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

I like your story about your growing up years on the farm. Ernest Hemingway's father, Dr. Clarence E. Hemingway, was much the same in his teaching Ernest about " 1 shot kills" and respect for the game you had shot, and that what you killed, you brought home, cleaned and ate at table.

We never ate any of the barn pigeons or dump or farmyard rats we killed with our .22's in my boyhood days. But- you could ride your Schwinn bike with your .22 rifle in its cases, strapped to the handlebars, down country dirt roads- whether to the dumps on Sat. afternoons, or any day when squirrel season was open, and never have anyone panic or call the Sheriff and report your activity- Can't do that now-a-days.

Enjoyed reading your article-- RWTF

My father was an orphan, born in 1929. He laid in an orphanage for the first 2 years of his life, until a family took him in as a foster child. He represented a check, paid during the depression, and the family never adopted him. I have nothing that tells me the two older sisters in the family didn’t love him, but, there were subtle signs that he was ridden pretty hard by his foster father.
He was a middle teen aged male during the war, and had many after school jobs. There was a labor shortage in St. Paul, MN during the war, and Dad made the most of it. He also was expected to use his .22 and his fishing poles to provide protein several times a week. There was a limit to how much money he could be paid, and employers often paid him in .22 ammunition on top of his wage to retain him. It was an easy hitch hike to what are now second ring suburbs when my Dad was a kid, to hunt ducks, squirrels, bunnies and pheasants, and there were plenty of decent fishing lakes and a few rivers within a 20 minute bike ride of his home in the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul. Dad had a beat up old double when he was a kid, but, hated it, and made a trade for a .410 single as soon as he could. He ended up a rifleman more so than a shotguner.
His foster father died in a boiler explosion at the nursing home he worked at, Presbyterian Homes, which, still exists, near lake Johanna, in Roseville, MN. It was almost exactly a year after I was born, and I never met him.
My Mom’s Dad drove a team of horses in New York City, and, later, trucks, and later still, cabs. He was loathe to leave the city, didn’t understand why anyone would leave NYC, and never owned a gun, or so much as a cane pole. Entertainment to him was taking in a Yankees game when he had two extra nickels to rub together, and I gather that wasn’t often. He worked 60-70 hours a week for most of his life, and moonlighted other jobs to make ends meet. I barely knew the man.

Everything I got came from Dad and a few hunting partners of his. My Dad moved us off the East coast when I was a kid, back to MN, and never looked back. He hated Jersey, in particular, and told me of a dispute he had with local law enforcement when he wanted to buy a rifle to hunt deer, and the cop who issued the permit for that told him to forget it.
He was an active duty USMC Gunnery Sargent with nearly 18 years under his belt at that point, teaching future snipers with 7th Rifle Corps, at NARTS, the Naval Air Rocket Test Station, and it chapped his ass.
We left Jersey as soon as Dad could figure out how to do it. I think I got more and better outdoor opportunities as a result, and am glad I ended up here,instead of there.

Best,
Ted

O.M., thanks for this opportunity. After reading about Stan's granddad, I thought a lot of my grandparents today.
My dad's dad died when I was 18. Mom's when I was 10. They were in transportation of sorts. Mom's dad was a sea captain who served in the USNR in WWI and WWII. He was first mate on the civilian ship the SS City of Memphis which was sunk off the coast of Ireland by UC-66, a German U-boat, on March 17, 1917, a few weeks before we entered the war. It had delivered horses at LaHarve and was heading back to Savannah in ballast. The Germans had just declared the waters subject to unrestricted submarine warfare. He was eligible for exemption from service in WWII because of essential civilian employment as tug captain having just left ocean service as a master mariner but he wouldn't seek it. At war's end he received a presidential promotion to captain. During the war he and my grandmother lost their oldest son who was executed after being shot down by the Japanese over New Guinea. He was one of three sons who served. After the war, he was tugboat captain at the local port. My great-great grandfather had been a tug captain as well and Papa worked on his tug, the Cynthia, for a brief period. It was put in service in the late 1800s as a coal burner and eventually was diesel powered. My first office overlooked the tugboat docks and the Cynthia was used in reserve a 100 years after being launched. Dad's dad was a RR engineer who retired from the ACL with 51 years service when he was 65. I don't need anyone to do the math to tell me that he was 14 when he left Nebo, NC, because his dad told him there were too many mouths to feed at home. He lied about his age; and was immediately hired. The railroad needed bodies in Savannah. He died one year after retirement from cancer perhaps caused by years of exposure to coal dust and smoke in the cab of a steam engine. Mom has told me of the times dad had to help Nana put and take Papa in and out the tub because he couldn't do it on his own. He would be covered with coal dust and soot. I have a vivid recollection of being about 6 going down to the docks seeing an ambulance take my other grandfather away after having a stroke. It was the last day for him at the helm of the fire tugboat Chatham. When I retired the first time 15 years ago, I gave the photos of both old tugs and a print of a painting by Robert West of the ACL East Coast Champion at Race Pond, GA., on my grandfather's run to my brother for his office. The artist's grandfather was a porter on the train at a time when his and my grandfather's time overlapped and may have been on the Champion's run at the same time. At that time, the tradition was porters were black men. The train ran from NYC to Miami, Florida. I was the only grandchild to ride both the East Coast Champion with my granddad at the deadman's switch and with my other grandfather at the helm of his tugboat. I'd often meet Papa after his run with my grandmother at Union Station and lug his "grip" with both hands from the Champion back to their old Pontiac. As a kid, on his days off, I'd go with him to visit his old fireman, Isaac, an old black man who saved his life by pushing him off the track when he didn't hear a box car being pushed his way for coupling. Loss of hearing was an occupational hazard working in and out of trains. I had wonderful grandparents and my grandmothers were as sweet as sweet could be. My RR granddad met my grandmother at the boarding house my great grandmother owned and operated boarding railroad men. Her husband was killed working with the railroad and she bought the house with the insurance. My sea captain grandfather had a ship with engine trouble and was berthed for a couple of months in Bermuda undergoing repairs where he met and married my grandmother. I think of them often. (Right now when I think of trains and my granddad, I think of ole' Dizzy Dean on the Falstaff Game of the Week with PeeWee Reese with Dizzy singing the Wabash Cannonball followed by: "Buy Falstaff Beer.
It's everwhar".) None of them hunted.

My dad, after living the first eleven years of his life in the Great Depression in south Texas, my paternal grandfather went island hopping out in the Pacific for 4 1/2 years. His older brother was a good guy but didn't do much in the way of bringing things home for the family to eat. My dad ran traps for pelts (skunks and raccoons) and hunted to and from school. It was about four miles from their house, as the crow flies, to school. His mother gave him a Win Md 42 (which I now have) and with that there was almost never a day when there wasn't some meat on the table. Through it all my grandmother never lost sight of what was important. School was the most important thing of all. Her four sons would all graduate from Texas A&M after going through the Corps and serving their time in the US Army went of to become successful men in their own right.

My father killed his first deer the way a good many young men did, with a borrowed rifle and borrowed ammo. A Win Mod 71 in 348 Win did the deed and it was no small task for a 125# soaking wet teenager. His second deer wasn't much different. A borrowed 8mm Mauser (battlefield pickup) and he had two FMJ rounds of German ammo (conceivably what was left in the rifle when it was picked up) He filed the points off so they would expand. He used one to check the sights and the other to kill the buck. A buck deer in the late 40s was a rare commodity.

My maternal grandfather was the gun nut. He lived and breathed guns. If it had to do with guns, he did it. I guess that's where I get my interest. Reloading, casting, wildcatting, the works, but all situated around hunting. When he married in 1931 he went to work for the highway dept shoveling asphalt. My grandmother cooked for the crew. He had a Rem Mod 12 22. He was the only man on the crew with a gun. They would all put in their pennies for enough to buy a box of 22 shorts. He said it was a quarter. He went out before work and shot squirrels in East Texas every morning before work (head shots) and my grandmother cooked them for the crew. Cheap stew meat. I have that rifle also. It actually belonged to my Great Grandfather first.

I grew up in South Louisiana. When I wasn't in school or mowing grass I was in the woods or on the water. My father put a lot of faith in me early on and it was quite common to see a 12 year old boy walking through the neighborhoods with a shotgun and a bunch of squirrels, a swamp rabbit or two or a stringer of fish. Life was good.

My dad did way better than any of his family before him and my sisters and I suffered none of the depravations of hunger or insecurity. We wanted for nothing. I grew up using some pretty nice firearms and didn't really know the difference until much later on. He taught me about fine shotguns, bird dogs and field etiquette of gentlemen. Those are worthwhile things to learn.

#1 wife and I got married against all common sense, put ourselves through school and made our own way. We had a lot of help, but we had to do it on our own. For a good many years my shotguns and rifles accounted for about 50% of our table meat, hogs and chickens on the place took up the slack.

I know guys who will burn up 200 rounds of ammo in a weekend of shooting paper, tin cans, or clay pigeons. While I could certainly do that, I can't. There is something inside of me that will not let me "Waste" ammunition. I certainly practice, and work up loads, and at times will shoot more than I should. But most times every shot represents multiple strokes of the loading press and multiple hands on of the single round. It takes a lot longer to load than it does to shoot.

I could go on, and on, and on...

