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As I’ve mentioned in
previous stories, kids these days are deprived of a lot of the neat stuff we
had as kids. One of which are cap pistols. We had a lot of fun with these.
Every TV cowboy, such as Gene Autry, Hop-Along Cassidy, Roy Rogers, etc., had
cap pistol sets you could buy that were just like theirs. Tim and I had many
“gunfights” and shooting “bad guys” as part of a “posse”. We even had a pony to
ride in the various “posses” we rode in when the need arose. When we were a
little older, we would ride our horse Flax with the other kids in the area that
also had a horse and have a real "posse"! Some cap pistols used a
whole roll of caps, and others were “single shot”, using only 1 cap at a time.
Tim and I never liked the “single shot” type because “bad guys” could rush us
and “kill us” before we could tear off a single cap from the strip and
“reload”. Cap strips, had perforations so you could tear off 1 cap at a time
for the “single shot” types. The strip also had holes in the middle of it
between the perforations to aid in tearing off 1 cap at a time. Although I haven’t looked
(at least not in front of other people), I haven’t noticed any caps in stores
these days. I suspect that there’re not sold anywhere anymore due to the
“violence” and “safety issues” involving kids these days. By the same token, I
haven’t noticed any toy guns for sale these days either. No doubt for the same
aforementioned reason. In the old days, every store had an arsenal of cap
pistols, rifles, machine guns, hand grenades (all of which used caps), etc. These
were more than enough to stave off any “enemy” or “bad guy”. As a proud member
of the National Rifle Association, I find the lack of toy guns and caps for
sale these days to be a direct violation of the Second Amendment. Gun registration
is a direct result of the liberals (aka
Commies) to confiscate our weapons. Well, I’ll save the political and state of
the nation discussions for another communiqué. After shooting several
rounds of caps in our pistols, the barrel would smoke just like a real pistol.
We would put our mouths over the end of the barrel and suck the smoke into our
mouths and exhale it. “I smoked pistols,
but I never inhaled”. I think cap smoke smells good. To paraphrase Robert
Duvall, “I love the smell of cap smoke in
the morning!” Sometimes we would take a sheet
of caps and run our thumbnail over them and they would go “Poof” with a cloud
of smoke. This burned our thumbs a little bit, but we never cared. Other times,
we would take a magnifying glass out in the sun and blow up caps that way. It
was also fun to burn a strip of caps and listen to the little “popping
explosions” and see the smoke rise. Another use we found for a magnifying glass
on sunny days was to “fry ants”. I imagine if we did this today, PETA would be
on our tails! In those days, we could
also buy “Greenie stick’em caps”. These were green and round and were sticky on
the backs and had the explosive element in the middle of them. They were used
in cap pistols that had “bullets” in them. When the hammer hit the shell, it
would not only go “Bang”! But also shoot out a plastic projectile! Cool! The
only problem with these were that after a while a thick collection of used caps
would amass on the back of the “bullet” and it took a long time to peel them
off with a thumb nail. This was contingent on the fact that our thumbs weren’t
still sore from being burned after using them to shoot off caps. When we went
to Norwalk to visit our cousin Randy, we found another swell use for “Greenie
stick’em caps”. He had an old hammer type single barrel shot gun. We used to
stick several “Greenie stick’em caps” on the striker plate. When we pulled the
trigger, the hammer would hit all of them and made a loud “BANG” with a lot of
smoke just like a real weapon! We learned
the hard way in Navy boot camp that you NEVER call a firearm a “gun”. If we did,
the drill instructor would make us sleep with our rifle! It’s called either a rifle
or a weapon or a "piece"! If you’ve ever had to sleep
with an M-1 rifle, it’s not a whole lot of fun! (The only exceptions to the above are a
shot gun and artillery or ship's guns! In order to help us remember
this, we had to march up and down the barracks and chant, “This is my rifle, this is my gun, this one’s for killing, this one’s
for fun". Well, I'd better not
explain this on this family site. If you’re unfamiliar with this bit of
military indoctrination, watch the movie Full Metal Jacket, which has
the most realistic and true depiction of boot camp I’ve ever seen! You will see
the aforementioned chant illustrated. Since the Marine Corps is part of the
Navy, they used a lot of Marine Corps type training in Navy boot camp or basic
training as they called it. About the only difference was that in Navy boot
camp we didn’t have to live in tents out in the field for a week! Thank
goodness, since I hate to go camping! All the time worn jargon was used and most
were acquired from the Marine Corps. Since regular caps were 5
cents a box, we had an endless supply of “ammunition” to fool around with. When
Tim and I weren’t fooling around with caps, we indulged in the “big time” area
of firecrackers and cherry bombs. One of our friends, John W. had flash powder,
which was very useful in our additional pyrotechnic pursuits. I contribute the fact that
the reason there’s such a proliferation of “Bad guys” in the world today is
that, when we were kids, we didn’t “kill” them all off with our cap guns! With
the lack of cap guns these days, they will continue to multiply and kids have
no means to stop them! Well, these days, I exercise my full rights guaranteed
under the Second Amendment! RELATED STORIES LINKS: A
REAL “BLAST” (2ND
STORY ON THE PAGE) |
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