Snakeskin Hat Bands

[T Jones]

The same seller offers snakeskin earrings...maybe that’s your foot in the door.

Some snakehead earrings would be nice. Except, I have a very good guess where her foot would end up!

 

[M Hatman]

I REALLY like some of these (ok, not the ones with the heads)!!!!! Just showed this thread to the wife.........after seeing the bands with the rattles....she said "NO SNAKE SKIN HAT BANDS!!" quite unequivocally..... I guess I will not show her the ones with the heads......

 

[deadlyhandsome]

I don't know man......that 2 headed one is speaking to me. Not sure I have a hat with a brim big enough to accommodate the 5 headed one, but it definitely makes a statement.

I’m not sure it’s a statement I want to make. I think I’d be afraid to reach up and grab my own hat off my head.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

I REALLY like some of these (ok, not the ones with the heads)!!!!! Just showed this thread to the wife.........after seeing the bands with the rattles....she said "NO SNAKE SKIN HAT BANDS!!" quite unequivocally..... I guess I will not show her the ones with the heads......

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I kill several rattlesnakes every year. I don’t like them and I don’t think that’s ever going to change; although, I do understand their place in the ecosystem. The first handgun I ever carried was given to me by my grandfather for when we went fishing in snake country. I shot a six-footer not 20 feet from my front porch 10 years ago. I feel a little like I’m showing them who’s the apex predator when I have them as a hat band.

 

[belfastboy]

I kill several rattlesnakes every year. I don’t like them and I don’t think that’s ever going to change; although, I do understand their place in the ecosystem. The first handgun I ever carried was given to me by my grandfather for when we went fishing in snake country. I shot a six-footer not 20 feet from my front porch 10 years ago. I feel a little like I’m showing them who’s the apex predator when I have them as a hat band.

We had friends that moved to Houston from Canada. In the first week the woman went to pick up the newspaper off the front porch only to find a rattlesnake on the porch greeting her. She screamed, her neighbour ran over with his hand gun and shot the snake. Afterwards (keep in mind she is a Canadian) she wasn't sure what to be more freaked out about......the deadly snake on her front porch or the neighbour with a concealed carry permit.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

We had friends that moved to Houston from Canada. In the first week the woman went to pick up the newspaper off the front porch only to find a rattlesnake on the porch greeting her. She screamed, her neighbour ran over with his hand gun and shot the snake. Afterwards (keep in mind she is a Canadian) she wasn't sure what to be more freaked out about......the deadly snake on her front porch or the neighbour with a concealed carry permit.

I was camping a couple years ago just outside of Yosemite. It was a remote high elevation area In the Stanislaus National Forest, and I was surprised to find another family there. They were a young couple from Europe with two small children. We had a nice friendly conversation and we enjoyed their company. At some point they noticed I had a revolver on my hip and the atmosphere changed. Within the hour they packed up and left. Bummed me out. I’ve carried a gun daily for over 30 years and just don’t think about it. I really didn’t like thinking that I had made that nice family uncomfortable. Except when circumstances don’t allow, I try to keep whatever handgun I’m wearing concealed. When I travel into Canada the Border Services folks always make sure I didn’t accidentally bring something in I shouldn’t have...nice professional folks.

 

[belfastboy]

I was camping a couple years ago just outside of Yosemite. It was a remote high elevation area In the Stanislaus National Forest, and I was surprised to find another family there. They were a young couple from Europe with two small children. We had a nice friendly conversation and we enjoyed their company. At some point they noticed I had a revolver on my hip and the atmosphere changed. Within the hour they packed up and left. Bummed me out. I’ve carried a gun daily for over 30 years and just don’t think about it. I really didn’t like thinking that I had made that nice family uncomfortable. Except when circumstances don’t allow, I try to keep whatever handgun I’m wearing concealed. When I travel into Canada the Border Services folks always make sure I didn’t accidentally bring something in I shouldn’t have...nice professional folks.

On a similar note we were camping just over the border in WA state. I started a conversation with the fellow next to us and he invited me to go shooting traps with him the next day. Unfortunately we had to leave early as I would have loved to do that with him But the conversation turned to guns and it turns out he had a small arsenal (long guns/shotgun/sidearm stored in his RV. I went back inside and the wife asked me what we chatted about ...I replied in jest I wasn't sure if I should feel safe and secure knowing we had a neighbour with an arsenal available to protect us should something bad occur or feel nervous for the same reason. Being a Canadian city kid guns have not been part of my culture at all. I have nothing against them just they are unfamiliar to me. My wife on the other hand grew up on the Prairies, and in junior high she belonged to the gun club and they had a basement shooting range in the high school.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

On a similar note we were camping just over the border in WA state. I started a conversation with the fellow next to us and he invited me to go shooting traps with him the next day. Unfortunately we had to leave early as I would have loved to do that with him But the conversation turned to guns and it turns out he had a small arsenal (long guns/shotgun/sidearm stored in his RV. I went back inside and the wife asked me what we chatted about ...I replied in jest I wasn't sure if I should feel safe and secure knowing we had a neighbour with an arsenal available to protect us should something bad occur or feel nervous for the same reason. Being a Canadian city kid guns have not been part of my culture at all. I have nothing against them just they are unfamiliar to me. My wife on the other hand grew up on the Prairies, and in junior high she belonged to the gun club and they had a basement shooting range in the high school.