I guess the greatest thing that all those men taught me in all the gun training, was responsibility. When you take a gun in your hands, you hold a lot of power. It must be wielded responsibly, to yourself, the animals you hunt, and the rest of mankind, anything less is pure negligence.

Alan

I never knew my grandparents on either of my parents sides - they had all died before I was born in '48.

My Dad was never a hunter or fisher until he was invited to Hubert's deer camp in the Vermont hills in about '53 or '54. Hubert eventually became fire chief in St. Johnsbury around '70 or so. As it was, Hubert sort of became my 'grandfather' mentor. He was born and raised in the hills and knew hardship through the depression years when he was in his teens so he carried a thriftiness all through his life and never wasted a single thing.
Hubert took me on my first grouse hunt there in those hills in October of 1960. Here is an excerpt of something I wrote about that first hunt.

.. "I think I know where we'll find some pa'tridge." Hubert said as we lurched out of the driveway and down the old dirt road toward the Four Corners. I can't remember how we got to where we went that afternoon and I know I could never find it again but eventually we turned onto a little-used dirt track which wound along through some of the prettiest woodcock and ruffed grouse cover I can ever remember seeing. The young trees and underbrush grew right to the road and scraped down both sides of the little Jeep as we slowly pushed our way through.
Thornapple, black birch, alders, poplar and the occasional wild apple tree seemed to crowd each other for what little sunlight entered there. "There's one right there!" Hubert announced as he pointed off into an old apple tree. The Jeep suddenly bucked to an abrupt halt and I found myself getting up off the floor after having bounced off the dashboard. "Get the gun, here's some shells," he ordered as he thrust a couple of green, paper-hulled sixteens into my hand. "Why two?" I asked, "It's only a single shot!" "There may be more than one bird in
there," he replied logically. I proceeded to load the gun and snapped it gently shut hoping the grouse wouldn't fly before I was ready. He was, after all, only about twenty yards from where I stood. "What should I do?" I asked. "I've never
shot a partridge before." "Simple," Hubert replied with that twinkle again in his eye. "You just shoot it." I turned around and looked for a stick or rock to throw at the grouse to make it fly. I picked up a stout little stick, hauled off and sent it sailing in the bird's direction but all it did was stretch its neck up and peer at me with one shiny black eye. As I was looking around for another stick to throw and scare the bird from its perch, Hubert hollered, "What in Hell are you doing?"
"Well," I said, ''I'm trying to make him fly so I can shoot him. I'm not going to shoot him just sitting there on that branch."
"Why not?" Hubert asked, "Everybody else does.”

I had read enough about grouse hunting in Field & Stream and other sportsmen's magazines to know that it just wasn't done that way; it just wasn't sporting to shoot a bird in a tree or on the ground and I wasn't about to start that way. I explained this to Hubert as I continued to look around for another projectile to hurl at the grouse. Hubert grew up in Tampico at a time when the family's supply of fresh meat was supplemented by that which Mother Nature provided. To waste a shot at a flying game bird when it could easily have been shot from its perch was considered next to sinful. Game was taken solely for the pot, so the "pot-shot" was the approved method of procuring game, not that it was wrong, for certainly then, it was not. It was nothing more than efficient. But, pot-shooting was not for me. Not then and not now.

"Bullshit!" Hubert harrumphed defensively. "I have shot my fair share of pa'tridges and most of them were either on the ground or in trees. If you wait 'til they fly you're likely as not to miss 'em so just shoot it!" I bent down to pick up another stick to send at the dumb bird still sitting there in the apple tree and as I straightened up I heard the unmistakable "P-r-t, p-r-t, p-r-r-t" which I have since come to recognize as an announcement of the grouse's intention to immediately take to wing. Well that grouse took the back way out of that tree, darting and crashing through twigs and leaves while dodging the largest branches as it rocketed back through the thick growth behind the tree it had so innocently been sitting in only a moment before.

Back when there used to be blue quail in South Texas, we hunted them on the run. They would not hold for a dog. Driving on ranch roads we'd spot a covey (which meant you'd see one run into the brush), I'd immediately bail out of the truck on the run. If I was lucky I would catch up to and run into the covey. They'd flush. The flush was one or two birds basically hopping off the ground and flying about ten yards two feet off the ground. You had to be fast on the draw or they be back on the ground again.

When my grandfather wanted a few quail for supper, he break out his little browning 22 short automatic. It had an over sized brass bead on the front sight.

He'd catch a covey of Bobwhites in the road and shoot one of them in the head. It would flutter around and the rest would run over too it to see what was wrong. Pop, and another one is fluttering. He'd take what he wanted which was usually four and take them home. My grandmother did not cook skinned quail. They had to be plucked (the skin was the best part).

This method works remarkably well, and sporting issues aside, I have eaten some ground tainted meat. It tasted fine.

Alan

Those are all great remembrances. I like the pics of the Champion, Gil. And ...... it's been a long time since I heard the word "grip" used for a travel bag. In fact, it was likely either my Grandad or Grandma that used it.

Grandad took me on my first dove shoot, and quail hunt. He was a habitual fisherman, too. Daddy said that he once said to the family at the table "Quiet now, I've got an important announcement to make. As of today I have caught a mess of fish out of Brier Creek every week for the last year, 52 straight weeks". Brier Creek is a large creek that flows through several counties here. It would qualify as a small river in most of the country.



He also taught me how to drift that creek, and the Savannah River, for ducks. He told me to wait until there was a hard cold snap that froze all the lakes and ponds over. After the second night of that cold, go to the creek or river and drift, and jump shoot the ducks. All of them in the country will be there because the current won't allow the surface to freeze. I have done that for much of my life, and it remains one of my favorite ways to hunt ducks, requiring a keen eye to catch them "on the rise" and kill them before they are out of range. It takes lows of at least 20 degrees for two nights to make it work best. Didn't have that all winter here, last season.

One of my favorite true stories about Grandad concerns the very house and farm I live in/on. It was built in 1875 by a country doctor, upon marrying, and he set up his practice here. He was taken out of this life by tuberculosis about 1909, and his widow moved back to Augusta. The place sat empty for about 10 years, during which time a local man decided he'd start living here ........... and just moved in. Grandaddy married Grandma about 1918 and went looking for a farm to buy. He said he rode as far as Beech Island, SC looking, before finding out that this place was being offered for sale. He borrowed the money from his mother, my Great - Grandma and made preparations to move into the house. When word got to the man living here, the man sent word to Grandad that if he set foot here he'd "leave him in his tracks". Grandad rode all the way to Waynesboro, 25 miles away, and told the high sheriff the story. Sheriff said to Grandad "Can't you handle that?" and handed him his personal pistol. Grandad then continued on to Augusta and bought a Colt revolver of his own.

He arrived back home the next day and rode to his new land and house, to find the squatter in the mule lot out back. Grandad walked up to him and said "Joe, I got the message you sent me. I own this place and I am going to live here. We're going to settle this right now. if you want to 'shoot it out' I brought two pistols, if you want to 'cut it out' I brought two knives. If that doesn't suit you we'll settle it with these, and held up his two fists." Joe replied he would fight him over it, with fists. Grandad spun around and said "In the middle of the public road, so anybody that comes by can see", and started towards the road, about 75 yards away. They got halfway there and Joe backed out. He didn't keep that pistol, trading it for a S & W .38 Special M & P, which I have. He said the Colt would cause the cartridges to corrode in the chambers, and the Smith wouldn't.

After living in this house for awhile they had three children born, the youngest being my Dad. The oldest son, and Grandma, contracted TB, but were eventually cured. The doctor told Grandad that the germ was still in the house from Dr. Herrington's illness and death, and that the only way to be rid of it was to move out and paint every square inch of the house, that the paint would kill the germ. They did, and it did.

Grandad and Grandma built a new house, next door, in 1947 ....... the first brick home in this part of the county at the time. This house sat empty until my Dad, who was a Civil Engineer with a degree from Ga. Tech, quit the profession and moved back here, built a big country store, and did some remodeling to the old house. I was about 2 at the time. I and my siblings were raised here. I quit college after two years, moved back home, got married and started farming with Grandaddy in 1971. He died in '75 at age 83. Dad and Mom moved from the old house into the brick house to care for Grandma, and I moved into the old house, with my wife and first son in that year, '75. We raised our two boys here, added on to the house in 2000, building a big dining room, laundry room, master bath and closets. When we gather around the table at Thanksgiving, Christmas and other special occasions, I sometimes remind the grandsons that they are the 5th generation in the family to take nourishment here.

Grandad has been gone 44 years, come April 21. But, I still farm the land he bought in 1919, and still live in the house. We will have farmed it continuously for 100 years when we reach the anniversary date this year. I will be applying to the state for recognition as a Georgia Centennial Farm, one which has been owned and farmed by the same family continuously for 100 years. Everywhere I look I can "see" Grandad. He is a huge part of me, my sons, and my grandsons. I hope I have done right by him, and that he would be pleased. I'm filled with excitement when I think about being with him again ............. across the river.



SRH

Very well written, Stan. Hard times bring up folks better able to appreciate the good times. Now, is that photo in black and white (Kodak Brownie camera) of you and your late grandfather maybe about 1956-1957??

