72 was born and live an interesting life. We lost our house when I was 5, dad was/is a gambler, went and live in Detroit with the grandparents for a year and then back to our small town. Live in a small apartment with my mom and sister for 3 years, did not do much being not a lot of money. My mom met and married my stepdad, who basically became my dad when I was 8. We bought a house when I was 9 and my step dad's family owned a 300-acre farm in the stix. My step dad's father got ALS and we moved to the first brick house built in the township, 1862. We had a wood furnace and a shower that would electrocute you when you turned the hot water off, it was 50/50. We put a furnace in and I learned what it was like to farm and enjoy the woods. The river wrapped around the property so Hunting and Fishing were pretty fun. At 18 when I was leaving for college I found out God has a sense of humor, not only am I named after my Father the last 4 digits of our SS# is the same. I got cleaned out about 28,000 of my college money. I had to go to community college for the first two years and pay for it as I worked. Got an internship at GM, really started to code, and had coding jobs ever since, Married in 97, and still with me today. Thankful for my two Grandfathers who kept me on the straight and narrow even when I acted up and complained about life not being fair. I bought 1/2 the farm from my Stepdad when he divorced my mother, he was the best man at my wedding, we're still close. All in all, I had my ups and downs, but I a pretty blessed life. I have a great wife two kids, great friends, and big bucks on my wall. I still talk to my father and he comes and sees the grandkids. He still gambles and lives alone and has nothing, it's a shame because he really is a nice guy and very smart. At 27 my grandfather apologized to me, he said it was his fault and he did not know what he did wrong. I replied greatness skips generations, Gramps, no worries. I spent more time fishing and hunting with my grandfather than anyone, the year he died the last set of antlers he wrapped his hands around was this guy. I am still very proud of that moment and makes me happy. I always tell my kids no matter how bad you have it, someone has it worse, so be thankful.
Born in 65. For the most part, my life has been a blast. Lots of beautiful gals in my 20's. Have spent more hours in the woods n water than most can only dream of. Thousands of critters n birds were taken out with my wrist rocket. I'm just now slowing down ( abit).
I voted for Ronald Reagan in '80 after voting for the first time for Ford in '76, and after the USMC, went to work on the SERT team for the DOC at the State Prison for a bit, went to the LE academy, then moved to TX. ... afterwards I then started a 20 year stint in retail management and running archery/gun shops, hunting/fishing departments of local and national stores ... before those years in retail I did armed security work for several years at NASA/Clear Lake, TX. and am now head of security at a large chemical plant (better pay) .... I will say, the '80's were a wild time and I loved the freedom of the women during those days .... I cut my teeth on deer hunting starting in '81, rifle hunted alot while in TX. started bowhunting in '87 and never looked back ... I worked on a buddies cattle/dairy farm during Jr. High and High School (late '60's/early-mid '70's) hunting waterfowl, upland game and trapping .... then came the '80's which was a care free time ...
I was born in a much simpler time, 1955. When I was 5 years old, I kid you not, I walked one mile by myself to school everyday. Because I had a wicked, and lazy, stepmother who wouldn't get up early enough to make me breakfast, I would stop by this old woman's house on my walk to school and she would give me something to eat every day. To this day, I dont know who she was. You could go anywhere and not worry about your kids because if you did something wrong, your parents would get a call and you'd be in trouble when you got home. It was pretty much like you see on the Andy Griffith show. I wish the world was that way again........minus the wicked and lazy stepmother. Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
Born Sept. 27th 1975 to a set of parents that barely had a pot to *iss in or a window to throw it out of...literally, when they started out life together. Both divorced and were left with nothing, they started a bulldozing construction business and were pretty successful with that. I had 2 older sisters, one passed away at 13 in 1983 to a mystery illness (Reye's syndrome?). I lived in town until I was 13, in 1988 mom and dad bought a farm and moved. Dad came from a big hunting family so I grew up hunting, going with dad when I was too small to even recall much. Killed my first deer at 8 years old. When we moved to the farm I started learning how to manage for hunting on our own property and that evolved into managing for the wildlife in general. I got a bird dog (english setter) and fell in love with upland bird hunting along with deer and turkey. Farm life was a big improvement for me, we grew 25 acres of commercial produce through 2000. Selling retail at local markets kind of made me break out of my introvert shell and woke me up a bit. I started growing and got strong as a mule. Played baseball through Hs, graduated with an art scholarship and went to a local community college in 95. I ran through what art focused program they had and wasn't happy with what was left so I left intending on enrolling into a proper art school. Mom and dad needed help with the business so I bought a dozer and started making actual money and helped grow the business. Life was good at that through the mid 2000's. Bought another farm and added to the equipment. In 2007 the farmer we cash rented land to got hard to get rent from so I took my ground back from him and started farming on a bigger scale with row crops. I started picking up more ground a little at a time and really liked that so I kept growing. I started raising game birds for my personal use in 2000 and grew that into a business as well. I did that until 2010 until the crop side of things got to where I just needed to drop something so I stopped doing that, which I miss to this day. By 2009 I was up to farming about 350 acres and was contacted by a previous dozing customer we had built a set of marshes for locally. He needed someone local to help manage his ranch and farm what was croppable. So I took the job, added nearly 400 acres of farm land and a lot of responsibility. I developed a management plan for the wildlife and we ended up putting some of the ground back to grass and food plots and I kept the best of the farm ground so I still crop about 500 acres. I manage and rent another 2000 acres. In 2019 I bought 16 hair sheep and 2 guard dogs, intent on growing a large enough flock to help manage the ground with grazing practices. In June of 2020, I bought 25 red poll cattle seed stock to contribute to multi-species rotational grazing land management. I think that brings the story up to the current day. I was always quiet and straight, no bad habits like drinking or drugs, never got into any trouble to speak of. Never married or had kids though I'd count that as more of a dead headed blunder on my part at this point, I can't complain, it's been a good life so far though.
