Mustangs Rule
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2021
- Messages
- 982
Hanging on my wall is a framed collection of WW2 military shoulder patches.
Most are gifts from generous GI ‘s. With them are my father’s triple Sgt. Chevrons and five harsh stripes for five years of service in the US Army.
During my formative years, I never thought there would be an end to WW2 vets in my life.
My junior high wood shop teacher, Mr. Martin, amazed us with his skill handling tools and material with his mechanical right hand. He gave me a deep appreciation for wood and using tools.
During the Veterans Day Parade, he was in uniform. So was Ms. Laliberti. She totally disobeyed her father’s wishes when she joined the WAC. He disowned her. She went to jump school, became, among many other things a parachute instructor. After the war, like so many vets she used the GI bill, went to college, and was my high school biology teacher. She instilled in me a love for science and nature.
I recall being 16 years old and deciding I wanted earn a degree in Biology then earn my union “Journeyman’s Carpenters Book”. After high school, it took seven years to meet both goals.
At my university, the Science Dept. Chairman Dr. Shelar had served as a Lt. Commander in the USN during WW2. Another teacher had been a Lt Col. in the USMC fighting in the horrors of the South Pacific. He was twice decorated, the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star with a “V” for valor.
Working on a union construction crew, summers and full time after graduation, WW2 vets were the solid backbone, all having used the GI bill to go to apprentice schools for their various trades.
Harold was a Mason foreman, put all his four kids through medical school. He was in the USN and fought the Japanese fleet at the battle of the Coral Sea. That was our first “payback for Pearl Harbor”.
What made success for that naval battle inevitable was our having broken the Japanese Code. My father was code breaker during WW2. They kept him in the Service an extra year after the war. Men like him saved a lot of lives.
On my crew were two brothers, both Ex-Marines who also fought in the hell of Island hopping in the South Pacific. The older brother, Mike was there first, at Guadalcanal, and the younger brother Eddy, fought at Iwo Jima.
They taught me to have a deep respect for tools.
The Superintendent who ran these big Class A jobs was Ziggy. He yelled a lot and for him to hear us we had to talk loud. He was a tanker in the Battle of the Bulge. Our Tankers had by then the Jumbo Sherman Tank and also the more armored Hellcat. They faced the German King Tiger tank which was a super version of the already dreaded Tiger Tank.
Ziggy married a farmer's daughter, and her father's farm adjoined my grandfather's dairy farm. Ziggy and his new bride were given a dozen acres where they built their new home with the help of other vets on the crew. Ziggy and his wife raised two boys and two girls on what became a small farm, The oldest son was my age, we were close friends and hunted together.
My father did not hunt, had no firearms and I was in a constant envy of my friend who used the fine firearms Ziggy bought for all his family to use.
There were only three, well make that four guns in the house
My friend took me into the attic once and showed me a Walther pistol he accidentally found. He asked his father about it. His Dad said he had taken it off a dead German Officer. Stop, no detailed war stories! When my friend went to look for it again it was gone.
When my friend and I were hunting woodchucks, with lots of crawling to get close. He used a Marlin Lever Action Model 39 with Lyman peep sights It was built at the peak of fine workmanship. Everything about it just saluted with quality as did all the tools made back then.
I had a single shot bolt action .22.
For waterfowl and upland birds, he used his dads smooth as silk Ithaca model 37 Featherweight in 16 gauge. I had a homely bolt action 410. After I hit a pheasant, and saw some feathers come off and that bird flew away, I knew I needed more shotgun.
For $30, a full day's pay for picking stones from a freshly plowed field, I bought a terribly ill-fitting Lefever 12-gauge SXS. The stock had been cut down. I could not hit a bird to save my life, but they dropped from the sky when my friend shot the 37.
Ruffed Grouse were so rare though we had great habitat. Years later taking a Field Natural History class, my professor explained that with most Coyotes shot off, there were no middle level predators to prey on the lowest level predators like skunks, weasels, foxes and raccoons which all were voracious egg eating grouse nest raiders.
I was just reading that hungry polar bears, in the absence of sea ice, which normally allows them to hunt seals, are becoming nest egg raiders and causing sea bird numbers to crash in some areas.
