Weapons of a Warrior 12-13-17

MORE OLD TIMEY STUFF

WEAPONS of A WARRIOR - Excerpt from my book 12-13-17

As a boy from my youngest years, I was not protected from anything sharp, anything hot, or otherwise dangerous. I was told don't touch the stove its Hot!

When I did it, I learned. In older years when I traveled to places like Mexico I would still see 4 year olds chopping with a Machete as tall as they were and very sharp. They did not chop their foot off or 'shoot their eye out' with a slingshot. In America we give kids in Kinder plastic scissors with round points that will not even cut Kleenex.

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I had a favorite Uncle who encouraged the violent side of me and when I was 4 he made me a wooden sword to kill dragons with, and later that year gave me an old boy scout jackknife "for backup" he said. It had a ring on the end and I tied a piece of twine to it and then I could not lose it when I fell in the brook fishing for frogs.

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I had a Beagle dog named 'Bingo" who went everywhere on our hundred acres with me and I was free to roam 'long as I took the Dog". Our old farm was remote and most of the hundred acres was wooded except for 3 fields and we had 'coons and squirrels and rabbets and even bobcats and black bear that we saw more than once. Out by the creek one late afternoon when I was 6, near supper time I was set-upon by a bobcat. They are smaller than a mountain lion but still fierce and I threw rocks from the brook at it (as I had been taught) but it was not willing to depart until my dog Bingo went after it snarling. Bingo loved to hunt rabbits and coon in particular, and he was not about to take any 'crap' from some 'ol cat! between dodging rocks and my dog the cat left for parts unknown.

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I told Uncle Ray at supper time and he nodded and grinned "They usually run away if you scare them", he said. "USUALLY" I mumbled to myself not all that amused as I slipped Bingo table scraps under my feet when mother wasn't looking.

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Uncle Ray made me a slingshot (mother scowled but said nothing), they were made from scrap rubber from old inner tube back in the day.. "In case you meet another bobcat" he said, "or maybe a bear!"

I got pneumonia the first time and could not enter 1st grade in the fall when I was six. You did not enroll late in those days so I started first grade when I was 7 the following year. That year my mother taught me a lot of stuff at home and by the time I started First grade I could already read better than 3rd grade books. I read the Hardy Boys Mysteries all the time and they were for even older than that.

The following fall arrived and I entered first grade a few inches taller and a bit heavier than the others who I already knew mostly from church and Halloween. When I got home uncle Ray asked "How was your first day?" "Okay" I said and he grabbed my shirtsleeve when I started to walk away.

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"Yer old enuf for school yer old enough for a gun!" he said grinning, and handed me a single shot .22 that was leaning by his chair. My jaw dropped.. it was a beauty. I never owned a BB gun.. I went right from slingshot to a .22. It was a Stevens single shot boys gun and I would own that gun until I was older than 50 when it burned in my mothers house fire. I already knew how to shoot and had handled guns before. They would "dish out" 6 shells that went in my overalls and I would go out with the dog and hunt for woodchucks, squirrels or rabbits to the dog's great delight.

I passed most of my time alone with the dog or with adults as I only had 2 neighbor boys that lived on nearby farms and who I mostly saw at church or at school.

We lived 5 miles back from the main road so my folks took me to the highway to catch the school bus in a horse drawn wagon until I was nine. After that I rode a horse down and left him in the friends field and rode the bus with other kids, and rode the horse home alone at night, sometimes near dark by 5 o'clock.

Sometimes I look at boys now and feel sorry for them with their imaginary video games and plastic scissors.. and remember that as I was growing up, I got to do the real thing!

© Copyright 2018 by Daniel Blankley. All rights reserved.