Technology and the passage of time.

[eveled]

Thinking of my gun collection, when I was a kid a 100 year old gun was from the civil war......Now a 100 year old gun is from after WW1! What a difference in technology in just barely a lifetime.

It must have been amazing to see in person.

 

[bogus bill]

And they still do the same job. Yes, modern guns can spit out more lead faster, but animal and human flesh is no tougher than it was in Adams time. Once we got past muzzle loaders it`s all just fine wrinkles and add on`s unless we are talking about guns able to win wars. Today it`s all about selling more stuff to newbies. In the gun field I have been hating the word "tactical" for the last fifty years. Dont give me a plastic saddle, I want to feel the leather when I ride.
I dont need tactical sun glass`s, rails, laser lights, camouflage stocks, cloths, hero slogans on my cap and jacket, a hundred thousand rounds of ammo hidden for each gun etc.
Truth is I have a fortune sunk in guns. Now that I am looking death in the face, too crippled and too out of shape to use them, I am ashamed of my small "estate" to leave my wife, daughter and grand kids I have just
started to rethink values and too old, lazy and dumb and stubborn to do different.

 

[Bob Wright]

I think of my own parents and the changes made in life. When they were born, man had never flown, yet they lived to see man walk on the moon!

Bob Wright

 

[Heliman]

Thinking of my gun collection, when I was a kid a 100 year old gun was from the civil war......Now a 100 year old gun is from after WW1! What a difference in technology in just barely a lifetime.

It must have been amazing to see in person.

Yes! Time marches on. I still have a revolver like my grandfather carried in WWI. It will still do the job! To heck with technology... :D

1917 S&W, 102 years old....

 

[Acorn]

I think of my own parents and the changes made in life. When they were born, man had never flown, yet they lived to see man walk on the moon!

Bob Wright

Yes Bob, I do too, and I wonder what the world will be for my daughter when she reaches her “Golden Years”. Things are progressing so rapidly we can't imagine 50 years down the road, other than I know where I’ll be.

 

[bogus bill]

Right now with the pandemic, riots and caving politics the world is going backwards.

 

[nvbirdman]

I think of two friends of mine who died only forty years ago. Neither of them ever watched a vhs video tape (remember those?), or saw a flat screen tv, or saw a computer. Only forty years.

 

[Captain America]

My FIL’s shotgun he gave to me before he died, never knew he had it but he knew I would cherish it...I do. It’s a 1914-ish Iver Johnson Hercules model, most painful gun I’ve ever shot but it looks like any side by side you could buy today...

...he died in 2008, he would be amazed at the advances in technology in only 12 years.

 

[GunnyGene]

Amazing is one word for technological evolution (I won't call it progress). Terrifying is another. :shock:

 

[hittman]

My grandfather would have turned 110 yesterday.
Lots and lots of technology / changes / "improvements" since he was born too.

 

[Fox Mike]

My little Crack Shot is over a hundred and still launches bullets just as it did the day it was new.

 

[blackhawknj]

But let's see...in recent years there's been something of a revival of interest in black powder shooting, CAS/SASS ends in ...1898 ? The Colt Python uses an action first marketed in...1908 ? The S&W about the same. And if you state that your CCW pistol is based on a design officially adopted in 1911, you are considered a man who knows his handguns.
Back in 1975 or so the Green Beret operations sergeant in our school's ROTC detachment saw me typing on an old Remington portable typewriter, one with glossy black paint and gold letters. He said if I was in charge we'd be carrying M1903s. I told him something I'll stand behind in 2020. I'll put on a soup plate helmet, a WWI uniform and field gear, an M1903 on my shoulder, an M1911 on my belt, go out in the woods-and let's see who comes after me.

 

[blume357]

Luckily we are not quite 100 years from WWII, but with that in mind I have several of what some call evil black assault rifles... Mini 14/30, AR-15s (even an AR-14) but the one I like best is pictured below.... It was built by GM in June of 1943:



Cut little M1 Carbine with a few modifications...

 

[toysoldier]

I remember when the last Civil War veteran passed. It was a big story at the time. I don't remember hearing about the last Spanish-American war vet passing, and I'm pretty sure we don't have any WWI vets left either. Old soldiers just aren't newsworthy, I guess.