Along the side of my grandfather's farm there was a beaver dam pond, a half mile long by 100 yards wide. I had a 16-foot noisy aluminum canoe. Taking turns, with only the one in front shooting we took ducks and geese. Using Ziggy’s model 37 the ducks fell out of the sky for me too.
Being members of farming families, we both had year-round Whitetail Doe permits. The deer were never a problem there were so few, but the state let farmers shoot them at will. That was when I began to realize how agriculture so unfairly decimated wildlife.
My friends' grandfathers farm had a good number of acres in a thick Cedar Forest. Ideal whitetail habitat. I recall seeing my first ever deer tracks there. The deer were so shy and nocturnal they seemed like mystical ghosts.
I was not sure about the rightness of it, but the thrill won me over and that was were I did my first deer hunting. My friend was using his dad’s Savage 99 in 300 Savage. Ziggy went hunting up to Maine for big bucks, but as his work responsibilities multiplied, he stopped hunting and his Savage was there for his sons to use. It had swing out mounts that allowed going back and forth from scope to iron sites.
I was using a mail order South American military clunker rifle I paid $19.00 for. The sites were just awful. My friend took his first deer in that cedar forest with Ziggy’s model 99. I was happy for him but glad I did not shoot one. There were just so few deer then.
My friend and I did not see much of each other after high school. He went to an engineering college, and I went to a State University to study biology. During summers we both worked for the same company his dad worked for, the crew was near all WW2 and Korean War vets. All had the highest respect for each other and work was done well and with pride. In the 1980’s, federal support money for trade schools and apprenticeship programs was cut back drastically. Across the boards work quality has crashed.
A highlight of my time working with these vets was when Ziggy was in charge of building the new church that my family attended. It felt really special to help do that with so many genuine American heroes.
Those years after college, working full time all year, I really put my focus into learning my Carpentry trade. The guys treated me differently then. I was more than a summer college kid. So many times, when they took me aside for a moment to pass on some trick of the trade or to offer safety advice.
The best project was building the private home for the son of the owner of the Construction Company all of us worked for. Most of the work we did was Class A Commercial. This was residential wood frame construction. For most of them, this was where they had begun their trade.
Learning how to build homes was a huge opportunity for me.
When the home was finished there was a party and we were all invited. At some point the homeowner's father, the owner of the company came around with his pockets stuffed with $100 bills for bonuses. All long-term employees got a hand-full of $100 bills. I got just one, but it sure seemed BIG to me.
During four years of college, I was always poor. Tuition for four years of full-time attendance was a whopping $400 total. Then there were expensive books and lab fees. I drove back and forth to school every day, doing morning milking on the farm first of course.
Gas seemed so expensive at 19.9 cents/gallon. Only 5 gallons for $1. Keeping my rattle-trap cars running cost me a lot. Of course, my hunting guns were pure junkers.
As a college graduation present to myself I did something extravagant. In a local gun shop, there was a used Belgium Bolt Action Safari grade Browning rifle in 30-06, with a 4X Weaver Scope. The price was an unthinkable a whopping $180. I wanted one fine rifle. I bought it and was making $20/month payments. Over four months I paid off $80.
Now you know where that $100 bill went.
Ziggy died in 1999. His oldest son got all his guns, even the Walther which he found digging around in the attic. These four are the only firearms he has ever owned. And no! He does not mind a bit paying big money for 16-gauge shotgun shells and yes, any family member has the use of the hunting firearms Ziggy bought.
Ziggy was 79 years old when he died. I am now 78. Looking at, feeling such numbers can mess with my head now.
One number however makes me smile, 56, that is how many years I have had and hunted with that beautiful Browning Safari grade rifle. Hunting firearms can be “Big Pens” that write stories for us, if we let them and listen. This rifle, my first fine rifle, writes so many stories for me.
With it, I took my first elk, first antelope, and first western mule deer. With downloaded lead bullets I shot grouse out of trees in Alaska, and I took my Desert Big horn Ram with it too. It still has the same 4X fixed Weaver scope on it.
And always when I look at it, I think about the fine men I worked with to earn the money to buy my first fine rifle.
