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

I know an old boy that used a bread bag as a condom in high school

preachers daughter too...that was a damn shame. I think she got a yeast infection

(I'm here all week, be sure to tip your servers)

When I grew up we would tape the cracks in the walls in my grandfathers house, to help keep the cold out.

There's been ice on the inside of the windows in the house here everyday since before Christmas. Helps seal the cracks so no more air leakage around the edges.

Camera slowly pans storytellers.

(Kaywoodie, deep background, softly playing a slow sad old tune on his harmonica from his cell cot)

Late 1950's up to about 1965 in the cold I sometimes wore a WWII era U.S. Navy Pea Coat. Dad was in the Navy during the war and he never wore it anymore so I commandeered it even though the first few years it was too big for me. He seemed to like me wearing it because it was better than buying me another winter coat. He always called it a "Pea Coat" but I don't know if that was the official name of those things or if that was just more military slang.

I remember shivering so hard in my leaky second hand Red Ball waders that I was afraid the ducks would hear my teeth chattering.

The wind would blow pretty much right through the old farm house when I was a kid. We had quilts on all the beds that my great grandmother had sewn(good thing too, you could see your breath in my bedroom most of the time in the winter. Doing chores or hunting we'd wear 2-3 layers and the old molded rubber chore boots with the almost useless "fleece" lining.

Distinctly remember getting sent out to the car for the ice scraper so we could watch the Packer game on e particularly cold Sunday...and they talk about the "real" experience on TV these days.

Somewhere around 13 or 14 got a pair of Sorel pack boots, you'd have thought I won the lottery.

Couple years after I moved out, they built a new house(ok, bought a used double wide and put it on a new basement).

Growing up on the coast of MS. it was something else.

Humidity was the hard thing to get over when it hit freezing.

It helped that Dad was Army so had some surplus stuff to get to use.

When we were in Germany we just used wool socks as gloves and found out rubber boots were nice.

As for getting used to it it helps if it stays cold for a while,not flip flopping.

I do like snow.

waffle cotton long johns, quilted jean jumper, four buckle galoshes and a ski mask if the wind was blowing and those lil brown cotton gloves when feeding hay, colder than a well diggers azz. got some insulated coveralls around 15 years old. thought they were great.


brought all that stuff with me to Alaska. Chit is damn near worthless, learned about polypro underwear, insulated bibs, bata bunny boots and parkas pdq.

Army surplus wool left over from WW II. I fondly remember a dark blue knee length wool coat with USN buttons.

With six kids in the family and our only transportation a 55 Ford pickup. Several of us older kids rode everywhere in the back, or stayed at home. We often rode in the back of the truck in near zero temps wrapped in homade quilts built by my great Grandmother whom had died before I was old enough to remember her. If it was raining, we would wrap heavy weight (40 mil) black plastic farm sheating around us over the quilts.

And whoever got up first in the morning turned up the gas heater in the large room.

It was the best job first thing because you had it all to yourself.

I grew up on a farm. We had a wood stove for heat. We cut wood during the summer to burn in the winter. I remember having to chop holes in the tank with an ax so the cattle could drink. We had no conventional heat or air conditioning. I do heating and air conditioning for a living now, imagine that. I would never trade those days for anything.

We had natural gas heaters in most rooms. House had no insulation, it was cold in the winter.

My wife grew up in a small Wyoming coal mining town. They only had a coal fired heater, and a coal cook stove. Did not have indoor plumbing until the 8th or 9th grade. Bath water was heated on the heater and poured into a tub. It’s had for me to imagine, and for today’s young people....totally unfathomable! memtb

I fondly remember a dark blue knee length wool coat with USN buttons............................ Idaho Shooter... That sounds like my dad's WWII US Navy "Pea Coat" I wore late 50's-early 60's that I mentioned previously. IIRC my younger brother eventually had it for a few years after I had moved on to other stuff.

you guys had houses? schit you had it made. 6 of us lived in a station wagon. not as bad as my buddy though. they had a volkswagen.

We did the bread sacks over our socks...it actually worked pretty well...

I wish postoak cowboy (old son) would contribute moments from his childhhod to this thread. He has a way of writing

Plastic bags in the boots, military surplus wool pants and jackets, whatever it took. First winter in the house my folks bought was a cold one. It was insulated but no sheet rock. Whole inside of the house was pink and damn drafty. We went through 12 cord of hardwood keeping it at a livable temp.

When I started hunting in 66 we had no money for insulated boots, like others I started with a pair of socks then a large bread bag over the sock then two pairs of over sized wool socks then my kids arctic rubber 5 buckle slip over boots that were made to go over a pair of shoes but with all the socks I could wear them without shoes.

We did have flannel lined blue jeans and cheap long johns that were always a couple sizes too big, a shirt hoodie covered by a old wool coat. Gloves were not very warm but we did have the old johnie hand warmers. I would be warm but I could not move to fast

For heating the house we had a old coal hot water system but the winter of 62 my father died of heart failure and we were in a drought so with no water in the well we could not use the furnace. Everyone doubled up taking the winter blankets for two beds and putting them on one, I shared the bed with my little brother all that winter with the only heat the gas stove burners.

Yes kids have it better now! Even Walmart has cheap insulated hunting clothes for someone on a budget.