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True story--before all the firearm laws
beneteau
Member Posts: 8,552 ✭✭✭
It was about 1960--I was about 16-17. A friend calls me and asks if I want to go to a little country store in Mississippi (about 20 miles from where we lived in Tennessee) and buy some fireworks. Some holiday was coming up (New Years, 4th of July, etc.) and he had heard this country store had gobs of fireworks. Now bear in mind, at this period of time just about any type of fireworks, just short of dynamite, was perfectly legal.
We drove to the store on gravel roads and found the store at a crossroad which appeared to be in the middle of cotton fields.
Inside, we found M-80 Bulldogs, original cherry bombs by the barrels full.
While we were there I wondered around and noticed he had some handguns in a glass case. The old country fellow (owner) was standing there and I asked him "how old do you have to be to buy a gun?"
He looked at me and said "12".
We drove to the store on gravel roads and found the store at a crossroad which appeared to be in the middle of cotton fields.
Inside, we found M-80 Bulldogs, original cherry bombs by the barrels full.
While we were there I wondered around and noticed he had some handguns in a glass case. The old country fellow (owner) was standing there and I asked him "how old do you have to be to buy a gun?"
He looked at me and said "12".
Comments
I was in on the tail end of it , but I do miss the old wood floor mom and pop shops , felt like part of the family when you went to one.
I would wager some people have more food and goods in there house than some of the smaller stores had for inventory at that time in our past .
I remember for a quarter ( not that I had one very often [:I]) would buy 16 oz RC or Pepsi ( 15 cents counting the 2 cent deposit ) and a dime candy bar big enough it would count for two people now .
I remember dad had one box of 22 ammo I think it had a 49 cent price tag on it and a box of 16 ga shot shells that was his stock pile , thanks goodness the Zombies did not attack when I was a kid [:D]
I have a Winchester 1873 Short that my Dad bought in about 1939 or 40 for $10.00. It hung in a gas station in a little town where my Grandparents would go in the summer. My Dad asked the old Man about it and the guy told him, Sonny bring me $10.00 and you can have it. The next summer, my Grandparents pulled into their cottage and my Dad beat feet to town and walked home with the gun on his shoulder!
He said it sure was a lot nicer when he first got it!!
I smile every time I look at it!!
Inside the ceiling was about 12 feet up and the shelves went all the way to the top. You could get just about anything you needed including mothballs,shoe polish, rolls of barbed wire and staples, ammo and fishhooks, sacks of flour and sugar, rubber boots to wear while cleaning the barn, White owl and swisher sweet cigars, little pouches of Bull Durham and big cans of Top, and lots of cheap candy that isn't made anymore. The smell in that place was wonderful.
I carried a smoothbore flintlock on the bus for a prop for a speech.
I carried it in the school, took it to the office for safe keeping and back on the bus for the ride home.
During hunting season there was always a gun in the car for hunting after school.
Now they get expelled if they have a butter knife on school property.
The good old days were not really that long ago.
Many a tin can met its demise while being launched into the air. Remember M80's were at least twice a powerful as Cherry Bombs. Think you could flush a cherry bomb down a toilet and the toilet was good to go after the "bang".
quote:Originally posted by discusdad
Ditch Runner.....you were brought up wrong...with that 25 cents you should have bought a big RC and a Mr Peanut bag of salted peanuts to dump into your RC cola...maybe it was a midwest thing tho, so a candy bar was ok.[:)]
RC, no that was a minority drink.
My GF ran a store in part of what was a 20s-30s Road House. My Uncles had an upholstery shop in the other part. It was wonderful to go there as a kid. Big fireplace on one end. Hoop cheese in a wooden box and crackers in a barrel. Big coffee grinder on the counter. Drink chests with all those ice cold bottles, Upper 10, Sun Crest, and all the rest. When it was a road house, it was like a park, with animals out back. Still had cages for some with bars where they said bears and gorillas were kept. When he first bought the place, it had gravity gas pumps, but he changed to more modern ones in the 50s.
Great days.[8D]
Building is still there, I wish I could buy it.
Sadly, this post reminded me I was hoping to go to the old store and look around, so I checked Google Earth, and it has been recently torn down.[:(] More lost memories.
quote:Originally posted by fideau
Peanuts in the drink, every time. Thought it was a Southern thing. Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Seven Up, even a TruAide, required peanuts.
RC, no that was a minority drink.
My GF ran a store in part of what was a 20s-30s Road House. My Uncles had an upholstery shop in the other part. It was wonderful to go there as a kid. Big fireplace on one end. Hoop cheese in a wooden box and crackers in a barrel. Big coffee grinder on the counter. Drink chests with all those ice cold bottles, Upper 10, Sun Crest, and all the rest. When it was a road house, it was like a park, with animals out back. Still had cages for some with bars where they said bears and gorillas were kept. When he first bought the place, it had gravity gas pumps, but he changed to more modern ones in the 50s.
