Author Topic: are we a dying breed? (Read 2940 times)

Lloyd Smale · « **on:** February 23, 2007, 08:24:46 AM »

dont know if this belongs here or not Bill so feel free to delete it if it doesnt

With all the yuppies taking over the laws seem to be getting stricter all the time. I know that we are going through another primer shortage. Surplus powder just went up about 20 percent. I heard both because of the war but i have to wonder if theres more to it then that. I heard that out of 7 operational lead mines in the country that 6 have been temporarily shut down by the goverment due to health conserns and the one existing one is sending most of its lead to China. Your here all the time about police departments that are upgrading to high tech weapons because they say they cant compete with the bad guys. The goverment keeps getting more and more high tech weapons and at the same time keeps chisleing away at our right to not only have comparable weapons but to have any weapons. Look at the goverments capabilitys to monitor you not only on this computor but by satelite. They know what web sights you are going to. If they didnt how would they be busting all the child pronograhy offenders. I cant believe someone somewhere in the goverment isnt keeping tabs on all of us gun people. I hate to say it but i truely believe that by the time my grandkids are my age the liberals in this country will have choked this sport off or at least made it so expensive that the average man isnt going to be able to participate. It will be just like they want it. The rich and the powerful will be armed and we wont. Maybe this is just some rambling by a guy that threw his back out was given a narcotic percription or maybe it isnt! and what do you think of colts? (Had to say that so that this post would single action related)

44 Man · « **Reply #1 on:** February 23, 2007, 09:43:52 AM »

Don't get me started Lloyd. They want to make this country just like Europe and that's why they came over and started this country in the first place! It's sad. I don't think it will take until your Grandkids to happen either. We are fortunate that we have lived in the time we did. I could walk all over the neighbors farms and woods with a gun anytime of year. I could shoot mud clods or any other inpromtu target all I wanted and no one thought a thing of it! Now you get arrested if you walk in the woods with a gun if it's not hunting season. What ever happened to just being able to walk the woods with a single action on your hip and no one would take offense? Remember all the fun it used to be to shoot at the dumps! That's gone too. It's sad that our Grandkids will never know the freedom we have had and will probably know a lot less. Yes, I do like those Colts. 44 Man

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2007, 10:08:55 AM »

dump shooting that sure brings back memorys! Lewis i know youve heard this before from people having grown up in michigan but honest to god i would at tmes keep a 20 guage single shot in my locker at school so that if we decided to skip and go hunting i wouldnt have to sneak past ma at home to get one. Half the kids up here had pocket knives in school too. Guess what no one got shot or stabbed either. Its that democratic controled media that glorified a few of those school shootings that probably did more to cause problems in schools then any kid did with a pocket knife. Now every wack case kid that was raised in a flower child family that didnt believe in booting a kid in the ass wears black pierces everything that can be pierced and thinks hes cool because hes a trouble maker. Back when i was in school the only person that had anything to fear was the wacko kid! Hed get delt with in gym in the ring!

2 dogs · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2007, 10:41:59 AM »

Parents need to start by making a good example of themselves. And kick them kids outside!!!

Is it our own fault? Look at our elected officials. Why izzit some bad guy can kidnap a child and not get the death penalty?

Stock up now. I hope it gets better, but I aint holding my breath. Fortunately we still have one another. Thanks for being there brothers.

BTW, I like Rugers.

Graybeard · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2007, 11:04:25 AM »

I doubt I ever went to school a day without a knife in my pocket, I'm sure that if I did it was just an over sight on my part and no doubt I felt naked all day as a result. In high school it was not at all uncommon to find me with a handgun in my pocket as well. I know I wasn't the only one either. We never had any intention of actually using them on anyone but just liked guns and liked having it on us. The thought of harming someone with it at school was as foreign to us as anything could have been. That just wasn't something you did in those days. Disagreements were settled with fists not guns or knives back then.

