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nostalgicamerica · 1 year

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True Story:

Throughout my life I have had many obsessions; fishing, the blonde I sat behind in high school biology, to have my own dog (Not just a 'family' dog), the redhead three doors down from our house, hockey, the brunette who would later become my wife, and a number of other things.

But when I was 10 years old I – like every other boy I knew – had a burning desire that made all other obsessions pale in comparison. My singular desire was to have to have a BB gun. I didn't care what kind, although for some reason I loved the look of the Daisy Model 30-30. Maybe it was because of all the Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt; Outlaw, or Cheyenne Kid comic books I consumed whilst hiding from my mother and her infernal chore list.

I wonder in retrospect if my mother believed that if a comic had 'Kid' in the title it couldn't possibly lead her flock astray, but I digress.

As far as BB guns go, I really didn't care what make or model. I just knew I had to have one. I dreamed about fighting off coyotes, black bear, and local bullies. The only requirement was that it be able to shoot a copper-clad projectile at a high rate of speed. Most of my friends already had their obsessions satisfied and it was a source of constant sorrow that I was BB gun-less.

My desire for a BB gun also filled me with a feeling of guilt because my parents ensured I had everything I needed and fulfilled many of my wants. My mother was never shy about providing me books, new or used, and Dad bought me all the fishing gear and hockey equipment I ever needed.

But Ivanhoe and shin pads couldn't fill the hole in my life left by something I had never possessed in the first place.

Any BB gun would have filled the hole.

One close friend, Skunk (don't ask), had the Holy Grail of the BB gun world – a Crosman pump rifle. This particular rifle was carried around town with much-deserved pride (oh, how I hated Skunk when he toted that gun around). I personally witnessed the sleek weapon puncture the side of a tomato juice can. I know it doesn't sound like much today, but back then, tomato juice cans were manufactured by the Ohio Boilermaker Company, made of 10 gauge, zinc-lined, galvanized steel, and, empty, they weighed 23 pounds.

Another friend actually had a BB pistol but his folks took it away from him because he put out one too many window.

There was a smattering of other BB guns in town. Most boys, who were born to more BB gun-friendly parents toted around Daisys, but I recollect other makes like Powermaster, Benjamin, and, of course, Crosman.

Mom apparently wasn't too worried about my brother and I shooting our eyes out because the Christmas after my 11th birthday my brother and I were presented with matching Daisy 102 Model 36 Cubs. My initial jealousy that my brother got his first gun at 10 while I had had to wait until I was 11 abated after a few seconds when I remembered he was my partner in crime and a pretty good friend all the way around.

The jealousy was immediately replaced with an ugly feeling of ingratitude that made me feel guilty and I tried to shake it off before my dad could see it in my eyes.

Cubs!

Yes, they were guns. Yes, they would shoot a BB. Yes, if you squinted at them, the rifles did sort of look menacing. But they were still Cubs, of all things. To those ignorant of the BB gun world, allow me to explain that the Daisy Cub was the AMC Pacer of the gun hierarchy. It was akin to eating a fast-food burger that has been sitting too long under the warmer; it looked vaguely burger-like, it would fill up an empty stomach, but no matter how you looked at it, it was never going to be a thick, mouth-watering, flame-broiled burger fresh from the barbecue grill in the back yard, dripping with grease, and topped off with the freshest of toppings.

Given that Christmas unreasonably seems to always fall in the dead of winter every year, and at least 8 feet of snow covered everything as far south as Des Moines and would until at least April, we were resigned that the guns wouldn't see much action until the Detroit Tigers were in spring training, at a minimum.

Dad, with a head toward solving our dilemma, came through in fine fashion. He covered the windows in the attic with a heavy, BB-proof tarp, hung up paper targets on a length of rope at one end of the cramped space and created an indoor shooting range for his two would be cowboys.

At this point it behooves me to again educate the BB gun ignorant; as a BB does not have a method of propelling itself down a barrel like a bullet, a BB gun has one of two ways to operate: 1. Compressed air (either manually pumped or by using a pre-filled CO2 cartridge), or, 2. Spring-loaded.

Take a wild stab at what method the fine folks at Daisy chose for the Daisy 102 Model 36 Cub.

Initially the BBs zipped to the targets just fine. The single light bulb hanging from the rafters was proof as it had to be replaced more than once, and we discovered the ricochet effect shooting at the chimney bricks.

By the end of January, the springs that provided the propulsion in the Cubs had lost some of their zip. To hit the targets we were required to raise the muzzles a few degrees to provide some elevation to the projectile's trajectory. By the beginning of March, the springs in both guns were so much al-dente fettuccine, and even if we managed to hit the targets – which wasn't a given – the BBs could no longer penetrate.

It wasn't long afterward that the blush fell off the rose and we were spending less and less time sharpening our sharpshooting skills.

I had some Two Gun Kid and Apache Kid comics to read.

