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In 1966 as a teenager, I walked through the town to my friend’s home on a farm located on the edge of the town. I carried a World War Two era German infnatry rifle taken by a relativee from a Germna POW during the Battle of the Bulge. We were cleaning our rifles and shotguns, before doing a little target shooting and preparing for some later rabbit hunting. I wasn’t old enough to drive a car yet, so I had to walk through town withthe rifle slung on the shoulder. There was no way of putting the rifle in a case, beccause there no money for such luxuries. The sidewalk paralleled a U.S. Highway on the last few blocks, and an Illinois State Police car drove by. I waved hello to the trooper, and he smiled and waved back to me. He didn’t turn around to investigate either. He already knew who I was, and he wasn’t concerned about a youngster with a rifle doing what youngsters in those parts typically did with rifles.

A friend who is now in his ninties described how they handled firearms around schools in Western Pennsylvania in the late 1920s to early 1930s. Their school was a one room schoolhouse with one teacher for all of the grades. Because this was a widespread school district in the rural mountains, they had one of the early style schoolbus. This schoolbus stopped at the various farms to pickup students. The boys and girls of all ages trooped onboardd the schoolbus, and they often carried firearms. They were typically the older boys and girls ranging in age from about 11 to 17 years old. Some of the girls carried a small pistol of their mother’s small guage shotgun for fowl.

When the schollbus delivered the children to the school, the children put their firearms safeely away along with their coats and hats. During recess, the teacher would sometimes lead a party of the children down to the creek to fish, or into the woods to hunt for fowl, rabbit, or deer. On occasion a wild pheasant would make the mistake of perching atop the fence rail outside the shool. The teaccher recessed the class long enough for a couple of the boys and girls to compete fro the best shot in the class by shooting the pheasant off of the fence rail. They were carefully taught how to shoot the pheasant and avoid ruing the meat.

When school ended for the day and the schoolbus was made ready to take everyone home to their farms, the children helped each other to take their game aboard for the trip home. A deer carcass was tied won across the front hood of the schoolbus. When the bus stopped at the farm, the boys helped to untie and carry the deer to the farmhouse. In the hard times everyone appreciated the opportunity hunt fresh game where there might otherwise be no meat in the diet, The children learnedd to do their part in keeping the family in food, even when they were in school. Firearms were not for arguments or mischief for these children, they were meant to harvest food. Such commonsense values and morlas are too rare today.