Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Dealing with cold and growing up poor

My kids have thinsulate, Columbia parkas, under armour...
When I grew up my mom made sure we had dry feet and warm legs. Then it was LAYERS!
We woreeveryshirt and sweater we owned .
Waterproof boots? Plastic bags.

Thermal underwear? Pantyhose.


What's your ticks?

Stay inside

Lots of thrift store shopping. Still swing by to this from time to time in hopes of finding outdoor/yard clothes.

Cold?Simple solution here is to help cut firewood.My 4 boys grew up in the country with wood heat and hundreds of acres,a river,and a crazy dog.They'd go camping in the snow?Still do,oldest and youngest took an archery Deer in Western Md mountains a few weeks ago,camped in sub zero weather.So...cold,and poor are dependent on one's perspective I reckon?They do value well designed hunting duds though,along with $$$ backpacking sh't.

This^^^. 3 pairs of jeans, 3 prs of socks in tennis shoes, shirts and a coat sitting for deer in East Texas woods covered in a hoarfrost at age10 or 12. Cotton gloves. Dayom.

Family wonders why i load up on wool socks on sale. Just got a bunch from Cabelas.

we heated our house when I was a teen with a large wood stove in the living room of a ranch house.

The stove would run you out of the living room and kitchen, but the room furthest away was my bedroom.

I can remember waking up one morning and the knobs on my radio were frozen. Ice on the inside of the window wasn't unusual.

Always had the green rubber water proof boots as a kid but they weren't lined with anything. if you played in the snow you had frozen toes, that was just part of the deal.

I can remember when there was no such a thing as "cold weather" gear. Hunting or being out in cold weather meant wearing as many pairs of jeans as you could get in, and as many pairs of socks as you could, and still get your feet in your boots. My dad had some insulated long underwear, and I would sometimes "borrow" them, even if they were too big.

After I married, and started farming, and having to be out in the cold on a regular basis, I decided to buy some "real" cold weather clothes. I went to the local farm supply store, bought some insulated coveralls, and some insulated leather boots, that were advertised as keeping your feet warm to 20 below. BS........they wouldn't keep your feet warm at 32. I did finally solve the cold feet problem with some Sorel boots with the felt liner. Some good wool socks, and they worked.

you bringing up insulated coveralls brought back some memories. Those were expensive (by our standards growing up) but they were about the best option you had in winter gear. Your choices for gear were Sears, TSC or one of the downtown clothing stores in my neck of the woods.

I remember freezing my ass off a lot. Specifically I remember my feet freezing no matter what I would do.

Most of the cold weather gear I had as a kid was hand-me-down stuff that two older cousins used before they outgrew it. As a very young kid I had mittens that were hand knit by my paternal grandmother and were very warm and even had nice designs on them. But eventually mittens became "too babyish" and weren't in style for bigger kids so I got to where I was embarrassed to be seen in mittens because all the bigger kids wore gloves. Used to ice skate in a very old pair of skates that my grandfather had worn many years ago when I grew up enough to fit into them comfortably. Still got 'em but don't use 'em. Never considered us to be in poverty but between my grandparents raising my parents during the great depression they all got their moneys worth out of all winter gear even if that meant giving it to other family members.

My dads army socks over my shoes so they would fill up the boots that were available

I remember using duct tape to serve as "gaiters" to keep snow out of my boots. When we were kids, we'd find open water and dip our knee length boots up to the hilt, with the jeans on the OUTSIDE. It was like making a candle, and after many dips, one had solid ice encrusted jeans that made a pleasant clanking noise when you walked. When we finally decided to go home, often we had to sit for an hour or so until they thawed enough that we could get out of them. My best friend's grandmother used to just look at us, roll her eyes, and mumble something under her breath. Those were the days.

Vasaline on the face to prevent frostbite.

I discovered layering about 1998. Prior to that I froze most of the time.

I have always been overweight, so wearing more than one pair of same size pants is completely out of the question. Your ability to stay warm depends on your blood circulation to a large degree.

Layering with thin quality warm clothing is a great progression in the last 20 years. I like Polartec stuff myself. Layers don't have to be thick as a mattress to keep you warm.

Wool socks, multiple pairs of pants and shirts. And just be tough I hunted in the winter in the pnw, we only had cotton pants, old leaky boots, you were always wet. Just keep moving.

We weren’t poor, but we didn’t spend money on stuff like people do now even if it had been available. I remember looking like the kid in A Christmas Story but with blue jeans instead of an snow suit.

When I was a teen ager my first cold weather gear was a leather aviators Bibs and coat and mickey mouse boots.They were pretty cheap at that Army,Navy surplus store.Way too hot for walking around in so when you made drives we would strip down to a Swedish surplus wool shirt and pants.I had a paper route and could afford to buy this stuff.

My waders are leaking so everytime I put them on, I put a plastic bag on my foot first. Probably need to buy a new pair...

The old black galoshes with the metal snaps was the footgear which I wore over my regular shoes with the best socks that could be found and I stuffed newspaper around from ankles up to help insulate! The galoshes snapped on over the newspaper! On occasion I wore panty hose which helped! Wore those playing football also! Best jacket early on was a bluejean jacket and a few short years later after coming home from military was a field jacket with liner!

Hopefully your mum got up early, got coal out of the shed, put some in the fireplace in the living room and got it started, if not there would be no hot water in the taps. It WAS gonna be cold in the outside loo when you were peeing in the morning, no help for that.

No worries tho, baths were on Saturday and this ain't it. Worse comes to worse you could stand around the gas stove in the kitchen while the kettle was on.

YMMV