The private school in our local farm town is about to close down. In order for the kids to even have a football team we had to joined forces with a the rival farm town across the Roanoke River. Real shame to see what is happening to American farm towns. When my Dad retired from farming twenty years ago there were almost 900 farmers in our county. Now there are only 300. Same amount of land is being farmed but it is being farmed by 600 less farmers. Once you loose your middle class you loose your local hardware, drug, gas and grocery store.

Several kids are attending the larger private school about 30 miles away in the city of Rocky Mount. We have set up a system for keeping their guns during class time so that they can participate in the after school shooting programs. There is no time for them to drive back to the farms and then back to town.

We were having school gun raffles to make money for our local school up until 2001. One liberal parent stopped it all but during that last raffle we made over $20,000 thanks to the help of the NRA. Hard to believe that now a kid will get kicked out of a private school for having a shotgun locked up in the tool box of his pick up.

We have to change mindset of our youth. You give a kid that grew up in a hunting environment a BB Gun and he feels like he needs to go shoot a bird or squirrel.

You give a kid that same age who grew up in a gang banger environment a gun and he feels like he needs to go shoot a person!

I hope that we can get through this school year without any shootings.

Sadly, things are not what they used to be.

I used to take my 410 shotgun, and ammo, to school.

I left both by the classroom door, and used it on the way back from school shooting birds for my granddad's falcons.

I will be 68 in a few days, and the way things were when I was a kid in school here in North Texas 50 and 60 years ago, whether it was the attitudes concerning kids and guns and hunting or the number of folks still farming and the number of small towns that are now slowly dying, Facts are and I do not like them any better than anyone else but those times are dead and gone, never to be resurrected.

Each birthday those of us that can remember those times have, just puts us that much closer to being just as dead.

Attitudes have changed too much.

America, especially rural America has changed too much.

Small properties bought up and combined to make larger properties and kids that Mom and Dad and the Grandparents sent off to the Big City to get a College Education, didn't want to go back to what they had watched those parents and grandparents have to deal with and often do without.

Sorry Captain and Saeed, but the world we grew up in can not be resurrected, it is a pity. We lived thru Good Times and did not reaslize it and now they are gone and so will we be on down the road.

Enjoy the memories and pity those that haven't had the chances we did.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imNRmIujsPk

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Same amount of land is being farmed but it is being farmed by 600 less farmers

Worst here all most all the farm fields have turn back into woods.

In the river valley I live in there were farms every 80 to 100 acres.

A area that had Dozens of farms.

Now with in the valley we might have two working farms.

Urban people have very different Ideas then rural and farm people.

Most all of the ideas being bad.

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Urban people have very different Ideas then rural and farm people.

It is happening all over the country and a lot of those dazzling urbanites are the kids/grandkids and great grandkids of those farmers and ranchers, that when they went off to the "Big City" to get a college degree, found out that working seven days a week at the mercy of the weather and the markets and having one good year out of seven or 10 was not the "Be All-End All" it was cracked up to be.

They got their education and realized that they simply did not want to have to struggle along like Mom and Dad and the Grandparents did.

I graduated H.S. in '87. Played football from 7th to 12th grade. Unfortunately football season ran consecutively with deer season until the last week. That last week of deer season saw many players including myself that would have your hunting gear and rifle in the back of your vehicle. As soon as class was out it was a mad dash to get in the woods. No one back then ever question it or was there a concern. Man have time changed.

The world we grew up in doesn't exist anymore.

Dave

No truer word were ever spoken.

This reminds me of Jeff Cooper's book, Another Country, as in "the past is another country".
It may be time for me to read that book again.

From the " This all used to be trees here " file: There was a huge rifle range just down the highway from me. Its a shopping centre now.

There was service rifle competition there and the blokes who participated, a dozen or more, would board the train with 303's etc slung on the shoulder and travel the short distance to the station near the range and stroll over.

After the comp they'd stop at the pub near the railway station and have a couple. A dozen to 20 service rifles leaning against a wall in a corner of the pub.

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Unfortunately football season ran consecutively with deer season until the last week.

With us here in Texas, it was the first few weeks of dove season.

Deer were not part of the equation until the mid to late 80's.

