I raised my boys to be men. Exposure at a young age to guns, knives, reloading, blackpowder, and other things that would bring down the wrath of social services on my butt today.
One time as we were driving out of the parking lot of Smokey Mountain Knife Factory I said, “Watch out, that knife is sharp and you might cut.” I stopped there in my sentence because the oldest boy suddenly yelped,”Ouch!” after he cut himself.
They both got their first gun at age 6.
I got to meet the Lutheran High School principal when the school secretary found explosive making instructions in my son’s locker. He had downloaded it 3 years before and left it in a 3 ring binder that he had taken to school without realizing what was in the binder. My son and I had lots of discussions about my experiences in the combat engineers and he had started researching makeshift explosives after I told him about mixing fertilizer and diesel fuel. Later that year the principal told me that he thought my son’s t-shirt was funny considering. It said, “EOD, If you see me running don’t be far behind.”
My youngest had to do a demo speech in the 7th grade. He chose to show how to field strip an M1911A1 pistol. His Mom had to help because he was to weak to hold in the return
spring. (She was called his assistant and she worked the barrel bushing wrench.)
Later today we will Skype with the boys (1,700 miles away.) I will enjoy watching them open up their presents; reproductions of 1858 Remington pistols, black powder pistols. And blocks of lead, a ball mold, and an electric lead casting furnace so they can cast their own ammo.
I would love to tell you more but Echelon might be listing and the 7 year limit may not be over on everything.
There is still hope for America.
Google VEX Robots and watch what some kids are playing with today. I just got a grant from the Alcoa Foundation and we will be training adult advisers and giving them an $900 VEX robot kit for them to let their youth group play with. 14 kits per year for the next three years.
VEX kits are erector sets on steroids.
When I was a young’un, living in rural Washington state, we could bring our rifles to school during hunting season. Mind you, we had to leave the ammo in the office, until our dads would come and pick us up after school to go hunting. And yes, missing school on the opening day of hunting season was considered ok.
How times have changed (and this was in the 1980s). It never would’ve occurred to any of us to start blowing away our classmates.