Flash from the past

[littledog]

 Flash from the past I just started building an H&R 357 max for my wife.  My mind wanders back in time to when I was 9 or 10 and started hunting with my dad. My first gun I carried was an H&R 20 gauge that spent most of the time behind the seat of the farm truck. Rusty and beat up the stock was scratch and ding up. I watch my dad put the hurt on many a coyote during caving season with it. I carried that gun for 2 years with the shell in my pocket like it was a top of the line shotgun.  If I made any mistake in gun handling or hunting safety. I spent the rest of the day sitting in the truck till dad finished his hunt. After 2 years and with dads blessing I got to Carrie the gun loaded I can’t remember how many pheasant fell to that old gun but I will always remember hunting with my dad. I started my two boys with a NEF 20 gauge. They also carried a shell in their pocket and both spent some time in the truck learning lessons while I hurried up and finished up the hunt.  As a dad I realized me sitting in the truck as a youth made for some no fun hunts for my dad. Teaching gun and hunting safety was more important than a day of shooting pheasants.  After finishing  my wife’s 357 max I think instead building me a fancy H&R rifle I will find the ugliest one I can find and Carrie it like it worth a million dollars. I have 50 year of life experience and have owned many nice firearm but my mind goes back to a beat up shotgun that wouldn’t have bought $20.00 40 years ago.             
 

[squirrelslayer]

But will your wife have to sit in the truck? LOL

[littledog]

NO when she goes hunting with me she always brings the spare set of keys to the truck and I am not fond of long walks .   

[petemi]

I don't know how old you are, but memories, nostalgia, are the things that make getting older pleasant.  I'm 72.  I have my 12 ga. pump my dad gave me at 14 and my Marlin .30-30 I bought when I was 18.  I also have a 20 ga F.I.E. single that I bought used and beat up 25 years ago for 35 dollars that has killed at least one of everything on Michigan's U.P.  I still have it, and it's still beat up.  Sometimes I think about refinishing it, but there are too many good memories there to ruin.  (The real reason is, as everyone here knows, I'm old and lazy).....come to think about it, I don't think that 20 has ever been cleaned

Pete

[thejanitor]

Thanks Little dog, for just a second there I was sitting in the old Dodge station wagon with Dad the day I got my first pheasant.. . .  Ahhhh  Miss him.   But the feeling you drummed up was a good one. Thanks Brent

[petemi]

 Jeeze Brent, I remember that too.  I was 14.  Dad was sitting in the truck reading the Newspaper. He was not a hunter or fisherman, but always made time for my pursuits.  I put up a cock bird between the corn rows and decked him when he jumped.  That was my first, on my own, shotgun game kill.  It is remembered beyond all others.  We ate him that evening....good

Wouldn't it be nice to rewind the years, relive all those great times, do some of them again with what you know today?  I really didn't appreciate what my dad did for me until I was an adult man and faced the things that he contended with.  He was not a sportsman. 

I have no clue where it came from, but I was bitten from the time I could read......I think Robert Ruark's "The Old Man and the Boy" in Field and Stream did a lot of damage.  Dad picked up on it.  Got me into the Junior Rifle Club, my Hunter Safety Course, first license, and took me wherever I wanted to try hunting and fishing.

What you've got to understand is that my dad knew zilch about the outdoors, fishing, hunting, camping, etc. etc.  Yet, he went far out of his way to learn and help me.  The sorry part of that is that I didn't fully appreciate what he had done for me until I was much older and was loosing him.  He wasn't a Handiholic, but he was one hell of a guy.

Cherish those times.

Pete

[littledog]

 Thank you for some great posts it’s nice to see I am not the only one that reminisces about the past my oldest son is out of college and starting his own life. My youngest is in collage now. The sad part is it will take 30 years for them to realize it’s the little things that didn’t seam that important at the time. Will be memories that bring a smile to their face.

[glockmeister]

Thanks for these posts, I have enjoyed them very much. My Dad was much like petemi's, didn't hunt of fish only had one firearm, a Weatherby .22 and that was after he retired. He did encourage my brother and I to shoot and hunt and to fish. He spent time with at the range and got us going. Lost Dad in '94, still miss him every day, but I think about him every day, so that is good. Thanks again for these memories and many more, John.

[goofyoldfart]

Like Glockmeister and Petemi, my dad didn't hunt or fish (fish just a little when Uncle Bob showed up) but never stood in my way when I wanted to learn both. My next door neighbor was an NRA Instructor and took me under his wing at about 5yrs old. At 7 he told my dad that I was safe to go by myself. Dad told me that he wouldn't go with me to get a .22 rifle (he was scared of weapons--something happen when he was a kid, never did find out) but that Mom could take me to get my first rifle. At the time, I didn't appreciate what that meant for him to do that. A few years later(about 20) I realized what he had done for me and had a chance to thank him and tell him how much it meant to me and that I loved him. Damn ,still love him. stupid keyboard hard to see! God Bless to all and theirs. LET SOMEONE THAT YOU KNOW AND LOVE  KNOW THAT!!!!!!!!!!

[gcrank1]

I saved that article,'The Old Man and the Boy' (now I wish I could remember where....) and have re-read it several times through the years, a true classic that! It reached inside and touched me every time.