Gunfight at the birthday party
Sunday, June 10, 2012 at 12:07PM ;)
Margie and I went to a birthday party yesterday, not for a kid, but for an adult - a man, one regular readers of this blog are familiar with. Although there is a strong, look-alike, clue in this picture, I am not going to identify this man for now, as I have not yet had time to look at the pictures from my take, let alone edit, process, post and write about them. I will, hopefully by tomorrow, and then, if you don't already, you will know who the man is.
There were a lot of kids at the party and so, before I sat down to make this post, I pre-determined that I would post a single picture of a kid and I would not do a search for it, but would grab the first one that caught my eye as I scrolled down from the top of the thumbnails. This is it. I doubt that when I get down and search closely through everything, I will find any that I like better. Maybe, but I doubt it.
It would be better in black and white, to neutralize some of those distracting colors, but I shot it in color and so I am going to leave it in color - for now, anyway. Maybe not forever.
I've got a Winchester lever-action 30-30 of my own, just like the one in this picture, except that it is not a toy. For 15 years, it served as my airplane gun. By law, pilots who fly cross-country in Alaska must carry a firearm as part of their survival kit and this is the one I chose to carry, because it is light-weight, will bring down any kind of game animal one might encounter in a survival situation - and it looks cool.
In my opinion, it is the coolest looking rifle ever made.
I suppose somewhere out there will be some who look at this picture askance. The fact is, though, no matter what any adult does, boys are going to play with toy guns. You can refuse to give them toy guns, you can ban them from borrowing toy guns and when you are not looking, they will pick up sticks and use them for guns.
It is genetic. It is inside us. I remember my own dear, long-suffering mother trying to convince us kids that we should not shoot each other, but we did, even if we had to do with sticks, and it was great fun - some of the funnest times of childhood.
And I grew up to be a non-violent, peace-loving man.
Reader Comments (2)
There is a huge difference between giving a boy a gun that looks real and having them pretend with a stick. My son never had any guns but small water pistols. He grew up to be a peace loving liberal. My daughter was forced to fire a gun on a range while in law school, and hated every second of it. My brothers had guns, and one had some nasty marks from a BB rifle, and they also hit each other over the head a coupld of times. One has been arrested for domestic violence; the other is divorced and living in 'hang em high' Texas. I'll take the no guns approach with my grandson, thanks. He is three, and finds enough things to pretend are weapons without giving him anything that looks like a killing machine.
If a child has nasty marks from a BB rifle, gave and recieved blows to the head with "play" weapons, perhaps these children were not supervised enough or taught appropriate limits and boundries? My sister got a tea set when she was a child and she grew up to spend way too much time in the kitchen and even got burned a few times!! The point is, generally boys like to have more action in their play, and I have seen my sons bonding with their buddies even after they arrest them and put them in jail (the doghouse). I have watched my son play house with my daughter too. What a great dad he is... a bit of a workaholic, but hey, he always kisses the baby's forehead and promptly puts her to bed....maybe just a little bit too promptly. Hopefully, Sally will realize that certain life events of a person can't usually be pinned down to a toy alone. With all due respect to Sally, I figure guidance,love, interest in your child's life, modeling appropriate behavior and education are going to be the biggest impact on a child's future and outlook on life. Going to extremes, not so good. Kids learn so much from the what they hear and see their adults doing. Peace loving liberal? 'hang em high' Texas? Divorced?(gasp). Great pictures Bill! and that looks like one happy boy!!