Here in MI we have a State sponsored Centennial Farm recognition program- if the land has been in the same family lineage for 100 years or longer, the State erects a large plaque in a designated place on the grass- recognizing that. Tempting to sell the farm and the acreage to "developers" who tend to name their new "cookie-cutter developments" quail ridge- when no quail or other game birds have lived there for decades-- RWTF

Yeah Stan, I’m jealous because I remember that Granpappy and Colt story from another thread a time or two ago, and your luck with ancestral 2nd generation relatives was a bit better than mine. However, it’s a good thing your Granpappy didn’t end up using that Colt 6-shooter on his squatting bud or he may have ended up just like my paternal Granpappy who spent most of his life on Alcatraz, the “rock” in San Francisco Bay, where he got sent for murder (he said he didn’t do it). My paternal grandmammy visited him about every 6 weeks but that was before they started allowing conjugal visits in prisons, so it’s really a miracle my daddy was even born. Turning to the other side of the family, my maternal Granpappy had a rather short turn on this earth because my maternal granmammy caught him in bed with his 21 year old girl friend and then took her Baby Browning’s .25 ACP and popped them both. Luckily, that .25 ACP bullet was lead and not made outa Tungsten or my Mama would not have been here either. Granmammy got even though after my Mom was born because grandaddy, after his wound from the .25 healed, found another young girl, and this time granmammy used her .38 and shot Granpappy right between the eyes. Lead did the job and was plenty good enough in her .38!! I guess the moral of that story is go big or don’t go at all, at least with lead in the ole pencil.

Stan et al: Thank you so much for sharing that. I, too, was born and started life on the family farm, this one about 90 miles north of St. Louis, Missouri. Mom and Dad decided to hang it up in the mid-50's when I was about 7 yrs old. I was heartbroken but, of course, I wasn't consulted in that decision. Nonetheless, those few years on the farm had a very positive effect on my life. I was absolutely blessed to have had the experience. Thank you all for relating your experience!
Gil

Or, as an alternate morale to this interesting, but sad outcome story-- Don't allow the wimmenfolk to have access to firearms, and don't be 'PASSIN' THE TIME" in the same home and bedroom where you and your Missus sleep-- Georgia-Peach- Ty Cobb: wasn't there a shooting incident at home when Ty was about 13--?? Anyone remember the details?? RWTF

My granpappy was a coon hunter...

His buddy told me this story about him after he passed.

Grampaw had this famous coon dog name of Rattler Brown and this mutt [censored] name of spOt...

Said one gloomy damp night ol Rattler was down in the swamp just tearing it up on a big cypress.

As they approached the tree they see the little [censored] 'spOt running around and around Rattler nipping and yipping at his heals while Rattler is bull frog barking at the tree.

They put up light...the tree was lit up like a starry night.

Said Grampaw took aim up amungst them eYes...bOom.

Said when grampaw fired up that big cypress one time with his fOe'hunnad n tin....7 coons, 6 turkeys, 4 opossums, 2 woodpeckers and 3 squirrels fell out the tree....

and one cooked gOose.

One squirrel hit the betch spOt on the head and gave her permanent brAin damage....

Grampaw his buddy and Rattler barely escaped with their lives.

I'm sure in the next life the [censored] spOt is still running around nipping at fOlks heals.

On a dark gloomy night listen real close and you can almost hear her.

Rumor was Grampaw worked at Roswell seems he had smuggled out some alien mAgic dust not of this world...said Grampaw called it his magic fAiry dust.

Said all you had to do was just touch the end of your shotgun shell into it.


I'm sure this story sounds too far fetched for some...

As told to me cross by heart and hope to lie....

My Maternal Grandfather (PaPa to me) died about a month before my eighth birthday, my Paternal Grandfather (Grandaddy) about a year later. PaPa was not quite yet 62 while Grandaddy was in his 80s & had been rather feeble for some time. I have many fond memories of both, but not hunting or fishing related.

Grandaddy had a Big Black TN Walking Horse, he named Dandy Boy. "No One" else could ride that horse but him. After he had got to the point he could no longer swing up astride his back there was a large rock out in their barn lot. He would saddle Dandy Boy & then climb up on that rock & make him come up beside it & swing on from there. If some visitor was there & he was "Showing Off" the horse he would tell him he wasn't close enough & make him come around again & get closer, sometimes two or three times until the horse was just about on the rock with him, then he would mount.

If anyone else tried to ride him he would rear & buck till he unseated them. I recall my Dad's older brother trying to ride him once & he had at one point gone put west & got some wild Mustangs & brought them back to TN & broke them, but he couldn't stay on Dandy Boy.

My dad kept a line of his descendants throughout most of the rest of his life.

My Paternal Grandmother's Father had been a boxer somewhere around New York in his younger days, but later on, had taken a job as a railroad detective in Memphis TN.
He went to make an arrest one day as a Hobo jumped train while coming into a station there & as he approached him the Hobo pulled a pistol & shot him dead. I think my Grandmother was just a very young girl at the time.

He sure gave the horse a proper name.

Don't know Cobb story but seem to recall a "hot blood" defence for murder in Texas in the 50s or 60s, related to me by a physically challenged male librarian at MSC south of Houston. He was carrying a sixgun under his jacket. I asked what for. He said, "It's my equalizer." Gulp.

What is that...a Nova Scotian Scotch dialect euphemism for a feller that don’t like girls?

With all the lookin’ back through rose colored glasses I’m not sure if I’m back in the USSR or up on Walton’s Mountain.


___________________________
The Homecoming
https://youtu.be/blO8u7wuyWQ

Keep in mind he Wrestled Martin Luther King.....

Just saying

The slight feller was dressed crisp white shirt, tie, blazer and flannels. One leg was shorter than the other. Otherwise, from his revelation to me, he appeared to be attracted to girls the same as I---except if another man got in his way!

I don't think we're looking back with rose-coloured glasses on grandfathers' places in our lives, lonesome. The posts are more intimate than most others in expressing feelings of family, and our enduring struggle to be human.

My maternal grandfather taught me about duck hunting the old way on the Eastern Shore. Back then feeding(baiting) was allowed as long as it was some distance away from the blind. Started out as bait being OK outside 100 yards then 250 yards and then 500 yards. The creek and marsh we hunted on was about six miles long and a mile wide along most of its length and must have had a dozen or two dozen plus areas of bait, five were family farms. Bait was used just to bring ducks into the creek not bring them into the blind. And that creek could have several thousand ducks on it. Today it does not have two dozen.

If they wanted ducks for a “fancy” dinner, no shot holes in them, they would bait up a narrow gut and trap the ducks. We did not do that but I’ve seen several setups and was told in no uncertain terms to leave another mans business alone.

After they started cracking down on baiting, methods were found to keep duck local without getting caught baiting. You would cut a cedar tree pole and strip all but the top few branches. Put your bait out and sink the pole as a marker. Ducks would find the bait and associate the pole with dinner. After a couple weeks they would follow that pole around the marsh looking for dinner. Then when you wanted to hunt them, move the pole into your decoys. Ducks would dive in. Game wardens figured something was up. Had a game warden drag and dredge out in front of my blind looking for bait. He just knew it was there, somewhere. But it was half a mile away and long eaten up. After awhile the game wardens figured out what was going on and told us if we did it they would just salt our marsh and write us up. Then they changed the law so bait within a mile was illegal. End up baiting on the Shore. And end of big duck numbers.

My other grandfather was the quail hunting side of the family. He was a farmer who also delivered the mail as a side job. As a rural mailman he knew where every covey of birds were in the county. On a few real cold days he would bring a dog with him in his car. Stop along his route, just to let the dog out to pee and stretch his legs, point a few birds, shoot a few birds, then put him back in his car and finish his route. Back then every farmer’s wife could clean a bird for dinner. Today they’d call the law and claim it was a hate crime.

Back then everybody, let anyone hunt, without even asking. He would often leave a quail in the mail box of a widow or poor person. They were glad for the free meal. People asked each other who left them that nice quail. People figured out he was doing it. Word got around what he was doing and people would mention to him that they had a covey of quail on their farm, tell him in detail where they were and he was invited to shoot anytime. And thanked him for giving so and so that quail the other day.

Dang you must be over a hundred years old...

So he was a kwar.


___________________________
Death by nostalgia: It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice—there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork and the other is nostalgia. When you compute the length of time between ‘The Event’ and ‘Nostalgia for The Event’, the span seems to be about ‘a year less in each cycle’. Eventually, within the next quarter of a century the nostalgia cycles will be so close together that people will not be able to take a step without being nostalgic for the one they just took. At that point everything stops. Death by Nostalgia. Frank Zappa

JOe, nearer that hundred than that zero. I started duck hunting as a wee lad. Started going with my grandfather at age four. No gun for me at that age. Killed my first duck at six. A big fat black duck. Used Grandpaws 12 double with a little help from him. He used a hand to take most of the weight but I got to swing the gun. Rolled that black duck out of the air about 20 yards away. I was hooked on hunting, duck hunting and doubles.

Boat rides were always great at any age. We had hard marsh which was easy to walk. Before WWII they ran dairy cows out on it. Within the five family farms on the creek there were a dozen blinds. Setup so direction of wind or tide level never kept us from having a prime place to go. As a boy it was heaven.

Half that land is now a state owned refuge. Might as well be a parking lot at Walmart for all the ducks it now holds. But 50 years ago I could show you ducks. Wood duck, teal and local summer ducks early season, then mallards, grey ducks and black ducks. Out near the mouth of the creek we had couple blinds for red heads, divers and cans. I still have wood duck nesting boxes but rarely see any ducks on the creek anymore.

