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I REMEMBER WHEN

I remember when I had my first bow and arrows. I did some things that I sure cannot explain.

One time, I had the urge to skip an arrow off the ground underneath my dad's car. Rather than the arrow skipping off the ground as I had envisioned, it went right up the tail pipe! I looked up in there, couldn't see it. I went and got a flashlight. Still couldn't see it. Oh well I thought, it'll fall out one day while he's driving.

I seem to remember it was his '55 Chevy Biscayne but when I think of my age and when I got the bow for Christmas, now I think it must have been his '63 Biscayne. In any event, years later he had the muffler and tailpipe replaced and he came home with that arrow. He says, son do you know anything about this? He knew it was my arrow. I said yeah and told him the story. He gave me a little mini-lecture about doing potentially destructive things while trying not to laugh.

Another time...now this is really dumb...I was out with my bow in the springtime walking in the apple orchard. The trees were blossoming so they provided good cover from the air...I saw this plane about the size and shape of a Piper Cub (don't know for sure what type it was but that's close enough, it was a very small high wing tail dragger) flying along parallel to the tree rows and over one row. It was floating along very slow and very low. I have no idea what possessed me but I ducked under the nearest tree, under the thick layer of white blossoms. When that plane was directly over me I popped out and shot an arrow straight up and almost hit the thing! I had no intention of hitting it, I just thought it would be cool I guess to see how close I came. I watched that arrow going up, up, up as the plane lazily floated along and I was like oh crap it's gonna hit! No...no...noooo... Well it didn't hit thankfully and I immediately realized what a stupid thing that was to do and I think I said a little prayer thanking the Lord for covering me on that.
 
Having parents that grew up thru the depression they wasted absolutely nothing. I remember my dad would disassemble something that was rotten and straighten out all the nails to reuse them on another project. One year I gave him a couple of boxes of new nails. I found them still unopened after he passed away...they were next to a bucket of old straightened nails! He paid cash for everything, was an excellent shot, extremely independent, WW2 vet, and took absolutely no shit from anyone. We ate many a can of sardines and Vienna sausages while walking miles quail hunting. His friends were the same way. I know they are all rolling over in their grave now.
 
I remember riding my bicycle up and down the dirt roads and highways looking for pop bottles. I could sell them back to the stores for 2 cents a bottle and in that same store get a new tube of BBs or small box of 22 shorts.
I remember taking my Red Ryder BB gun on the bus to school for show and tell and my neighbor Mike taking a sword from WW2 his dad got from a dead Jap.
Not politically correct now days.

HB
 
I remember when cashiers could make change. They'd do the math in their head and then count it out as they dropped it in your hand in case you couldn't do the math.

My parents owned a small family grocery store in a small town. They bought it when I was in the 6th grade and I spent my afternoons after school working in the store. Counting change was something you did two times. First you would count up from the sales price pulling first pennies, then nickels, dimes, quarters, fifty cent pieces and finally into the paper money until the change and the purchase price equaled the value of the money they gave you.

Then you would do it again back to the customer. This way you were sure you did it right and so was the customer. These days you want to mess up a counter person, just give them some change with the paper money and watch them look at you like you just spoke Russian.
 
Remember riding bike below our house and watch the guys dragrace, shooting and hunting with my grandad, bought a cushman eagle in 1962, got my license when I was 14 built my first car a 1958 ford put a 427 sideoiler in it and raced below the house. Always loved guns, race cars, and baseball. Too much to list things I did in my earlier years that would get you in a heep of trouble today.
 
About the three on the tree, I remember my 1968 F100 had that and some linkage under the firewall that had a worn out bushing and about once a week or so the linkage would slip so that it wouldn’t shift the gears, and I never did get it fixed right. I would just crawl under and put it back in place. The only time it really bothered me was when it happened while I was on a date.
I remember helping my dad build a f100, had a 302, 3 on the tree. He worked on it until it was looking factory, I remember driving it the first time and missing gears. I also remember him having a wreck the next year on bloody mtn, aka Cumberland Gap. A tractor trailer jack knifed and hit in a curve. That morning my grandfather and grandmother came and got me at school. Not a word was said, we where on our way to the hospital when we pasted the wreck. I saw the truck and new it was bad. I saw him in the ER for maybe 10 min. He was in bad shape. Next time I seen him was a month later in icu. He made it through it and is alive today. I still remember the first time I drove that truck and wish I still could. Sad memories, but it was the best knowing that family and God where with us.
 
25 pages... you guys are killin' me. i'm sure it's been said... but:

when mackinaw hunting coats had a license holder on the back. family farms on broken land. small wood lots you could get permission to hunt, and large tracts you could hunt without a lease.

when other hunters that saw your vehicle would drive on to a different place

waking up in a cabin with a wood stove, with the air so dried out inside you would drink half a pail of ice cold well water - before coffee.

when snow was a reason to go hunting, not a reason to stay home. flat, easy walkin' log roads in the north woods. and....

Quiet. quiet like no other when the wind was down and the snow falling. Quiet like no snowmachines, no atvs, no sxs, no interstate off in the distance...

and...

when i actually killed a sitting duck with my bb-gun. well, assuming you might call a coot a duck.
 
Having parents that grew up thru the depression they wasted absolutely nothing. I remember my dad would disassemble something that was rotten and straighten out all the nails to reuse them on another project. One year I gave him a couple of boxes of new nails. I found them still unopened after he passed away...they were next to a bucket of old straightened nails! He paid cash for everything, was an excellent shot, extremely independent, WW2 vet, and took absolutely no shit from anyone. We ate many a can of sardines and Vienna sausages while walking miles quail hunting. His friends were the same way. I know they are all rolling over in their grave now.
They were most certainly the "greatest generation"
 
Very interesting reading over the last 24 pages.
I remember in the mid 1960's in the San Luis Valley in Colorado I had a savage m940Y single shot shotgun in 20 ga. I would get $1.10 for a good muskrat, and 25 cents for a jack rabbit that was sold to mink farms for food. If I was a good enough shot I had enough money to buy another box of shotgun shells and go to the Saturday afternoon movie.
 

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