35Rem · « **Reply #5 on:** February 23, 2007, 11:08:17 AM »

I may be a little young for this post (27) but it may cheer you guys up, for a second, anyway...
I was LUCKY to have grown up in SW Florida, of all places, next to about 1500 acres that was farmed by a family friend. I could wander it whenever I pleased, and I did! I loved it, and miss it dearly. Got my first gun at age 5 (best birthday present to date). Have carreid a pocket knife everyday of my adult life. In fact, I'm note sure when I started. I know high school was not a problem. My now wife asked me one, ONE, time of I had a knife on me to cut something, I said "Is a frog's A$$ watertight?" Had to explain it to her, but you guys know what that means.
There is some hope for a few kids, Mine I hope, and maybe their friends, if I'm able to. I for one don't want kids to grow up without the things I did.

I came to the realization several years ago that my kids wouldn't see the same FL that I did. It saddened me. Then I thought about the FL that my dad knew, much like what you guys describe, and it made me realize that it was inevitable. I now live in SE Alabama. My parents are a few hours drive north of me. Times have changed, memories are great. I hope that our children (grandchildren) don't have to rely on our memories and can make their own. I for one will do my best to make that happen.

By the way, if you can get involved in outdoor/shooting activities with young people, please do. Help others make their own memories.

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #6 on:** February 23, 2007, 11:21:23 AM »

a good fist fight went out the door with the spanking thing. It used to settle alot of problems that now escalate into alot bigger problems. Now adays if you get into a brawl you not only get sued but you go to jail. Guess they figure that its better if a couple kids get gunned down in a year then a couple thousand getting into a little brawl.

Quote from: Graybeard on February 23, 2007, 11:04:25 AM

I doubt I ever went to school a day without a knife in my pocket, I'm sure that if I did it was just an over sight on my part and no doubt I felt naked all day as a result. In high school it was not at all uncommon to find me with a handgun in my pocket as well. I know I wasn't the only one either. We never had any intention of actually using them on anyone but just liked guns and liked having it on us. The thought of harming someone with it at school was as foreign to us as anything could have been. That just wasn't something you did in those days. Disagreements were settled with fists not guns or knives back then.

Redhawk1 · « **Reply #7 on:** February 23, 2007, 11:44:43 AM »

Yes Lloyd the prices have gone up. I just got back from the gun shop, I was picking up a case of 223 ammo for my NEW AR 15 that is on its way. I could not believe it was $13.50 a box of 20.

It is a sad thing. I guess I may have to get into casting for all my big bore handgun.

sureshot2040 · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2007, 02:14:36 PM »

i remember standing in my bedroom spinning my f.i.e .22 single action when i was abt 10yrs old
i would walk around the house and the yard (unfortunately we grew up urban) playing with it
mom would just say be careful and dad would smile and call me "roy" or "clayton"
i lived for the weekend so i could head down to my cousins house in the country and shoot 2 or 300 times
as long as i did my chores and took care of my stuff there was nothing said
if i got out of line or smarted off to an adult whether i knew em or not i got the belt
got into fights at school and the playground and before the week was over all was forgotten
i worked for an allowance and if there was something that cost more i learned to save for it
i learned early that no matter how bad the situation was honesty was the best policy and that if it dont belong to you
keep your hands off of it
i have one grandson so far who will soon be 5. in another year or so i want to start him on his neverending education into the
world of guns and just hope that the bug bites him like it did me when i was around 6 or 7 and saw my uncles first generation
colt saa
i have a ruger vaquero that i dearly love and sometimes wonder if i will have a grandchild that i could leave it to when i pass on and know that he would never let it go or should i just be buried with it
its sad to say but the way this old world seems to be headed i might just end up dying with it in my hands defending the homefront
sureshot

Jerry Lester · « **Reply #9 on:** February 23, 2007, 03:06:55 PM »

It's really sickening ain't it? I'm not too old (37), but just like you fellows mentioned, I too used to roam 100% un-checked across literally miles of private property, always armed with at least a single shot 22 rifle. This was just shortly before the 3 wheelers showed up in the woods, and a good while before 4 wheelers sealed my fate so to speak. In the rare instance where a land owner popped up on me camping, hunting, fishing, etc. on his land, it was always pleasant with him just telling me to be carefull with my fire, and don't get hurt. Heck, I've even had'em sit down to a dinner of squirrel or such, and shoot the bull for a while. That was the days when you had to "walk" to get to the "real" wild areas. Nobody ever complained untill the ATV crowd pretty much turned pristine wilderness into super highways, and trash started showing all over the place. Now you get into trouble simply tracking a deer onto neighboring land.