Great story Jon: Love the baiting "situation" How did the wardens figure the 100 yards, 250 yards- etc. baiting zones on the Bay? Sounds a bit like Nash Buckingham's description of the "baiting zone" on Doves in Deep Dixie. Here in MI- if you are shooting near a "baited area", even if you didn't set out the bait yourself, you are in violation.

The mailman route and the quail remind me of a Havilah Babcock story- substitute a railroad man for the mailman and you have the whole enchillada- Nobody could write about Dixie Dawgs and quails and doves like the lates: Buckingham and Babcock--RWTF

RWTF,
In Alabama( part of the deep south) if it is part of normal farming operations, it is not baiting.
Mike

That's the way it is in TN also, but running a wheat drill over a field without the coverers engaging the ground is "NOT" normal agricultural practice, which a Hoard of TN dove shooters from a few years back can attest to. The Farmers scattered the wheat, with a drill, in a wheat field. He then charged for shooting over the field, but the shooters paid the fines, the "Baiter" got off free because he wasn't shooting, just collecting the money.

They were sowing the field per Normal Agricultural practice once for the crop, then making sure there was plenty of exposed wheat on top of the ground for the Shooter Crop. That second sowing was not Normal Agricultural practice.

And that's another thing I like about the South- to quote the late Phil Harris-- I once hunted a private farm here in SW MI corn taken off about 2-3 days before we did our morning set-up-- nice 80 acre field, woodlands and a good sized pond, several valleys and drain ditches-

We were all legal- waterfowl stamps, steel shot, plugged magazines- and my companions were fellow DU guys- just as legal shooting opened and a few geese headed our way, a DNR jeep pulled into the lane where we had parked the trucks and the trailer for the field decoys-

We had been checked before, so we held off until the "Raccoon Rangers" did their thing-- After we were checked and passed, the younger of the two walked around and told us, our decoys were set in a "baited field" !! WTF?? The residue from the corn picking scattered on the ground was, in his mind- an illegal bait- so we had 2 choices- (1) Give up the hunt, or (2) clean up all the scattered corn and husks- then and only then would be not in violation of the "No bait" rule-- Figure that one out, if you can.. RWTF

Baiting was legal, if not within a certain distance. You absolutely could not shoot over top your bait. When I came along it was 250 yards and men were complaining about just a few years earlier, when it use to be 100 yards, things were better. It’s always better in the old days. What you would do is put your bait up a small gut on either side of your blind, 250 or more yards away. It kept ducks in the marsh and kept them moving from stash to stash. Again it was legal. But people abused it, some would sneak up on the spot and shoot a few ducks when they wanted to. Others just killed too many ducks I guess. So they made it 500 yards and later any bait within a mile was not allowed. This was state, not federal law. But I never saw a federal game warden growing up. I sure saw enough state ones.

People have a misconception that if you bait you will kill every duck which ever eats your bait. You get a very small percentage, if any. I’ve fed many a bird which migrated away before I ever shot them. Most will eat and move on long before you ever see them. But we were not the only ones feeding ducks. I bet there were several thousand baited places all up and down the Chesapeake Bay. The entire area held healthy, well fed, fat birds.

My Grandfather, who delivered the mail, bought a used Oldsmobile, 28 or 29 about 1931. He said he killed more rabbits with that car than any shotgun he ever owned. They would be sitting in the grass, along the side of the road. When that car came by they would jump or run. I think he aimed his wheel at them and ran many a bunny down. Some got hit by the tire and some got hit by the underbody if the car. It does not take much to kill a rabbit. If not hurt too bad he’d throw them on the floor in the back seat to take home to feed his family. If the were tore up he’d stop and offer them to one of the colored families. Half or more would be in good shape so even a bad one had a fair amount of meat. People were hungry and glad for a bit of free meat.

When I was a boy I often took a rabbit, duck or squirrel to a poor person we knew. All were glad for the bounty. Miss Mary, a colored, now called a black lady, often asked me to save all the muskrat heads when I was trapping muskrats. I’d give her a couple rats and a dozen or more heads. She would cook them up and eat for days. Cracking those heads with a nutcracker to get those brains out.

My father would sometimes kill a dozen chickens just before they were to be sold for market. Most ended up in the freezer. I’d be given the job of taking a bird here and there to neighbors who were not too well off. Neighbors took care of each other and you learned young that others had it much harder than you did.

One of the things wrong with this country is we stopped doing that. We expect the government to do it for us. That and they won’t let me bait within 250 yards of my blinds. God what I’d give for a limit of six, fat, corn or bean fed ducks. A Mallard, a Black, a Canvasback and a couple teal, wood ducks or grey ducks. That was good eating. Along the way I’d check my muskrat traps to see if I’ve got any blacks, or if all browns this year. Black hides fetched 25 cents more most year. I guess JOe was right, I am getting old.

Stan, when did your granddad's house get electricity? A lot of the rural south wasn't electrified until the 1930's. City folks had it, though. Gil

I bet they had to pipe the sunshine in...

I took lots of rabbits to lots of people who needed them badly. When I could get a shot at a javalina they got those too. Nobody turned them down. Today, I doubt you could give a rabbit or a javalina away. No need to eat that stuff when they can swipe that Lone Star card for beef.

Anyway, most people wouldn't know what to do with a bird or animal that still had the fur/feathers on it, much less how to clean a gizzard, or what a liver and heart is. I used to clean all the gizzards on doves, quail and ducks and keep the livers and hearts too. I love fried gizzards/livers/hearts and eggs.

A lot of guys I know don't take the time to do all that. They pull the breast out and toss the rest. I can't do it. I watched a guy cut the breasts out of two nice pintails one morning and toss the rest into the water. I asked him what he was doing? He said, "Don't worry the alligators will eat it..... yeah, that's what I meant....

Now, I never could develop a tolerance, much less a taste, for brains (I know that's a pretty ripe comment...). I will leave them for someone else.

Alan

Good question, Gil. Grandaddy installed a Delco "light plant" long before the REA ran poles and wires out here. It was a low voltage system with a little building full of batteries off to the side of the house. The engine that powered the generator to charge the batteries would crank itself up and run for awhile when the batteries' charge got low. They had several appliances that ran off the low voltage system, in addition to the lights. My Daddy told me that when he would get home from school he loved to listen to a Tom Mix show in the afternoon on the radio. He said every day when he would be listening to that show the generator would crank up and cause static so bad that he couldn't hear the show until it shut itself off. There are still some of the insulators for the wiring in my attic. I had the entire house rewired in 2000, and the electrician asked me what I wanted him to do with those old insulators. I told him to leave them. Planters Electric Membership Corporation was formed in 1936, and began running lines in 7 counties.

The Delco light plant wouldn't run a deep well pump, so Grandaddy devised a deal that supplied running water to the house. He had a 75' high Aermotor windmill that drove a long driveshaft that sat atop several large poles that went to the open well behind the house. The water from the well was piped up into a "water tank", which was a homemade tank of about 400 gallons that sat atop a 40' tower built of heart pine. The tank itself was made of cypress staves and steel bands, like a big barrel. The height of that tank provided water pressure to the house. No hot water heater, but no going out to the well to draw water with a bucket on a cold night, either.

SRH

I simply cannot stand that type of thing.
Grandma & mum made simply beeeauuuutifulll giblet soup with the feet & all in it. But never did eat a beak. Grandma made specially sure we cut the heads off right up high to keep as much neck as possible.

Around here people catch the fresh water red claw crayfish & break out its tail then wash that in running water & cook only the tails.
I always cook the beasts whole & love the flavour of the yellow fat in the body & crack the claws & suck out the legs just as my family always did.
While doing this I have very little idea of where my cell phone is or what it is doing.

On the farm we used to do all our own kills of the cattle, sheep, goats & pigs & poultry & all we raised & ate. Being Germans there was all the wurst, black blood pudding & sausage to the old kraut recipe's. Grandma caught every drop of blood from the cut throats. The intestines cleaned & processed were used for wurst & sausage skins.
Every scrap of meat cut off & in the grinder, skulls cut open for brains & tongues & then boiled to get the remnant goodness to make what they called brawn or braun. bones & feet boiled to get the jelly part of the brawn. Grandpa ate the boiled eyes sucked out of the skull.

It used to be said that the only thing those old Germans did not use from the pig was the squeal.
Well to prove his point my Grandpa used to cut out & keep the voice box from the pig & had a whole row of dried ones nailed to the front edge of the top shelf in his workshop. He had some ears there too for silk purses someday. He was a real comedian.

I remember as a child climbing up there & getting some voice boxes down & blowing through them to try getting a noise. They did not make a peep.
So it is true, the only thing thrown away is the squeal.

O.M

Great story Stan. We are currently remodeling my Grand parents farm house. When they moved there in 1946 it had no indoor plumbing. I will have to ask my father but I believe they added the electricity sometime in the early 50's. I know my Grand Father plowed that land behind a single horse before he could afford a tractor. Different days indeed.

Ya'll was living awful high on the hog Stanley...

My grandfather on my mothers side died before I was born..my grandmother died in 1969 in the same house my mother was born in...she was born 1914 along with four other kids one older three younger. My grandmother went to the same church her entire life...that my great grandad helped build.
His Bible still sits on the pulpit of the unlocked Church.