My father was part of his high school shooting team. The team members regularly carried their rifles on campus. California has changed a lot in two generations. Now if you doodle a sketch of a firearm you’ll be suspended and have to meet with counselors. Having been to a couple active shooter events, including one at a high school, I can understand the anxiety.

Even after all these years together my wife isn’t comfortable with firearms...but she was very happy when I dispatched rattlesnakes at our previous home. My kids all grew up shooting, but none of them stuck with it and their guns are kept at my house and none of them have expressed interest in having them in their homes. Changing times I suppose.

 

[Boomerang]

My father was part of his high school shooting team. The team members regularly carried their rifles on campus. California has changed a lot in two generations. Now if you doodle a sketch of a firearm you’ll be suspended and have to meet with counselors. Having been to a couple active shooter events, including one at a high school, I can understand the anxiety.

Even after all these years together my wife isn’t comfortable with firearms...but she was very happy when I dispatched rattlesnakes at our previous home. My kids all grew up shooting, but none of them stuck with it and their guns are kept at my house and none of them have expressed interest in having them in their homes. Changing times I suppose.

Changing times, indeed! My father went to school in a one-room building that taught all 12 grades. He used to describe how most of the boys in attendance brought rifles, and stacked them in the corner of the schoolroom during lessons. It was simply a need: they were in charge of killing game for dinner on their way home from school.

 

[M Hatman]

I too still remember when "Hobby Day" would come around and out came the shotguns and rifles (and in my case one year a musket) for us boys to talk to the class about our hobbies.........Hunting, shooting clay.....all were discussed with much enthusiasm. And we only needed to lock them in our own lockers between classes....
Different days indeed.....

 

[belfastboy]

I too still remember when "Hobby Day" would come around and out came the shotguns and rifles (and in my case one year a musket) for us boys to talk to the class about our hobbies.........Hunting, shooting clay.....all were discussed with much enthusiasm. And we only needed to lock them in our own lockers between classes....
Different days indeed.....

I was born on the front edge of the 'baby boomers"...a real city kid. But I (and many of my buddies) had our Daisy BB guns and we would roam the neighbourhood looking for interesting things to shoot.....once in a while each other if we got bored enough. Good thing we didn't have real guns as we were, in truest sense of the word, ignorant....of many things but guns for sure.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

Grew up in Illinois, we had pheasants pop their heads up in the beans behind the school every day until the start of hunting season. No one ever brought a gun to school that I knew of. No real violence then either. Of course Illinois has always had restrictive laws. On the other hand I went to a 4H training in Western Kansas and saw a kid from the class in a local convenience store drinking pop with his 12 gauge between his knees waiting on Mom to pick him up.

A lady I work with catches Copper heads for me, I owe her a belt. She caught the first one by hand, it was way too close to a pile of small sticks she was picking up. She grabbed it by the head and drowned it. We don't mess with her.

Later

 

[M Hatman]

Hi

Grew up in Illinois, we had pheasants pop their heads up in the beans behind the school every day until the start of hunting season. No one ever brought a gun to school that I knew of. No real violence then either. Of course Illinois has always had restrictive laws. On the other hand I went to a 4H training in Western Kansas and saw a kid from the class in a local convenience store drinking pop with his 12 gauge between his knees waiting on Mom to pick him up.

A lady I work with catches Copper heads for me, I owe her a belt. She caught the first one by hand, it was way too close to a pile of small sticks she was picking up. She grabbed it by the head and drowned it. We don't mess with her.
Later

Depending on where you were, Illinois was not always so restrictive.....Chicago has for a long time as have certain other cities and townships.......
But, both 4H and the Scouts had gun safety classes and shooting competitions here.
Back in high school a friend and I even did a historical firearms display and fired muskets for the grade school kids!! This was allowed for a long time......
Illinois back then had open carry for much of the state.....you just had to be aware of any local ordinances. When trail riding we would often openly carry a pistol (or rifle) to dispatch individual animals from gangs of wild dogs that were a problem then....(these were often abandoned house pets that knew people and were unafraid. We just would "saddlebag" the firearms when we went into town for dinner......differant days indeed.