I left school in early 1985, but even then everybody practically that I knew carried a pocket knife, and rifles hanging in gun racks were pretty common in the parking lot. Like you said GB, we settled everything with fists, feet, elbows, and knees. If a knife ever did(rarely it would) pop up in a clean fight, the guy was immediately branded a coward, and was pretty much doomed to have the crap kicked out of him at least weekly from then on. Half the time the teachers let us fight it out because they knew a little blood later, and like you said, the problem was solved instead of festering into something worse.

As far as me "being monitored"? Honestly, I don't really care at this point in life. Our citizens have allowed our government to take away a lot of our freedoms, and "dictate" such things to us as what we can wear, what we can own, what we can do with our own property, how we raise our kids, etc... At this point, I 'know" that as long as I'm not infringing on your rights, or hurting your property, or loved ones, I'm doing nothing wrong. I'm gonna live my life, not wear my seat belt, and pretty much anything else within reason, and I DARE, yes, I said it, DARE my government to try to take away "my" God given rights, and freedoms. The whole rest of the country might cave in to the liberals, but I will stand up for what I "know" is right regardless of what it costs me in the end...

The Old Redneck · « **Reply #10 on:** February 23, 2007, 03:49:41 PM »

Up until a little over a year ago I believed our generation was probably the end of the line. I never had any kids, and my younger brothers both died before marrying and having any. Was not any kids close to where I live, and from what I could see of the ones in town I wasn't to impressed. Then a couple bought land next to us and built a house. They have a son that just turned 13 and he is all boy. Kid eats breaths and dreams about guns. His grandfathers take him hunting and fishing, and his uncle and I hunted and fished together as kids. The kid even has friends he hunts and shoots with. Makes me think of when I was a kid, and also makes me want to try to do more to see that his generation has a chance to grow up and own guns. All of us that love to shoot need to do all we can to protect what rights we still have for the next generation. Those of you that have Grand kids have it built into your heart to want it for them. The rest of us that do not have kids or grand kids should want to see it passed to the next generation Because It Is The Right Thing To Do!!!! My guns will probably go to a young cousins boys, would be nice if they could use them instead of them being gather up and destroyed like has happened in some countries. As a side note one of the first things the kid next door taught me was how much fun it is to watch a younger generation learn to shoot a handgun. I gained an understanding of why the old men took time to teach me things as a kid. They really are our future, we need to do our part to protect theirs. And as to the Colts, I lean toward Rugers.

KENTDEP · « **Reply #11 on:** February 23, 2007, 04:03:42 PM »

When I read about the good old days, and I enjoyed some of the privlages too, I think about that commercial with the Indian who looks at the littered landscape with a tear in his eye. I feel like that Indian must have felt, like our society is going to heck in a hand basket.

I live in the second largest city in Michigan. Our violent crime rate goes higer every year. Kids around here don't solve things the old fashioned way. No they pledge to even score with stabbings or shootings.

Until our society can fix parenting I don't see things getting better for people with our interests. I gotta believe we are living in the golden years of gun ownership in this country. I hate to be negative but I think our grip is slipping.

Jay

blackwolfe · « **Reply #12 on:** February 23, 2007, 05:08:20 PM »

