The old days are gone forever.

[powderman]

Never got a lot at Christmas as a kid but we were tickled to death with anything we got and took care of it. One year I got a basketball, my brother got the goal. A tackle box thats still in good shape one year, hunting vest the next. Kids today get too much, and most don't appreciate what they do get. I reckon we all want our kids to do well and have things but over the years I've noticed that having less, was actually having more, because it was  valued and appreciated. POWDERMAN. 

[AtlLaw]

Kids today get too much, and most don't appreciate what they do get.

I agree with you 100%!  My eldest daughter is the worst for spending a fortune on Christmas presents that I've ever seen... 

[buffermop]

As with appreciation and respect, the current generation has gone sour.

[Dixie Dude]

The current under 30 generation had now been coined the Peter Pan generation.  They don't want to grow up.  They want to party, mooch off parents or the government.  They feel like they are entitled to things, not work for them.  50% will live at home until 30 at least part of the time after they are 21.  They are the ones that pushed the "free health care"  because they had to get off their parents and 85% of them didn't want to buy health care that was offered to them by their places of employment.  No real health care crisis, just lazy or entitlement minded young people not buying it when offered. 

[wncchester]

"That walk today would probably end with a swat team, helecopters and 3/4 of the police force surrounding that 15 year old kid   ...How did this happen in just 3.5 short decades"

How?  Think about it; up to those days "conservatives" were the dominate force in society.  Starting in the 60s, touchy-feely, non-judgemental do your own thing, free love "liberuals" gained dominance of the edcuation, government and legal systems.  What we now enjoy as a society is the logical result of their theories, and it won't get better. 

He77, there are few of us left who even remember what a "better" society and life style for both adults and kids was like!

[Range Rider]

Very true.  The Left took over calling for more freedom.  The country ended up a police state, and they blame the right.  Sorta like the Dog ate home work kinda thing.

RR

[Gun Runner]

In the late 40's (yes I'am that old) and into 1950 the stores used to buy back beer bottles. Had it made where  lived as 2 familes across the street drank a lot of beer and thru out the bottles. I remember the gas wars were gas dropped to .15  cents a gal for a week. Going into the local cafe during hunting season and people leaving their rifles along the wall while they ate and no body touching them. Also remember the OUT HOUSE, pumping well water, splitting fire wood with a sledge and wedge, Oh ya more than one or two trips to the wood shed and it wasant to gather wood.  . In high school taking a gun to school and putting it in your locker till time for shop, taking it to shop and the shop teacher helping you work on it, then after school hunting on your way back from school. We grew our own food and butchered a cow now and then plus deer hunting on the property, and trading vegies with folks that lived near us. Never knew what store bought milk was till we moved into town. Taking the rifle/shotgun on the school bus and no body paid any attention to it.

Gun Runner

[bilmac]

Heck,  when I walked to school it was uphill BOTH ways.

I bought my first six shooter, A S&W model 14 while I was still in high school. Drove to a neighboring State with one of my buddies, no adults, and didn't sign any papers. The first bullets I shot through it were handloads made with a Lyman tong tool.

[bilmac]

This post started out about inflation. I am reading a book, RABBLE IN ARMS. A great read, I can hardly lay it down, about the revolution. In it one of the characters is complaining about a stupid congress printing money till it becomes worthless. Sounds kind of familiar.

[Rex in OTZ]

Uncle used S&H Green stamps to buy a Browning Pump .22

Mother still has a pile them stamp books stashed in the attic.

As late as 1989 I was buying $.73 /gallon unleaded gas at the U-pump in Cheyenne WY.

Loved shopping at the Gambles store they had guns and kitchen appliances and automobile products(1979)
Bought My first "New" Ruger 10/22 at a Gibsons store in Norfolk Nebr, (1986) for $104 that was tax included
Could buy .243 winchester ctgs($9box) at the 76 Gas station down buy the highway exchange.
Had to drive 5 hours to a major city to find a McDonalds
Starbuks was only in the NW
COOR's beer had to drive to Colorado to get.
Folks drove us kids 8miles to country school- both ways, and got paid milage to do it.

[charles p]

When I was a kid, the hardware store in my little town sold individual shotgun shells for about 7 cents each.  We only had low brass Peters, Remington, and Winchester.  Available sizes were 4,6,7 1/2 and 8.  I remember when the price reached a dime, I thought it was terrible.  I squirrel hunted every afternoon and some mornings.  Went to the woods and back on my bicycle with a single barrel shotgun or a .22 rifle.  We set rabbit boxes to catch rabbits, but often got a squirrel or possum.  On my way home from the woods, I would walk through a quail roost site and get a flushing shot at them.  Haven't seen a quail in five years now.

[Duke0313]

Thanks for the memories, y'all!

