Muscatine

We were very poor also.  Can't remember my folks actually buying me a toy until I was at least 10 or 11.    But....Grampa did supply us with toys for Christmas and one on our birthdays.

I remember liking cap pistols, erector set, and Lincoln logs.   But the thing I spent all day with, every day, was my BB gun!  Yep, it was a Red Ryder about 1948 vintage.  Had to hook the butt stock behind my leg in order to cock it.  I was scrawny, but wirey.   Somehow I scrounged a few pennies to buy BB's with once in awhile.   I bought them at Western Auto whenever we got to town.   We lived on a farm.   The sparrows, starlings, and pigeons hated me.

The frogs in the "crick" should have hated me, but they were too stupid.

I can remember playing in the crick and shooting that BB gun from sunup to sundown.  Oh the humanity!!!

Red Ryder was a hero of mine too. Saw his movies, read his comic books. I think I was 6 or 7 when I got my BB gun. I wore out several of 'em. The last one had a real scope on it. You could clearly watch the BB's arc out to the target. I never had enough bb's.

When I was about big enough for a full sized bike, dad bought me a Hawthorn bike from Montgomery ward. I had that bike until I got my driver license.

At 12 years of age I reached a turning point. I put away comic books, BB guns and other toys. Got a real Remington 20 gauge auto shotgun. Only read outdoor magazines after that. Still needed my bike for a few years though.

Being just a bit younger than hoppy or hiroad; mine was the model 1894 western Winchester model. The side chamber was a bummer though, that I did not know about when I bought it with my melon-picking money. You rolled the BBs into the cartridge chute on the side just like a Winchester. The only trouble was the chamber could only hold 17 BBs at a time. And.....I too, had to cock it behind my leg. You could not cock it as a Winchester. The cylinder was just too tight and the lever, as you can imagine, was way shorter than a red ryder lever.

Loved that gun....man I was good shot. I also had fun with mine out at Granpa's creek at Lowe Run, or up on his clay mountain.

The sad thing is....I have no collective memory of what ever happened to it.

 My old Daisey Red Ryder was a product of picking strawberry's bought in 1949 with the wood forearm & stock with the rawhide on the side ring.

 My dad duck hunted with a gunsmith and he stretched the spring in it. That made it real hard to cock but it shot a lot harder as well.

 My son has it as well as a bunch of guns I gave to him that I have no need for anymore.