   Yes we are a dying breed.
   Unfortnately I didn't have the opportunities that some of you had growing up. My dad wasn't an outdoor person and didn't earn much as a Lutheran school teacher. We lived in an urban community much of which was fairly upscale even though we sure weren't. My older brother had exposure to some shooting, hunting, and fishing activities through some of his friend's families. I did have a few and far between chances though.
   When I was five our family joined another family on vacation in Michigan's Upper Penninsula. We went for a walk on some two tracks in the woods. The father from the other family brought a .38 revolver with him. I got a chance to shoot it with his help. He squated down behid me and with his arms wrapped around me he helped to hold the the .38 while I "aimed and pulled" the trigger. The old coffe can jumped both times I shot. I'm sure that was more due to Mr. Don than to me.
   Another way I got shooting activities was when we had the rare visit to the family farm my mom grew up on in Northwestern Kansas. Those visits were infrequent being 900 miles away. I shot a rifle for the first time at about 8 or 9 with my grandfather in the pasture, my mother joined us and took a few shots. It was a Remington Model 12, a .22 pump. I have that old rifle today. It's has long since seen better days, after 50 plus years on the farm. On that trip to the farm we went to the Hardware store after shooting the .22 and my mom bought me the cheapest Daisy they had for
$8.00 and a box of 2000 BBs. Two days later we had to go back to the hardware store for more BBs.
   At about 14 or 15 we made the trip west again stopping in Nebraska where my other Grandfather was dying. What was expexted to be a funeral trip turned into a 6 week death watch. After a couple of weeks of my Grandfather defying all odds and seemingly to even slighly improving my parents decided to send me off to the farm in Kansas. I boarded a bus with a duffle bag with my clothes and my older brother's .22 rifle packed inside. Nobody that twice about me packing a rifle away on the bus. I don't think that would happen nowadays. Spent a couple weeks on the farm sometimes shooting with Grandpa and the old Remington pump and sometimes just bumming around down by the creek and pond with my brother's Marlin model 60. Eventualy returned to Nebraska after a couple of weeks where my Grandfater, The Reverend John T. still had his guardian angles looking over him.
   A few years later (1974) when I was a high school senior I took a co-ed nontraditional gym class. We had many different types of segments in class, any thing from traditional gym class stuff to swimming, scuba, cards, fishing, bowling. archery, square dancing, and we went to the local sportsman club to shoot clay pigions. In those days not nearly every kid had their own car. My brother let me barrow his shotgun, my dad dropped me off at school, and I put the shotgun in my locker. Other students did the same. Class was the last hour of the day so we reported to the gym lugging shotguns with us. The teacher asked who could drive aand we split up into groups with drivers making our way to the parking lot. Some of the kids who drove had shotguns in their trunks while the rest of us carried our guns to the parking lot. All together there were about 60 boys and girls in the parking lot with about 25 or so shotguns between all of us. I know that wouldn't happen today. If it did, 911 would be overwhelmed and Swat would be on the scene immediately. My instructor in that class is now one of my neighbors and we talked about that recently. He said he never asked for any special permission or need to get any approval to have that session of class. He said things sure had changed since then.
   I recently read some of Skeeter Skelton works and especially enjoyed the adventures of Skeeter and His boyhood companion Jody. I imagine Skeeter would be pretty upset and outspoked at the way things have changed and not for the better. Oh for those simpler, better days. I'm afraid they are gone forever. With comments like the one Zumbo made recently, it's not a dying breed it's extinct.
   I like single actions. Ruger is my only experience is with single actions.

DakotaElkSlayer · « **Reply #13 on:** February 23, 2007, 05:17:42 PM »

Gee, I hope none of you guys lamenting the loss of shooting and hunting for future generations post your land with "NO HUNTING" signs... This is probably the one thing that is keeping people out of the sport; a lack of access to land to shoot and hunt. Go around and talk to the people you know that post their land... Ask them to replace their signs with "Hunting Allowed with Permission" with their phone number on the sign. The older generations that recall the "good old days" are the ones that seem to own the land....
My hunting camp is two hours from Fargo...and it is not posted. I might find a piece of brass or two, or even a few shotshell hulls, but that's it. 99.9% of the people respect other peoples property and we can suffer through that .1%

Jim

Boxhead · « **Reply #14 on:** February 23, 2007, 05:48:15 PM »

Whoa, I remember just a bit ago when we would not have ever "known" one another such that we can even have this discussion. It ain't all bad friend... Let's all be sure that our children and grand-children learn to enjoy the fun and responsibility of guns and hunting, it is key to the future, That saiid, I have bought my retirement home in Idaho because I believe it will be one of the last to turn in our toys.