I was born in '73, so a mix of 80's and 90's. Mom and dad married young and I came along soon after. Their marriage only lasted about a year and a half. My real dad was hardly ever around, before or after the marriage, although I do see more of him since my thirties or so. We lived in a "big city" of about 30k people until I was 3. At 3 my mom married my stepdad, who lived several miles outside a small farm community (about 800 people) about 35 minutes away. Mom had grown up with family in this little town and had known my stepdad when growing up. He treated me as his own son and was absolutely my "dad". Him and his whole family were very much country folks, very into ranching cows, horses to work the cows, chickens, haying, gardening, hunting, and fishing. He taught me to hunt, fish, and shoot. Soon my 4.5 year younger sister arrived. We had very little money, dad worked for the Grain Growers and mom stayed home to raise us. I spent a whole lot of time roaming the area around our house with my cousins who lived a stone's throw away, one a year younger than me and one my sister's age, and another cousin a year younger than me from "town", the 800 population farm town. BB's guns, recurves, .22's, and fishing poles were in hand often. By age 12 or 13 I was also spending a lot of time on an extremely well used '82 YZ80 dad had picked up for me for $375 bucks. We had one channel from antenna, CBS. I grew up watching The Dukes, Hee Haw, Captain Kangaroo, Bugs Bunny, Johnny Carson (reruns), Walter Cronkite, and MASH. Hated Dallas I will say, haha. School was a K-12 in one building. There was two other buildings, one the gym (sports are huge in small communities) and the other the Shop/FFA building. I helped feed the cows and horses, rounding up the calves for branding, branding them, birthing and caring for problem birth calves, collecting chicken eggs, haying, and hoeing my grandpa's not one but TWO huge gardens. Big enough that we plowed them in the spring before rototilling. To this day I don't garden, and have the urge to throw any hoe I see into the nearest river. Played a lot of basketball, baseball, and soccer both on school teams and for fun with friends. I learned to drive a clutch on my dad's '72 ford 4 speed. As soon as I could reach the pedals I was taught to drive our two ton split rear end Chevy hay/cattle truck. Dad and my uncle's all had regular day jobs, so my retired grandpa would take me and my two older cousins haying during the days in the summer. He would drive the truck on the highway and then turn it over to me once on the county roads. I had to sit on something to see over the dash. We had a couple hay fields that were steep enough that you drove down them to load the bales and then backed back up them. All this before I was in the 9th grade. Mom and dad divorced about halfway through my being in the 8th grade. My mom, sister, and I moved back to the 30k "big city". This was in 1987. I still live here to this day. My teens consisted of 2 stroke dirt bike riding, bmx bikes, snowmobiles, a steady job since towards the end of the 8th grade, and always hunting and fishing. I maintained a dad/son relationship with my "stepdad" until the day a massive heart attack claimed him about 12 years ago. My twenties were filled with quite a bit of beer, beaches and jet skis, bars, throwing darts, and of course girls. But also camping, fishing, hunting, snowmobiling, motorcycles, and atv's. These last things still to this day except for motorcycles, I've had my fill of crashing those it seems. Speaking of snowmobiles...Sota, where do you live again?
You never have friends like you do when your 12. Sent from my SM-G960U using Bowhunting.com Forums mobile app
Yep. That and the cherry flavored pez line. Sent from my SM-G960U using Bowhunting.com Forums mobile app
lol! yes!! "pez, cherry flavored pez" me and my brother still say that in a room full of people that have no clue what we are talking about...and "Vern, you son of whore"
Born 1983 in small town Wisconsin. Had access to fishing at the Wolf River and took advantage of that all day, every day. Gun hunted with my dad for many years at a family farm before he stopped. My parents bought my current property in ‘92 and I have been tearing that place apart for 28 years. At first it was building forts and chasing friends through the woods. Many ticks and bee stings later (and almost 30 years)I am now managing for deer and turkey. My son and I hunt the property for turkey in spring and I hunt almost year round when the boss (wife) lets me. When we are there my son gets to carry his 22 like I used to.
Born in 72 and grew up in a small town, pop. 2000 about 90 minutes east of Sacramento. Dad was a mechanic and mom worked for the local water agency. Small town living I didn't want as a kid but want now. Grew up hunting, fishing and camping in what most people think is the middle of no where. Still not a single stop sign on the main street going from one end of town to the other. The only chain store of any sort in town in one Subway restaurant. Everything else is mom and pop owned. If it weren't for my ex-step mother, I'd be back there all the time. Not enough unkind words in the dictionary to describe her. But I do miss the town and old friends.
