UPBRINGING

Theres's a word that probably isn't politically correct these days when the government wants to control every aspect of our lives.  Even how kids are raised.  It will soon be illegal to teach a kid firearm safety and how to use one.  I had a BB gun before I started school.  Dad pounded safety into me the minute he gave it to me.  I started shooting a 22 rifle not long after that.  Dad took me out and was letting me shoot a little Winchester 67 "Boys Rifle."  It was a single shot, bolt action with a round hammer on it.  It also had a safety that you could engage after it was cocked, that way if you started to shoot something and didn't you could engage that safety and not have to let the hammer back down on a live round.  Don't know of any that are made that way now.  Anyway Dad let me shoot it a few times and I was really excited.  He'd load it and hand it to me after each shot.  He handed it back to me one time and walked toward the target, not directly in line with it but fairly close.  I dropped the hammer on an empty chamber and I'll never forget the lesson I learned from that.  No he didn't whip me but he made dang sure I knew that I could have killed him.  Those lessons stick with you.

I think I was 7 when Dad came home Christmas Eve with a little single shot Stevens Youth Model 410.  I remember Mom having a fit, money was tight, she usually handled the finances and Dad went along with her.  Except this time, he told her "hush about it, that boy needs this shotgun".  Nothing else was said.  That little gun was perfect for a kid.  It had the youth stock and you could break open the breech with the hammer cocked, again, if you cocked it and didn't fire it, you could unload it without trying to let the hammer down on a live round.  Dad was a stickler on that for me and when he found a shotgun with that feature he bought it.  That little gun put lots of squirrels, rabbits and quail on the table.  I still have it.  I had lots of good times in the woods with Dad and that little shotgun and the little Winchester.  I bought a Remington 552 when I got big enough to cut grass and mow lawns for folks and Dad gave the little 22 to my nephew.  My sister still has it.

But what I'm saying is that back then folks didn't hide and lock away guns where kids couldn't find them.  Dad taught us about them, let us handle and shoot them.  There was no curiosity about them, we knew what they could do and left them alone until we needed one.  I never knew of anyone raised that way shooting another kid by accident or playing with one if they found it.  I would have been standing at the supper table for a month if I had been caught playing with one and I knew it and so did any of my friends.  I grew up treating every gun as if it was loaded, never pointing one at anything I didn't intend to shoot, and always knowing WHERE it was pointed. And by George when I shot one I learned to hit what I was aiming at.  That's GUN CONTROL.

Dad died when I was 15, he was sick for several years before that.  But he never failed to encourage me to keep hunting.  I was 12 or so when he first got sick.  He couldn't go with me then so he told me where I could hunt.  There was an old logging road running about a mile parallel to a main highway.  It ran for several miles from my Uncles place to Saline Creek.   He told me I had to stay between that old logging road and the highway, that way I could always here cars on the highway if I got turned around and could find my way out.  He had already taught me how to navigate by the sun and a compass.  The highway was North, the logging road was South, the creek was East and Uncle Earnests house was West. That was all I needed to know.  The only real danger was snakes, and there were plenty of rattlers, cottonmouths and copperheads to go around.  I know they worried about me but they also knew I needed to learn independence and how to take care of myself.  If they needed to find me they'd drive down the highway and honk the horn and I had places to meet them.  I learned that area like the back of my hand and a lot more to go with it.  I guess a boy became a man in those woods.

 I thank God for the parents he gave me.  After Dad died Mom continued to encourage me to do what I loved, she never hovered over me or tried to keep me from growing up.  That's why I named this "upbringing" because I had one.  I think this country needs to go back to those ways.  There'd be a lot less rioting and looting and Hell raising if it did.  We need parents to be parents and quit being offended by everything imaginable and teaching kids to do the same.  Life wasn't meant to be rosy all the time and we need to learn to accept things we can't change as they are.  And learn that the things we can change affect everyone else too, some things are better off left alone.  Everyone will never agree on everything, get over it.

Stay safe but stay Locked and Loaded.

Swamprat