My brother and I received Red Riders for Christmas from our Grandparents. I was 7 and George was 9. Best memorable gift I ever received. We walked home every day from school and from about Thanksgiving to The day before Christmas we stopped by to feel and shake two identical wrapped presents.
We were convinced we could hear BB's rattling when we would shake the presents. We would go from elation to depression wondering if BB guns were really in the boxes. We counted the days until Christmas arrived, worried that we might have to go another 365 days without a BB gun to roam the desert with.
Two boys were never happier then the moment that the wrapping paper came off, and the Daisy box was reviled. Every spare moment from that day on was split between hunting mainly English sparrows and trying to hunt for returnable soda bottles to fund our new passion.
The name brand bottles brought 5 cents. We always tried to get enough to buy what we called "The 30 cent pack." Daisy's yellow tube with a black cap. Held 350 bb's. We would dole out the bb's using the black cap as a way to equally split the ammo. On bad days we might only find a couple of bottles, in which case the little store we went to had a "10 cents pack" only about 100 bb's. I cannt recall if the name brand was Winchester or Federal but it came in a small red card board tube and the end was crimped like a shotgun shell.
Our independence and the love of the hunting and can be traced directly back to those Daisy's.
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