Off or On Topic, your choice- I remember when .....

[J Miller]

........ I had just a couple guns and enjoyed shooting them more than I do the many guns I have now.

..........When I as a 15 yo could walk into a store and buy 22 LR, 30-30, and cheap surplus 303 Brit ammo and b.s. with the counter guys without government interference. All it took was my mom to tell them it was OK.

...........When I could drive across the Phoenix Valley in a half hour on surface streets. Now it takes well over two hours on the freeway.

............When Christmas brought joy and happiness as my whole family got together at my Grandmoms house. She and most of my relatives are gone now. There are no more get togethers.

............When the City of Phoenix used to decorate down town with Christmas decorations and nobody complained that Santa Claus wore a sombrero.

............When I could hop in my 56 Buick Century and drive just 20 miles and be so far out in the desert you couldn't see any body for miles and miles.
That was my first car. I wish I still had it. Even with it's finicky choke.

..............When I drove my moms 1957 Buick Roadmaster to high school and parked it in the teachers lot. Got away with it too. Nobody expected a student to be driving a big land yacht like that.

..............When, well, your turn.

Joe

[mescalero1]

Used to take my .22 rifle to elementary school in the morning, stash it in a greasewood bush, pick it up after school and go hunt.
By the way Joe, went to Prescott Valley last saturday ( to check on the gold mining thing ) 45 minutes on the freeway before I got out of town.

[Streetstar]

--- i remember when i could shoot as much as i wanted from my backyard with no fear of striking a suburbanite mowing the lawn of his cookie cutter tract home 1/2 mile away from my mom and dad's acreage

--- i remember when i never saw a wild deer or coyote close to my home , because they stuck to the little thickets and patches of trees which gave them cover and a home. Now i see them frequently, as suburban sprawl takes over and new homeowners complain about the deer eating their landscaping at night

----- I remember when it seemed like i had plenty of time in the day to enjoy my hobbies, no matter what they happened to be

---- I remember when i could walk into any number of stores and purchase as many .22 boxes, primers, projectiles, or whatever i wanted and didnt worry about stockpiling, because the crushing weight of government oppression was not looming. I also remember it being easy to find $10 an hour jobs ---- now every job listing big or small is deluged with over qualified applicants laid off from other industries

--- ok , i'm out

[Old Ironsights]

I remember when I had a job that I enjoyed, at a modest income, &/or hope to parlez a degree into a better job, and wasn't reduced to banging my head on a brick wall every day from watching my parents run their business into the ground... and dragging me down with it...

[jnyork]

I can remember when you went into a cafe or restaurant and there were these posts scattered about the room with these hooks on them, they were called "Hat Racks" and it was a place for you to hang you hat while you ate as no real man would even THINK about eating with his hat on.

[.45colt]

I remember when I went to work and worked "HARD" and the Boss thanked Me at the end of My shift....Now We all work and the day is full of rules and meetings and BULLCRAP and no one is happy. .
I remember when I had 3000 acres in Ohio to hunt on and I could be in the woods for a week with My Ben Pearson recurve bow and never see another Hunter, the Ruffed Grouse were so many that they were a nuisance, and this is before hunters took to the "TREES" in aluminum stands.
I have an 8&10 point whitetail mounted on the wall from those times,both weighed 200# dressed,not very impressive by todays standards. but once an a while a guest will ask Me about them and usually I get a funny look when I tell them they were both taken from the ground....... with a stickbow.

[salvo]

Good list Joe!
I remember growing up in Vegas, we had a 5 Acre spread and I could head out and ride my horse all day, as long as I was back by dark no one worried. That 5 acres is in the middle of town now with a apartment complex on it. I also remember when Vegas was a small town and the Mob ran it better than the crooks do now.
I guess progress is not what it is cracked up to be!
Oh, but I still have my first automobile 1954 Chevy pick up, they can bury it with me.

[Old Time Hunter]

Cool!

I remember buying a Glenfield 30A, with a box of ammo, at Treasure Island (a discount store back in the '60s). Throwing the box in the garbage, tossing it over my shoulder walking down a county road, and having a deputy sheriff stopping to ask if I needed a ride to the Nike site for a special deer hunt. Didn't even put in a case, loaded it in the front seat of his cruiser ('64 Ford) as he dropped me off at the gate.

I remember buying my first car, a 1960 Ford Falcon, at a Bell Telephone auction for $15. They never asked how old I was (15) and drove off down the road. Ugliest green car ever made, ground the gold bell off the door with a grinder. Kept that baby right up until the day before I got my drivers license, probably put 20,000 miles on that year.

I remember having to dig a new hole for the outhouse every three-four months too...and it was not pleasant!

