By Arvid Huisman

 

As close as I can figure, this Spring is the 64th anniversary of a significant event in my life. It was about this time of the year, in 1957 I believe, that I acquired my first BB gun.

 

Now some of you may be asking, “What’s so significant about acquiring a BB gun?” If you have to ask, you probably won’t understand. You see, on Iowa’s farms and in small farm towns in 1957 getting your own BB gun was a rite of passage for boys. It meant you were growing up and only a few years from owning your first real gun. (I got my first real gun just six years later.)

 

With a BB gun in my sights, I sold garden seeds to relatives and neighbors that year. I nearly wore out Mom’s Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, repeatedly flipping to the page which featured BB guns.

 

Having sold enough garden seeds and earned enough money we placed the order. We didn’t have online ordering, charge cards and UPS delivery service back in those days so Mom had to fill out the order form and a write a check which she mailed to Sears in Chicago. A three-cent postage stamp did the job.

 

After what seemed an eternity (probably less than a week) my lever-action J.C. Higgins air rifle made by Daisy with a realistic plastic stock arrived by parcel post. The small package of BBs that came with the gun was not enough ammo for this shooter. I jumped on my bike and rode downtown to buy a larger supply. George Brown’s Our Own Hardware and Bob Erickson’s Gambles store in Jewell both carried tubes of BBs which, I recall, opened and closed with folds at one end. A small tube cost a nickel and a larger tube a dime. I spread my ammunition expenditures between the two retailers.

 

Tin cans, old jars, cardboard boxes, trees and more became my targets. I recall doing the Elmer Fudd routine by stalking “cwazy wabbits.” I shot at telephone pole insulators but was such a lousy shot I hit very few and don’t recall damaging any.

 

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