Yeah, not as exciting or as recent as you might think.
An old friend of mine and I were trading memories last night and he re-re-re-told the story of a belligerent employee he had to settle down by displaying a Colt Detective. This prompted unearthing some old remembrances of mine. The earliest was when I was in third or fourth grade attending a one room country school. My family, like most of the families in the area, was going thru hard financial times. The early 1950’s were some of the wettest on record but starting in about 1955 the skies dried up and it didn’t rain for months. It was so dry the row crops didn’t germinate and the pastures and hay ground turned brown and bare before June. Dad had to sell the cattle and take a job at a warehouse in town. Mom and my sister went to work at a poultry plant and my brother joined the Army right after graduation. I was pretty much on my own on the farm most of the time. I had a BB gun, but it cost money to buy BB’s and it was pretty anemic when it came to anything more than sparrows. Even a rat was too much for it. Mom would buy me discounted comics from the Dime store which hadn’t sold and had the top half of their cover scissored off before being returned to the distributor. One of these was a cowboy comic and on the inside was a story about a kid who’s uncle made him a slingshot. Among other things the boy used it to kill pack rats and even drive off rustlers! The story went into detail and had close-up drawings of how it was made. Using all my 9 year old ingenuity and a key hidden in the medicine cabinet, I got into Dad’s tool shed. I found a saw and went after a “piss-elm” branch that had died and it’s nicely shaped fork had dried before falling to the ground. Some time spent with the draw knife and rasp formed it into something resembling the drawings in the comic. I soaked it in old harness oil until it wouldn’t absorb anymore. The next thing was to dole out a couple of dimes for two sets of flat rubber bands that I’d seen at the local Coast-to-Coast. I shortened the handle so the leather pouch would fit over the butt with just enough tension, from the bands, to keep it flat and taught. Over the next year this slingshot rode in my hip pocket every waking moment. My left front jean pocket was kept brim full of smooth, round rocks, filched from the gravel road and properly sized for the pouch. I spent every opportunity shooting rocks at any and every target-like object. Rats, sparrows, stray Tom cats and recalcitrant calves felt it’s wrath. I could hit a “snoose” can sitting on edge at 20ft almost 100% of the time.
That fall I returned to school. One 8th grader, named Bobby Olson, was not a farm kid. His parents owned a business in town and had built a new house on an acreage near the school. His mother didn’t have to work and she dropped Bobby off at school every morning driving a station wagon with polished wood panels. My Dad’s 1939 Ford pickup looked pretty sad next to it. Bobby wore new clothes and shoes and had a Roy Roger’s lunch box. I desperately wanted to be his friend but he detested me. He teased me and pushed me around at every opportunity. Like a whipped pup I took it and hung my head.
I joined 4-H that fall and it really opened a new world to me. Bobby was a member too. One thing that I really enjoyed was field plant identification. And, I was good at it. We’d go from farm to farm and identify weeds and native grasses. One evening we were at a neighbor’s place and after our field exercise everyone went into the house for snacks, except Bobby and a couple of older kids. I was walking along the corral fence and Bobby and another kid named Glenn were standing by the farmer’s machine shed. The farmer had just had a load of mud rock put in the drive. Bobby and Glenn started chucking rocks at me. I ran behind a bale stack. They stopped throwing rocks, so I peaked around a bale. Bobby threw a rock the size of a small Orange at my head. I ducked but it glanced off my ear. I put my hand to my ear and found it warm and wet with blood. With all the anger I could muster I drew the slingshot with my right hand and a rock with my left, For a moment I aimed at Bobby’s leering face but at the last second I moved a couple inches past and shot the steel siding on the shed.
The rock shattered on the siding with a startling crack. Bobby and Glenn both yelped in shock. Don, who was the 4|H sponsor yelled at us to stop throwing rocks and get to the house. Bobby and Glenn lost no time getting there. Don intercepted me and said, “Junior, give me that slingshot!” I looked him in the eye and said “ I will not. Bobby hit me with a rock and you didn’t say anything!” “No, I won’t give you my slingshot!”
Don walked away.
I carried my slingshot and a few rocks everywhere. Bobby let me alone after that.
