July 15, 2019 - As we were growing up in the 40s, just about every boy between six and 10 years of age owned a sling shot. Even if we’d had money, we’d still have to build our own since they weren’t sold in stores My brothers (Bill, John, Joe) and I usually made our stocks from the forked limbs of willow trees. The rubber bands were made from the pure red rubber inner tubes not the post WWII black synthetic ones. When Mother saw that her hair-cutting scissors were dull, she’d say, “You boys been cutting inner tubes with my scissors?”
There were no self-serve service stations back then and Johnny Johnson at his Service Station near the Center, Texas square usually gave us a used worn-out red inner tube. The used tubes were usually covered with “hot patches” which were a record of the many holes they’d sealed. A two-stock cut from a willow limb and bands cut from the best rubber deserved the best “flap” to hold our ammo. This was also free. Since garbage pick-up was almost unknown, there were many small dumps nearby. The Mill Creek dump was our happy hunting ground for old thrown-away leather shoes… and shoe tongues made perfect sling shot flaps.
Our ammo was also free. Mr. Weaver had a building supply store in East Center near the tracks. We would climb his big pile of rocks and fill our Sledge overalls with the smoothest ones. Old cast iron stoves could be easily broken by a hammer to make excellent sling shot ammo. Varmints like snakes and turtles were some of the many things to fear when the Fincher boys were on a “Sling-Shot Hunt.” I don’t know how Mother kept up with us ten kids…
… with half of us exploring every day with our sling shots.