My grandmother gave into getting electric lights in the 1950s...a party line phone in the 1960s..they finally made her put in an electric well pump in the late 1960s she fought tooth and nail because she didn't want it but she was getting to old to pump water..I didn't like it either. I used to pump that well pump hours on end and never got the first drop of water...I guess there was a reason they never taught me how to prime the pump.
Story was they had the best water for miles and people came and went freely and used their well.

Mule barns...blacksmith shop and tool barn...smoke house, root seller. Everything one needed to survive. My mothers brothers paid for their ammo by trapping mink and beaver in the 1920s...the traps in their oak baskets and all the tools were all still there when I was a kid.

She refused indoor plumbing...not because she couldn't afford it because she didn't want it. A toilet in the house didn't sit right with her.

She cooked on a wood stove until she died...Nothing like cathead biscuits cooked on a wood stove.

People talk about hope and change...she was happy and alive.

You think you know country... you don't know what country is.

One of the cypress cisterns out at the ranch collapsed. I got all the boards and ran them through the planer and the jointer. It took the old bleached wood off and the bevel but they were still random width. I arranged them and made our kitchen table from that cypress. It's a trestle type 7' long. Nice light colored straight grained cypress, trees cut probably 150 years ago.

I was recycling and repurposing long before it was cool to do that.

After 1930 and the oil boom, my great-great grandfather took grandma and moved to Corpus Christi never to return to the "Garden Spot of South Texas" and my uncle got the Humble Co. to pipe gas to the house. He used it for cooking, a bit of heating and lighting. It was some number of years after that they put in one of those dodads that added the smell to the gas. Folks used to blowing out kerosene lamps lived dangerously with natural gas piped into the house.

They had that gas up until I was about 10. I can remember going out with my grandfather on Thanksgiving morning in the freezing cold and warming up frozen gas pipelines with a torch and pear burner to get gas to the house to cook that turkey. They put in propane not long after that.

I don't know when they got electricity. Water came from the ground brought up by the efforts of an 8' Aermotor as was every drop of water within 5 miles. The cisterns evolved from cypress to clay to concrete. They did put a bird/bat proof roof over the one for the house.

Of course early on the kitchens were separate from the house and a steady supply of wood kept the hearths and stoves going until the gas stage. 12 people require a lot of cooking.

Grandpa (my Great-great grandfather) had come from Italy, settled in North Carolina at first and then participated in the Oklahoma land rush. He had a 32 Colt revolver and a C.D. Bonehill 10 gage shotgun (which I have). I wish I had the Colt too but ....

In 1903 he saw a flyer "Sweeden Farm Lots" near Piedras Pintas Texas, "The Garden Spot of South Texas". He sold his Northwestern Oklahoma farm and bought 160 acres sight unseen in Piedras Pintas (Soon to be Benavides, Texas). He bought a train car load of lumber and he and the boys got in the wagon and headed South. He was likely disappointed by "The Garden Spot of South Texas". It wasn't hardly that. But they cleared two 30 acre pastures, built a house, drilled a well and scratched out a living for 30 years. Then the Humble Oil Company changed their lives. It changed the way they lived but it did not change who they were, and I thank them and God for that.

I've got more stories than y'all want to read, so I'll stop till I just can't stand it any more.

Alan

When the REA ran electric to my one grandfathers farm, 1932, they put the pole right across one of his fields. Not where he wanted them. So he and my father moved them to where he wanted them. A few days later they came out to run the lines and the lineman noted the extra distance and said it would waste too much wire. After a few minutes my grandfather asked him if he like oysters. Yes was the reply. So for a bushel of oysters the poles were left where they were and the line was left where he wanted it. My father had to go tong the oyster up when he got home form school. We had several oyster beds in our creek. About a year later the REA had to put one more pole in the line because the pole-sitters had set the poles too far apart they said.

I remember seeing a old Delco system on his farm. I think it was a 32 volt system. Most were, but they also came in 65 volt and 110. All our family had were the 32's I think. Few farmers complained that when the new power lines were run they had just bought a new system or that they did not want to rewire their house to get hooked up to the REA. They all did by the war. Lot easier to flip a switch than anything else.

When I was a kid, a deep well was anything over eight or ten feet. If you got good flow at ten feet, and the water was not too bad for iron(rust) or sulfa you left it there. If it was not good water you would move it maybe ten feet away and try again. We put one ten foot well in the bottom of a dry ditch for hogs one year. Ditch was about ten feet deep and dry as a bone. Used a hit and miss engine to pump water out of it. We put in a "deep" well on the farm in 1968 and it was 75 feet deep. Last irrigation well I had put in was 1200 plus feet but a bit larger than the 4" well with a 2" supply line on that 75 foot one. Cost a bit more as well.

Most of the good old days was hard work. Things I did as a kid, working on the farm, would make a safety expert throw up. I could never let my kids do it. Starting tractors with a hand crank or by turning a pulley, or by chain pulling one tractor to start another, no fenders, roll bars, safety covers on pulleys, belts and electric. Driving tractors when I was six or seven years old, all day long. Heck I am older than the triangle safety signs seen on the backs of tractors these days. Carrying a loaded shotgun or .22 on a tractor or combine while working.

When my Grandad lived in this house and had farmed long enough to get a dollar or two he built a "commissary" between the house and the road, a bit off to the west side. It was a little country store that sold staple food items and a few other things. Many families of white folks and black folks lived here, and couldn't travel far to "trade", so the little commissaries were all over the countryside. He would keep his open until late in the evening because many folks would come, after knocking off time, to "trade". He bought a "piccolo" and put it on the front porch of the commissary, so the customers could buy some entertainment. "Piccolo" was the local name for the early jukebox. Great crowds began to gather in the front yard to listen (and drink). Grandma began to get a bit scared of the crowds and would lock herself in the house until Grandaddy came home, after closing up.

One night Grandaddy decided to play a trick on her. He normally came in the back door, so that night he eased up on the porch and rattled the doorknob. She said "Who is it?". He didn't answer, but rattled the doorknob harder. She said "I said, who is it?". Still no answer from him. He twisted at the doorknob again, and heard two clicks. He knew immediately it was the hammer on her .32 revolver. He cried out "This is your ever-loving husband Minis Hillis!!". He laughed about that many times, but Grandma never thought it was funny.

Grandma was a very prim and proper Southern lady. She had a cook/housemaid for most of her life, but oversaw all the housekeeping and kitchen duties very closely. She was a superb cook, and taught the cook how to prepare everything to her specs. Grandma and Grandaddy loved to have visiting ministers for meals. The big dining room had a chandelier, and her table was set with white linen tablecloths and fine silver, for company. This was after the Depression, when things were a lot better economically.

In those days black women used all sorts of items as hair pins, and adornments. One day they were hosting the guest minister for a revival, I think, and cornbread was one of the things served. The guest minister bit into his piece of cornbread and bit onto something hard. He made some sound that caused Grandaddy to notice, and asked him "What's that?". The minister pulled a "cut nail", a squared iron nail common in those days, from the cornbread. Grandaddy exclaimed "There's a nail in your cornbread!". The cook, Minnie Clark, burst in from the kitchen and exclaimed "Law, that musta' fell outta' my head into the batter". Mortified ......... is the word I remember being used to describe Grandma's emotions.

SRH

Wasn't there a song about working for the company store...

Stan were your people from the south or carpetbaggers ?

My maternal grandmother grew up on a farm in Bermuda. Farm land was scarce and under Bermuda law, no house could be built on tillable land. Houses were built on the ancient coral bed outcroppings that were uplifted from the sea eons ago. My great grandfather grew casaba for local markets and Easter Lilies for export to Macy's. She was born in the 1890's and the family moved into the house when she was 6 months old. The house was 200 years old at that time. Water for drinking and cooking was recovered from rooftop rainwater that was collected into a large cistern. Otherwise, there is no freshwater on the island. By law, the roofs were made of slabs of the ancient coral and heavily white washed for the collection of water. The homes were built from cut coral blocks and stuccoed over. The houses were strongly built to survive hurricane winds and as was the practice in the rural south, the kitchens were separate from the living quarters because of the risk of fire. When my great grandfather died, the land was split up among his children. The old homestead is no longer in family hands and with the exception of one family, the rest of the property has changed ownership over the years. The view from the highest property, my grandmother's, was spectacular. Mom's sister was born in Bermuda and later in life she returned to live and work in Bermuda, but ultimately sold the house and moved back to the states.

Jon;
I was attending an antique tractor show once & a young man was hand-cranking his tractor, a Farmall as I recall. An older gentleman saw him & rushed over & said Son, let me show you how to crank a tractor before you break your wrist. He then proceeded to show him to "Never" spin the crank all the way around as if you were winding it up, but to only pull upward.

He further added that many tell you to never put your thumb across the crank, said if you only pulled up it didn't matter where your thumb was. Where most people got hurt was if the engine back-fired crank would come around & hit the back of your wrist, breaking it. If you only pulled up the crank would yank out of your hand & the hand would continue upward & not get hit.

The old 2-cylinder John Deeres were the safe ones to crank as you rolled the flywheel. Not much way to get hurt cranking one of them, unless you left it in gear & the clutch engaged, then you might get run over by the back wheel.

I recall my Mother mentioning when she was growing up her family had gas lighting in the house. She said they had A Carbide Vat which set out behind their house & the gas was piped inside. I recall as a youth seeing the lights still on the walls but they weren't using it then, only had the old fashioned Kerosene Lamps with a flat wick.