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #15 on:** February 24, 2007, 12:59:10 AM »

old redneck- it looks like you may have found a good kid to pass at least one gun on to.
Blackwolfe- I live in the UP and its still one of the last places in the US that a young kid can walk out hiis back door with a bb gun or .22 and not raise to many eyebrows but it changing fast as all the city people want to live up here in the country and bring there hangups with them
Kentdep- I wish you could pack your kids up and move up here where they have a chance for a normal childhood at least for one more generation anyway.
cause like hank jr. said. A COUNTRY BOY CAN SURVIVE

The Old Redneck · « **Reply #16 on:** February 24, 2007, 02:31:49 AM »

Sir, I feel for you with back problems, lost a disc in my neck and 2 in my low back years ago. That kind of pain takes the fun out of life. After watching the fire storm caused by Mr. Zumbos statements, and the way people woke up when the 911 thing happened years ago I stiil have hope that if we stand together and become as vocal as the anti gun crowd we have a chance. Too long the silent majority has let a few loud extreemest run everything. We are always waiting for someone else to do something. I would get P.O.ed everytime the NRA sent those appeals for people to get in touch with their local politicians, and the P.S. we need money to fight this stuff. Well , what did they do with the $300 bucks I paid for a life membership years ago? DUH, guess I was missing the point about it takes all of us standing together on this thing. I also needed to put some money where my mouth was on being pro gun.
I also agree that taking a kid shooting helps get them pointed in a better direction than they get standing around malls. I'm off the soap box, going out in the back and shoot a few saber tooth jays and black birds. Have a feeling when the kid next door hears to 22 he will be over quick to help ward off the flocks of saber tooth fowl.

Redhawk1 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 24, 2007, 07:48:03 AM »

Quote from: DakotaElkSlayer on February 23, 2007, 05:17:42 PM

Gee, I hope none of you guys lamenting the loss of shooting and hunting for future generations post your land with "NO HUNTING" signs... This is probably the one thing that is keeping people out of the sport; a lack of access to land to shoot and hunt. Go around and talk to the people you know that post their land... Ask them to replace their signs with "Hunting Allowed with Permission" with their phone number on the sign. The older generations that recall the "good old days" are the ones that seem to own the land....
My hunting camp is two hours from Fargo...and it is not posted. I might find a piece of brass or two, or even a few shotshell hulls, but that's it. 99.9% of the people respect other peoples property and we can suffer through that .1%

Jim

Sorry, I post my land. And I still have people trespass and try to hunt on my land. I bought my land for my use, not to open to the public. I pay for a lease in my home State to hunt on, why can't other pay there way.

It is not posted land that is keeps people out of the sport, it is the prices we have to pay to get a lease and the lack of interest from the younger generation.

I bough my land to use for my future, I plan to retire there and I sure don't want other hunters walking my land. It has nothing to do with, those that have and those that have not. It is just my personal choice to have land for me to hunt without having to worry who else is on it. Nothing like wanting to go to your favorite stand and find someone else in it. Or pay someone else to hunt there land or have to ask for permission.

Sorry but I will keep my No Hunting Signs UP.

Not everyone has it like you do up there in North Dakota, I have been in North Dakota, Grandforks and Minot. There is a lot of State land for hunting and a lot more very large areas for hunting. I only have 20 Acers, not a lot of land, but enough for me and my friends.

KENTDEP · « **Reply #18 on:** February 24, 2007, 12:24:43 PM »

Quote from: Lloyd Smale on February 24, 2007, 12:59:10 AM

Kentdep- I wish you could pack your kids up and move up here where they have a chance for a normal childhood at least for one more generation anyway.
cause like hank jr. said. A COUNTRY BOY CAN SURVIVE

Lloyd,

I would give my left N^T to move UP your way! I love visiting. If I worked for the State and not Kent County I would be in the UP for the rest of my career. My wife can get work just about anywhere but I do not have that option.

