Canadian Airgun Forum

Walloon Lake, Michigan, summer 1904. Ernest Miller Hemingway at the age of 5, posing with a break-action Markham King air rifle that then sold for about 75¢. Markham Co. advertisements pointed out that “Every live, healthy boy wants a ‘King’ Air Rifle. It’s boy nature to want a gun; to want to get out in the fields and woods, nearest to nature, and enjoy youthful life to its fullest extent. Get your boy a ‘King’ Air Rifle. It will mean health and boyish happiness—and steady nerves, keener eyesight and well-developed powers of observation.” Eyesight aside, Hemingway became a convincing testament to Markham’s claim.

Silvio Calabi
Author, "Hemingway's Guns: The Sporting Arms of Ernest Hemingway"

Nice. Thanks for the share.

_________________
May the cry of the pack be with you upon your hunt

Whitewolf

Nice indeed !

_________________
...but, could Harry Potter's stick part the sea ?

I love their advertizing because that`s exactly the way I feel even at age 64..

_________________
" Only problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples money"

HW 95 .22 Hawke 3-12x44 , Tuned
HW98 .177 Viper 4-16x50
BSA Ultra .22 MTC Mamba Lite 3-12-44, tuned by The Rat Works, UK..
Air Arms S510 Altaros regulated.22

My stepfather wasn't the best, wasn't always there for us. My dad was dead set against guns of any type, after seeing so many nightmarish deaths during his childhood in WWII Croatia. But my stepdad did give me a knife when I was 7, and a BB underlever rifle a few months later. Between those and the baseball glove he showed me how to break in the year before, well, those things helped form my childhood in big ways. I could have used some responsible tutelage as regards limitations on shooting, but I learned, eventually. The knife helped kick off a lifetime of wood craft - I'm a violinmaker today with over a thousand clients on my list, turning away work. And I was away from shooting for a few decades but it drew me back in a few years ago, and I'm glad of that.

I don't know about Markham Co.'s poetical claims, but I do know my own son is now the same age as I was when I got a BB gun... His mom isn't likely to go for that, and frankly with city bylaws forbidding use of an airgun (unlike when I was his age, in 1969, when I could walk just about anywhere with my gun on my shoulder to go plinking, or whittle myself a bow and arrows if I felt like it without fear of someone freaking out over a knife), I'm not sure I could get away with that. He shoots a bow I made him, and a slingshot when we go hiking or camping. I might just have to be sneaky about the airgun. He surely wants one. And I remember so well the sense of liberation, or freedom, of having my own. A Red Ryder? Can't remember. Something with a fat barrel shroud holding 300 BBs so I could shoot all week without reloading. Killed my first partridge with that gun. Head shot, in one eye and out the other from a bit over 15 feet. I ate well that evening.

Very well said there Gerald. A time of simple pleasures from simpler times. Mine was days of no school and holidays. Going to work with my dad. Growing up upon a mixed prairie farm, dad was a grain buyer in town. I would walk from grain elevator to grain elevator and back. Gun over the shoulder. Nice fat grain fed pigeons were on the menu. Everything else was a free frawl. Dad paid me a bounty upon a pair of birds feet. Sparrows worth $.02 blakbirds a nickel.(its how I bought my ammo at age 9, not this 18yr bit)
But a pigeon was 4 bits. Plus a meal, dad cooked them mouth watering birds. Simpler times for sure.

_________________
May the cry of the pack be with you upon your hunt

Whitewolf

Hello Whitewolf and GerardSamija,

Thank you for sharing your respective personal experiences as young hunters/air rifle-shooters.

You both have had great youthful times growing up, which ultimately contributed to making each one of you the great individuals and fine gentlemen that you both presently are.

Regards,

Ron