I lived in 7 or 8 houses before I was 9 yrs old, a couple of them had electricity, but most didn't. From age 9 to about 12 we didn't have it again, got "Wired" around 1950 when I was 12. At that place, there was a drilled well (4") & I had to draw all the water, but fortunately was only around 20 feet deep, with just a Touch of Sulfur in it.

I cranked Farmalls many times with a crank. Even though I shouldn't have, I could crank the Super C by pushing down and then pulling up, but could only crank the H and the M by pulling up. They had a lot more compression. Any of them would crank in gear, though. It was imperative to remember to check to be sure it was in neutral before hand starting. Many people got killed when they forgot to do that, then were pinned between the front of the tractor and the wall, when they were cranked in gear. I couldn't push the H and M down then pull up because I simply wasn't man enough. No matter, they would crank easy enough on the "upstroke".

I turned over the engine in my Super C with the crank just last week, as I do occasionally to prevent the engine from seizing from lack of use. It is awaiting restoration.

SRH

Some might consider the comment about the nail falling out of the black maids hair kinda racist.

Just saying

Don't you think the comment about being German & making sausage to the old kraut recipe was kinda racist ?

O.M

You tell me...

jOe, all I am asking please, is that you stop going through this thread like a bull elephant in musth, pissing everywhere & attacking people.
That is not welcome in a thread where folk are exposing their heart & sharing.
Very un cool & ruining the experience.

I know you will not change & neither can you make these good folk change.
So, please, leave them in peace to post their very interesting fond family memories.
I for one, am more interested in their posts than your bitter & unforgiving blood pump.

O.M

I believe it's in musk not in "must".

Just last week I was "sizzling in Stan's skillet like a toad frOg".

(I wonder how the toad frOg frying is coming along)

Then I was his "game hog"...

(I can't wait for the dove pictures)

Next I was just a "dumb Tennessee" hill billy out of Mississippi.

(I'll just have to face it I'll never be as witty or smart as Stan)

Now I'm your heartless "bull elephant in must".

(Actually I do have a very big heart when it's needed).

I was trying to do a little bonding with you guys but truth is a fellow can only take so much abuse.

And I voted for Donald Trump.

Close but not quite Frank. It is an Elephant in "musth" or "must" that you are acting like. I do love the poor me angle though. As I have pointed out to your BFF in the past, you just do not make a very sympathetic victim.

frank, all your abuse is self inflicted. I don't know how you can put with so much of your own schlock and whining, but you are a master of schlock and whine. It would be really nice if you would get over yourself someday.

Well look at the two little bee'itchizs I called up...

Freeloading Steve'O Liberal gunsmurfer meet Forum Freeloader Brent D the Liberal college professor of Ecology at Iowa State University.

Two peas in a pod.

Please stop bonding with them jOe.
The floor is already awash in urine.

O.M

True that, Francis.

I think it was '55.

SRH

I'm a bit more familiar with the 2 cylinder opposed design of the older John Deere's--love the hand lever clutch design and the rotary PTO drum ahead of it- and the trick I learned on my friend's 1940's B-- they had a compression relief valve set-up- you first locked the foot pedal brakes, made sure the clutch lever was all the way back- popped the valve- and with choke and throttle set, spun the big flywheel, with the hole bored into the edge for access- believe it rotated clockwise.

My friend told me that often, when plowing all day, they would leave the engine running at an idle- and top off the gas tank- as for some reason, restarting after running for a few hours was sometimes "an issue"-- RWTF

Every piece of old equipment and every old farmer had their own set of quirks Fox.

We had a Super C as well. Easy to crank as you say. Our Case was a bit harder and the big John Deere tractors could be a brute. In the Winter I went to the Super C first or Case if I needed a bit more tractor. But when you weigh 50-60 pounds you started them best you could. As I got older it was easy to do it the right way. And yes my father taught me the right, safe way. My older brothers taught me the easier, less safe way. Wonder if there was a message there?

Well, I think all you guys are a bunch of rednecks, bragging about your outdoor plumbing, water wells, and growing up eating bird guts. I grew up in a house about like what I have now, with indoor toilets, hot and cold water, telephones, electricity,and even TV as far back as I can remember. Maybe I'm just special...Geo

Thanks to all for the great stories. The only stories I have are more along the same vein as the one posted by buzz. Most don't bear repeating. My paternal Grandpa was a Sargent on the TPD with am explosive temper that saw duty during the Tulsa race riots of 1921. Grandma was a stoic woman that rarely ever smiled and had witnessed her fair share of sadness losing several of her nine children to disease and accidents. My maternal Grandpa was a louse that RUNNOFT with the likes of Mrs. Hogwallup leaving a wife and a shack full of kids to fend for themselves. I guess he was searching for answers. My maternal Grandma remarried a Italian immigrant that was a prince of guy and did Terrazzo work on most of the hospitals and buildings built in Tulsa during the oil boom. He was a kind, loving, hard working Christian man. The only "real" grandfather that I ever knew.

When are going to start wearing shoes? That silly "No shirt, no shoes, no service" has hindered my social development for sure. Ken's mentioning of Terrazzo flooring brought back memories of where I grew up the oldest of 10. Dad built the house with Terrazzo flooring for good reason. The only thing tougher would have been concrete, but that's pretty much what Terrazzo is--glorified concrete. Gil

Foxy;
When you were on the left side of the John Deere (Flywheel side) you rolled the flywheel forward C'Clockwise to crank it. The pulley for a flat belt drive was on the right end of the crankshaft & the clutch was built into the belt pulley. An experienced repairman could completely re-line a clutch on one of them in about 15 minutes, as nothing had to be taken apart except the clutch itself.

I loved that hand clutch. The old model D from 1928 on had a 6 3/4" bore with a 7" stroke for 501 cubic inches in the two cylinders. Without those compression release valves, it took a "MAN" to roll one of them over center to start it.

I never knew either of my grandfathers. My paternal grandfather died when my dad was 11, leaving behind a widow and three children. He'd worked in the cloth mills in south Jersey before he took ill and when he couldn't work anymore, the family moved to Illinois to live with his aunt. My maternal grandfather died when my mother was 20, having outlived two of his three children. He'd had a good job with the telephone company, a blessing during the Depression, but died before reaching pension age and my grandmother went to work in a department store. She lived with my parents from the time they married until she died in the late 1970s.

The only male ancestor other than my father I ever knew was my paternal great-grandfather. He was born in Scotland, went into the mills there at age 14 and emigrated to the U.S. at age 20, where he met and married my great-grandmother, whose family had emigrated from the north of England about the same time. He worked in the lace mills in Philadelphia until age 84, retiring only when the mill he was working in closed and moved to the Carolinas, leaving the employees without jobs or pension benefits (pre-ERISA). He lived to be 97 and my oldest son was born on what would have been his 110th birthday. We named him for Grandpop.

When my paternal grandfather died (1942), my paternal great-grandfather somehow gathered enough gas coupons to drive from Philadelphia to Evanston, IL and load my grandmother, my two aunts and my father into the car and drove them home and moved them in with him and my great-grandmother. What they could fit in the car was all they brought with them. Shortly after the war, my oldest aunt married a veteran who turned out to be a serial cheater and a drunk. My great-grandmother was dying of breast cancer and my grandmother had lost her sight to diabetes. My great-grandfather moved the aunt, uncle and their four kids in with him (in a three bedroom twin home in Philadelphia) and pretty much raised those four kids as well. He never complained or expected any praise, just thought it was what family did.

None of my family were ever hunters or shooters until my dad and mom bought an acre from a farmer outside of town and built a house. The farmer and his three sons-in-law were all living on the farm and were hunters. They got my father started. Dad only ever owned one shotgun (a Stevens Springfield 16 gauge sxs), one .22 (a Remington Model 33) and one center-fire rifle (a Winchester Model 94 .30-30). I have all of them now and they'll go to my oldest son in due course. He taught his three sons to shoot and hunt and got us into handloading. Two of us still do.

My dad has been gone almost 9 years now and I still miss him. My mom, who was 6-1/2 years older than he was, is still chugging along at 94. She lived in the family home until December of 2017.

I've been richly blessed by having family that loved me, encouraged me to get a good education and provided the means to do it. They were never rich in material things, but they were rich in Christian faith, love and generosity. I couldn't have asked for more from any of them.

. I know farmers who trace their lineage back to Germany-- Blood pudding and sausage, wurst und sauerkraut-- all the good old things to eat that today would probably put a cardiologist into orbit-- but hard work, and a sense of being good neighbors to boot, kept them hale and hearty for years-- Fuchs

I stand corrected, Suh. My farmer friend also has a late 1940's "A" with a 6 volt battery starter- foot pedal- but both his old B and the later A have "Armstrong" power steering-- Lotsa iron in thos old 2-lungers- He also has a 1936 Ford flatbed truck with the V-8-- still runs great-- RWTF

That reminds me Fox, of a thing my Father used to say.
At primary school (the only school he did) one day the teacher said that "hard work never killed anyone"
One of the boys shot his hand into the air & when the teacher asked him what it was he wanted to say the boy drawled "that may be so sir, but it sure ruined a lot".

O.M

I had all the comforts of mid 20th Century American life when I was growing up. At 21 I entered into a period of self-imposed (self-inflicted) situational poverty. I learned an awful lot in those 12 years.

Knowing how my ancestors made it helped me make it as well.

