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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:29 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 16 Jul 2015
Posts: 2124
Location: Hudson,Wy

In another post a question is presented about going back in time. I would like to address time, "the times", and how they have changed. Now I'm not going into a dissertation about societal issues we face today, but rather am currently reflecting on the world Dad grew up in.

This morning I read "Red Letter Day" by Burton Spiller. From what I gather, the events occurred in the 1930's or 1940's. Mid way through the story, he and his friend pull up stakes and move to the "schoolyard cover". When they arrive, school is in session. Here are two men, having lunch in a schoolyard parking lot with dogs, guns, etc. and they fully intend to merely walk off and hunt directly from this location, which is completely acceptable at the time. I won't spoil the story, but they make two new friends. For those of you who have not read this story, you really owe it to yourself to find a copy and read it.

There are other stories written by Burton Spiller, Gordon MacQuarrie, and Robert Ruark (among others) that reveal a way of life and an era when men routinely walked through town with guns, dogs, and birds, alarming nobody along the way. Young folks here would be well off to find these literary treasures, they are heart warming. Oh, and tail feathers make the best book marks...
[[URL=http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56862_1024x768/] [/URL]][/img]

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Hammer bill
PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 12:23 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 09 Feb 2015
Posts: 815

WyoChukar wrote:
In another post a question is presented about going back in time. I would like to address time, "the times", and how they have changed. Now I'm not going into a dissertation about societal issues we face today, but rather am currently reflecting on the world Dad grew up in.

This morning I read "Red Letter Day" by Burton Spiller. From what I gather, the events occurred in the 1930's or 1940's. Mid way through the story, he and his friend pull up stakes and move to the "schoolyard cover". When they arrive, school is in session. Here are two men, having lunch in a schoolyard parking lot with dogs, guns, etc. and they fully intend to merely walk off and hunt directly from this location, which is completely acceptable at the time. I won't spoil the story, but they make two new friends. For those of you who have not read this story, you really owe it to yourself to find a copy and read it.

There are other stories written by Burton Spiller, Gordon MacQuarrie, and Robert Ruark (among others) that reveal a way of life and an era when men routinely walked through town with guns, dogs, and birds, alarming nobody along the way. Young folks here would be well off to find these literar

y treasures, they are heart warming. Oh, and tail feathers make the best book marks...
[[URL=http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56862_1024x768/] [/URL]][/img]


That describes the way I greew up in the middle 50's & early 60's. About all us kids in middle 50's .
Had a single shot 22. Go into the little grocery store. Buy a box of 22's. 25 cents a box of 50. Walk down to the river shoot snakes, sparrows off the power lines. Trutles. We all walk back in town with people passing us walking on the road. Wave at each other. Stop at one of the 2 little gas stations in towm and get a coke & nickle bag peanuts. Pour peanuts into our coke. Big thing then. Come rabbit season the grocer would open a box of shells and sell us 1 or 2 shells. What ever we had enough money for. Walk thru the back yards of neighbors that was bordered by fields shooting rabbits.

I could probably write a book myself. I just dont have the patients anymore. My daughter has several books on best sellers. But not my kind of books.
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Aurelio Corso
PostPosted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:13 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 196

I grew up back in the 50's and 60's in a big city and would run up and down the street with BB guns and nobody freaked out.When we had a hard rain we would go to the local dump and shoot rats with 22's and one night the police came and asked what we were doing but they did not get out of the car after seeing all the rats running around,just said have fun and drove away.
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Chukar60
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 7:55 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 31 Jan 2019
Posts: 55
Location: Idaho

I have lived in the Boise area my entire life. Used to love it here, but it is getting too crowded now that it has been “found”.
When I was a kid it was not uncommon the see someone walking downtown with a gun. There were a couple gun shops there and nothing was ever thought about it.
When I was in high school we used to take our shotguns and go bird hunting after school. Shotguns in the rear window of a pickup raised no eyebrows.
Now? Kids are not allowed to carry a pocket knife. Times have changed.
We used to hunt Huns just 10 miles east of town. Doubt a Hun has been seen there in 30 years.
When I was in my early 20’s we hunted pheasant on the current site of the biggest mall in the valley on our lunch break.
Now I only hunt birds in Oregon. Not really much this side of the river worth the effort anymore.
Time changes everything. Some for the better, some for the worse.
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PRONGHORNSOUTH
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 5:39 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 30 Dec 2012
Posts: 269
Location: Chocolate City, Florida

Growing up in the South, carrying rifles and shotguns around, was no concern.
At least once a year, take a couple to school for "Hunting and Fishing Club" annual photos.
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PRONGHORNSOUTH
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 5:42 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 30 Dec 2012
Posts: 269
Location: Chocolate City, Florida

And we too could buy a box of .22's for less than a dollar, down at the Gulf, gas station...
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16gaDavis
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:26 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 24 Jun 2013
Posts: 2062
Location: canandaigua - western n.y. (formerly deerhunter)

JR high school , 65ish ... would take our M12's to school in a take down bag , 5 or 6 shells in pockets . Get off the bus at a buddys house and pheas hunt back home . May or may not have been a problem back THEN !! How bout now !!

