Thread: REMEMBER WHEN ?
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Unread 08-05-2012, 01:49 PM   #12
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Stepmac
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In Western Kansas we got our driver's license when we were 13 so we could drive to and from the farm. We weren't supposed to drive at night, but we all did. We seldom left town tho, which was three by five blocks. We had good street lights and we'd drive around town endlessly, smoking cigarets. There were always two competing cliques of kids, and we'd make cat calls at oneanother as we passed.

We drank 3.2 beer which was really about 1.8. We drank it like pop which it nearly was.

We'd drive into the middle of a prairie dog town, stop and shut off the engine (We called it a "motor".). We'd shoot for an hour or two. Shells cost us 85 cents a box for Long Rifles, or 55 cents for shorts. We shot our parents or grandparents old worn out .22 rifles; pumps, a few Marlin autos, and one ancient Marlin '92 that didn't work very well.

We were in the prairie near Dodge City. The wind blew and sun dried our faces. We were brown as berries. We swam in the Rattlesnake River which was the color of coffee and milk. Some guys "noodled" for fish, but not me. We caught "flatheads, big catfish which had an ugly large flat head which we nailed to a board and pulled off the skin with a pair of plyers. Strangly they tasted okay, but channel cats were better.

The fifties. Most of us were poor, but no one felt as such. Both of my parents were born and raised in that little town and their folks still lived there. One was the town dentist and the other owned the car/tractor parts place, so they did okay. I worked for one of my grandparents, farming. I made 30 cents an hour which kept me in .22's which was all I cared about.
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