Mustangs Rule
.
Most are gifts from generous GI ‘s. With them are my father’s triple Sgt. Chevrons and five harsh stripes for five years of service in the US Army.
During my formative years, I never thought there would be an end to WW2 vets in my life.
My junior high wood shop teacher, Mr. Martin, amazed us with his skill handling tools and material with his mechanical right hand. He gave me a deep appreciation for wood and using tools.
During the Veterans Day Parade, he was in uniform. So was Ms. Laliberti. She totally disobeyed her father’s wishes when she joined the WAC. He disowned her. She went to jump school, became, among many other things a parachute instructor. After the war, like so many vets she used the GI bill, went to college, and was my high school biology teacher. She instilled in me a love for science and nature.
I recall being 16 years old and deciding I wanted earn a degree in Biology then earn my union “Journeyman’s Carpenters Book”. After high school, it took seven years to meet both goals.
At my university, the Science Dept. Chairman Dr. Shelar had served as a Lt. Commander in the USN during WW2. Another teacher had been a Lt Col. in the USMC fighting in the horrors of the South Pacific. He was twice decorated, the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star with a “V” for valor.
Working on a union construction crew, summers and full time after graduation, WW2 vets were the solid backbone, all having used the GI bill to go to apprentice schools for their various trades.
Harold was a Mason foreman, put all his four kids through medical school. He was in the USN and fought the Japanese fleet at the battle of the Coral Sea. That was our first “payback for Pearl Harbor”.
What made success for that naval battle inevitable was our having broken the Japanese Code. My father was code breaker during WW2. They kept him in the Service an extra year after the war. Men like him saved a lot of lives.
On my crew were two brothers, both Ex-Marines who also fought in the hell of Island hopping in the South Pacific. The older brother, Mike was there first, at Guadalcanal, and the younger brother Eddy, fought at Iwo Jima.
They taught me to have a deep respect for tools.
The Superintendent who ran these big Class A jobs was Ziggy. He yelled a lot and for him to hear us we had to talk loud. He was a tanker in the Battle of the Bulge. Our Tankers had by then the Jumbo Sherman Tank and also the more armored Hellcat. They faced the German King Tiger tank which was a super version of the already dreaded Tiger Tank.
Ziggy married a farmer's daughter, and her father's farm adjoined my grandfather's dairy farm. Ziggy and his new bride were given a dozen acres where they built their new home with the help of other vets on the crew. Ziggy and his wife raised two boys and two girls on what became a small farm, The oldest son was my age, we were close friends and hunted together.
My father did not hunt, had no firearms and I was in a constant envy of my friend who used the fine firearms Ziggy bought for all his family to use.
There were only three, well make that four guns in the house
My friend took me into the attic once and showed me a Walther pistol he accidentally found. He asked his father about it. His Dad said he had taken it off a dead German Officer. Stop, no detailed war stories! When my friend went to look for it again it was gone.
When my friend and I were hunting woodchucks, with lots of crawling to get close. He used a Marlin Lever Action Model 39 with Lyman peep sights It was built at the peak of fine workmanship. Everything about it just saluted with quality as did all the tools made back then.
I had a single shot bolt action .22.
For waterfowl and upland birds, he used his dads smooth as silk Ithaca model 37 Featherweight in 16 gauge. I had a homely bolt action 410. After I hit a pheasant, and saw some feathers come off and that bird flew away, I knew I needed more shotgun.
For $30, a full day's pay for picking stones from a freshly plowed field, I bought a terribly ill-fitting Lefever 12-gauge SXS. The stock had been cut down. I could not hit a bird to save my life, but they dropped from the sky when my friend shot the 37.
Ruffed Grouse were so rare though we had great habitat. Years later taking a Field Natural History class, my professor explained that with most Coyotes shot off, there were no middle level predators to prey on the lowest level predators like skunks, weasels, foxes and raccoons which all were voracious egg eating grouse nest raiders.
I was just reading that hungry polar bears, in the absence of sea ice, which normally allows them to hunt seals, are becoming nest egg raiders and causing sea bird numbers to crash in some areas.
