Story by Tom Claycomb III

When I was a kid, things were a lot different, and it wasn’t necessarily a good difference!  There were no small, kid-sized long handles much less base layers. To stay warm two pairs of blue jeans were worn.

Wool socks or hiking socks certainly were not available so I’d end up wearing two or three pairs of white cotton socks to try to keep my toes warm.  Crammed into cowboy boots it was so tight the circulation was cut off and my feet really froze.

Camo clothing wasn’t available — no shirts, pants, coats or gloves. I wore dad’s old camo shirt/jacket and pants.

The other option was to wear your school clothes.  I’d start packing for a deer hunt two weeks before we’d leave. Grocery sacks full of clothes sat around the walls in my bedroom.  I’d have to pull clothes out of my packed sacks every morning for something to wear to school.

There weren’t any youth-sized guns, or gun stocks that could be fitted to a short, small-framed aspiring young hunter.  My first few years of deer hunting I borrowed a rifle until I bought my first, a .30-06 Remington 742 BDL Custom Deluxe with earnings from my paper route.

Dad had me shooting 180 grain bullets, just like he did. I was a skinny little kid, and the recoil from those rounds kick me like the proverbial mule.

Back then fixed power scopes were about the only option. I had a Leupold 4x scope on my first .30-06.  And no kid could afford a pair of binoculars.

Fast forward to today and look at any sporting goods catalog.  There you’ll see all manner of outdoor clothing for kids.  This is great — kids can now be warm and comfortable when hunting.

A few decades ago, kids were more active. They didn’t have the internet, cell phones, Facebook, Instagram etc.  It was even rougher to stay warm then.

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