"Kids today, they got it too good. They're spoiled. They didn't have to go through what WE had to go through. They got their fast firing semis and nitro rigs. We didn't have semis back then. We had rusted Nelspots and we were happy with them. We didn't have any of that fancy schmancy nitro, either. We were lucky enough to have half-filled 12-grams.
"I had to walk fifty miles to the paintball field, up hill, in a snowstorm, wearing my father's pajamas. When I got there we had to chase the saber-toothed tigers and woolley mammoths off the field. When the field owner showed up with the paint, he charged us fifty dollars a ball. We didn't buy it by the case, we bought one ball and it lasted us ALL DAY. Back then if we wanted to play we had to get up two hours before we went to bed, in order to get there on time.
"The fields were so big you could easily hide an entire battalion of light infantry or two cars (the cars were bigger in those days, too). I was lost for days on one field, if it wasn't for the refs, I'd still be there. The flags were the size of bed sheets and made of 20 gauge galavanized steel sheets. We didn't have bunkers either, 'cause our camouflage hid us. The woods were so dense you couldn't see more than two feet in front of you. If you did manage to find the flag it took you a whole day to walk back to your flag station. You were lucky to see anybody, let alone the opposition.
"Yeah, we had big money tournaments. There was the Hoggville Open and the first prize was a trip back home. We had the Mooseknee Amateur Invitational League and they had big money prizes. First place won a ONE week vacation in Hoboken. Second place got a TWO week vacation in Hoboken. There was no cheatin', neither. We hung cheaters from the flag stations, back then they were twenty feet high and surrounded by barbed wire, moats and rabid saber-toothed muskrats. Then there was the -- I forget the name of the tourney, now -- in . . . um . . . someplace else . . . er . . . what was I saying?
"Oh yeah. Why, I remember the summer of '84, and this guy shows up with a Budd Orr Sniper. Man we didn't start playing until after lunch we were so scared of this guy and his marker. Them days, folks didn't get upset when they put girlie pictures in the paintball advertisements. These days you put one girlie picture in and hundreds of people complain. I blame the Communists for that. Just 'cause the Cold War is over don't mean those Commie Bastards aren't still around. They're everywhere.
"And the prices these days. Why, you could get eighteen Nelspots for the price of one semi. Of course the paint is cheaper, that's why kids today hose instead of making every shot count. They got it too good, I'm tellin' ya. We didn't have no squeegees, we used paper towel and a twig. We didn't have no chronys, either. The ref shot you with your own gun (we didn't call them markers, back then) and if you didn't flinch when you were hit, that was safe. We didn't have no fancy no-fog goggles, either. Why it was like lookin' through waxed paper, most of the time.
"I wove my cammies out of grass and twigs, we didn't have none of them pretty uniforms you see now. We used to make our own aftermarket accessories out of soap. We even made our own paintballs by gluing the broken shells back together and squeezing the paint in with old toothpaste tubes. We made our markers out of steel blocks and hand filed them into shape. We had to fill our own 12-grams.
"We were happy when we had nothing. Not like today, when everybody's got everything. We were happy because we had nothing and we were thankful . . .
". . . you tell that to the young people of today and they don't believe you."
NOTE: Write down all the word in italics, put them in the right order, and find a secret message. Send me the message and win a prize worth well over THREE DOLLARS!
All of the articles in the website "www.DURTYDAN.com" are free to use for webpages, school projects, reference and to promote paintball to players and the non-playing public. Please give
credit where credit is due and (where possible) provide a link back to the www.DURTYDAN.com
website.
© Durty Dan 2000. All rights reserved. All works contained in the website known as "www.DURTYDAN.com" are under copyright of the author Durty Dan. While the Terms of Use are broad they do not include the right to
republish this work in any publication (hardcopy or electronic) for the purposes of personal financial gain.
