This is topic Remember those days in forum Member forum at The New Huntmastersbbs!.
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Posted by Gerald Stewart (Member # 162) on October 06, 2005, 05:40 AM:
I long for the days of youthful innocence where your summer was full of days at the farm. Not even a broken leg could keep me away from the stock tank. That single shot .22 and cane poles gave us more fun than any nintendo ever could.
We grew up into a complicated world that is too busy and too fast. I hope I get grandkids some day that I can sit by the pond with and show the simpler things in life.
Posted by Tim Behle (Member # 209) on October 06, 2005, 06:09 AM:
My nephew came out to spend some time with us this summer. Really a good kid, 14 years old, but has never been allowed to do anything.
After a week or so of close supervision here on my range, I suggested to him that he should take the 22 and go for a walk.
A few minutes later, I found him sitting on the couch holding the rifle. I asked him if he was going and he said he was waiting on me.
We talked about the rules for shooting again, and I told him he would be fine. Then I watch him pick up five bullets and head for the door. I called after him and told him I didn't think five bullets would last him very long, he just quietly stood there as I filled him pocket with another 100 or so rounds.
The look on that kids face was priceless. I think it was the first time he had ever been trusted to be responsible.
He probably went though a brick or two of bullets in the next week. I'm just glad that I still live in a place where a young boy can be allowed to go out and spend the day with a rifle and not have to fear anyone causing him trouble.
Posted by Jay Nistetter (Member # 140) on October 06, 2005, 06:43 AM:
Gerald.
Are you sure your real name isn't Opie?
Posted by Gerald Stewart (Member # 162) on October 06, 2005, 08:10 AM:
For some reason, all of a sudden, the pictures I post on Photobucket are not working. I will try and get it straightened out.
It worked fine when I put it on this morning.
[ October 06, 2005, 08:11 AM: Message edited by: Gerald Stewart ]
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on October 06, 2005, 10:05 AM:
Looks good, to me. I was an Oppie, myself, but I was not trusted with a 22, at that age. As a kid, I was probably a much better fisherman than I am today; if you count carp and bullhead? I know I used to catch a lot more fish. My grandson Aaron, is such an avid fisherman, it's scary.
Gerald, those look like a "Mom" haircuts, from here. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Good hunting. LB
Posted by onecoyote (Member # 129) on October 06, 2005, 10:39 AM:
Leonard, I remember walking down Merced Ave with a .22 and hunting rabbits where Legg lake is now, fishing too. Taking our bows to the Rio Hondo and shooting bull frogs. I was always runing barefoot, only time I put shoes on was when I had to go to school or church. Gerald, you grew up right, it's a sin most kids of today can't experience the old ways. Did somebody say Opie? I think we were before Opie ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posted by Rob (Member # 75) on October 06, 2005, 11:07 AM:
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
[ May 03, 2006, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: Rob ]
Posted by Gerald Stewart (Member # 162) on October 06, 2005, 12:09 PM:
Man I loved those days. The freedom to go and do on the farm were the best. I used to set my army soldiers up in the dirt of the barnyard and hide behind the big oak and jump out and shoot the Germans with my BB guns. My green GI Joes always won those battles. Firecrackers for ordinance was cool. Got burned pretty bad by one, due to my late release, and I will always remember Grandma going to the flower bed and breaking off a piece of an Olivera plant and rubbing the juice on my fingers for soothing pain relief. I still miss that Rolly Polly old German woman who could cook food and play Dominoes like nobody's business. She even let me and some friends come down and drink Spirits with her and she never told Mom.
We used to play "annie over" with a tennis ball and race around the old tin roofed farm house (1920)that still stands to this day. I dreamed of digging up the collapsed barn cellar where the old barn stood. The Sheriff knocked down the trap door entrance and filled it in when they discovered the moonshine still in it. Grandpa spent a night in Jail for that one.
I always wondered what Blackie the hunting mutt would drag home each night. He brought home a pregnant possum one time that had babies coming out of her. I will never forget my older sister pulling them out and trying to save them. Dad was forever bringing home Tarantulas, coons, baby crows and snakes.
The cold North wind coming in the cracks of the old farm house walls just made my brother and I crawl deeper under Grandma's homemade quilts Mother piled on top of us. The cold barefoot race into the dining\family room was dreaded the next morning. That was where Granpa would be smoking his pipe and stoking the only wood burning stove in the whole house.
I lament the fact that my son's never got to experience the same things I did.
Blackie at his prime age. Chasing Tractors cars, snakes, raccoons and other percieved threats could not take him down. Old age got him. Uncle Jody came back with tears in his eyes from that last stroll in the woods with Blackie.
Another posing session for Dad's camera by one of the old Oaks.
[ October 06, 2005, 12:14 PM: Message edited by: Gerald Stewart ]
Posted by Melvin (Member # 634) on October 06, 2005, 12:33 PM:
Gerald, that brings back a lot of fond memories of the past..There were 3 ponds about a mile from where we lived..My mother and i would walk to them and fish..We didn't have a regular fishing pole(I had no idea what one looked like back then)We used a long slender stick for a pole and some heavy sewing thread with a bent safety pin for a hook..To some this may sound untrue,but it's as true as i'm sitting here typing..We would manage to catch a few pan fish,but some times we walked home without anything to show for our efforts...At the end of a wonderfull day,i don't think it really made any difference.