[Hobie]

...Mom had a better memory than me and knew better about how to behave.
...I could talk to all my friends in person, every day.
...I could go to the store with a list and they would bag it and give it to me to carry home. They also put it on a bill Mom would pay every month and give me a gumball to boot!
...the school principal asked me to bring my gun to school and kill the groundhogs on school grounds.
...at age 8 I was old enough to escort a 6-year old to the "Y" for swim lessons, clear across town. I could go downtown to get a hair cut, to church, or to the movies by myself without fear that some pervert would get me somewhere along the way.
...at age 8 you could go trick or treating by yourself, in the dark.
...at age 10 I could take a boat anywhere on Lake George, by myself.
...good friends could drop by to chat and nobody felt they had to be anywhere in a hurry.

[awp101]

My parents would let the elementary school know a week in advance that I would be spending the Monday and Tuesday after opening weekend of deer season at the lease with my Dad and Grandfather. I'd get the work up front and work on it when I wasn't out hunting with them or scouting something new to whack with my Crossman 760.

And this was in the 80s...

[jdad]

I remember, as a 10 year old, living in upstate NY having my mom pack me a lunch and let me walk close to 3 miles to flood control dam where I would fish all day and be home by dinner. No-one worried that you wouldn't be home.

[AJMD429]

I remember when I had a job that I enjoyed, at a modest income, &/or hope to parlez a degree into a better job, and wasn't reduced to banging my head on a brick wall every day from watching my parents run their business into the ground... and dragging me down with it...

Yep - I remember when I could provide excellent service for $26, and make a $12 profit. The customer (patient) gladly paid the $4 more we charged vs. the 'revolving-door' docs. Now, thanks to health insurance that covers office visits, and government paperwork, we have to charge $140, the patient pays their $30 co-pay, and there is $14 left for profit. The rest is eaten up by government-mandated overhead, and $56 is handed back to the insurance companies for the privelege of being a 'participating' provider. (You don't get the choice NOT to 'participate' )

I also remember taking guns to school to work on in shop class (7th grade wood shop), for speech class (11th grade) and to stash in the locker for after-school hunting (9th through 12th grade). Never a raised eyebrow back then (and never any school 'violence' beyond a fistfight once a month or so).

Finally, I remember when the term "Officer Friendly" reflected the police's attitude of helping/serving/protecting the citizen, rather than the adversarial 'us vs. them' stance so many now have where we're all 'perps' until proven otherwise.

[pokey]

man, this is making me sad,

[Ray Newman]

I remember when I once thought how cheap things were in the late 1950's & 1960's, then I remembered just how much money I wasn't earning then....

[Bogie35]

I remember when most people I ran into were true Americans in their philosophies and ideologies. Nowadays, I have to join an online forum to find true Americans.

bogie

[Gun Runner]

I can remember in the early 50's working in a little hole in the wall cafe. Was making 50 cents an hour and got a free hamburger and fries. Some of the big kettles were almost as big as I was. Also taking my 22 to school on the bus(usually friday) and spending the weekend with my buddy out hunting. Then he would spend a weekend with me and we would hunt and fish all weekend. Nobody every worried about where we were or what we were doing, and they knew we would be home in time for supper.

Gun Runner

[DBW]

I remember when I could still remember things before I lost my mind...

[Borregos]

I can remember when kids had respect for their parents, their elders and the law

[J Miller]

Got these from my friend in Glendale, AZ:

...when I could be packed, loaded, gassed up, and on my way out of town
in a couple hours. Now it takes two weeks and I'm still rushing and
leaving late.

...when gas was 17 cents a gallon. A gallon won't take me any farther
now than it would then. So why am I paying almost 20 times as much for
it?

...when TV stations did the decent thing and went off the air in the
middle of the night. Now there are more stations than I can ever watch
and most are blasting out garbage 24 hours a day.

...when you could call a company and a real person would answer the
phone. If I want to talk to a machine I'll go out back and visit with my
lawn mower.

...when people took Spanish in high school because it was fun. Now you
need it just to order a hamburger at McDonalds.

...when foreigners came to this country to "be Americans". Now too many
come here and try to make this country just like the third world squat
hole they came from.

...when a person had a problem they'd handle it themselves. Or maybe
neighbors or their family would help. Now nobody can do anything. They
just call the government and demand they pass another stupid law.

...when business owners let their employees off to have holidays with
their families so they closed on Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc.
Now they'd stay open 400 days a year and 27 hours a day if they could
figure out how to. The real cause here is not the business owner. The
real problem is the shoppers. I think it's darned selfish to demand
someone else work Christmas just so you can still get the potato salad
you forgot to buy two days before. The only people who should work
holidays are firemen and the police. And if we'd all just spend the day
with our families they'd have a pretty quiet day as well.

I think I could go on for days.

[Ysabel Kid]

I remember getting my allowance, a whopping $.25/week, and walking a couple miles in the fields to the only store my buddies and I were allowed to go to. We'd each get a bottle of soda pop, a candy bar, and a couple pieces of gum. We'd walk back to a bridge, drink our sodas, and then toss them in the creek and throw rocks at them to see if we could shatter the bottles before they sunk.

No work. No school. No girls. No worries...

[Blaine]

....When I could leave for a day afield and remember every single thing the very first time out the driveway....Last year was the straw that killed the camel: I went hunting without the ammo