Posted on by Phil Strawn

A Christmas Lesson Remembered


In 1955 I was six years old and received a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Looking back, I was probably too young for such a weapon, even though it struggled to break through a cardboard target. Attitudes then were different about what a boy should have and be exposed to. There was no “toxic masculinity,” or confusion about what was between our spindly legs; boys were boys and girls were the way God made them to be, something my neighborhood buddies and I would appreciate in later years.

I asked Santa for the rifle, and behold, the old gent delivered, just like the one Ralphie got in “A Christmas Story.” A few of my friends also received the same air rifle. We were now armed and ready for war against the Germans or even the Alamo revisited. My parents, typical of the times, saw nothing wrong in me having a gun. My father, a veteran of WW2 knew them well and wasn’t about to raise no pansy-assed kid. Try that these days, CPS would be knocking at your door within the hour.

My grandfather, a veteran of WW1 volunteered to instruct me in the finer points of gun safety and marksmanship. He fought in the trenches in Europe and knew his way around a weapon or two. I didn’t know more than that about his war days, it was all a bit secretive.

Before Christmas supper, we drove to Sycamore Park for the first lesson. Forest Park was but a few blocks away, but he felt we needed more land around us in case a BB took a wrong turn. He retrieved a few empty soup cans from the trunk and placed them on a log about thirty feet away. I loaded the rifle and waited. Grandfather showed me how to hold the gun, site my target, and squeeze the trigger. I missed all the cans and wasted most of the BBs in the tube. I was down to maybe a dozen or so and still hadn’t hit my target. He wasn’t impatient with my lack of marksmanship but felt it was time for some hands-on instruction. He took the rifle, shouldered the stock, aimed, and knocked every can off the log without missing one shot. I was beside myself with envy. Here’s my old grandfather shooting like Buffalo Bill. After he handed the gun to me, I proceeded to miss every can until the BBs were gone. Time to go home.

Walking back to the car I told him that maybe someday I would be able to shoot as well as him. I was a kid and blurted things out without thinking, so I said “Grandad, did you learn to shoot like that in the war?” We were almost to the car when he said, ” Yes I did, but shooting soup cans off of a log is different than shooting a man.” I didn’t understand what his answer meant; too young and blissfully ignorant.

That lesson was more than an old man showing his grandson how to hit a soup can perched on a log. It was the best life lesson I ever received.

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7 Replies to “A Christmas Lesson Remembered”

  1. Thank you for sharing this wonderful story of yesteryear. You probably learned a lot about gun safety and respect for weapons after receiving the Red Ryder air rifle. Kudos to the patriarchs in your family. Merry Christmas, Phil. 🙂

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  2. Grand post and so many woked persons out there should give it a read and think on what you’ve said. American society is Kardashian-ed, Trailer Swifte-ed, NFL-ed, and Bud Lite-ed to death. Indeed, maybe some things need to change but there was nothing mean in the way things were years ago. I recall many young lasses who could whomp more than half the young lads’ ears in baseball, martial arts, hunting, or most anything else; a few young lads who were, em, “artistic” and “sensitive” but we [of the Davy Crockett or John Wayne ilk] never failed to offer them spots on our pick-up teams – on the diamond, the asphalt court, the gridiron, or fishing trips; but in the end boys were boys and girls were girls and from that dichotomy came a sense of respect and justice. Go ahead and call it tolerance if you will. Those lasses and lads grew up with identities perhaps not Dinah Shore-ish or John Wayne-ish, but confident in themselves without need to belittle stereotypical others. Today’s rabid whiners should pause their whining long enough to consider one of the biggest reasons their diatribes are ignored is because they themselves are less tolerant, less respectful, more divisive than those they rail against.

    Great read this morning. I hope you and all your friends and family have a holiday season that is what you individually want it to be. Every kid and adult who needs a Red Ryder BB rifle or a My Little Bake Set should get one, too.

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  3. (1) If only war involved a soup can shooting contest…
    (2) When I was a young teenager, my friends in the neighborhood would join me out in the woods for “BB gun wars.” Our only rule was to never aim above the chest.
    (3) But I was already shooting rifles, pistols, and shotguns long before I became a teenager. My father was a hunter who also enjoyed target practice, and I tagged along often. But, alas, I never got to go elk hunting in Colorado because the elk hunting season was in the fall, and I couldn’t miss school back in Missouri.

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  4. “toxic masculinity”….now it’s women with that!
    Great meaning and story Phil…now parents are showing their kids how to shoot guns….in a video game.

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  5. Very cool story. I had one of those and we had those cardboard cans that the orange juice concentrate came in. I’d fill them up with water and shoot them. or shoot at them. At first.

    I think there’d be a lot less stupidity about guns if more kids were raised that way.

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