Along the side of my grandfather's farm there was a beaver dam pond, a half mile long by 100 yards wide. I had a 16-foot noisy aluminum canoe. Taking turns, with only the one in front shooting we took ducks and geese. Using Ziggy’s model 37 the ducks fell out of the sky for me too.
Being members of farming families, we both had year-round Whitetail Doe permits. The deer were never a problem there were so few, but the state let farmers shoot them at will. That was when I began to realize how agriculture so unfairly decimated wildlife.
My friends' grandfathers farm had a good number of acres in a thick Cedar Forest. Ideal whitetail habitat. I recall seeing my first ever deer tracks there. The deer were so shy and nocturnal they seemed like mystical ghosts.
I was not sure about the rightness of it, but the thrill won me over and that was were I did my first deer hunting. My friend was using his dad’s Savage 99 in 300 Savage. Ziggy went hunting up to Maine for big bucks, but as his work responsibilities multiplied, he stopped hunting and his Savage was there for his sons to use. It had swing out mounts that allowed going back and forth from scope to iron sites.
I was using a mail order South American military clunker rifle I paid $19.00 for. The sites were just awful. My friend took his first deer in that cedar forest with Ziggy’s model 99. I was happy for him but glad I did not shoot one. There were just so few deer then.
My friend and I did not see much of each other after high school. He went to an engineering college, and I went to a State University to study biology. During summers we both worked for the same company his dad worked for, the crew was near all WW2 and Korean War vets. All had the highest respect for each other and work was done well and with pride. In the 1980’s, federal support money for trade schools and apprenticeship programs was cut back drastically. Across the boards work quality has crashed.
A highlight of my time working with these vets was when Ziggy was in charge of building the new church that my family attended. It felt really special to help do that with so many genuine American heroes.
Those years after college, working full time all year, I really put my focus into learning my Carpentry trade. The guys treated me differently then. I was more than a summer college kid. So many times, when they took me aside for a moment to pass on some trick of the trade or to offer safety advice.
The best project was building the private home for the son of the owner of the Construction Company all of us worked for. Most of the work we did was Class A Commercial. This was residential wood frame construction. For most of them, this was where they had begun their trade.
Learning how to build homes was a huge opportunity for me.
When the home was finished there was a party and we were all invited. At some point the homeowner's father, the owner of the company came around with his pockets stuffed with $100 bills for bonuses. All long-term employees got a hand-full of $100 bills. I got just one, but it sure seemed BIG to me.
During four years of college, I was always poor. Tuition for four years of full-time attendance was a whopping $400 total. Then there were expensive books and lab fees. I drove back and forth to school every day, doing morning milking on the farm first of course.
Gas seemed so expensive at 19.9 cents/gallon. Only 5 gallons for $1. Keeping my rattle-trap cars running cost me a lot. Of course, my hunting guns were pure junkers.
As a college graduation present to myself I did something extravagant. In a local gun shop, there was a used Belgium Bolt Action Safari grade Browning rifle in 30-06, with a 4X Weaver Scope. The price was an unthinkable a whopping $180. I wanted one fine rifle. I bought it and was making $20/month payments. Over four months I paid off $80.
Now you know where that $100 bill went.
Ziggy died in 1999. His oldest son got all his guns, even the Walther which he found digging around in the attic. These four are the only firearms he has ever owned. And no! He does not mind a bit paying big money for 16-gauge shotgun shells and yes, any family member has the use of the hunting firearms Ziggy bought.
Ziggy was 79 years old when he died. I am now 78. Looking at, feeling such numbers can mess with my head now.
One number however makes me smile, 56, that is how many years I have had and hunted with that beautiful Browning Safari grade rifle. Hunting firearms can be “Big Pens” that write stories for us, if we let them and listen. This rifle, my first fine rifle, writes so many stories for me.
With it, I took my first elk, first antelope, and first western mule deer. With downloaded lead bullets I shot grouse out of trees in Alaska, and I took my Desert Big horn Ram with it too. It still has the same 4X fixed Weaver scope on it.
And always when I look at it, I think about the fine men I worked with to earn the money to buy my first fine rifle.
Mustangs Rule
.
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