My paternal Grand Father rode a Harley Davidson in his youth And I have a photo of him on that bike wearing his leather flying helmet and goggles. The photo was taken in 1928 right about the time he married my Grand Mother to be.

So the beginning of his married life & becoming an independent farmer was right near the beginning & through the hard times of the 1930's depression. I, like Stan, grew up on the family farm & orchards & vineyards. Work a plenty for all, our own food from fruit vegetables & animals. From Grand Pa's days of hardship he carried many ideas & things learned on through his whole life.

Like the one bullet, single shot that killed your game for the table.
NO wasting bullets & if you could run down a rabbit & kill it with a stick he was all that much happier & beamed smiles around the table as we ate it.

Grandma was an unbelievably good cook of any game, poultry or critter. Even English house sparrows caught in a trap that Grandpa had constantly on the go around the poultry sheds & pig sty or stables. Sparrow pie. We ate all the animals & birds on the farm save for the dogs, cats & horses. I still cant figure out how come they never got cooked up & eaten, not hard enough times I suppose.

When I became old enough of a lad to be trusted with a gun I was given a .22 rimfire bolt action single shot to use for pest control & game meat hunting. Grandpa was on my case about waste & eating what was shot & not pointing the gun a what you are not going to shoot, safe directions to shoot in & back stops, farm animal & machinery awareness, & all that.

I became a rather good shot, so when Grandpa saw the crossroad sign up the road drilled right in the guts with a .22 he knew it was me & confronted me about it. I of course lied & denied having any knowledge of the event, but he knew. He told me that I was now to clean it, cook it & eat it. I told him that was silly & he told me "no more silly than shooting the thing". You know, he never gave up on that & each time we went past that stupid sign he reminded me that I had not yet eaten what I had shot.

Needless to say, road signs were no longer a target of choice or opportunity. And I never did eat that stupid crossroad sign.

I would love to read about what your Grand pappy taught you about guns or the fond memories of days afield with him & that old Winchester.
You too jOe.

O.M