Jay

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #19 on:** February 24, 2007, 12:32:22 PM »

and hell Jay id even add you to my list of trolls that are allowed to move here

blackwolfe · « **Reply #20 on:** February 24, 2007, 02:22:09 PM »

I keep thinking that one of the reasons we're dying out is that I see too many young ones that aren't interested in the hunting, fishing, shooting type of outdoors. I couldn't get my daughters interested in shooting and hunting. They're off to their first years of college now, so probably will not get them interested. There are so many other activities available to them now that weren't available when I was younger. They were into soccer, dance, running, choir, iPods, etc. and constantly socializing. Nothing wrong with those things and they are good kids. They did like camping as long as there were showers and some fishing. None of their friends had any interest in hunting and shooting which is a big part of it. If we can get a couple of them to try it, the socializing/ peer preasure aspect would go a long ways towards getting others to try it and maybe some of them to carry forward with the heritage. A friends son has shown a little interest in shotgunning, and my sportsman club is trying to start a youth league. I've been encouraging him to give it a try, and he says he might "if it doesn't interfer with other things". I know another that wants to hunt with his father, but the hunter safety classes "are always the same time as track and cross country". With the urban sprawl taking away places to explore, the media bias against guns scaring everyone to paranoia at the sight or mention of a gun, and the expanded possibilities for the kids today we have to work that much harder to recruit the next generations to our sports.
I did observe a ray of hope today. I took my daughter back to college today after a brief visit and stopped on the way home at a little out of the way traditional independent hardware store. This place sells a lot of guns and related equipment. A father was there with his 10 year old daughter. She had just completed her hunter safety class that morning and she was picking out her new .22 rifle as a reward. Her father got the whole package, rifle, scope mount, rings. case, sling, shells and small game license. She proudly displayed her hunter safety certificate and her target with enthusium. She had quite a following in the store and the store manager took her picture. It sure made me happy to see the tradtion being passed. I sure hope she will be able to when she has children.
By the way, keeping with single actions, the mananger took me into the back room to show me two fantastic matched pairs of Colts. A pair fo 1964 sesquicentennial presentaion SAA and a pair of engraved .45 SAA with birds head grips, fire blued screws, base pin, ejector rod, in presentation boxes. All had ivory grips.

KENTDEP · « **Reply #21 on:** February 25, 2007, 12:09:38 AM »

Quote from: Lloyd Smale on February 24, 2007, 12:32:22 PM

and hell Jay id even add you to my list of trolls that are allowed to move here

Could you use more Trolls UP there? It may happen. The wife and I are shopping for land and we are looking North. You never know.

Jay

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #22 on:** February 25, 2007, 01:13:53 AM »

glad to have you! Hell you could join the private shoppers club that shops Lloyds house of bullets out in the barn! Most of then are repeat customers as the prices are right. Most just drop off a little lead and cart home allready made bullets and for the most part the lead exchange isnt even needed.

6.5BR · « **Reply #23 on:** March 02, 2007, 06:05:46 AM »

Loyd,

Yes, spanking went out the window, schools don't do it/allow it, they ID kids who are ADD ADD/HD and get a $400 kickback from the government, and then Big Pharma makes Millions or Billions putting them on mind altering drugs, 40 years later, Ritalin and 14 other drugs have new recent safety warnings from the FDA.

The country is ........well........it is what it is, and not what many of us would hope for it to be. The Gov't is not for the people as it was designed, but now for themselves.

Too much control, and taxation. A fact. And such waste of money and resources, not to mention what gets 'siphoned off' in other's pockets.

I guess they will come visit me for this post and deem me one who needs to be 'rehabilitated' so if I end up missing, you know they came and got me!

myronman3 · « **Reply #24 on:** March 02, 2007, 08:27:29 AM »

you guys have it all wrong. we just need a good enima, that is all. and it is coming, bet on that.

and who will be left after it is all said and done? well, we all know what will befall the spineless ones. show some guts, do the right thing, stand your ground; it will all work out in the end, no matter how disheartening or hopeless it may seem.

that is what life has taught me in the last year. so cheer up!

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #25 on:** March 02, 2007, 08:54:16 AM »

myronman its not me i worry about. Ive got enough balls to stand up to about anything its my gradkids i worry about. There growing up in a spineless society that allows the goverment to control about everything in there life and its only getting worse and they havent, like us, seen anything better. There parnets arent much help as they dont care about much of anything either. There part of this ME society and dont care politics until it directly effects them and then there just the ones who stand back and bitch that someone else didnt do something for them to change it. I tried like many parents to teach then what i though was right and wrong but like most kids they didnt listen much and now there raising kids that are just going to take it to the next level. When crap does hit the fan and like you i think it will definatly happen some day its going to be like leading sheap to the slaughter!!!