[bigbird09]

"The current under 30 generation had now been coined the Peter Pan generation.  They don't want to grow up.  They want to party, mooch off parents or the government.  They feel like they are entitled to things, not work for them.  50% will live at home until 30 at least part of the time after they are 21.  They are the ones that pushed the "free health care"  because they had to get off their parents and 85% of them didn't want to buy health care that was offered to them by their places of employment.  No real health care crisis, just lazy or entitlement minded young people not buying it when offered"

I'm part of this under 30 group, and I have to say that I agree with all this.  I just turned 21 last fall and I still live between my parents and my grandparents, but I have been going to college, and its hard to have your own place and afford college.  I have also had a job since I was 16, the longest I was unemployed was 3 months,  plus I detasseled a couple years before that.  I have to say that truthfully I'm envious of most of you old folk, you really had it pretty good growing up in the old days, when most of you could walk out the back door, or down the road and hunt.  Also I know several gentlemen in the 60's and 70's that can still out work a lot of younger folk, especially the ones that mommy and daddy catered to them their whole life,  also have to say that I hate working with them because they get the assumption that they can slack off and you'll do the work,  I tend to make more enemies than friends because I don't let it fly very often.

[Dixie Dude]

I know you may be envious of the over 30 crowd.  However.  I grew up with one TV and it was black and white, went off the air at midnight, came back on about 6am and was 19" diagonal or less.  I had a transistor radio as a teen.  I also had an LP record player.  No electronic games.  We had one telephone in the house and it started out as a party line (shared with several other users).  If you picked up and heard someone talking you had to wait until they were through, for you young people who don't know.  We had cards and board games in rain or cold weather if nothing was on TV worth watching.  We had softball, baseball, football, kickball, dodge ball, etc, to play with neighbors in someones back yard or a playground or park within bike or walking distance.  We roamed in the woods nearby, went to a movie on saturday afternoon by taking a bus for $0.05.  Movie was about $0.10 on Saturday afternoon.  Now you have HD 56" TV's and 500 channels to choose from 24 hours a day, video games, cell phones, satelite radio, AM and FM stations (we just had AM).  No air conditioning (I lived in the south), no air conditioned cars, sometimes they were column straight shifts, and only one car per family.  We had no dishwasher, no microwaves, and hand mixers.   We didn't have a washing machine until I was in jr. high.  We had a washateria 2 blocks from home.  We didn't get a dryer until I was in high school.  About half the old people back then didn't have a car, they used buses or taxis, trains for long distance.  It was nicer, friendlier, safer, more open, without more modern things.  We slept in the summer with the windows up (had screens for bugs), and the doors open (also had screen doors).  It was hot in the summer. 

[bigbird09]

ya I'm one of those people that thing 56in tv are just kinda dumb.  Also i have been driver for 5 years and have yet to have a vehicle with AC.  Usually the AC stays off in the house until it gets high 80's with the humidity well into the 90's almost constatly.  As for the 500 channels 19/20 I can find anything on them anyways.  Any more it is stupid "reality tv", jersey shore, blah blah blah,  My favorite channels on tv are the histroy, science, discovery, and national geographic.  I am a gamer, but thats just when I'm in town staying at my grandmas during the week because of school, and when I'm at home I can't just walk out my back door and hunt, and unforunetly I don't have that many places to hunt, so I'm pretty limited as to what I can do, so usually I just drag the guns to my girlfriends and shoot them, but then I feel like I'm bothering them.

[Land_Owner]

...so usually I just drag the guns to my girlfriends and shoot them...

HOLY GUACAMOLE!  Dude, how can your girlfriends (plural) be "bothered" after you just shot them?  How do you get new girlfriends to replace the shot ones (reference "usually" in your post)?

This is the Humor Forum...right?  Your unintended misplaced modifier is significantly better than the REAL thing!

[bigbird09]

...so usually I just drag the guns to my girlfriends and shoot them...

HOLY GUACAMOLE!  Dude, how can your girlfriends (plural) be "bothered" after you just shot them?  How do you get new girlfriends to replace the shot ones (reference "usually" in your post)?

This is the Humor Forum...right?  Your unintended misplaced modifier is significantly better than the REAL thing!

HAHA,  I guess I need to pay attention to what I am typing more often.  I take them to my girlfriend" 's" house, and shoot them there,  only can get out to a 100yrds or so but its good for plinking.

[tuck2]

22 LR HP  ammo cost 45 cents per box in 1949 when I was given a Remington 121 slide action 22 rifle.  I could go out walking and get jack and cotten tail rabbits. A uncle would pay me five cents for each prairie dog I carried up to his place. He fed them to his cats. I had a gunsmith in Cheyenne , Wyo mount a Weaver J 4 scope on the 22 Rem rifle in 1950. Learned how to hit running jack rabbits with that fast shooting pump 22.  On nice days I  would walk four miles home from a rural grade school. The fall of 48 we had a few pot holes ,small ponds, that had some ducks on them. I would run home  from school and get out the 12 Ga single shot long tom shot gun and go after the ducks.  In the fall of 49 went to highschool in town some 14 miles from where I lived.  Most of the time there was a rifle ,shot gun,or hand gun in the pickup when I went to town and parked it unlocked by the school. A few of the town kids would show me their hunting guns at the parking lot by the school. In 52 walked into hardware store an purchases a Win Mdl 70 270 which I still have. The following year got a 22 hand gun. They would sell guns to kids back then. How times have changed.