Posted by pup (Member # 90) on October 06, 2005, 02:47 PM:
Dad wasn't much on hunting or fishing, as he just couldn't stand to kill anything. But he did buy 160 acres in rural SE Okla., and that was awesome place to grow up. It had an old log house that was added onto. The log portion was built in 1906. I graduated HS in 1983 and we were still utilizing the outhouse. I had permission to fish any pond for about five square miles. Our closest neighbor was a mile away, a friend who was in the grade ahead of me in school. We played wiffle ball in the yard until Mom would run us off for arguing about an out or strike. We would then head to a pond or grab a .22 or .410 and head off down some trail looking for whatever was in season at the time.
Mom wouldn't let us swim until Easter, she would tell us we would catch Polio. So every Easter, we would plan a fishing trip. As soon as we got home and had lunch we would shuck the good clothes and jump on the bikes and away we would pedal. Normally we would fish for a while then the next thing ya know one of us would bore and splash, the swimming would begin. Can't think of a better way to grow up.
Posted by Lonny (Member # 19) on October 06, 2005, 05:02 PM:
I remember kids bringing their hunting rifles to school to show all the other kids.
All winter long I had a .243 that rode with me to school every day. Never even thought of locking the old Scout while it was parked at school either.
Most every boy packed some sort of knife and nobody ever got stabbed.
They used to close school for a couple of days at the beginning of hunting season because so many kids were off hunting with their family members.
We drank out of every creek or puddle that resembled water when we were kids and I don't know of anyone ever getting sick... Never used sunscreen, bug spray, or wore shirts most of the time. Now its skin cancer, West Nile Virus, Lyme Disease, beaver fever and God knows what else. Yep, it was a slower and more simple time.
Posted by JoeF (Member # 228) on October 06, 2005, 07:22 PM:
Gerald, be glad that your folks had the cameras and captured those moments for all of us to enjoy.
The clothes and the haircuts are very familar, as are the fishing trips and the 22's.
The best photo I have from that time period is of my older brother sitting on the back porch of a house (grandmas') that would get bulldozed today, eating watermelon. That, and a border collie that could do no wrong and was so important that i have color pictures of her. Color that is so vivid and so wrong that no one would accept it today. I need to get them scanned.
The cane poles reminded me of the first time I saw a rod and reel in action - I grew up on a farm that had seven ponds - we worked them all and I'll never forget the day that the guy showed up with the rod n reel and could cast all of the way out to the middle!
Big stuff to a cane pole toting seven year old.
Cherish your photos and by all means keep sharing them. I don't have the evidence, but I lived those times and appreciate your reminders.
Priceless stuff, please keep them coming!
[ October 06, 2005, 07:25 PM: Message edited by: JoeF ]
Posted by Doggitter (Member # 489) on October 06, 2005, 09:16 PM:
Thank you fellas for the wonderful reads. A simpler time was a fabulous thing. Loren.
Posted by Andy L (Member # 642) on October 07, 2005, 04:22 AM:
Im doing my best, but cant duplicate how I grew up. I grew up at the dead end of a gravel road that ran into our farm. I had over 1600 acres to roam. Many ponds. The Roubidoux creek ran through the farm and it is a fair sized little river, floatable in those days. I had lots of room to hunt and fish. I roamed those hills and explored that creek day in and day out. It was very good.
But, I always found myself wondering how it would be to be like the rest of the kids from school, or at least most of them. Growing up in town with neighbors and such. It was 1 and 1/2 miles to our nearest neighbor. A long ride on my horse. ( Later I got a motorcycle. That cut the distance. ) Didnt realize how good I had it til later on, I guess. It was great.
We cant afford to live on a farm like that now. But, we dont live in town. My oldest son is 11 and he is already accomplished as a deer and coyote hunter. 4 deer and one coyote. He also takes my 22lr and goes out in the ditch behind the house and does very well with rabbits and birds and such. I hear him talking sometimes that he wishes we lived in town. I wish I had more land for him to roam....
Gerald, you brought back alot of memories and kinda makes me sick inside. I wish I could go back and do some things over. I may still be living on one of those farms. But thats another story....
Andy
Posted by Locohead (Member # 15) on October 09, 2005, 03:58 PM:
Gerald,
If you ever find the time in your busy life...those narrations and pictures would be worth a bundle. "A Simpler Life in America" And if not a professional endeavor, what a magnificient legacy for your family!
Thanks for sharing!!!!
Posted by Gerald Stewart (Member # 162) on October 09, 2005, 04:33 PM:
Thanks for the encouragement. Time is running out fast for those who remember the early days of the company and our family life. I sat back and looked at this stuff and thought about the potential for a book. But I thought ...would it be interesting....would it be something worthwhile....would people care enough to buy it.. My brother is a talented writer and my mother is still a treasure chest of memories, even at the age of 75. She has written as many of her memories of her life as she can recall in Diary form for her great grandkids to have.
My sister would eat this stuff up. She is into geniology. She is the blonde between my brother and I in the picture with Blackie. My older sister took her life back in January. She probably would not have been able to contribute to the effort much in the mental state she was in.
It would be a story of poverty, patriotism, love, struggle, entreprenurism, family conflict, death and a bunch of Americana. Our family has lived the American dream with many stuggles along the way.
It is something I will think about.
[ October 09, 2005, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: Gerald Stewart ]
Posted by TRnCO (Member # 690) on October 09, 2005, 06:14 PM:
When I was a senior in high school, we had a senior play that was a "western". We carried real guns in the play. Can ya imagine that every happening these days.
I remember one day one of my brothers and I walked, hunting, from the farm house all the way right into town and to gradma's house. Mom and dad came into town later, and we got a ride home. No one even stopped and questioned us even though we both were carrying our guns, in broad day light! I doubt a kid could walk right into town with a shotgun over his shoulder and get very far before someone stopped and asked some questions these days.
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