You might be Old School if.....

[msudawg8087]

great pics crackhead!!!

[crackhead]

great pics crackhead!!!

Thanks

Ive got 9 photo albums full of pics in my personal collection. With a hundred or so in each. Some of the guys who have been there can vouch for it when I tell ya we have a ton of pics I aint pulling your leg. They start from the 40's until present. I would guess three or four thousand pics covering the walls if not more.

[Hambone]

Looking at the rabbit hunting photo on page 5 jogged another memory. In the early '70's everybody wore those Walls Blizzard Pruf coveralls, but the only ones that came in kids' sizes were solid green. I positively lusted for a set of camouflage ones and prayed for the day that I would be big enough to get a set.

Boots? When I first started hunting, I had a set of black galoshes that had those side buckles all the way to the top. Put them on over your leather boots and you were good to go. I finally graduated to some round-toed olive green laceup boots and knew I had hit cool.

Red Ball hip boots...looked cool, but just like now, all they were good for was to get you deep enough to get into trouble. My first waders were a set of green rubber ones that my dad bought at a closeout sale for about $20.00. I had the "pleasure" of wearing a similar set last weekend when my top-of-the line neoprenes blew out and the rubber ones were the only spares in camp. I spent a half-hour in waist deep water and wondered how we ever stood it.

Calls...I started with a Mallardtone about 1975, then moved to a Chick Major Dixie Mallard. In 1978, I bought the Hambone call that I still blow today. It sounds as good now as it did the day I got it.

[Double R 2]

Battery-operated wool socks anybody? If the cold didn't get you, the sweat those lil' gems generated on your feet in cold weather danged sure did Walls coveralls' green camo. Now that's a trip down memory lane.

[crackhead]

As I was looking back at the pictures I notice the brown coveralls were the same one's from the first picture I just grew into four years later. No red cuff's showing now....

[acornman]

Those Walls camo coveralls with the thin foam insulation were a step above the old canvas hunting coat.....that was in 1972. As they got a few years of age on them, the foam dry rotted and crumbled; a trip through the washing machine spelled the end of their useful life.

However, a good Eddie Bauer or Walls down vest underneath those coveralls made a new garment altogether.


acornman

[deltadukman]

Crackhead,

I just thought about my first set of camo duds. I am not "old shool" by any means, but have hunted my entire life and when I was younger I had my dads old stuff. I would get all dressed up like the kid in the red ryder bb gun movie with just regular clothes and then i had a pair of (check this ty) old school brown(blotch) woodland camo coverallsmade by Sears and Robuck or duxbax i think, like the patern chamois shirt you are wanting, that were as thin as a pillowcase from my dad wearing them for years. My grandmother just hacked the sleeves and legs off and hemmed them to fit me. I looked like the Michelin Man in blotch camo. I was a pimp to say the least.

[deltadukman]

and what about the red velvet handwarmer that had two sticks of whatever it was that you lit on fire and stuck in your pocket?

[swamprooter]

Pots.......Uncle Pots..........must be Pot Williams......crackhead...are you one of Cecil's boys?..........Burks gave you a way.

[msudawg8087]

I would get all dressed up like the kid in the red ryder bb gun movie.

"Come on guys wait up!"

" I can't move my arms..... "

[crackhead]

Pots.......Uncle Pots..........must be Pot Williams......crackhead...are you one of Cecil's boys?..........Burks gave you a way.

No Pots was my dad's uncle. Those two kids with me were his boys.

[tombstone]

and what about the red velvet handwarmer that had two sticks of whatever it was that you lit on fire and stuck in your pocket?

Charcoal sticks. You would open the dang thing up to see how much of the stick was left and the hot coals would spill out and burn holes in you cloths.

Those Wall's coveralls with the foam inside sucked along with green rubber boots with yellow laces that said "steel shank" on the side. Your feet would absolutely freeze off in them.

[acornman]

Obviously this thread is very popular and dating some people on this site....including yours truly...

Now here are some more tidbits from the memory cache of an old school hunter:

1. you own a bois d'arc Dixie Mallard call (1969 version) and possess a hand written letter from Chick Major telling you how to change reeds and corks....and...wishing you well in your duck hunting pursuits.

2. you own and have listened to the 45 rpm record with Chick and his daughter Pat giving you valuable advice on calling ducks with the Dixie Mallard call. I understand this is now available from Mack's in the CD version....extra points if you still have your record player that your parents bought you at the Firestone or Western Auto store.

3. you own an original 45 rpm record from Mr. Earl Dennison of Newbern, TN maker of the "Stradivarius" of duck calls (metal reed). Mr. Earl used to have his own radio program in the 50's & 60's giving demonstrations of his calls and calling ability. During his live appearances and at the radio station, he had a trained mallard sitting on his shoulder. Mr. Dennison demonstrated the highball, grass feed, and Paducah calls on his record plus the regular feed, comeback, close in, etc.

4. this one from our hunting club at Reelfoot....a friend of mine had a Dennison call and wanted to buy some spare reeds so he could experiment with tuning, etc. He called Mr. Earl and asked him to sell him some reeds; Mr. Dennison told him "son, no one tunes the Stradivarius but me and I don't sell reeds; send me your call and I will tune it for you". Now there was a man who was proud of his product and there was no mass production involved....all by hand.

5. if you have seen real wooden blocks (usually cypress) with anchor lines and no heads in use by guides. Then the term "let them work the blocks before you shoot" should mean something to you....plastic decoys were but a dream back then.

6. if you have ever seen a Parker side X side loaded with #2 lead standing in the corner of the blind...just in case a canda goose dropped by the spread....that saved unloading your duck gun every time geese were spotted.

7. if you knew men who made a living "pushing" some "sports" out on Reelfoot Lake from "sun to sun"....then you are as old or older than I am. At Reelfoot, old time guides were called pushers because they pushed the boats in the cut grass and shallow water with wooden push poles. Out of town hunters were usually called sports. Hunting on Reelfoot back in the days of plenty was done from "sunup to sunset" and made for a long day because your guide had to row you and him out to the blind and back....no motors much back in the 30's and 40's. I used take an older gentlemen hunting with me who told of paying a pusher $3 a day back in the 40's; if you had a good hunt, you tipped him a dollar.

8. now the finale.....if you knew someone who still blew a Glodo call or a Bean Lake call...you are really old school.....extra points if you know who Victor Glodo is.

Nostalgia Rules !!

acornman

[GulfCoast]

I have a checkered Dennison Stradivarius, with the old 45 rpm. The pet duck Earl had was named "Tootsie."

You need some kinda lungs to blow that sucka, but it is LOUD! It also, to this day, has an overwhelming smell of tung oil. Really, really cool old call. I guess it is impossible to get another reed for it now. They were phosphor bronze, and not brass, contrary to popular belief.

Doc Hull still uses a Glodo style barrel in his calls.

[Hambone]

I don't have the Dennison or Chick Major 45 rpm instructional records. But I do have a Wallace Claypool 78 rpm instructional record. Too bad my little Sears record player broke.

Anyone ever have those canvas duck hunting pants with the knit cuffs at the bottom to keep them straight inside your waders? I have a set of olive-colored ones that belonged to my grandfather, who died in 1970. And I still wear them hunting.