Reminded me ... of when I was growing up we used to haul our shotguns or 22's out into the Hackensack Meadowlands by slipping it down our hip boots or pants leg, under our armpits and covered with our coat. Like 2 or 3 Captain Ahabs stiff legging it down the street until we could reach the safety of the phragmites...lol Don't remember ever having the cops pull alongside questioning our intentions. If they did pass they must have been okay Joe's turning a blind eye because we must have looked pretty ridiculous. Cops back then weren't tied into loops by fearing lawyers and regulations.
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Which brings up another thought. The cops used to come down my hill 20, 30 times a day. Years later after I was married I was over the old homestead and suddenly I realized I only saw the cops twice. It dawned on me "WE" were triggering the 30 visits! They were trying to keep an eye on our shenanigans'. Either that or we were a lot more entertaining than the town kids in the rest of the town. The town kids called our hangout (which was my backyard since it was last property before the swamps) "The Funny Farm." Eventually just got shortened to "The Farm." You'd be in school and you'd hear "You going down the Farm?" Everyone knew, the portal to a different lifestyle than the townies lived...lol
Anyway ... a couple of the "big kids" in the neighborhood would cross the 200 yard wide, brackish water creek when it froze and buy a shotgun or .22 of some sort now and then at an "Army-Navy" store at the town on the other side. Afterward, when they tired of it they'd sell it to one of us. It would wind up getting passed around the neighborhood. Seems everything was 12ga by us. One particularly onerous shoulder canon was a 12ga single shot that everyone just called "The Stovepipe." "Who owns the Stovepipe now?" "Jimmy bought it from Ronnie." "Oh, does he want to sell it?" The design of the stock must have been terrible because even a kid with young eyes risked a detached retina when you dropped the hammer on that SOB. Eventually the thing rattled itself near to death. You'd fire it and it would disassemble itself ...lol The forend would pop off, barrel break open and you'd be standing their with parts in your hands.
We knew no "hunting season." We had some foggy code of ethics not to kill certain things like an owl or hawk, or believe it or not a goose. All my years growing up we saw
ONE Canada Goose. It nested on a small island surrounded by narrow finger creeks, We used to periodically check it out like it was a tourist attraction or something. Everything else was a target of opportunity.
Then there was "rat hunting" at night by the end of the landfill. We called it "The Dumps." Or pigeon hunting under the bridges from a boat. But that's another story.