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Pine Creek/Dave
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:28 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 17 Mar 2017
Posts: 2787
Location: Endless Mountains of Pa

Gentlemen,

It's not uncommon to see somebody in the bank in Galeton, Pa with a gun openly strapped on his hip, might even be me. Walk outside and see 3 Jeeps with the keys left in them and shotguns or rifles in the back seat.

When I was a boy we took our guns to school to be able to hunt on the way home. Mac Grant the principle would put the shotguns in his school locker until school let out.

In my Grandmothers era the 20's, the kids all brought their guns to school, the shotguns and rifles had racks on the wall inside the school house, the holster pegs for the pistols are still in that building even today. Potter County, Pa ya got to love it.

When Bill Clinton was talking gun control on TV my Grandmother asked us, don't the kids take their guns to school to hunt on the way home any more? She was in her very late 80's then, and was upset that President Clinton would even talk about Gun Control. In fact she ask me where the family guns were, because of Clinton's gun control talk on TV. I assured her, her guns and all the other family guns were here in our home, and that nobody would ever take them from us. She smiled and told me I had always been a good boy. It is one of my cherished moments with my Grandmother.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

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tramroad28
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:57 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 20 Jul 2011
Posts: 625
Location: Ohio..where ruffed grouse were

My Father was born in 1911 and while he was a teenager in the 20s and no doubt experienced a longer leash re firearms, he also lost his own Father in those early 20s due to the difficulties and realities of surgery in that time.
Going back....is often limited by the blessed points we choose to remember....change can ring a good bell.
That said, I would like to experience 10 days of the Canaan, WV area in early November, 1928.

Sadly, I would say that today is really the good old day of firearms, comparably and fwltw.....but clearly not the good old days for many habitats, gamebirds and, especially, hunting access.

Banks & Bars are both go for legal carry in PA.....a bit nuts considering a changing world in even a fertile imagination.
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Dave in Maine
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 1:55 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 12 Sep 2010
Posts: 1972
Location: Maine

I was in the supermarket today and, as is my habit, I stopped by the magazine rack to see what the mass media is offering America this week. Or, as grumpy storekeepers have called it, "turning my store into your library".

They had the usual selection of stuff, but what caught my eye was a "special issue" put out by Life Magazine called "Dogs". It's about to tell us all about dogs.

So I looked over my shoulder to see whether the coast was clear - it was - and I started reading. There were stories about domesticating wolves to become dogs, how dogs ultimately got to move inside, how breeds came to be, King Charles and his dogs, an ancient grave where archaeologists found a woman buried with a puppy, her hand laid gently across the pup, working dogs, war dogs, comfort dogs, seeing eye dogs, handicapped-assistance dogs, cute pictures of dogs running, jumping and swimming.

And not a mention of hunting dogs. Not a mention of dogs that find game. Not a mention of hunting. Not even a mention of the constellation Orion the hunter and Canis Major his loyal dog. Not a picture.

Like hunting never existed.

A lot of people will read that Life book like it is Gospel.

It's an old story. An editor decides (or his publisher decides for him) that Nobody is interested in a particular topic. That topic gets no coverage. And when people complain about that topic disappearing, they are designated as Nobody, because only Nobody is interested in that topic.

We saw it here in Maine in one of our leading newspapers, when a very good reporter whose beat was hunting and fishing was transferred to cover junior high school and girls soccer, leaving no one to cover the outdoors. Because the publisher and editor decided Nobody was interested in the outdoors sports and that paper doesn't serve Nobody.

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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 9:03 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 16 Jul 2015
Posts: 2124
Location: Hudson,Wy

On the subject of turning back time, here is a little piece of my past. I used to draw on my logbook covers. Back in 1997 I scratched out these two scenes. One is of a young man in the marsh with a custom L.C. Smith (that he never got around to building). The other is of a happy old man moving up on a Sharptail grouse. You guessed it, the young fella was me and the old man is the guy I hope to someday be.
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16gaDavis
PostPosted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 6:25 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 24 Jun 2013
Posts: 2062
Location: canandaigua - western n.y. (formerly deerhunter)

i would have had the same drawings , only mine would have had W97's - the only gun my Dad and Gramps would talk about , had to keep my m12 in hiding !!

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CitoriFeather16
PostPosted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 8:12 am  Reply with quote
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Joined: 09 Dec 2005
Posts: 989
Location: Las Vegas

The world is changing. Fast. I live in a sanctuary city, yet I see more and more people openly carrying on their hip. It is legal here.

I'd rather see them with a nice double broken open.

Matt
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Hammer bill
PostPosted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 8:37 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 09 Feb 2015
Posts: 815

I hope we are not the last of the breed. But it scares me that we are. Even though there are many young shooting trap, skeet , sporting clays. The magical part of the hunting and being part of nature is leaving us.
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Pine Creek/Dave
PostPosted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 9:19 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 17 Mar 2017
Posts: 2787
Location: Endless Mountains of Pa

WyoChukar,

Sorry buddy neither drawing would be me, there is no bird dog any where in the drawing. Very nice drawings however.


Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

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Pine Creek Grouse Dog Trainers
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