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After reading a few of the recent posts about old tv westerns,war movies and growing up in the 50/60's. I began to wonder how many of my forum friends ever recall thier boy-hood buddys and friendly .22 shootin' matches ???
Seems that there were a lot of baby boomers in my neighbor-hood. Never any problem finding enough kids to pick-up sides for full teams of foot-ball or sand-lot base-ball games. But trying to find 5 or 6 kids with .22's was always a chore.
Considering all of the veteran fathers,gran-dads/uncles and big brothers made it even harder to understand back then. I guess many of them had had more than enough to do with guns to want them in thier life anymore.
We lucky few could always cut grass/shovel snow, or return pop bottles to raise enough money for a brick of .22's and con one of our Moms into buying them for us. So long as we promised to be safe and stay out of trouble, and of course we had to be home in time for supper.
Our little band of brothers lived on a dead-end street, right next to the treeline of the woods and about 1/4 mile from the creek. Walk the rail-line 1 mile up-stream and you were out of the city limits. And smack-dab in the middle of my boy-hood heaven.
Cornfields and crows on one side of the creek, quarried lime-stone caves,(abandoned), on the other. In winter there would be 25'ice columns growing over the mouths of the four largest/deepest caves. And several thousand smaller,(1' > 2') icesicles hanging from the rock face cliffs. Our own personal shooting gallery.
Knock'm down all morning. Build a fire and have a hotdog and baked apple lunch before going home. Then come back in a day or so and do it all over again. Shooting yardstick sized targets off-hand with iron sights @ 30/40yds. was a real ego boost. I like to think that honing those skills gave my pals a bit more of chance when it was thier turn to serve our country. Two of them paid the ultimate price.
Well, that's enough remembering for now. Hope I was able to stir up some visions from your pasts. Remember to stay out of trouble, and be sure to get home in time for supper....
Seems that there were a lot of baby boomers in my neighbor-hood. Never any problem finding enough kids to pick-up sides for full teams of foot-ball or sand-lot base-ball games. But trying to find 5 or 6 kids with .22's was always a chore.
Considering all of the veteran fathers,gran-dads/uncles and big brothers made it even harder to understand back then. I guess many of them had had more than enough to do with guns to want them in thier life anymore.
We lucky few could always cut grass/shovel snow, or return pop bottles to raise enough money for a brick of .22's and con one of our Moms into buying them for us. So long as we promised to be safe and stay out of trouble, and of course we had to be home in time for supper.
Our little band of brothers lived on a dead-end street, right next to the treeline of the woods and about 1/4 mile from the creek. Walk the rail-line 1 mile up-stream and you were out of the city limits. And smack-dab in the middle of my boy-hood heaven.
Cornfields and crows on one side of the creek, quarried lime-stone caves,(abandoned), on the other. In winter there would be 25'ice columns growing over the mouths of the four largest/deepest caves. And several thousand smaller,(1' > 2') icesicles hanging from the rock face cliffs. Our own personal shooting gallery.
Knock'm down all morning. Build a fire and have a hotdog and baked apple lunch before going home. Then come back in a day or so and do it all over again. Shooting yardstick sized targets off-hand with iron sights @ 30/40yds. was a real ego boost. I like to think that honing those skills gave my pals a bit more of chance when it was thier turn to serve our country. Two of them paid the ultimate price.
Well, that's enough remembering for now. Hope I was able to stir up some visions from your pasts. Remember to stay out of trouble, and be sure to get home in time for supper....