Well, I found "Another Country" and read one chapter at random - it happened to be "The Epic Of Alcazar" about the defense of that fort until the Foreign Legion arrived along with Francisco Franco to save the day.

A rather inspiring message to never give up the ship.

Hmm, comparing age's.
I graduated in '62.
Had taken two rifles to metal and wood shop. Used the big grinder to knock the ears off my first '17 Enfield, then took it to wood shop and refinished the stocks. My junior year I took a .22 revolver in to have the teacher help solder a new front sight on. Never checked them in with anyone.

Never locked the doors or rolled the windows up with rifles and shotguns on the back window rack.
Those days it was rare to see a pickup that didn't have at least one gun in the window. Can't recall the last one I saw. Mighty long time ago.

What a shame on us for letting the anti's and world change during our watch.

George

If you want to read a book about some of the forces that changed this country.

Tailspin by Steven Brill.

Dave

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Those days it was rare to see a pickup that didn't have at least one gun in the window. Can't recall the last one I saw. Mighty long time ago.

That used to be SOP in this part of Texas, but I haven't seen any pickups with gun racks in them in a long time.

Course I never carried a gun in a gun rack, found it to inconvenient. Lots faster and easier to have laying beside resting barrel down between the seat and the center console.

Coyote in a field or pasture don't stand still all that long.

I graduated high school in 1965.

I went to school in a very affluent, suburban area of North Dallas.

(We weren't affluent by any means--Dad sneaked us in the back door via the GI Bill).

When I was a junior I had to give a "how-to" speech in Spanish class. I brought my old 12 gauge pump-action shotgun to school and put it in the Spanish classroom until my 4th period class.

I discussed (in Spanish, of course) how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble a shotgun.

After class I set my gun in the corner behind the teacher's desk ( Miss Boyd was an old maid teacher and guns didn't bother her a bit) and after school I retrieved it and walked home with it over my shoulder.

I was also in JROTC. We had an armory in the high school basement, and an indoor rifle range. A dozen or so .22 match rifles and ammunition were stored in the armory.

The ROTC section of my high school senior yearbook took up eight pages, four of which were devoted to the rifle team--photos of team members at port arms with their match rifles.

Can you imagine any of the above happening in today's high schools?

A sad commentary on our modern American culture.

Class of '60 , NYC Schools system .Yes we had a shooting team with range in the basement as did other schools !

I forgot something that I would like to add. Somewhere along my schooling I did a presentation on how to reload shotgun shells. Now I didn't bring the press into class, but had all the components. Used a flip chart (aka "power point" back then)to show the step by step process.

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Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:

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Unfortunately football season ran consecutively with deer season until the last week.

With us here in Texas, it was the first few weeks of dove season.

Deer were not part of the equation until the mid to late 80's.

There were plenty of deer to hunt in Jack County in the 70's. Shot my first in 76 or 77.

I echo almost all of the comments above.

I started driving an old pickup to school when I was 15 years old. I almost always carried some type of gun in it to school as I almost always went hunting afterwards or at least to go feed and always looking for the odd coyote to shoot.

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Shot my first in 76 or 77.

I shot my first buck in 1970, and yes there were deer and more deer in Jack country at that time, but once you got past Bryson headed toward Graham they began thinning out.

I have always believed that the Trinity River Water shed conttributed to that.

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Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:

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Shot my first in 76 or 77.

I shot my first buck in 1970, and yes there were deer and more deer in Jack country at that time, but once you got past Bryson headed toward Graham they began thinning out.

I have always believed that the Trinity River Water shed conttributed to that.

Possibly. I grew up on the West Fork of the Trinity and there were even a few wild hogs on it as far back as I can remember. Back when people in Jack County for the most part didn’t know wild hogs existed. Whitetail deer were actually thick along the river my whole life. In the late 60’s when I first remember, coyotes had been extirpated from Jack County. It had a government trapper and cyanide bombs were in common use. Bobwhites were also thick as fleas.

Today hogs and coyotes are as thick as fleas and quail are as scarce as hen’s teeth.

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Not just the USA. I later schooled in the UK. We had a cadet force every Thursday under the supervision of the local army station - handguns, .303s and stens. Also had a clay ground and the highlight of the summer was thane fathers vs sons clay tournament. The indoor rifle range was open to all comers Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons! And all the ammunition was paid for by the school!!

Happy days!

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