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"You get UP there and get in that bathtub, it's Saturday night !!! " mother yelled at me. It was a warm October eve and I headed to the tub, but not before stopping in my room to pick up the latest issue of Popular Mechanics. I rarely went anywhere without something to read. I read the big 3 back then...Hot Rod, Outdoor Life, Popular Mechanics. It was a small world, but those three magazines filled it with the technical details I knew I needed even then to sustain me. Playboy didn't come til much later. Much much later. Pop first subscribed to Popular Mechanics for me on some past birthday and every year he renewed it, probably so I didnt slip down to his house and go off with his copy.
I recall even 46 years later sitting in the tub and reading PM and seeing a Mossberg ad, and a contest entry card. I knew where a pencil was located, so I filled the thing out as I sat in the tub. It was pretty simple, read their ad, answer four questions, select which gun they made that you would like IF you were to win, select a store to pick uit up from, and mail the card in. I picked a Mossberg 400 Palimino .22 'rifle' as I knew ammo was cheap and if I had a real .22 I could buy ammo with the pop bottle return money I collected some times. Or the occasion yard I mowed while risking my health. I mailed the card the next day on the way to school.
At 12 I was old enough for a PA hunting license, but with a diinterested father my 'couldabeen' first hunting season came and went with me never even approaching the woods. Winter deepened, the days got shorter and shorter, and the snow and cold settled in. The contest for the Mossberg had been forgotten.
Some time in late January when I got home form school mother said that I had a letter from Mossberg. I thought it might be an ad or something and recalled the card I had sent in. Lo and behold I had won the rifle of my dreams. I yelled and danced a jig and waved the letter in front of a highly disapproving mom. As I laughed more and more and danced around the house she grew more and more po'd. Some how I had beat the parental system of government and secured my own rifle, all on my own. No charge. I called my grandfather and told him then went to his home fast as I could to show off the letter. I showed it to dad too when he got home from the railroad shops that day too. He was unmoved by the letter, but I think secretly he was glad for me.
A man who had grown up in my grandfathers house was a salesman for a furniture store in Lock Haven. Later he would be our county sheriff for many years, and a good friend to me also. More on that later. The furniture store had rifles for sale in a rack on their lower level, as did many many stores then. Even J.J. Newberrys, Piersons' Hardware, Sockman's plumbing store, and others had a rack of rifles for sale. Mil surplus was aplenty inthe 50's and 60's and every dept store sold them from $9.00 and up. $9.00 was like 9000 to me then.
I recall even 46 years later sitting in the tub and reading PM and seeing a Mossberg ad, and a contest entry card. I knew where a pencil was located, so I filled the thing out as I sat in the tub. It was pretty simple, read their ad, answer four questions, select which gun they made that you would like IF you were to win, select a store to pick uit up from, and mail the card in. I picked a Mossberg 400 Palimino .22 'rifle' as I knew ammo was cheap and if I had a real .22 I could buy ammo with the pop bottle return money I collected some times. Or the occasion yard I mowed while risking my health. I mailed the card the next day on the way to school.
At 12 I was old enough for a PA hunting license, but with a diinterested father my 'couldabeen' first hunting season came and went with me never even approaching the woods. Winter deepened, the days got shorter and shorter, and the snow and cold settled in. The contest for the Mossberg had been forgotten.
Some time in late January when I got home form school mother said that I had a letter from Mossberg. I thought it might be an ad or something and recalled the card I had sent in. Lo and behold I had won the rifle of my dreams. I yelled and danced a jig and waved the letter in front of a highly disapproving mom. As I laughed more and more and danced around the house she grew more and more po'd. Some how I had beat the parental system of government and secured my own rifle, all on my own. No charge. I called my grandfather and told him then went to his home fast as I could to show off the letter. I showed it to dad too when he got home from the railroad shops that day too. He was unmoved by the letter, but I think secretly he was glad for me.
A man who had grown up in my grandfathers house was a salesman for a furniture store in Lock Haven. Later he would be our county sheriff for many years, and a good friend to me also. More on that later. The furniture store had rifles for sale in a rack on their lower level, as did many many stores then. Even J.J. Newberrys, Piersons' Hardware, Sockman's plumbing store, and others had a rack of rifles for sale. Mil surplus was aplenty inthe 50's and 60's and every dept store sold them from $9.00 and up. $9.00 was like 9000 to me then.
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