My father started me shooting when i was 2 1/2 years old; i once asked him about this---why that early age---and he looked at me and said that was the same age he started; on further questioning he gave me an amused and slightly bewildered look and said well that was the same age all his family started at----brothers and father,etc, and he guessed that had always been the age they learned at! Bear in mind that my gggggrandfather was a Hessian mercenary soldier [captured on december 26 1776 when Washington crossed the deleware and attacked the Hessian garrison, number 37 on the prisoner list: Kaspar Goebel, anglicized later to Cable]; i wonder if 2 1/2 was the age mercernaries started their training...it was a profession of sorts. well anyway, i learned on a Stevens Junior rolling block [ or falling block] 22, a youth gun.
It was purchased from a sears catalog for about $1.35 sometime before my father was born in 1916, as his older brother first used it.
I had to stick the short stock under my armpit to aim, and i still remember it. Like I suspect most of you, i shot well from the beginning. My father passed on in 1991, and of course I still miss him, especially as I post this.
It is one of my most precious possessions, and I know it will be the same for my son.
Anybody else got their first gun?