 

[1961MJS]

Wow, I take it you grew up downstate like I did. Montgomery County. Never saw open carry, but I wasn't horsey either.
Later

 

[M Hatman]

Wow, I take it you grew up downstate like I did. Montgomery County. Never saw open carry, but I wasn't horsey either.
Later

WELL ACTUALLY, I grew up in the middle of the northern part of the state......about an hour from any big city in all directions.

Much like the song 45 Minutes from Broadway:

Only forty-five minutes from Broadway,
Think of the changes it brings;
For the short time it takes,
What a diff'rence it makes
In the ways of the people and things.

ALL which is quite true, an hour away, and in the middle of farm country, makes even more differance (or at least used to)!!!!!

Anymore though, with the way things are going here the last 10 years..... Kentucky is looking better and better, and better!!!

It is almost time to get the moving truck!!!

 

[deadlyhandsome]

Even in gun-hating California it used to be so much different. I road by bicycle hundreds of times with a rifle or shotgun across my handlebars to go hunting or shooting. I was never stopped or questioned. A 12 year old boy with a firearm ridding his bike across town seemingly wasn’t a concern to anyone. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a rifle or shotgun in a rack in the back of a pickup’s window.

I did get one odd look yesterday while fishing, but then I only saw three or four people all day.

and the lower half:

 

[belfastboy]

Even in gun-hating California it used to be so much different. I road by bicycle hundreds of times with a rifle or shotgun across my handlebars to go hunting or shooting. I was never stopped or questioned. A 12 year old boy with a firearm ridding his bike across town seemingly wasn’t a concern to anyone. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a rifle or shotgun in a rack in the back of a pickup’s window.

I did get one odd look yesterday while fishing, but then I only saw three or four people all day.

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and the lower half:


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My wife and I did a 300 mile mountain bike trip in Idaho and across the Bitterroot Mountains into Montana a few years back. Stopped for a coffee at one of the little drive thru stands in a small north Idaho mining town. While I waited for our coffees I noticed a poster for a raffle to support the local high school wrestling team buy new mats. The winner received a new AR15 rifle. I asked the barrista...explaining myself as being a Canadian city boy, that this poster would cause huge uproar back in my city. She looked at me with surprise and asked "Why!". I pointed out the connection of fire arms to high schools and how that is guaranteed to cause a shit storm in my neck of the woods. She replied that yes, she could see that happening in my environment but that here in North Idaho guns were just part of the culture, everybody has at least one. They drive with them in their trucks, mount them on their ATV's that they drive into town...it is just part of everyday life in a rural setting such as this. For the HS to raffle one is no big deal, just part of everyday life.

I found it heartening that there were still communities with a healthy attitude and respect for guns without the paranoid fear that exists in my part of the world.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

My wife and I did a 300 mile mountain bike trip in Idaho and across the Bitterroot Mountains into Montana a few years back. Stopped for a coffee at one of the little drive thru stands in a small north Idaho mining town. While I waited for our coffees I noticed a poster for a raffle to support the local high school wrestling team buy new mats. The winner received a new AR15 rifle. I asked the barrista...explaining myself as being a Canadian city boy, that this poster would cause huge uproar back in my city. She looked at me with surprise and asked "Why!". I pointed out the connection of fire arms to high schools and how that is guaranteed to cause a shit storm in my neck of the woods. She replied that yes, she could see that happening in my environment but that here in North Idaho guns were just part of the culture, everybody has at least one. They drive with them in their trucks, mount them on their ATV's that they drive into town...it is just part of everyday life in a rural setting such as this. For the HS to raffle one is no big deal, just part of everyday life.

I found it heartening that there were still communities with a healthy attitude and respect for guns without the paranoid fear that exists in my part of the world.

The problem is, it’s not all paranoia. I’ve been to a school shooting and I can understand the other viewpoint on firearms even if I don’t agree with much of it.

 

[Desert dog]

Even in gun-hating California it used to be so much different. I road by bicycle hundreds of times with a rifle or shotgun across my handlebars to go hunting or shooting. I was never stopped or questioned. A 12 year old boy with a firearm ridding his bike across town seemingly wasn’t a concern to anyone. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a rifle or shotgun in a rack in the back of a pickup’s window.

I did get one odd look yesterday while fishing, but then I only saw three or four people all day.

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Brent good to see you sporting a western and proper firearm! All of my cousins kept rifles in their trucks so they could squirrel hunt after school. It was part of life. My ag teacher taught us how to kill hogs and steers at my high school. Can you imagine life skills being taught now?

 

[Desert dog]

The rattlesnake bands remind me of a road realignment project I worked on about 40 years ago. Every morning for several weeks, I killed 2-3 Mojave greens, before we could start work. All my friends had hat bands! Here is an article of how my great uncle took care of them.