Posted on 11/08/2003 12:40:19 AM PST by Mama_Bear
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Night to the Finest!
Click on the pic
I've been reading some of y'all's posts, and this one caught my eye:
"Never heard of Hershey Bar until I was grown. I lived in the poverty-stricken deep South until WWII. We lived in a share-cropper's shanty that had no screens and the animals wandered in and out of the house. Went barefoot from April til Nov. Seeing an automobile was a rare thing. My Mom would dispatch hawks with one shot from a rifle. We "toted" water up to the house from a spring 100 yards from the house. The outhouse had no pit. It had to be cleaned out from behind and spread on the fields. Wood stove for cooking, limestone fireplace for heat. Cracks in the weatherboarding so snow blew onto the bed covers. The bedbugs were our nightly companions. Need I continue? WWII was a godsend to us. Dad and Mom were assigned to work in the war plants in Huntsville, Ala. and we moved. A real house with heat, water and bathroom. I thought I had died and gone to heaven."
Nan, are you sure you weren't born and raised in Texas?
You sure do sound like you could be my sister!
I was pulling a cotton sack when I was eight years old, and I remember waking in the morning with snow all over the ragged quilts on the bed, shivering in my underwear while I was stoking the coals in the fireplace to get a fire started before momma got up to cook breakfast on the wood stove, knocking the ice out of the water bucket and running to the hand pump water well hoping the leathers weren't frozen so I could draw a bucket of water never thinking about shoes 'cause my feet were so tough they didn't even feel the ice, being completely immune to bedbug bites (or just about any other malady!), roaming through the mesquite brush with a slingshot in my backpocket for most killin', and carrying a single shot .22 rifle with a few precious rounds of ammo for things that needed more firepower and sittin' on a milk stool long before the sun had thoughts about comin' up trying to squeeze the milk out of the cow's teats while dodging that cuckleburr and cow manure infested tail that was determined to swat me in the face.
All of this led me to thinkin':
How many kids nowdays know how to milk a cow, slaughter a hog, build a snare, kill with a slingshot (King David kind), make soap, catch fish without any store bought equipment, ride a horse (or even saddle a horse!), find food in the wild or build a shelter from what's available?
These skills are being lost with each one of us who passes on without sharing them, and someday they might save our children's or our grandchildren's lives.
Most of us WWII kids could survive without the grocery stores and without electricity, but could our offspring?
I seriously doubt it.
I've got some ideas about how to pass this wealth of information on.
Stay tuned..........
LOL!
Isn't it absolutely AMAZING !! what little kids can do besides stare blankly at a television screen from their tiny little recliner seat, graduating soon to a sitting position to do same - - at about age six, gradute to a hand-held Game Boy, etc. to keep the poor little dear from getting (look out - here comes the word I LOATHE..) B-O-R-E-D ...|:>( with all those piles of expensive toys of which they are sooooo tired.
Heaven forbid they do that old-fashioned thing called "play with others" at all kinds of useful athletic activities like Hide 'n Seek and dodgeball (where one hurls a 'lethal' object to 'maim' someone; sometimes employing discrimination against gender, race, etc. No - instead, they do video games where they deliberately seek to kill the target - whatta way to go, Mom and Dad - let 'em kill without blood and have highly skilled fingers.)
We were duped to think it was fun, and took skill to judge the rate of the flight of the ball and jump nimbly aside to avoid it!
Played jump rope and marbles and Pick-Up-Sticks and jacks, and as a WWII child, I at 7 was digging foxholes in vacant lots with all the little boys in the neighborhood....led them a merry chase as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, having the huge pithecolobium tree with treeshouse and genuine sturdy vines to use to swing down!
When at 9 we moved to the country farther upstate, I roamed the canal banks, the Lord giving me a seventh sense to alert me to the presence of one of the many poisonous snakes indigenous to the area....had gators and water moccasins in the waters, but that didn't deter me to accept a challenge at 17 from a fella at school..."I dare you to use the one-man life raft you have to float all the way from your bridge to Canal # 1 - a mile north."
Piece of cake, impeded by water hyacinths a it, but I did it.
That year was when I like Joan of B.C. wielded a puny 4' stake to beat to death a diamondback rattler (with a much bigger girth than the stake) that stretched to more than 5 feet in length....took half an hour to drag it the quarter-mile back to the house, and my from-the-North boyfriend, seeing it, nearly threw up and fainted..:))
With no brothers, I from age 11 was the Yard Person (with a reel push mower), and chopped wood, used the .22 rifle when necessary, had my own horse, surveyed land, sewed and embroidered; did the Miami Herald Crossword Puzzle and was an "A" student, class and Student Officer and several awards winner. The first girl at Melbourne High to take Mechanical Drawing, too, Daddy an engineer.