Spring does show up every year, even to Northern Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula. It's magical warmth causes the snow banks to shrink, gradually at first, and then disappear like cotton candy in a rain storm. It turned the roads into nearly impassable slush and mud, and boys' yearnings to everything summer: baseball, fishing, camping, freedom, no school.

In the spring and summer, Mom's infernal chore list was only a threat if one couldn't sneak out of the house before she latched onto an arm or ear. Avoiding Mom wasn't all that difficult, mostly because my brother and I had five younger siblings who always seemed to be crying for something or other and, as a result, Mom was almost continually distracted.

The first few glorious days of summer were spent in pursuit of birds and small animals with our new but impotent weapons. The hunts turned out to be exercises in futility because even if we managed to hit a chipmunk or squirrel, the BBs would do little more than tickle them.

It wasn't too many days before the Cubs were left in the hall closet to gather dust. What was the point of toting around a firearm that wouldn't fire? Nobody feared us, and the bears and coyotes were scarce, so our pursuits turned to fishing or swimming or that old trusty standby, finding ways to pester the neighborhood girls.

A few weeks into summer found a group of us kids, who had all successfully dodged our respective mother's chore lists, looking for mischief to get into. Picking on the girls was terrific fun but even that had gotten old. How often can you bomb a tea party with water balloons before it loses its attraction?

Fishing was always a draw for me, but nobody else wanted to slog the three miles to the river. A pick up baseball game was mentioned, but there were only eight of us, and, unless we wanted to play with older kids who would take over everything, or worse, girls, it was a non-starter.

Somewhere in our lethargy, the conversation turned to World War II. Over for some time, it was still a favorite subject. One friend's father had actually been in Normandy, and later on was stationed in Paris after it was liberated. He had been a supply clerk and never saw combat, but he still was a hero to us wide-eyed war junkies.

Most of us wouldn't have been able to find Normandy on a map, and whenever I heard of La Madeleine or other French towns I couldn't help picturing Mom's jar of orange marmalade that was always on the breakfast table. But even in our ignorance, we still loved talking about the war.

And then somebody casually asked, why not have a war of our own? For real. With guns. BB guns, albeit, but guns nevertheless. We could map out a large area south of town, stake out territories and try to capture the other's flags. We could set up rules of engagement and follow them to the letter. No targeting someone above the neck. No shooting if the target is closer than 10 feet. If you are hit anywhere but the arms or legs, you are out until the campaign was over and the new one began. Skunk could only pump his gun once; anything more would give him an unfair advantage.

The three boys who weren't already wearing Coke-bottle glasses had to see if they could filch safety goggles from their dad's garages or find something else to protect their eyes.

Breathless, my brother and I raced home to grab our guns and I crept up to our room to grab the half-filled, cardboard carton of ammunition Even employing stealth, we heard Mom yelling for us as the screen door banged behind us and we made our escape and headed to the field of battle.

Most boys are brain dead. At least I was and I can honestly say the thought of how stupid we were being never crossed my gray matter. I can't speak for my brother, but he was right by my side and I don't recall him voicing objections.

If we had stopped to think we would have recognized that if we were found out, not only would Dad bend our guns against the trunk of the maple tree in the back yard, but he'd wear out his razor strop on our heinies.

Perhaps common sense was out pestering the girls that afternoon because it was nowhere to be found when we all met up in the field under the giant cherry tree that we had designated as the demilitarized zone.

In short order we formed two, four-person armies and hammered out the theater of operations. We had to stay in between the two dirt roads to the east and west, and the northern edge of the pond was the southern boundary. The Pelkkanen's (who happened to be out of town) outhouse would represent the northern border of our combat arena.

We tore up the tee shirt pinched from somebody's clothesline and each team took half as a flag. We would split up, set up our head quarters and wait 20 minutes before launching hostilities.

None of us had a watch, so approximately 4 minutes later, we were all slinking through the waist-deep weeds and bramble bushes, crouching behind cedar bushes and pine trees looking for the enemy. Strategy? Ha! We just moved towards the opposite end of the war zone until, hopefully, we'd engage somebody to shoot at.

That's exactly what happened. The two skirmish lines met in an opening in the shrubbery and began firing as fast as we could work the levers on our guns. BBs flew like confetti and boys fell with over-dramatic flair. The BBs had a slightest of stings, except for Skunk's shots, but even those weren't terrible.

Through four successive battles the teams went at it. mostly adhering to the rules. One boy caught a BB in the ear that made him yelp, and in the fourth skirmish I took one in my lower lip which immediately began to swell. The pain wasn't too terrible and I fought on.

Tied two battles to two, we determined to settle the issue of supremacy in one last engagement. To the victor would belong the spoils, whatever they were. Possibly an empty tomato juice can.

Unfortunately, the other team had at least one boy who wasn't addle-minded and had something up their sleeves; they had no intention of a frontal assault.

