I was in the first year. My dad and his friends built a backstop so we could train and shoot small competitions in the grade school gym. High school let out a week in the fall for the first week of deer season.

[simon]

I remember fox theaters 25cents,Black Jack gum,NeHI soda,Cherry Coke 5 cents...and .22 long rifle shells 50 cents for 50ct...used to have to shoot 3 crows to buy a box,the bounty on crows in the peach orchards was .15 cents each,and the peach's were free!