We had only magazines and newspapers and a radio in those days, and if I lacked something I wanted to do, I read and wrote things and went to the canal banks to 'dream.'
I would NEVER have said to my parents "I am bored.." because it was unthinkable, not 'getting' today's concept of childhood of "ME-ME-ME" in the scheme of things.
We we were thrilled during the war to receive at Christmas a handerchief from an aunt - a single book - stationery - perhaps one inexpensive article of clothing, *maybe* a new board game.
We never considered ourselves deprived, though, as Nan and MEG will tell you.
Contentment is making the most of whatever your situation, and learning what it takes to grow and be self-sufficient.
It thus never bothered me to move so often, knowing 'Home' was wherever God wanted me to be, until we go back to His special one.
As you and I exchanged once, TC, we each had a horse named 'Grasshopper' at an early age...
Have to confess, however, I never mastered using a slingshot..:))
Obviously, your Hero, in addition to Roy Rogers, was young David - a shepherd boy...and most assuredly still is today, I assume.
A beautiful Sunday to one and all coming to The Finest Cafe...
Good morning, LadyX.
I discovered David when I was a young tike from a picture in the family Bible.
I could see the slingshot clearly, and I understood the mechanics of leverage that made it work so I immediately built one.
I figured if David could kill Goliath with one, I could kill a rabbit.
Anyone who has the patience to develop their skill with a slingshot can tell you that this was probably the most lethal and widely used weapon of ancient man, yet, we see very little history writings devoted to it's use.
Having used mine to knock the heads off turtles swimming in the river or kill a rabbit at full run, I can attest that David knew exactly what he was doing when he let that stone fly.
He probably picked an aiming point between Goliath's eyes, and I doubt that it took over one stone to kill him.
A slingshot uses the same principles of mechanics as an atlatl, and the longer the thongs, the greater the power.
I can teach a kid how to use a slingshot in five minutes.
To become proficient takes a little longer, but it beats the heck out of sitting in front of a computer screen shooting make believe cannons at make believe bad guys.
I'm in and out and also training my puppy. He is so smart and is doing great.
Hope you have a great day as well.
..And in the process of downing those critters, your major purpose was to have something edible to eat - not for the 'fun' of 'killing.'
That is what is so horrifying about parents who do not give their sons and daughters balance.
They do not 'see' the processes of true life and death and what it takes to survive.
They also do not develop any respect for life, killing on screen translating at times to wanting The Real Thing.
Those three boys who killed at random at Columbine are prime examples of the effect....no remorse - just another 'thrilling' game.
Who created these monsters??
Parent's choices and involvement in their lives is paramount to the outcome of the child.
Comes right back to how the twig is bent, doesn't it, as to how the tree grows...??
My boys at ages 4 and 5, when I was living back at home, stood by in the yard when I mowed the yard, *always* scaring up ground rattlers, and sometimes bigger dudes - diamondbacks or coral snakes or cotton-mouth moccasins, the grove by the yard a draw.
Their Job was to sit on the porch and have at the ready after several passes, iced tea; but also bring me the .22 rifle to use, if needed.
*GASP!* - a mother letting her babies handle loaded weapons?!
They were 'responsible' boys from the time they could walk, reared as I was, carefully coached. They laugh to this day about Mommo hitting the brain of a rattlesnake with one shot, and giving that up as too expensive, and hazardous with a possible richocheting bullet..:))
From that point on, they handed me a shovel for dispatching slinky critters.
Living in Alaska, at 8 and 9, they had their first Daisy rifles, and saw I was at ease with a 30.06 and .45 and .38, and even shot Smitty's .400 H&H Magnum rifle for bear hunting.
Kevin does not have weapons in his home, but Steve at one time was a Police Officer and keeps a revolver.
Know your son and grandson are skilled, TC; and humblegunner has his two boys just where they need to be.
Gunner - post that picture of your son firing, and the one of you with the deer you bagged recently, hunting with your father!
Think of the joy of being out with your dad like that, folks, and getting meat for the table - not just to 'kill,' and imparting that ability to your sons...
If the world goes crazy and we here in America have 'interruptions' in Things Provided, could you and yours survive if food and goods were impeded from being delivered into your hands???
***REALITY CHECK*** isn't it?
And as for your next post of The Marine Corps Flag - thank you..:))
Makes the heart beat a little faster still, and hear echoes....
God bless all those who responded with honor to The Call of America....
Same here
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