greybeard

bkln. He sounds like my kind of guy..

Doc,.. when I shot and brought home my first grouse I had gutted it,but didn't know what to do with it. My mother took it, plucked it and cooked it. I haven't thought about that for years. My parents grew up in Manhattan and the Bronx. Their image of a pigeon would have been of a dirty city pigeon(winged rat as we called those), and I doubt that my mother would have cleaned it. We never would have thought of those "country pigeons". I guess we just thought of them as "city birds". My mother knew how to pluck birds because they bought live chickens to eat when she was young. My father never ate a packaged chicken until he was older and had a hard time getting used to them..I just remembered that now , also.

On Fox 5 Sarah Palin reportedly said that she didn't actually know what Phil said.. She did not read the article

Grow,... Sounds really nice, but now I want blueberry pie. Have a wonderful Christmas

t barb.. I read the same thing so I spent more time looking for them at the beaches this year. A few weeks ago, in one day, some bird watchers saw 5. Of course, I wasn't there that day. Snowys show up down here in winter at times, but the one that I saw this week was my first sighting at the beach. I saw one when I was duck hunting on a river once and flushed it when I beached my kayak. He gave me a great show for quite a while. I did see 1 more, but it was off in a tree. I used to see great horned owls near the beach in the pines in winter, but haven't seen them in some time

This is a great topic and enjoyed the stories, It's great that you and others have them to pass down. It keeps the memories alive. PRICELESS, as they say.. I hope a lot of guys post stories.I look forward to reading them

Beautiful Pictures. I watched one at the beach the other day, it stayed in one spot all day.. I did not have a camera, but a friend was there and sent us two photos in email yesterday.. Beautiful birds !! It didn't seem to care that we were there. It kinda looked bored. I have seen a couple before, sitting and flying, but my wife never did. You have some talent !!!!! I have to let my wife see your photos, she'll go wild.. Thanks for posting them..

Merry Christmas to all

Biz... I thought ya lost it there for a minute, sure am glad you put the youtube reference. Damn, I really am behind the times Wish I could dance, catchy beat..

Mike Rossi.. I am always astounded by your knowledge of migratory birds, etc... Are you a wildlife biologist ?

pawle76.. I was from a bit west of there, I'm sure East Meadow was farms then.. There were quite a few farms even west of East Meadow..Long Island had loads of potato farms , I was told that my old neighborhood was one also. There are books now reporting the History of many LI towns. A separate book for each town. The books that I read were pretty good. I'd bet that there is one on East Meadow. The furthest west that I "remember" was a farm in Elmont, on Hempstead Tpk. not too far from the NYC line.Just East of Belmont Racetrack. I remember one in West Hempstead,> I used to ride my bike to a creek across the street and catch frogs in a muddy creek there. I have a friend, who is a little older than me, who lived in Queens and told me that he hunted ducks where Flushing Airport was..He also said he'd invite people for duck dinner, and that day drive into Western Nassau County and jump ducks and get his dinner... Fast Food ???

I got it.. Thank you.

Elmo.. I can understand that.. I never heard it before a couple of days ago and now it keeps going around in my head, and the image of a dancing fox can wake me up at night..

FX62,.... Thank you I would appreciate the email, is it done by pm.. I would to show some people on Christmas Eve and others on Christmas day

After reading some of the great stories here this morning I had to go to a few stores, including BJ's Wholesale. As you can imagine the stores were pretty crowded. I was in such a good mood thinking of your histories and ways of life that I found myself talking to quite a few people about holidays etc. EVERY person that I spoke to had a great attitude and I had a lot of laughs.. Christmas was in the air... Thanks for sharing all your stories..It's making my Christmas happier.

FX62.. That was great, I have to figure how to save your post and show people Merry Christmas to you too. I always loved the old stories. My wife's grandfather was a jockey and had some cool stories Her great grandfather is in the Jockey Hall of Fame, in Saratoga but I never knew him. I would have liked to hear his stories.. Her grandfather used to talk about the Long Island Plains, imagine LI plains.. I do think sometimes when I tell the stories some people would like to tell me to shut up and go sit in my rocker. We, the older crowd, get into the old stories sometimes and some of the young ones kinda leave, but some do like them.

