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

As a kid in the U.P. the snowbanks were often over our heads, being that we were only 3 or 4 feet tall. Just about every kid wore a one piece snow suit, mittens on a string, stocking cap or full face mask, scarf, and boots - from mid November through April. I remember layering 2 or 3 pair of socks then putting on plastic bags that a loaf of bread came in over those sock layers to help slide our feet into those boots easier. We all did it. We played outside in that deep snow and cold all day untl mom called us in for supper - the best was street hockey on our snow packed street. CAR! Those were the days!

In S. Florida sometimes in the winter it would get down to the low 60's or high 50's in the morning, so I had to put on a long sleeve shirt and a windbreaker jacket. Still got a little chilly waiting for the school bus....

Dad was a career military man. As a kid, thru my teens; i was able to go to the army clothing store or the military surplus stores around town. Mil-spec extreme cold gear was cheap. Some still avail from Korean war.

Haha!! Back then, Didn't have all those onion-head F-N-G internet heroes trying to make a scene with thier stolen valor crusade. I'd be an 11 yr kid with a pellet rifle and one of my dad's old field jackets still with his name, screamin eagle and captains bars sewed in. Lol

Worn out Corcoran chit kickers with 2 layers of OD green wool socks. Woooo!!! Fugg up some cardinals and mocking birds off of old neighbor lady's bird feeder.

I lived in Lake Linden when I was younger.It was not uncommon to have 300" of snow during the winter.We had a second story door to go out side from.I don`t miss that at all.

I grew up poor compared to lot of people I knew and don't remember being too cold or too hot when I was growing up In Texas. I walked to school rain or shine from 1st grade through 9th grade and I don't remember ever walking in the rain or being hot/cold. My Grandkids are just like I was. You have to make them put on warm clothes and hot weather doesn't bother them at all.

I grew up poor in southern Missouri—it’s cold when all you got is cotton clothes. Moved to Minnesota when a young teenager—got better clothes but I still think Granite Falls, Minnesota is the coldest place in the world. Moved to Canada after the service and it gets cold here. Worked outdoors my whole life and have always been dealing with the cold. Somewhere along the way I reckon I just learned to ignore it.

I have been overly warm a couple of times but have to study on it a bit to remember exactly where and when

I geuss tiny tim had it easy back in the day😃😃😃

we didn't have AC till i was about 9, imagine that in south TX

Ha, we got a tv and a swamp cooler when i was in the 4th grade. Man, you talk about being uptown.

Going out in the snow with a pair of my grandfathers old rubber high top boots with newspaper stuffed into the toes so they wouldn't flop off. Remember a couple tire patches on them too.

Nothing wrong with being poor,but it's damn inconvienent. Dealing with the cold can be done rich or poor. It only makes you decide which warm clothes to buy

We always had the money for 4 buckle over boots. But, it was tennis shoes under them with 2 pairs of socks and an extra pair of blue jeans over our blue jeans. As we got older, we could afford a pair of bibs and pull on boots and sweat shirts with hoods. After I got out of the Army and one 18 month tour in remote Alaska, I figured out what worked and I was willing to pay for it. I still like 4 and 5 buckle overshoes on my feet and an extra thick pair of warm socks on my feet.

I won't say we were poor but in retrospect, being hard up taught us some real lessons on survival and appreciation for the better things in life.

kwg

We had about a 1/4 mile walk to the road to wait for the school bus. We would fill up a hot water bottle with hot water and stuff it inside out snow suit. Dump it out when we got to school and fill it back up before getting back on the bus. When I was older I would do it when I played hockey until I got checked so hard it blew the cap off. I thought I was going to freeze to death before the period ended.
Anyone else play jr. or HS hockey outdoors?

Yep, in old town Maine, right wing. Pee wee up to h.s. Had to take care of our rink after practice and games. Scrape it, then flood it with a big old canvas hose. Then everyone in town would use our ice😲😲😲. Then the university of Maine at Orono built alfond arena. We got lots of ice time in their during my jr and sr year. Zamboni between periods. We placed 4th in New England in 1980, one of the centers on our team was gonna get into the Bruins farm system, till he got crushed to death under a car working on it with no jack stands , not a good thing.....

I got a scar under my chin to this day from a f u c k ed up high stick digging a puck in the corner I took when I was 15 and a faint scar along my right nostril from a glove in a fight, kinda funny cause i got my gloves off and got hold of the guy on the back of his shoulder pads and introduced his face several times to my right knee/shin pad, f u c ked him up fast and his nose gushing🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, needless to say i received a major in the box.... we still won. i was legend the next couple of days in school sporting a butterfly strip on my nostril. We had a smoking area in high school. The assistant principle came out one day after that, me and the guys are like oh f u k k .... he comes over lights one up, everyone is looking at us. He is standing right next to us and says "eldridge I ain't seen nothing that violent since vietnam" smiles at us, flicks his ciggerette on the ground and walks away. We were dumbfounded...
We had helmets but no bird cage on em back then.

Sorry for the hijack. Reliving al Bundy glory days😃😃😃

I was born a poor cold black child!!!!

What a coincidence!

So was Michael Jackson. But he died a rich, white woman.

we also used bread bags to try and keep our feet dry, always got soakers! also used old news papers wraped around our shins, to play hocky as we didnt have pads!

Anyone else play jr. or HS hockey outdoors?............ Only played hockey outdoors informally with friends as a kid. All our skating was outside or not at all. Never even skated on any indoor rink in my life until I was at least 40.

you had your own plastic bags? you had it made. we had to wait for a sibling to die so we could get their bags.

Good one......and pretty much spot on.

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.

I hate that all of y'all grew up so poor. I never felt like my family was poor or struggling. I thought we ate jelly sandwiches and butter sandwiches because we liked them. Warm clothing was available when we were very young in the form of heavy wool coats. As we got older not so much. In the south, the struggle is to remain cool and about everything we had was cotton for that reason. Our houses were designed to keep you cool in the summer and were plenty drafty during the winter. We had gas heat and coal fireplaces to try and heat up the wind as it blew through the house. We never saw that as a problem because that is the way everyone lived.
When we started hunting we just doubled up on everything and made do. Sometimes we were warm, but I can remember dreading the sun coming up on the deer stand because that was as cold as it was going to be that morning. We never took what we considered risky chances with the cold but we did do some things I wouldn't do today.
We had fun times and cold was uncomfortable but we put-up with it and had a good time anyway.