Great days.[8D]
Building is still there, I wish I could buy it.
I remember sitting on the front porch of the store and lifting the lid on the ice chest where you searched for the flavor of soda you wanted. Coke,Hires root beer, orange or grape, and then you went into the store to pay for it after you sat outside and drank it.
Inside the ceiling was about 12 feet up and the shelves went all the way to the top. You could get just about anything you needed including mothballs,shoe polish, rolls of barbed wire and staples, ammo and fishhooks, sacks of flour and sugar, rubber boots to wear while cleaning the barn, White owl and swisher sweet cigars, little pouches of Bull Durham and big cans of Top, and lots of cheap candy that isn't made anymore. The smell in that place was wonderful.
That reminds me of Woolrabs variety in Gibbstown NJ.Circa 1966.2 for a penny candies when I first went there.Miss it,it was a big part of my childhood.
It was 10 miles from the farm though so,It was a treat to go there!!
I was working a couple of part time jobs, been saving my money.
Got that home and showed my mother, she was not happy. Said the store should not have sold me so large knife. Said the older boy I was giving it to would get in trouble with a knife like that. Did not comprehend what sort of trouble could come of a long blade like that. But mom told me to go back and exchange it for something smaller.
I asked if I could keep the big knife. Without hesitation she said yes, but told me not to show it around.
So I went back on the bus to that store and the shopkeeper remembered me buying the big knife. Wondered why I was back for another knife, so I told him why. He said maybe he shouldn't have sold me the big knife, but if my mother said I should go buy a smaller one then that was fine. Picked another Buck the storekeeper said would be better for skinning deer.
That young relative still has that Buck knife, I don't recall the model.
I still have the big Buck, which I never used but to whittle a bit of wood with now and then.
But heck I like the thing, took it backpacking a lot. It rode in the pack. Had in my caving pack too sometimes.
You know, just in case of a Cave Bear coming along.
Can't ever be too wary of Cave Bears.
EvilDr235
I made my first gun purchase when I turned 18.
Walked in to a Western Auto and bought a shiny new Ruger 10-22 for $79.
I still have it and it is the first one I grab when heading to the woods.
Puh-leeze! You expect us to believe a story like THAT?
I made my first gun purchase when I turned 18.
Walked in to a Western Auto and bought a shiny new Ruger 10-22 for $79.
I still have it and it is the first one I grab when heading to the woods.
Ruger 10/22 was my first buy also. $59 from Jensen's in Tucson. Still under age though, my parents had to do the actual buying but it was my savings [:D]
It was a good SMLE. It gave service as general critter controller for various family members for 35 years, until it was stolen in a burglary.
I knew the family who owned it and worked in a grocery store next door .
it was a 22 made to look like a ar15 cost me 79.00 they let me make payments on it [:I]. I sold it a long time ago , but it was some odd ball brand I have seen a couple over the years made in the Philippine's ( sp ) but it was my First firearm I bought with my money [;)] as I was 16 my dad had to sign for it thought .
quote:Originally posted by bigt7mm
Puh-leeze! You expect us to believe a story like THAT?
I made my first gun purchase when I turned 18.
Walked in to a Western Auto and bought a shiny new Ruger 10-22 for $79.
I still have it and it is the first one I grab when heading to the woods.
I recall, right by the cash register, there was a barrel of old WW2 Mausers for $15 each.
Right next to that, a pile of German milsurp ammo, real cheap.
I could have given that guy 20 bucks and walked out with a great German rifle and an arm load of ammo. And I had the money, from mowing lawns!
Perfectly legal back than, I was 11 years old.
But, for some reason my Mom was not too keen on that deal.
Loaded up my old station wagon with 3 other teenagers and an anshutz 1413, a 1408, Winny model 52, and a Rem 513t, and lots of ammo.
We set out to go to the Winchester rifle range in Conn.
We got lost on the way, so I stopped next to a Conn. state trooper to ask directions. He asked why we were going there?
I told him we were a Jr. rifle team from NY and we were going to a
match.
He gave me directions and wished us good luck.
Today, we would have been arrested as terrorist.[V]
This has been one of the best threads EVER posted here.
+1[;)][:D]
After a big rain storm the local bayous would flood out rats and snakes.
Friends and I would grab the 22's, wrap them in a blanket, strap them on the handle bars of the bikes and head for the bayou for some moving target practice.
Encountered a Police cruiser one day, he spun around and came up behind us. Flipped his lights on and "whooped" us once.
Asked us what was in the blanket and where were we going. Told the truth, rifles and going to the bayou to shoot rats and snakes.
He told us to be careful and drove off.
A definition may be in order for some: A Bayou is a very slow moving body of water, bigger than a creek, sort of a river only slower.[:D]
I did not really grow up around guns. Dad had a bolt action 30-06, a pump shotgun and a single shot .22. They were tools and not for us children to touch.
I am doing my best to make up for lost time and passing the love of firearms and freedom on to my children.