Alan

Hmmm, I got nothing.

If they weren't dead already, my grandparents were going quickly by the time I arrived. So zero in the heart warming grampa story file. And my father grew up in a wealthy family (although he likes to pretend he didn't but as he's in his nineties I don't argue with him anymore), as did his father. They all had indoor plumbing and electricity.

My paternal grandfather had a car before WWI. Was a lawyer. His wife, my grandmother, graduated from university around 1909. He was a Major, fought at Passchendaele, was shot several times and blown up once. Survived but was pretty frail by the time I came along in the late 1950's. He got into the car business after the war. More interesting than lawyering. His father, knighted by King Edward VII, was a provincial premier (like your governors) and his son was a provincial premier.

I did know my maternal grandmother until I was 10 and she was awesome. Lived for her grandkids and would get up to all kinds of mischief with us. Jumped on the trampoline, rode with me on the back of my mini bike. When I think of what a grandmother should be, she's who I see. Her husband died in 1931, less than a year after the birth of my mother. We are Scots with a bit of Irish and German in us while using a French surname.

I read your stories and miss that I didn't have an person like your grandfathers in my life. Luck of the draw.

My Grandmother was born in a half dugout on a hardscrabble homestead on the Llano Estacado and she said they would have starved out if not for Jack rabbits and green tumble weeds,

She passed away two years ago at 102 years of age in her own home with me, my wife and her great grand daughter looking after her.

She was spry until about 6 weeks before she died. She ate a half rack of pork ribs 6 weeks before she died and a bate of cornbread dressing 2 weeks before she passed. I can't think of a better way to go out of this world than she did.

We will not see the likes of people like her again.

Bless her heart.

And then there is my Daddy's people from West Tennessee, they were colorful, and unreconstructed Southrons.

Sounds like good folks to me. Did any of them perchance leave you a Dance Revolver?

I wish, but them Dance Six shooters were made in Texas, if I recall correctly.

And some of my Texas forebearers were out of Missouri, who were Partisian Rangers who often wintered over in North Texas, and relocated there. They were real bad to hold a grudge.

Another of my Grandpa hunting stories, but this is more of a just pure vermin killing story.
The type of country our farms & orchids were in was a kind of sand hill country. There was flat ground in between old sand hills that looked like they were blown by the wind a long time ago. Then they covered with trees & shrubs & in those days were mostly not cleared & farmed. The sand hills all ran in the same direction N-S for many miles & crossed the landscape at about 3/4 to a mile apart. Open irrigation channels ran along the contour of the hillside & the water flowed down from there to irrigate the flats. We had no pumps or sprinklers in those days to irrigate the hills so they were natural vegetation.
Our place was from the back side of one of these to the centre top of the next. So the rise of the sand hill was at the back of the home block.

In those days the rabbits were plentiful because the Dep't of Agriculture had not yet released the diseases into the population. The rabbits were pests in the crops & they attracted foxes which hunted them & our poultry. Most of this vermin population lived on or in the sand hills where the digging was easy for making a burrow. The usual method of control was called rabbit ripping, where a larger tractor of the time like an IH WD6 or similar had a deep ripping tyne on the three point linkage & was used to rip & collapse the warrens in on the hapless occupants.

Well, Grandpa had a different idea, as usual. We would load up our kit on the trailer & it consisted of a piece of steel flex pipe with a rubber hose attached, a shovel, a knapsack sprayer filled with petrol. A 20 foot long plastic conduit with a wire threaded through it which was connected to a spark plug from a car fitted into one end. A magneto ignition off an old hit & miss engine. A single barrel Winchester 12g shotgun & shells. We hooked this onto a Grey TE 20 Ferguson petrol tractor & headed up the hill to the rabbit warrens.

We would hook up the flex pipe & hose to the tractors exhaust & put it down one hole & fill in & pack it tight at the opening. then go around the warren & fill in all but one hole.
Start the tractor & pull a few revs on & pull the choke out.
The tractor would go blert blert blert & pump fumes out the exhaust into the warren. One of us would wait at the open hole with the 12g & whoever brer rabbit or brer fox would come out all bleary eyed & coughing to the welcome of a face full of number fours. We used this method mainly when we thought there was a fox down there.

If there were just rabbit foot prints at the burrows then we put the plastic conduit pipe with the spark plug end right down in there, then got the knapsack sprayer & misted petrol down the holes & let that all circulate through for a while. We then shoveled dirt into all the holes & jump it down a bit then hooked the wire coming up the conduit from the spark plug to the magneto.
Give the magneto a spin & WWHhoomph the whole warren would lift about a foot & collapse back down thereby burying those blasted rabbits.

Mum did not like it too much but I can tell you that we sure did.
Brings a smile to my dial even now.

O.M

That's some Mad Max chit...

Guess there was more to that movie than met the eYe.

Some more chit better left untold.

Just my observation.

Well, again your observation is chit.
Is it better left untold that to this day the deep ripping of rabbit warrens is still the preferred method of control ?
Or that the rabbits are baited with 1080 & Pindone ?
Or that now they are fumigated down the burrows using Phosphine as in aluminium phosphide tablets ?
Or that foxes get the same treatment ?
Very sporting old chap.

You have commented on so much of late that you are now commenting on things you know nothing about.
That is my observation.

O.M

O.M.,
Very few North American residents understand anything about game management in your part of the world. We have been very successful here using the N.A. model of game management but that model is not universal. What works here does not necessarily work everywhere. On my first trip to New Zealand I bought several books on NZ hunting and was shocked at the numbers of game taken and often just for the heads. Completely contrary to our thinking. Then I began talking to the locals and seeing the pictures of rivers filled with dead deer poisoned by 1080 and the pictures of the hill eaten bare taken in the 50's. I soon began to see the problems and solutions were different than what I had known at home. Having seen rabbits in thousands I can only imagine the damage they can do. Please continue to share your stories of growing up down under in a rural area. Some of us do enjoy reading them and can appreciate them, I do.
Steve

Steve'O I can actually see you liking that kind of thing.

They done about took all their guns away I guess they got to do something.

The Night Rider lives....

Thanks Steve.
Deer are declared vermin here as well as NZ.
I hunt them on alfalfa crops at night with a spotlight & 308.
In the day from a dirt bike with a Win 94 30-30.
All legal & ethical.
O.M

Quite a few interesting deer species in Australia and NZ. I took a nice free range Red and a decent Fallow in NZ. A Rusa and Sambar hunt is something I would like to do some day.

Pissing on Steve again. You know that the skin of an elephant in or out of musth is up to an inch thick.

They done did not about took all our guns away. More you know nothing about yet are willing to comment.

Anyone here is the night rider I suspect you. Did you go to bed & sleep or were you up riding this forum all night.
10:05 PM here

O.M

I think about Hemingway out in Sun Valley ID-- pre-WW11- one of the mainstay farms they hunted for pheasants was the Friese family farm, near Dietrich-- Hemingway organized the jack rabbit drives, as they were cleaning out the hay stacked out in the fields- which the farm family needed to feed their livestock- all the game the group shot was dressed out, and given to the family (13 in number perhaps) --

Gary Cooper preferred the "sniper" approach to this situation He was a crack shot with his scoped M70 in .257R- love to shoot coyotes, fox, jack rabbits and bobcats-- assume when the did the Hemingway shuffle on the jack rabbits they all used shotguns--

Hemingway also would "pass the hat" and take up cash donations from the hunting party and help out the farmer and his family- tractor or truck repairs, parts, feed and seed money- etc.

But I have no problem with you and your Grandpa "doing the C-4 routine, all boys love to set off fireworks and explosive stuff- RWTF

Don't you live in Australia moses? We sure see a lot of information concerning the onerous restrictions on the rights of firearms owners there. Of course, you guys never had a 2nd Amendment to worry about anyway. Do you think your Grand pappy ever worried about Gun Control? Liberal Democrat Hillary Clinton promised to try to bring that Australian crap here if she won. Some FUDD's here voted for her anyway. You just can't fix stupid.

Is this propaganda? Or should we just fire up the old Massey Ferguson and hunt birds or ward off criminals with a bit of exhaust gas or a chisel plow?













Maybe we can start a fun thread where we all try to identify confiscated guns in these photos before they get crushed and melted down! That one on top gotta have 40" barrels.

O.M. I resent that I'll have you know I would never piss on Steve'O....


Even if'n she was on fire.

All the elephant hide I've saw was super thin like your skin.

Just sAying...

Maybe we can start a fun thread where we all try to identify confiscated guns in these photos before they get crushed and melted down! That one on top gotta have 40" barrels.

Do that then.
It would be a good place to start if you want to start on the subject.

O.M

Oh, by the way fellas, Thanks for ruining this thread like you do to so many others. Well done.
It is no wonder why we see so many bow out of this forum taking so much useful information about DOUBLE GUNS with them.

O.M

Excuse me? Was there some useful double shotgun information here? I must have missed that. But I was only commenting on your rude reply to jOe concerning his belief that Australia had placed severe restrictions on the number and type of guns you folks may own, and similar restrictions on how you may use them.

I must have hit a nerve with you because you didn't bother to correct me and show us that all the news we hear about gun confiscation is just a lie or anti-Australian propaganda. I do understand that it bothers our FUDD's here to read about gun confiscation, buybacks, and threats of arrest and imprisonment for not rolling over like a whipped dog. And I do understand that some here wish to make this forum a safe harbor for those who vote for the politicians who wish they could pass the same restrictions here.

