NEVER FIRED A GUN

NEVER FIRED A GUN

I don’t think kids have toy guns any more.  Well they probably exist, but I’ll bet in most places they are frowned upon.  Guns are bad.  Guns kill people and animals, and they break things.  Some people like guns.  They enjoy target practice and hunting.  My friend Frog is always trying to get to try skeet shooting.  Can't do it.  

Guns scare me.

I probably don’t like guns because I was taught as a child to not like guns, right? 

Nope. 

When I was a kid I loved playing with toy guns.  I had toy pistols and toy rifles.  I played with other kids in the neighborhood.  We hid behind trees and garbage cans and shot at each other. 

We didn’t just yell “Pow Pow” or “Blam Blam” or even “Bang Bang” though I do recall being able to imitate the ricochet noise we learned from watching westerns, we had caps and cap guns.  Stick’em caps were the most realistic but you had to reload often.  Roll caps were the best, kind of like real assault weapons. Oh how I loved the smell of cap powder in the afternoon.

We shot each other, we shot imaginary Indians (that would be Native Americans) we shot Japs (sorry, we still weren’t eating sushi in the fifties) and we shot wild animals along with “Rama of the Jungle” on TV.  My brothers had a BB gun.  They shot little rubber army men and an occasional bird.  I came from a family of toy guns. 

I’ve never fired a real gun.  I don’t think either of my brothers ever fired a real gun.  My oldest brother once went deer hunting with some Navy buddies.  He bought a new rifle and other stuff just for the hunt.  When he had the chance to take down a deer he could not pull the trigger. 

Actually I guess Jim did have to learn to fire a gun as an officer in the Navy, but I don’t think he ever aimed at anything other than a target.

Well there was that groundhog incident.  My mom had a thing against groundhogs, but Jim missed on purpose.

I remember my pop once shot a squirrel with his friend from Louisiana.  He was depressed for a week.*

What is your point Cranky?

I don’t know, for some reason I remembered cap guns and started to ramble.  Maybe my point is children’s toys and children’s games do not necessarily lead to similar behavior as adults.  Maybe it sometimes gets it out of their systems.

My point is not that hunting is bad, or that people should not have guns.  If I lived in the sticks I would greet every stranger coming down my dirt road with a “howdy” and a shotgun by my side.

So there; no point.  I don’t like guns; I loved playing with toy guns.

So what?

*Italics indicate a wondering mind.

Post familiar? re-run from July 2015

On The NJ Boardwalk (GIRLS)

On The NJ Boardwalk (GIRLS)

I stumbled over this post from July 2016, thought it a good time for a re-run.

As previously mentioned, the boardwalks on the Jersey Shore are full of games and rides.  They were super fun for young boys, until the age of around 13 when interest turned to girls.

The boardwalk was the perfect training ground for learning the boy girl romance dance, though clearly I never learned many steps.

Anyway.

At the shore the girls you meet are never from your home town, often not from the same state.  The participants in the dance are only around for a week or less, and age is not important, everyone lies about their age. If (when) you make a fool of yourself, there is no damage, you will never see the person you just embarrassed yourself with again.

Mostly this experience was all about posturing.  Put on your best cool duds, primp your hair, slap on way too much “English Leather,” hang around the rides, and wait. We waited a lot.  The thrill was in the expectation.  Easy anonymous girls looking for fun…we would find out what those condoms that every boy carried in his wallet were for.

Unfortunately most of us never got past the preening.  We never thought to actually approach a girl; we expected they would come to us.  I do remember one night when my friend and I magically “hooked up" with two really cute young ladies (at the shore, all the girls are really cute.)  We chatted for a few minutes but they had to go somewhere with their parents.  We would meet the next night at the “Tilt-a-whirl” and finally move past the preening stage...the talking and stuff stage!

The next night my friend and I got dizzy from “Tilt-a-whirl” rides.  Cute girls never showed up.  Apparently they were practicing their hook up skills and we were just an experiment.  I think that is as close to a random pick-up as I have ever gotten.

Years later I learned the real art to meeting girls on the boardwalk from my 13 year old son and his best friend. 

We rented a house by a boardwalk.  I could watch my own young son and his friend learn the dance.  While others simply preened and waited, these lads did the unexpected…they actually went up to the girls as they walked by and introduced themselves.  I watched them time after time talking with and walking away with cute young girls.  It seems that the young ladies parading the boardwalk are all hoping for anyone to approach them!

Who knew?
  
I believe these young players arranged meetings with several of the girls they met with their unique method of actually talking.  I don’t think any of these meetings ever actually occurred. 

Some things never change. 

YOU SHOULD KNOW

YOU SHOULD KNOW

 

This is a Mrs. Cranky comment that throws me every time.  Looking back, I think this may not be restricted to Mrs. Cranky, but is a characteristic typical of many woman I have known…the “You Should Know” syndrome.

“Kare, where is the mayo?”

“You should know”

“But I don’t know.”

“Think about it.”

“I don’t feel like thinking about it, why don’t you just tell me?”

“Because you should know.”

“But I don’t!”

"You should!" 

"Come on!"

“It is in the pantry.”*

“Great, where in the pantry, there are like 12 shelves?”

“You should know.”

“What the “F”, why should I know?”

“Because a week ago before we went shopping, you told me we had a jar of Mayo behind the corn flakes on the cereal shelf…don’t you remember?”

“Obviously not and why didn’t you just tell me that 5 minutes ago, there’s 5 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.”

“Because you should have known and not had to ask in the first place”

“But I didn’t know, that is why I…never mind…’Third base!’”

“I know you’re a jerk!”

A re-run from July 2015

*Unopened mayo does not need to be in the fridge, at least in this country.