Earliest gun memory and/or picture

alnitak · Post by **alnitak** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 10:12 am

I seem to remember a thread on the old forum that talked about our earliest gun memories, or when we first got introduced to guns. Having just gotten into CAS, I had to chuckle when I recalled mine. I believe I'm about 2 1/2 here, Christmas 1956:

(Looks like I even had new boots! Think this outfit would qualify for the B Western category? lol)

'Twas a far more innocent time...

C. Cash · Post by **C. Cash** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 10:21 am

I'm the one with the big diaper. Gilbert or Mesa, AZ about 1970. I got my first lever, an Ithaca 22 Single shot about 3 years later at age 5.

rjohns94 · Post by **rjohns94** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 10:26 am

kewl pics. I don't even know if I have any of me as a youngster. Alnitak, you definately look ready for SASS

Jason_W · Post by **Jason_W** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 10:34 am

For me it was tagging along with my dad on partridge hunting outings at about age 4. I misheard and thought shotgun was "Shock Gun" and it fired out electricity to kill birds.

rangerider7 · Post by **rangerider7** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:00 am

I was about 3 here I guess. We were living in Houston, Texas. This period of time was my first memory. I got the cowboy hat, gun and holster for Christmas. As you can see my middle sister got a new doll. My dad was a salesman for Swift and Company. He must have got a little bonus check because gifts like that didn't happen that often. From this time on cowboy hats and guns were the most important thoughts in my mind and still are. Anything about the nonfiction "OLD WEST" is number one.

Post by **Hobie** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:35 pm

Oh, yeah....

Sixgun · Post by **Sixgun** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:10 pm

Neat pics guys. We were too poor for a camera, so I only have memories. My first memory was when my Dad gave me a 99% calvary Colt SAA from the Custer era. (or was it that Ulrich engraved '66 deluxe) Anyway, now that your done laughing, my first was a Marlin 336 in 1966 followed closely by a thousand other guns

Alnitak, I too, was 2 and 1/2 at Christmas time in 1956. (July '54 baby) ----------------------Sixgun

alnitak · Post by **alnitak** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:23 pm

Neat pics, guys. I like the memories of those times that they evoke.

Hobie --- those look real! Looks like a couple of stag-handled Colts. What's the story? Whatever it is, they sure put a smile on your face. I'd say a life-long love was born then!

Sixgun -- I was born in August, 1954 (Virgo, not Leo)...a very good year, obviously.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:50 pm

When I was about 4 I got up one morning before mom and dad. I went to the kitchen and got out a butcher knife and an onion. I was going to slice the onion like I'd seen dad do the night before. The problem was at four years of age I didn't know which side of the knife to turn up. I cut the index and middle finger of my right hand all the way to the bone, cutting the tendon in the process. The surgeon put everything back together for me and for therapy told my dad to go buy me a pair of sixshooters so I would exercise the fingers on both hands. I'm left handed so they figured if they just bought me one gun I'd only use it in the good hand. It must have worked, I qualified master 16 years later.

alnitak · Post by **alnitak** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:51 pm

Hard to imagine a surgeon nowadays recommending that kind of therapy!

Nice story (except for the finger injury).

AndyM · Post by **AndyM** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:13 pm

My Mother would tell her friends and family as early a age 2 - they would put a gun in my hand and I would be happy for hours. Needless to say - it does a father proud when my 3 year old asks if he can sleep with his toy guns that he plays with all day.

Post by **Hobie** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:16 pm

alnitak wrote:Hobie --- those look real! Looks like a couple of stag-handled Colts. What's the story? Whatever it is, they sure put a smile on your face. I'd say a life-long love was born then!

Just cap guns but yeah, life-long!

I've got some more photos but have to scan them.

J Miller · Post by **J Miller** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:24 pm

This is I circa '56 or '57 in Farmington, NM. Mom was a meter maid for the PD and I was wearing her uniform cap and holding her S&W Chief Special.

I've wanted one of those little Smiths for years and still don't have one.

Joe

Sixgun · Post by **Sixgun** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:36 pm

J Miller wrote:
This is I circa '56 or '57 in Farmington, NM. Mom was a meter maid for the PD and I was wearing her uniform cap and holding her S&W Chief Special.

I've wanted one of those little Smiths for years and still don't have one.

Joe

Om my Gosh! I almost fainted. Your mother let you hold a real gun!

Really something how times have changed in such a short time. Oh, BTW, really like those rolled up pants! (I remember them)-----------Sixgun

Old Ironsights · Post by **Old Ironsights** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:44 pm

Sixgun wrote:
J Miller wrote:
This is I circa '56 or '57 in Farmington, NM. Mom was a meter maid for the PD and I was wearing her uniform cap and holding her S&W Chief Special.

I've wanted one of those little Smiths for years and still don't have one.

Joe
Om my Gosh! I almost fainted. Your mother let you hold a real gun!
Really something how times have changed in such a short time. Oh, BTW, really like those rolled up pants! (I remember them)-----------Sixgun

Even more odd... that at one time "Meter Maids" were armed and not just semi-uniformed "civillian" employees like they are now...

marlinman93 · Post by **marlinman93** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 5:38 pm

I got you all beat! I remember one day hearing my dad and my uncle talking about hunting and guns while I was resting in mom's belly, about 2 months before I was born!

I think that's what got me hooked so badly on guns and hunting!

Swampman · Post by **Swampman** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:00 pm

I have a picture of me holding a Daisy leveraction when I'm about 3. I got my first real gun when I was 6. It was a Remington 514BC -- later changed to 514BR (boys rifle). I can remember my brothers taking me out in the country to an abandoned one room school house to shoot it when I was in the first grade.

Boomer45 · Post by **Boomer45** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:17 pm

Don't have access to the picture right now as my Mom has it but it was Christmas 1955, I was 5 years old sitting on the curb in front of our house in Baltimore, MD. Big black cowboy hat and capgun in my Hop Along Cassidy holster. Kinder, genteler times for sure. Sure wish we could re-visit those times guys!

Boomer

Kansas Ed · Post by **Kansas Ed** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:10 pm

Sixgun wrote:Neat pics guys. We were too poor for a camera, so I only have memories. My first memory was when my Dad gave me a 99% calvary Colt SAA from the Custer era. (or was it that Ulrich engraved '66 deluxe) Anyway, now that your done laughing, my first was a Marlin 336 in 1966 followed closely by a thousand other guns

Alnitak, I too, was 2 and 1/2 at Christmas time in 1956. (July '54 baby) ----------------------Sixgun

Too poor for a camera, but had a Calvary SAA, and an Ulrich engraved '66 man that's got me chuckling.....

Ed

Kansas Ed · Post by **Kansas Ed** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:14 pm

Hey Hobie

I bet you could buy a pretty nice real gun if you still had that rig you were wearing in that photo....

Ed

Post by **Ysabel Kid** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:20 pm

My mom has similiar pictures of me when I was 2 (1966) dressed up as the Lone Ranger!

alnitak · Post by **alnitak** » Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:29 pm

Boomer45 -- I grew up in Baltimore too, on the South side ... Brooklyn. Sure do miss those white steps. Everyone would be out there on Saturday, hosing them down. Memories of Federal Hill, steamed crabs, corner saloons, inner-city markets, Charles Street, Memorial Stadium and the Colts, the 4100 Club (where many of the Colts hung out), Bloody Pond in Curtis Bay (where I first shot a rifle with my Marine uncle), Little Italy, etc. -- a nice place in the 50's and 60's. My dad's parents and his sister lived four doors down, in a row house similar to ours. That's where the picture was taken, in the front living room.

Good times.