("Denny" wrote)
It was a different world back then... Opening day of bird hunting season
we got out of high school at 11AM to be out in the fields by the noon
starting time... The teachers and principal would all come out to the
parking lot and go around looking at everyones' shotguns and to show off
their shotguns... So we would have 50, or more, teenagers and adults
milling around with shotguns in their hands, on the school grounds... Can
you imagine the reaction to that today?


Shop class project in 1973 - gun rack. One kid made a very nice wooden
hunting bow, which he later brought home on the school bus.

Forward to 2004. We're over at the local gun club (same land they want to
build the new Vikings Stadium on) and a couple of school buses full of high
school kids pull into the parking lot. Many of the kids are wearing their
letter jackets.

Bam, bam, bam, bam. They start blasting away at the clay targets with their
shotguns. "Pull." Bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm guessing five kids (boys and
girls) were shooting at any one time. There were maybe 50 kids there that
day, milling around, talking, laughing, shooting, drinking their pops and
waters.

The teacher and two other adults were hanging back around the picnic tables,
chatting, keeping an eye on things - talking to the kids who were finished
shooting. Maybe they were logging the scores?

My friend and I were dumbstruck, it was so cool.


Montblack