oldandslow · « **Reply #26 on:** March 02, 2007, 03:13:52 PM »

I grew up on a dryland farm at the end of the road,literally. The road came to our house and stopped. There was and still is miles an miles of ranch land on beyond. When I wasn't on a hoe handle, riding a tractor, or grubbing mesquite stumps I got to grab ny .22 and go hunting. There was about 150 sections in those two ranches and no one living within miles.
I built my first gunstock in shop when I was a senior in high school. Took it to school on the bus and brought it home the same way. No one said a word and I got a A in class. Didn't have to ask permission from the bus driver because I drove the bus. I had a Texas chauffers liscense when I was 18. There were five seniors driving buses to school ever day. We drove all the activity trips out of town too. I even drove one on the senior trip.
It is a different world today. I do have three grandkids that like to hunt and shoot, one especially. I guess he will get most of my guns because he enjoys hunting and fishing and takes care of stuff.
I am really disgusted by the direction our country is going.and am afraid our way of life is doomed.

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #27 on:** March 03, 2007, 01:54:04 AM »

you sure wouldnt see high school kids driving buses anymore these days!!! Stealing them yes! driving them no! Ill tell you another bus story that wouldnt happen anymore in america. When i was a young man i lived in the town i was born in. It is the little town of Detour MI. Drumond Island is a large island on the tip of northern michigan that has a town on it that shares the school system with Detour. Only way to the island is the ferry and it the old days the ferry wasnt big enough to allways make it through the winter ice. It was about a mile across the channel and what the towns on both sides would do is save all there Christmas trees and when the ice froze over good enough theyd use the trees to mark a road accross the ice and thats how everybody would travel back and forth. Even the school buses!!!! Can you imagine the liability of doing that today!!!

oldandslow · « **Reply #28 on:** March 03, 2007, 02:51:42 AM »

Well.It doesn't get that cold in the part of Texas I grew up in and we sure didn't have enough water to even worry about. We did have sandstorms. I can remember times when in the late 40's when the bus would creep along with the driver trying to see a glimpse of ground. If there was a fence you could usually see the tops of the posts. Sometimes it would take hours to get home. Living where I did I was always one of the last off the bus. School was never closed because of weather, ice, snow, sandstorms, or anything else. Where I live now school was closed 3 different days in January. The most snow we had was about 3 inches. How times have changed.

LEO · « **Reply #29 on:** March 03, 2007, 11:28:06 AM »

It is like Lloyd Smale said about the city folks moving to the country because they hate the city and then try to turn the country into the city. It escapes me why people want to do this but it happens all over, I have been many places where the exact same thing has happened. I actually made a fellow quite mad one day, we were sitting in the local resturant at the "liars table" and one of the folks who had moved into the community came in complaining about how bad things were here. Well the UPS man was sitting there eating with us, I looked at him and asked how much it cost to UPS a 200 lb package to Detroit, he saw where I was going with this and gave me a number, made up I'm sure. Well I looked around and said lets UPS this fellow back where he came, I'll cover half whos in on the rest. He flew mad and stomped out but if you don't like an area don't move there (I know sometimes jobs put you where you don't want to be but this fellow was retired and could live anywhere). It truly is a sad state of affiars though, most of the kids today are more interested in video games and such than the outdoors, how many kids do you see riding bicycles anymore. Part of this is because our communities have gotten usafe for the kids to roam because of the lack of "predator control" but a lot of it is lack of desire also. When I was a boy it was a punishment worse than death to not be allowed to go outside, now since they had no intention of going outside anyway it is no longer a punishment. It truly is sad to see how few young people are interested in the outdoors, it doesn't look good for the future. If we don't change things soon it may well be to late. Our society has become one of holding noone accountable for their actions, there is always someone or something else to blame. When I was a child if the school called and said I had done something wrong, woe is me when I got home, but of course they didn't call home because they dealt with it at school. Now when the school calls a parent about a behavior problem the parent calls a lawyer. Little Johnny can't read because the teacher had to spend the whole class dealing with Problem Paul and didn't have time to teach. Until individals are held accountable for their actions again it is going to continue to spiral.