When Men were Men

Safe places would be in very short supply too.

I went to a "big city" HS, lots of kids were hunters (as was I when a senior) and guns locked in cars and trucks in the parking lot was common. 1979. (sigh). Those days are over.

 

No joke, a couple years ago when I was living in a relatively large city, I had a deer hanging off my deck. I couldn’t find my rope or gambrel (had just moved) so I hung it with an old dog leash and collar. It was about 9 at night and I hear the dogs going ballistic in the yard. I jump up wondering what the hell is going on, and I see two police officers, leaning over my fence shining their lights around. I start geting nervous thinking some escaped prisoner is hiding in the bushes or something... I ask them what on earth is going on, and they said they are investigating a claim of animal cruelty and abuse?? Apparently the hippy lady that moved in behind me (our back yards butted up to eachother and from her deck she could see over the fence to mine) called and said that I had killed a DOG and hung it off my deck!! So i open the gate and show them the hanging deer, complete with tags on its leg. The one cop starts cracking up, and the other one was actually a deer hunter himself and just shook his head. Both started immediately apologizing for disturbing me and both commented that people like this lady moving here were definitely wasting their time...

 

1958 - I'm 10 - have my own paper routes before and after school. Had to make money to buy my own shotgun shells. After school route was 9 blocks up and 9 back from my house. Another mile to the edge of town to hunt. Put my shotgun (single shot 16 ga.) in my newspaper bag on the back fender of my bicycle, tied my dads English setter (susie) to the handle bars and away we went. Squirrels, rabbits, quail, snipe, anything in season was fair game ! Can you imagine riding down the street now with a shotgun on the back fender !!!!

 

In the 80s I rode a motorcycle all over Los Angeles with a shotgun on my back. Even then I always expected to get pulled over but never did.

 

I’d run my trap line on the way to high school, hell, now even the traps are illegal...

 

We had a deer hit on a busy street some time back. It was badly injured and needed to be humanely dispatched. One of my officers pulled his duty gun out and was about to deliver the coup de grace when he heard a school bus stopping behind him.
He holstered the gun, leaned in on top of the deer and used his knife to quickly kill the deer. Country boys know how to do it without damaging little kids psyches.

 

I think that stuff still happens in some parts of the country.

 

Yep. Can do just about everything except the school stuff where I live.

Nostalgia can be good and bad for people. I feel sorry for some who are stuck there and can’t see the awesomeness in now and the future.

 

You know, hobbydog, I surely hope so.

 

Pretty ironic that Merle Haggard’s
Are the Good Times Really Over? was released in 1982- the exact time period that many folks here lament and wish to return to.

Folks get so tunnel visioned over their own little life experiences that they fail to realize that change is the only constant in the evolution of human society.

Every generation has had its own successes and failures, but the progression of society in general has been overwhelmingly positive. What would it say about the human race if we didn’t constantly strive to make things better? We’re too smart not to.