I was a country kid raised with rocks and
slingshots rather than I-pads, Angry Birds and
Ritalin.
Lucky me.
Back then, gooseneck horse trailers were
rare, so we hauled critters in a Curtis stock rack
mounted in the back of our half-ton pickup.
This pipe and expanded-metal stock rack was
built by Ed Curtis of Colstrip and its tail gate and
spare tire carrier were ingenious designs.
Goose neck trailers quickly made Curtis stock
racks obsolete, so country kids coming of age in the
‘70s had no idea the fun they missed a decade
earlier.
Here is how my life was shaped while hauling horses
up the mountain in the back of our red, Chevy
pickup.
The Curtis spare tire carrier was
a 12-inch deep, 24 inch by 48 inch expanded-metal
box mounted directly above the cab.
The spare tire was bolted flat to the center
of the carrier, forming a perfect seat for the
backsides of nine-year-old boys cradling coffee cans
of gravel between their P.F. Flyers while firing
their sling shots at roadside targets.
Hitting a stationary object from a platform
traveling at highway speeds, necessitates
imaginative leads and it was great fun.
At 50 miles-per-hour, the drive to our Lake
Creek Cow Camp was a target rich environment of
trees, boulders, brace posts and an occasional road
sign.
This sounds dangerous to parents who came of age in
an era of air bags, seat belts and car seats, but it
was safer than you might expect.
In the event of a head-on collision, the
sling-shooters would have been launched safely
beyond the crash scene of a bad accident and this
brings me to my point.
I have 16 grandchildren who need
survival skills such as hitting stationary targets
from a moving platform.
They certainly do not need I-pads or
amphetamine induced behavior modification.
Laws today prohibit the great activities
which reared me because progressives endeavor to
produce snowflakers who passively eat their
government porridge.
Obedience to the ruling class is preferred
over creativity and ingenuity.
I do not want
my grandchildren crammed into this template, so I
will fix the problem myself.
I will scatter barrel targets around my back
pasture, arm my mini-Kimmels, mini-Warners and
mini-Kernses with sling shots and boost them into my
Polaris Ranger for a spin around my shooting range.
This will be great fun and one small step in
Making America Great Again.
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