Unfortunately not all dads are like yours. There have been way too many stories of wannabe hero’s who buy guns because it makes them feel important. They then leave the gun around the house and don’t spend one minute teaching their kids what NOT to do. Then when something terrible happens they scream - “It was an accident.”
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I did not know that but as I live in a very rural area I have never been to a shooting range.
At 5 years of age my only automotive experience was me and a 5 year old playmate deciding that an elderly neighbor’s brand spanking new Buick needed some work. We filled the gas tank with rocks.
That led to both of us getting our hineys spanked good and both sets of parents splitting the cost of having the car towed in and dropping the gas tank to empty it. Lesson learned.
Won’t veer off into the gun issue much but I recently bought some shotgun shells called Dragon Breath shells. A.K.A. Flame Throwers. Wow. Brutal. Check out YouTube. Fun in spades and obscenely dangerous.
I recall being young enough that I wasn’t allowed to cross the street alone but often did to play with neighborhood kids and occasionally got caught and regretted it for a while. If I had taken the car for a ride I would probably have been caught and regretted it for a very long time.
I remember being young enough we walked .5 miles to kindergarten and would shinny along the gas pipe to cross the creek rather than take the sidewalk and bridge.
I remember planning a honeymoon at 5 but then called it off thankfully. I got tired of pulling her in the wagon.
At 5, I didn’t need to find the keys to my dad’s 1939 Chevrolet. It was an easy car to hotwire. The starter didn’t depend on the ignition being turned on. All I had to do was crawl.under the car, run a wire from the battery which.was under the passenger side floorboard to the coil resistor, step on the starter pedal and I was in my way. Shifting gears was easy because the column shifter had vacuum assist.
The five year old in the story wasn’t too bright if he had to steal the keys, although I will admit to being stumped by my uncle’s 1940 Ford. I could hotwire the ignition and jump the solenoid with a pair of pliers, but the steering column lock that Ford had through its 1946 models threw me for a loop.
Wow, impressive, you were quite the child prodigy!
When I was 5 my only worry in life was wondering where my next roll of “caps” would come from for my Roy Rogers Six-shooter. I never thought about cars, except maybe the jeep, Nellybelle.
I also remember having a Davey Crockett coonskin cap and a Hop-Along Cassidy six-shooter, but no ambitions to hot wire an automobile.
CSA
P.S. Wait! Hold on! I do remember a genius moment when I sent in a form from a cereal box and invested in some real estate in the Yukon Territory (Sergeant Preston?). I believe that one square inch of property has become very valuable compared with what it cost me! It does pay to be a brilliant child.
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@common-sense-answer. My dad always put the car keys out of reach when I was five years old. Unlike the 5 year old who took the keys and drove off to buy a Lamborghini, I had to hotwire my dad’s 1939 Chevrolet when I was 5. Also, I wasn’t going out to buy a sports car. I was headed out to see if Marnet wanted to go to see a movie with me. “The Horn Blows At Midnite” was playing at the drive-in. However, I was over 30 years too early for Marnet, so I drove back home.
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One of our union reps was wearing one of those coonskin caps to work recently . . . at around 60 years old, by the look of him
If you are a union rep and dealing with management, it helps if they think you are crazy.
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The guy recently retired, but he always gave me information, when I asked
But he definitely had a reputation as “eccentric”
He had a sign in his office that read “I AM the union” . . .
he also had an overpowering stench 
I disagree. If management thinks you are nuts, they are less likely to pay a lot of attention when you represent your local member in a dispute. The shop steward probably will represent almost any complaint because that buys votes, but getting a reputation as a nut case can’t help the local.
a previous shop steward . . . not the guy that wore the coonskin cap, but his predecessor . . . did just that. He represented a lot of guys that SHOULD have been fired
Guys that got caught red-handed stealing
Guys that sat down on the job and told the boss they will NOT work
Guys that spent all day reading the newspaper
Guys that got caught literally duking it it out with co-workers
Guys that literally didn’t do squat, so everybody else had to pick up the load . . . the worst, in my opinion
Guys that went up to their boss(es) and told them where they could stick it . . . in front of witnesses
yeah, he saved all those losers who shouldn’t have been there in the first place
And by doing so, he pretty much proved why public sector unions have such a bad reputation
Yup, that’s the problem. Unions will save everybody, both those that deserved to be saved, and also those worthless bums who should be fired, arrested and sent to prison
My experience as a teamster member and onetime steward, tells me that a little crazy sometimes helps.
A Canadian trucking company that I worked for did not like paying Buffalo and Fort Erie Ontario drivers to shuttle across the border. They wanted to run Buffalo And NY city drivers across the border to Toronto. There is no tine and one half pay for the road drivers and they would only be paid mileage for wating in line at immigration or inching their way across the peace bridge and would only be paid hourly after getting to the compound and carrying their paperwork to the brokers office.
At a meeting between the buffalo and Fort Erie locals and the company owner and terminal manager, the Fort Erie business agent was insistent that he was not going to let this happen unless his 14 drivers were given jobs in the new operation.
The owner exploded, We have permission from the Canadian and US governments and the US and Canadian Internatiol Teamsters union, how do you think your little local is going to stop us.
The business agent said through gritted teeth " Because we will burn your (expletive deleted) trucks on the bridge.
The company did not change the operation.
Trucking used to be a rough trade, on both sides. I have been threatened with being shot by management and arrested on a picket line by an off duty cop working as a strikebreaker.