 

[bogus bill]

I knew some WW1 vets, one that chased Poncho Villa and at least three who`s fathers were civil war vets. I had a great uncle (grandma`s brother) who was in the Russian army about 1910. I was with my dad visiting a old family friend who said his father shook hands with president Lincoln. I asked him how that could be. He said Lincoln came out to his fathers camp near some battle and shook hands with him. I had a old man school teacher in about 1947 that brought his fathers Civil War musket to school, showed us how to load and shoot it behind the school house.
At the time I heard he was the oldest school teacher in the state of Wisconsin. I have a picture of my mother sitting on her great grandmothers lap who was a civil war widow. I had a bunch of uncles in world war two. the last one died three years years ago at 97. He was a MP dog man and claimed he had been assigned to drive Gen Patton a few times. As he and dads first language had been German I suppose that had some bearing on it.
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thenorthwestern/obituary.aspx?n=arthur-werch&pid=185212805&fhid=19841

 

[Kevin]

I remember when the last Civil War veteran passed. It was a big story at the time. I don't remember hearing about the last Spanish-American war vet passing, and I'm pretty sure we don't have any WWI vets left either. Old soldiers just aren't newsworthy, I guess.

Wow! When was that for the last Civil War Vet?

I too keep wondering what my daughter's life will be like as far as technology is concerned.

 

[toysoldier]

I remember when the last Civil War veteran passed. It was a big story at the time. I don't remember hearing about the last Spanish-American war vet passing, and I'm pretty sure we don't have any WWI vets left either. Old soldiers just aren't newsworthy, I guess.

Wow! When was that for the last Civil War Vet?

I too keep wondering what my daughter's life will be like as far as technology is concerned.

According to Wikipedia, 1956:
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk00RtTPp1eJIXExd5t9AXuncVFMNDA%3A1596479056975&source=hp&ei=UFYoX_GSOY-WsAWAo5SwBQ&q=last+civil+war+veteran+to+die&oq=last+Civil+War+veteran&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgBMgUIABCxAzICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIILjICCAAyAggAMgIIADoECCMQJzoKCC4QxwEQrwEQJzoLCC4QsQMQxwEQowI6DgguELEDEMcBEKMCEIsDOgsILhCxAxCDARCLAzoXCC4QsQMQgwEQxwEQowIQiwMQqAMQpwM6EQguEMcBEKMCEIsDEKgDEKcDOggILhCxAxCDAToLCC4QsQMQgwEQkwI6BQguELEDOggIABCxAxCDAToICC4QsQMQiwM6CAgAELEDEIsDOgUIABCLAzoFCC4QiwM6CwgAELEDEIMBEIsDOgsILhDHARCvARCLA1CtB1j5NmDVUWgAcAB4AIABrwGIAdAOkgEEMTguNJgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXq4AQI&sclient=psy-ab

 

[Rick Courtright]

Hi,

We're a couple of days away from what would be my grandfather's 132nd birthday. Born, 1888 on a farm in MO an hour or so from KC, died, 1972, in San Diego which he'd fallen in love with when they discharged him from the Navy at North Island, at the end of WWI. I always felt he was the luckiest person I knew, having started out before everyone had electricity and ending up having seen man's first powered flight, which turned into a whole new form of warfare not many years later, the incredible changes from WW1 to WWII in so much of our lives, like air travel for "regular" folks, the post WWII explosion of the "middle class" where we all started living like kings compared to most of the world, and was still here to see a man walk on the moon. Maybe most visible was the invention of, and the changes in, the automobile from the turn of the 19th century until his death. What a fantastic ride he had on this rock!

Rick C

 

[blume357]

thinking of these changes.... and I guess I'm not that old at 63 but I do remember when we only had two channels on the black and white TV..... and a party line for a phone. Always had indoor plumbing but the farm hands didn't .....

 

[blackhawknj]

Frank Buckles was the last WWI vet-and he was "Over There"-joined his comrades in 2011 at the age of 110. Jones Morgan claimed he served in the 9th Cavalry in 1898 but had no documentation to back it up.
Again, what interests me in the shooting sports is how much "old" technology-the M1911, e.g. we still rely on.

 

[bobski]

the only vindication I get from all this grandpa ragging I get about my interests and hobbies is....the new generation will someday look back and say....I remember when bill gates...
or win 32 or, I remember dos.....and their kids will laugh at them.
or even worse....I remember forests and lakes..... as their kids stare out their windows and watch the neighbor do dishes in his window 10' away.
lol.

 

[eveled]

Believe it or not until very recently we were still paying on a civil war pension. Apparently during the depression some nurses realized if they married a civil war veteran they get the pension, some of them had handicapped children which entitled the children to collect their fathers pension. Last I checked we were still paying 1 civil war pension.

 

[bogus bill]

In googling my gt, gr grandfather I found where his widow applied for his retirement. He was with Wisconsin's 2nd Volunteers Co. D. (The Iron Brigade) The first Volunteers never went to war. He was taken prisoner at Brawlers farm, either escaped or was traded as he later was wounded at Gettysburg. His Co. was the most decimated during the war. Here is a bad picture of him on his farm after the war. He was born in Germany, immigrated and enlisted.
https://i.postimg.cc/KcL9Yq4K/great-great-grandfather-Frederick-Kerstel.jpg Think he died in 1906.