My how things have changed

[K Frame Keith]

I haven’t started a thread in a long time, but on this Father’s Day I have been reminiscing a bit while I count my blessings. I found this old thing in the back of the safe.
It’s the first handgun I ever bought myself. A friend and I bought these Italian replica 1849 Colts , mail order, before we even had drivers licenses. In New Jersey no less!
That was a time when kids could buy .22 ammo at the local hardware store. My buddies and I rode our bikes to the county range to shoot our rifles.
It seems unbelievable now but things really were safer back then.

 

[Rudi]

Much better times.

 

[arjay]

My first handgun too. Bought it at 18 from old west arms on w Colfax and went rabbit hunting lol. Bought a 22 rifle a bit later ��

 

[yaktamer]

That was a time when kids could buy .22 ammo at the local hardware store.

I can beat that. Just after Prohibition my grandfather would send my mom, age 7, to the neighborhood bar with a pail to fetch a bucket of suds.

 

[arjay]

I remember walking to the little store at 12 to buy ma a pack of viceroys lol
They told me not to do that again!

 

[lkabug]

At the company store in Ethel Hollow, one dollar would buy 100 rounds of .22LR.
At 9 years old, in 1955 I kept the coal bin full for a elderly neighbor for a dollar a week.
I got paid on Saturday mornings. Shot my foster dad's 22 Marlin all Saturday afternoon. Those were the days!

 

[K Frame Keith]

At the company store in Ethel Hollow, one dollar would buy 100 rounds of .22LR.
At 9 years old, in 1955 I kept the coal bin full for a elderly neighbor for a dollar a week.
I got paid on Saturday mornings. Shot my foster dad's 22 Marlin all Saturday afternoon. Those were the days!

At about the same age I was allowed to pocket the bottle refund if I cased up the bottles and put them in the trunk of the car!

 

[s&wchad]

I remember walking to the little store at 12 to buy ma a pack of viceroys lol
They told me not to do that again!

"Viceroy - The taste that's right!"

I remember getting permission from the Assistant Principal at University of Detroit High School to have guns and ammo in the trunk of my car on premises. A friend and I would go to Tony's Gun Shop/Range after classes and shoot.

I also remember stories from my uncle about taking his shotgun to the one room school house, putting it in the closet and hunting on the way back to the farm.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

As I have posted, my first Revolver was a pot metal import.
Didn’t take long to see I had made a mistake!
Took it back, took the hit, traded it for a Ruger Single Six.

 

[smoothshooter]

I haven’t started a thread in a long time, but on this Father’s Day I have been reminiscing a bit while I count my blessings. I found this old thing in the back of the safe.
It’s the first handgun I ever bought myself. A friend and I bought these Italian replica 1849 Colts , mail order, before we even had drivers licenses. In New Jersey no less!
That was a time when kids could buy .22 ammo at the local hardware store. My buddies and I rode our bikes to the county range to shoot our rifles.
It seems unbelievable now but things really were safer back then.

Makes me wonder what it will be like there in another 20 years.
Probably not better.

 

[tops]

Makes me wonder what it will be like there in another 20 years.
Probably not better.

I think things are moving exponentially. Probably see more change in the next 20 than we did in the last 50. Larry

 

[30-30remchester]

Bought my first handgun when I was 15. A Ruger 22 automatic. Carried it home on the school bus with instructions from the driver to not load it till I got off the bus.

 

[yaktamer]

I worked with a guy who claimed he and all his buddies had real bookies in junior high in the 1960s. Insofar as he grew up in Steubenville, Ohio, I believed him.

 

[chuckie]

In the early sixty's my High School had a rifle team, with a rifle range in the School. That's something we'll never see again.

 

[robvious]

my late father talked about the neighborhood kids chipping in for 22's and riding their bikes to the dump to shoot rats... with their rifles across the handlebars of the bikes... that would be national news today... he also raided grandma's spice cabinet to make homeade fireworks different colors... and I was a problem child.. HA...

 

[yaktamer]

I could write a book about youthful pyrotechnics fabricated by my neighbors and friends.

 

[hivel37]

my late father talked about the neighborhood kids chipping in for 22's and riding their bikes to the dump to shoot rats... with their rifles across the handlebars of the bikes... that would be national news today... he also raided grandma's spice cabinet to make homeade fireworks different colors... and I was a problem child.. HA...

I’ve made sure my grandkids heard of the times of
22 rifles across the handlebars. We are witnesses
to a time long ago.

 

[alwslate]

Way back when I was fourteen years old my hunting buddy and I would ride our bikes with our .22 rifles across the handlebars through our neighborhood out to the country to look for a place to hunt. We hid our bikes in a ditch, climbed fences and sneaked into some farmer's woods at dawn to hunt Squirrels. We used .22 Shorts so the sounds of our shots would not alert the farmers.

 

[bearman49709]

"Viceroy - The taste that's right!"

I remember getting permission from the Assistant Principal at University of Detroit High School to have guns and ammo in the trunk of my car on premises. A friend and I would go to Tony's Gun Shop/Range after classes and shoot.

I also remember stories from my uncle about taking his shotgun to the one room school house, putting it in the closet and hunting on the way back to the farm.

That's what happens when you go to them big fancy school's.
I didn't have anyone's permission to have that fifth of Smirnoff vodka in my trunk at school.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

I went to High School just outside suburbia and graduated in 1974. Every boy carried a pocket knife or Buck lock blade on his belt. Most girls had some sort of knife in their purse, and a few of those contained their mom's revolver.
We were allowed one Mid-Weekday off as excused for hunting a year (I took first day of duck season, most of my friends took first day of squirrel season.) All fall and first half of winter, it was common to ride the school but with your cased shotgun to school and ride a different bus to a farm afterschool for hunting. Most other schools made you store them at the office, at our school you kept it in your locker.

Forum Member Walnutred, usually had a shotgun and a couple of milsurp rifles for sale in his locker for his last 3 years of school! The hardware store would sell shotgun shells buy the piece to kids with a note from their parents on file, 22's and centerfire ammo were sold by the half box. This was all post 1968!

Ivan