I guess we're just never going to see things the same. By the way, my maternal Grandfather was a prisoner of war who was wounded in action before being captured. He didn't believe in giving up freedoms.

Here we go...

I thought you Austrailian bloaks had to turn in your rifles ?

No.

O.M

So are you telling us there is no truth to the pictures and official notices I posted earlier concerning confiscation and government buybacks of prohibited firearms?

And how can an anti-gun government "buyback" a gun when they never owned it in the first place?

A hell of a lot of Australians shoot at matches all over the world. Last year, I and other shooters from countries all over the world shot in Australia. There is a lot of shooting there and they don't shoot slingshots.

I will tell you keith, that there is some kernel of truth to the pictures & official notices. Just like any fake news.
Do you believe that all you see in print is the whole truth ?
There are classes of firearms that are prohibited. Some are confiscated if the police come across them but the hand in & buyback is an honesty system, hence the scare tactic.

Well, they sort of did own it in the first place.
We have had to register (in some states) our firearms for quite some time so at the end of the argument the federal grubiment who that firearm is registered with is the legal owner.

If you will start a tread on the identification of those handed in firearms you will see a pattern develop which I can then try to explain to you.

O.M

No, I don't believe everything I see in print is the whole truth.

I do believe I see a lot of photos on the internet of tons of guns that Australian shooters gave up to anti-gunners. I also read about the anti-gun laws that have been passed there. I do know that some of you may still own and shoot certain guns under certain circumstances. Brent (nosleinaD) may think that our 2nd Amendment is about target shooting, but he isn't very bright.

I'm pretty sure that you may not shoot someone breaking into your home and threatening your family without placing yourself in some very deep shit. I'd be interested to hear what sort of handgun you may carry concealed around your towns for self defense. I know some guys here think everything is hunky-dory and there is no threat to our gun rights... But I know that's horse shit.

I sure thought they made them turn in semi auto and pump shotguns and high powered rifles that held more than 1 round of ammo.

And that handguns are pretty much non existent.

This is rich.

Only responding because of moses’s rude reply to jOe? And you deny jOe is emboldened to spread his idiocy because of the cover you offer him, Keith?The person who was ruining what was a interesting and heartfelt thread was jOe. And I don’t want to hear any shit about it not having to do with double guns. You shit on threads regularly in a way that has nothing to do with double guns and in fact has nothing to do with defending the second.

You need to get real. You’ve kinda lost your grip on reality here. Moses isn’t and hasn’t spread any anti gun bs here. He just happens to live in a country that enacted idiotic laws.

If there is some conspiracy against you by other members, expose it. Or shut up.

I told you to take a good look in the mirror a few weeks ago. You decided not to so I’ll give you another challenge. Think about what it takes for me to say this to you. Let me tell you, it doesn’t come easily.

If someone says something clearly anti firearms, have at it. But in the meantime Keith STFU!

And tell your buddy jOe that he doesn’t need to spill his shit in every single thread. Between the two of you you’ve made this place practically unreadable. I have to resort to reading the Upland Journal and I can only take so much of that totalitarian hang out so please Keith. Grow up!

And Keith, I don’t want an email or PM telling me how much this action of mine hurt you. I’ve tried to talk to you about this. You aren’t listening. You need to listen. So I’m saying it loudly and clearly.

keith, cansay please where, when and how your maternal grandfather was wounded?

GoOfy kAnooker why not take your own advise and stfu.

Seriously, Frank.
Are you that imature?
If not, what are you doing ?

O.M

You think it okay for you and the kAnooker to act like azzes...

Maybe you ought to go blow up some rabbits to relieve stress.

Just saying

Frank Cox, shut the fu ck up.

Boo hoo


You goOfy kAnook

Frank Cox, there is something really going wrong with you.

O.M

I'm not the bloak blowing up rabbits.

You are, however, blowing up this otherwise fine forum.
Get your facts straight.
The use of explosives in the fight against the introduced rabbit plague has always been legitimate.

O.M

I'm not blowing up anything

Last I checked this isn't gandaddys forum.

This entire thread is your dreamed up bull shit and has no place on this forum...

It was doomed from the start gramps.

You blow up every thread you post in. Including threads you start yourself.

Frank Cox, shut the fu ck up.

Check out Teds thread...he's got a fresh weiner for you.

Swallow one and check with me in the morning

One more thread you made an ass of yourself in.

Frank Cox, shut the fu ck up.

One more thread that has no place here...

Ted knows his email it was just a Darne attention stunt.

Ps...I didn't expect you to get so excited over a weiner.

The goOfy kAnooker blew up your thread...it not very nice to tell someone to "STFU!"

Go eat a couple of Teds weiners and check with me in the morning kAnook.

Nighty night

You just carry on here without me JOE.
I am going to the shops to get some nice cold peaches. They are in season here.

Twit, I mean twist that how you like.

You thought you were being kOOl when you started this thread....you did it because the 2" 12ga. went south and you got to thinking about grandpappy.

Pay attention Moses.

2" 12 gauge thread...

First John Roberts made a snide remark about the "2 inch 12 gauge only being created out of boredom"...silly but nothing real bad about that.

One page later his buddy Stan sang back up and stated that "JR was exactly right" and drug a .410 into the thread...(they sure be liking some junk foe tins).
Then they got to quail hunting...Truth is the 2" 12 gauge would probably make the ultimate quail gun.

Followed right up with a granpappy story about ground shooting a covey of quail. I was at a loss as to how it got to there.

True...I don't know about your rabbits and you don't know about our quail hunting traditions.

You might not know but ground shooting don't sit too well with most folks.

I made a comment that wasn't too bad...pretty much just said I wouldn't have told that.

Stan is a good guy but at times he thinks he can run rough shod over folks.

Rather than letting what I said go Stan started a defense/attack on me that was almost imediately backed up by his bud GLS along with a few others I've rubbed wrong over the years....

The more the merrier I always sAy.

GLS backs him up all the time....Fact is GLS kisses the ground Stan walks on...is he vying for a turkey or dove hunting invite ?

Most likely. (he'll likely get it now for reward since I called it to a certain persons attention.)

Attack didn't work out so well for them and the entire thread was trashed up....ended up discussing the Civil war...some interesting points were made about it that I'd never heard.

Truth is it was an interesting thread worth cleaning up.

I post when I see bull shite...

There are several people that think this forum is their personal sounding stage...

You've never saw me brag about anything on here.

I offer advice when I can and get caught when I'm wrong.

You've also saw people try and trash me because they think they know something about me...you included Mr. Moses.

So there you go in a little nut shell...

Great thread Moses.

I'm guessing it's just sOur grapes on mOnkey bOys part
as he probably doesn't know who his own father is let alone his grandfather.

Over 13,000 posts, what a waste.
You're just an argumentative and combative punchbOwl tUrd.

Moses you take ol'bOb Cash...he's mad at me because he posted a picture of a gun and everyone thought it was his...he got cotched and he's still fretting over it.

I'm guilty of poking fun at serious bOb....if you werent such a jerk bOb eye wouldn't have poked fun at you.

Ol'bOb he can't take no ribbing....next time don't post a loaner.

I guess the guy whose internet pictures I stole must have known
what a DICK you are too.



homelessjOe (aka Frank Cox) is a coward.
He hides behind his keyboard knowing full well that if he spoke the filth he spews
while standing toe to toe with a man he'd get his monkeybOy neck snapped.

homelessjOe (aka Frank Cox) is a liar.
He accuses a man of stealing without any knowledge or proof.
I think it's called bearing false witness .

How about a wager Frank Cox?
Let's bet I can prove the above photo and gun are mine.
Loser self banishes from this forum for the remainder of 2019.

Oh ya, Frank Cox is a gutless fool who's afraid to put up or shut up.

Dang it bOb...you missed Valintines day.

What is that a Spanish safe queen ?

Ps...check out Teds thread bOb hes probably got a weiner for you.

2x ps...Ted and I go back tell him "jOe the toOl" sent you and he might give you a double weiner.

You know Bob that picture of a gun with a note with my name on it kinda looks like a threat to my life. You ain't planing on shooting me are you bOb ?

Just saYing how it looks bOb

So I come back from the shops with my peaches & see this.
Frank you twisted this too far out of shape to even be believable to you.
This slur on Bob is VERY poor form. This is about the lowest you have stooped.
You even know that.
Grasping at straws to try to win your stupid internet argument.
It looks nothing like your claim to any sane minded person.
And yes, I saying that you are insane. You just proved it

O.M

Moses you lead a sheltered life over there out in the bush with your rabbits...

America is full of sick psychopaths, internet stalkers and all else....you think I'm scared of ol witless bOb heck nO I welcome him.

But that's why it's against the rules and it's wrong to be posting peoples names on these forums.

I figured the path would be too hard for you to follow but it's all laid out there.

So what about his slur on me ?

Witt'less bOb gets a pass...you must've eat some of those poison rabbits Mosey.

What if I took a picture of a gun and put a note with your name next to it like bOb did with me ?

What then my love....

Trying to worm wriggle your way out of it now.
We all see what you did.
Bob had that all in a context & well explained & visible to all.
You twisted it right out of context.
You are out of control.
O.M

Here ya go Mosey....r e a d i t r e a l s l o w this time.

You musta got brAin worms from those poison wabbits....