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The Mystery of Male Armies, Redux
A young friend came to visit. He is seven years old and, of course, his mother does not permit him to have toy guns. This is what he made, without assistance, using rubber bands and twigs from the yard. Note the magazines (yup, there’s one on the other side) and the sights on the barrel.
As @franksoto put it, in the title to a recent post, “bask in the crazy” indeed.
Published in Guns
Hmmm.
From Wikipedia:
She’s in Maine. Not on the list. Besides, you don’t have to have the weight, or can use a small one that once you undo the monkey’s paw knot, all you’re carrying is a rope and a lead ball or steel ball or iron ball. Don’t you always carry a rope with you?
In New Mexico it’s illegal to make a noose with 13 loops, so the rope can be problematic all on its own…
My grandson (now 3) makes guns out of LEGOs, and at times he and his big sister (5) chase each other around one of those pass throughs screaming cheerfully, him carrying his plastic saw (once I filmed it, they now like watching “the toddler chainsaw massacre”) … BUT, he really *loves* trucks and construction equipment; at 2 he explained to his mom the functions of a backhoe they saw parked by the road as they were walking, and could instantly recognize a robotic jackhammer in a video on facebook; I showed it to him because I couldn’t figure it out, since no one was managing it. they do lots of things together and play with each others toys, but his sister is only minimally interested.
I find it really striking, since I only had a daughter… it is so wonderful to see him, so completely un-selfconscious!
I was just weeding out front of the house and someone catcalled me from a passing car.
I was horrified.
I have called out praise to workers doing a good job but I think just whistling and shouting something about my rear end kinda unacceptable.
Yet another way the sexes differ?
(My husband was vaguely flattered on my behalf…)
You gotta be careful with that. Just this weekend I saw a five-year-old use a chainsaw to slice open a shark and save someone’s life.
Course, that was on Sharknado 4.
There isn’t one.
My godson, with tremendous confidence, told me his block construction was a “feller buncher.” A term I didn’t learn until I was at least 40… little boys and trucks. It’s a beautiful thing.
My youngest daughter had a transient enthusiasm for trucks when she was very small, plus a mild speech impediment. All digraphs (th, sh, tr) came out “F.” So it was pretty bad when she saw a big black truck. Worse when she assured me that “dose are de’ best kind.”
Having said that, my late husband, the state trooper, went along with me on the gun thing. But as other parents and grandparents have so ably and charmingly demonstrated, the natural instincts will out. Lego guns, block guns, twig guns (though none as sophisticated as this one) water pistols, rubber band guns, potato guns…
I told my godson (of the “feller buncher” expertise) that I’d get him one of those guns that shoot marshmallows. They look AWESOME.
Yeah. It’s just rude.
I never heard of “feller buncher” til just now, and even then I thought “feller” was southern for “fellow.”
When I was young, I had a paper route. We’d ride our bikes to a central location, wait for the papers, roll them up, and spread out to deliver them. There were probably 20 ten to twelve year olds. We all had two pound boxes of rubber bands used to hold the rolled up papers. You can imagine what the place was like when the papers were an hour late. It was where I learned the hand-held-like-a-gun method of shooting rubber bands, and I have to say, I’m pretty damn accurate.
My parents (I was born in 1956) were very anti-gun, and I had no interest whatsoever until our son became interested in them as he was in high school. I grew up (mostly) in suburban southern California, and knew no one who hunted or otherwise had any use for a gun. Our son, during his childhood in suburban southern California also exhibited no interest in weapons (we also did not own a television during his childhood, so he did not have that venue for learning about weapons). But, by the time our son was in high school we lived in western New York state, where hunting was normal, and guns were common. Our son was also at that time becoming interested in joining the military, and learned the value of “peace through superior firepower.”
I was one of those rare boys who did not fashion a weapon out of anything and everything. But, to me anything and everything was fair game to become a car, with motor noises.
There’s your problem…
Barbie cannot be a pistol. She has no front hole.
Why is passionate (and often wet) truck sound mimicry almost exclusively a boy thing?
Is it building on something evolutionary, like large animal mimicry?
That’s a very fine question. A study ought to be done.
As a juniors rifle instructor, I endorse this decision! I’ve taught kids as young as six, but only when their parents are sure they can stay safe and focused for a couple of hours, and they prove the same. There are some six year olds who are just fine, and some 12-plus year olds that I don’t want on my firing line.
(We didn’t have toy guns as kids, we had real ones, when we could be trusted with them. Of course we went nuts with our cousins’ cap guns when visiting, and anything to be had at friends’ houses.)
I remember an incident with a kid who must have been about fifteen or sixteen at the time.
Exactly! I thought it was an insulting way to refer to people of some Persuasion I’d never heard of (and didn’t want to.) But it’s a kind of vehicle, with a giant sort of snipper that can hack off a bunch of trees in a bunch. Good for clear cutting woods and intimidating through-hikers.
a feller-buncher.
Embiggen please?
My adorable 2 year old granddaughter just worships her older brother. She doesn’t really like guns, but loves running after him as he shoots at anything that moves.
Unfortunately, she shouts as she runs: I shoot The People!!
My daughter has only 2 weeks to break her of this before she goes to preschool.
Better to throw them that to swing them. Flail-type weapons are overrated. You’re always hitting things you don’t want hit, like yourself.
Barbie heads are removable. The neck stump appears to be a suitable barrel. You can guess how I know….
Please tell me you haven’t been vacationing in Wind Gap, Missouri Phil…
Walking home today, I had a homeless guy tell me that his buddy cleaned up real good and hadn’t been laid in like 17 years. Upon telling him I’d spent the last 16 years married, he replied, “That’s impressive!”
A co-worker once fell from a tree and broke his arm. Another co-worker, the office clown, wrote a poem for him and posted it on his door. It was titled “A Feller Who Felled From a Tree”. I wish I had the words. It was a great bunch of puns and was accepted in the good spirit in which it was offered.
I don’t know how…?!