We found out too late that three of the opposition moved to the west side of the combat zone and made somewhat of a ruckus, drawing our attacking force on the run, while their fourth slipped by unobserved on the east side, waltzed into our base, swiped our flag and redeployed back to his base.

We lost the battle and thus the war without firing a shot. While certainly the defeat stung, my brother and I took the whipping in stride and opined that we'd know better next time. One of our team yelled some of the worst Finnish words he knew; paska, and kusipaa and paskiainen being chief among them. (For those who don't speak Finn, trust me, they're pretty tame by today's standards.)

For some unknown reason that escaped the others in our army, Skunk was livid. How could we lose so easily with such superior firepower? The tyhmät päät must have cheated! He was going to exact some sort of revenge. I tried telling him we just lost and that's the way it goes sometimes. But he was beyond reasoning with.

Skunk set off to the other side of the field with the rest of the team following behind. He would later claim he only pumped his gun once, but my brother and I would both rat him out to the fellows that we both had seen him pumping the gun multiple times as he advanced on the other army's position. How many times did he pump the pump? I have no idea, but it was more than one.

The other team emerged from hiding and began rubbing it in as we approached - as we would have done had we been the victors. Without a word Skunk raised the Crosman and took bead on one of our friends, Jussi. The intended target yelled and spun around to take cover when the BB punctured the denim and skin that covered his keister.

We were all in shock as we watched a small, dark, wet spot appear and grow slowly larger on the wounded boy's left buttock. Even Skunk was mortified at what he'd done. We were all shocked and most of us were crying except for - oddly enough - the boy with the BB in his butt. He handled being shot with remarkable aplomb.

The youngest boy in our gang lost control of his bladder and he peed his pants. (nobody gave him flack for the leak - he was only 8 and, frankly, some of us struggled to keep from peeing in our drawers, too.)

Skunk tossed his gun aside and ran off, all the while crying how sorry he was. The rest of us gathered around our wounded comrade and dithered back and forth about what to do. Jussi gingerly lowered his trousers baring an expanse of pale white flesh with an ugly purplish circle the size of a nickel surrounding a BB-sized darker hole. Bright blood trickled from the wound and dripped down into his pant leg.

Someone suggested sucking out the BB like we might suck out rattlesnake venom. Even Jussi was taken aback by the suggestion and in no uncertain terms bellowed, "Ain't nobody sucking on my arse!"

I picked up Skunk's Crosman and we helped the only real casualty of what we'd come to refer to as the War of the Keweenaw hobble home to have his mom administer first aid.

Either Jussi's parents were brighter than we gave them credit for and didn't buy the story that their son was injured by a branch when he fell out of a tree, or Jussi just told them the truth.

Whatever the case, in short order, all of our parents were brought up to speed and that evening found my brother and me in the backyard with Dad. Our Cubs on the ground at our feet.

Without words he gestured for me to hand him my gun. I did so waited for him to slam the gun against the tree trunk. Instead, he raised his knee and bent the barrel of the gun over it like it was Play-Doh. He tossed my Cub aside and repeated the ceremony with my brother.

We waited for him to pull out his strop but it wasn't forthcoming. Even his belt stayed cinched around his waist. He just looked at us sadly and shook his head.

He hugged us both and whispered, "I'm disappointed in both of you."

We would have rather had him wear out the razor strop on our butts. That was a punishment we could understand, even if it was a painful. "Please yell at us, Dad!" I screamed in my head.

Both my brother and I were sobbing uncontrollably. The worst punishment imaginable had been handed down - Dad was disappointed in us. It was a pain we would strive hard to never feel again.

All of us who had participated in the War of the Keweenaw had received punishments of varying degrees. We all lost our guns, except Skunk, who, in his remorse and shame, presented it to Jussi in atonement.

My brother and I would spend the next several months trying to make Dad proud of us again. We stopped sneaking out of the house and even willingly worked on Mom's infernal chore list that seemed to keep growing, and completed everything on it that an 11 and 10 year-old could. As much as we would have liked to do so, we just weren't able to reshingle the house and garage roofs on our own, but we willingly helped Dad do the job.

Eventually, after a time, Dad returned to his normal, boisterous, and joking self and life went on and it was good.

I never owned another BB gun. A handful of years later I received a Remington .30-06 just in time for deer season, and I've owned multiple rifles, shotguns and pistols since then, but I've never had an 'obsession' for the guns. They are nothing more than tools that I always handle with the respect they deserve.

Note: A dozen or so years ago I was able to visit my old home town and reconnect with the few of my friends who still live in the area. Skunk and Jussi are still best of friends and I can still see the boy in both through the grey. Jussi grinned at me when I brought up The War of the Keweenaw, went to his basement and returned with the Crosman BB gun. He claimed it still worked perfectly.

Although I declined to do so when he offered to let me feel the bump, he asserts the BB is still lodged firmly in his buttock.

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