bluecoupe.. I sure knew that look !!! I hated green beans, but as a teenager I had a beagle that would eat anything and she'd sit under the table near me, when we ate, I'd sneak them to her when no one was looking at me. She ate liver too....I loved that little hound ! That's a good story about the mushroom soup..You held out longer then I would have.

bluecoupe...I had a laugh after reading your post.. My parents said the same thing about having nothing to do.. The EXACT words !! nice memory.. On Sundays we stayed dressed in ties when we had afternoon family dinner. My father worked shift work, but we mostly ate at the same time every night too, and had to "clean your plate". no wasting food, people were starving !! We refer to those ways in my house as "The Father Knows Best " world.

lurking..I didn't really research the .25 when I bought my last airgun. I only wanted it for squirrels so the .22 was good for me.I had been shooting them with my .177, 800 fps gun. If I thought about larger game, like coons, or fox, I would have checked into that too, and would have also gone with the .25

lurking.. You may appreciate this.. I have old post cards from my wife's grandparents from when they were young and lived in Westbury.. It was addressed to their name,, with no street address, just Westbury, NY.. and it got delivered.. Talk about a different L.I.

I was discussing this with my wife last night, remembering things and it came up that that when I was in college, on L.I. I did a speech on guns and brought a couple as props. No ammo, with bolts removed, but that can not happen now. I understand why it can't be done now, but it was a different world then. One student voiced her dis approval about firearms, but only one. My wife, a non hunter, said that it was amazing that with all the violent games kids play that so many people are offended by talking about hunting in front of them. I had close friend who grew up in the southern Adirondacks, who told me that when she was growing up, her school was closed on opening day of deer season. I can't verify what she said, but I sure bet that an awful lot of kids were out hunting that day.( The Northern Zone deer season was always the same day, so that's the date I decided to get engaged on so I wouldn't forget,. When I told people about that then most didn't blink.) Last year someone wrote about a squirrel derby, and how even non New Yorkers were protesting.. I think the protest was started by a Texan. As I recall, maybe I'm confusing this hunt with another hunt, but some of the anti statements had to do with teaching the children about killing animals .. SQUIRRELS !!! I guess I shouldn't be surprised there was an animal rights group statement about someone killing a fly... "The times they are a changin' "(Dillon) title seems to apply here.

BUCKANDAQUARTER. When I got my first rifle, army surplus, I walked into a Dept. Store, took the gun I wanted from a barrel and bought it for $28. Dept. stores, and some hardware stores had guns. My wife's high school had a rifle team(remember this was on LI), so imagine the changes. I had a daisy bb gun and used to walk down my block and shoot grasshoppers, and no one called the cops even if they didn't like it. But ya know there were many things we wouldn't want.. black and white tv with with 7 then down to 6 channels, no air conditioners, you didn't hop on a plane and head to great vacations, etc. BUT I sure liked the mentality better and really that was my intent in the first post. Shawn,.. I've seen that before.. "Don't talk about it in front of the kids."..

BUCKANDQUARTER.. I was born in NYC, but lived most of my life on LI. My city relatives would come to the country to see us...You cannot imagine how much LI has changed. I have a very good life, I still love the Island And .L.I. still has a lot for me, but it's changed unbelievably. It's too much to list. Finding that book just got me to thinking of the changing attitudes toward hunting and guns, and other things From reading your post I see that even up there the changes are disturbing too. Reading that you are raising your kids "old school" is uplifting. I was happy to read that... good luck

Belo, I was going to mention the gun drawings, but I forgot... I don't know how I forgot, but I did..scarey.. It's about a pioneer Ohio boy and he's on the cover with a rifle. The third page has a picture of the kid with a gun and his father carrying a dead deer. The next 2 pages have rifles... There are more drawings of rifles, but I'm sure you don't want me to continue. I don't know , maybe it's just my take on things, but it seems to me that this book showing drawings of guns, traps, and dead animals would not go over too well with parents today..It's a little kids book, not like a Tom Sawyer type book. Tell me I'm wrong, and you will make me a happy guy, it would be a criticism that I would welcome.

Finding that book today and looking through it just made me think about the way we have changed. I doubt that I'd find that book in the children's section of the library, or book store today. I always hated when the over 65 crowd told me how much better it was "back then". There are an awful lot of advances that have contributed greatly to a better way of living, and I sure take advantage of them., and I don't want to go backwards. However, I did like some of the attitudes about certain things better a few years back.