A Bloodthirsty Childhood

M

munk

Joined
Mar 22, 2002
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The pellet gun thread got me to thinking about the war atrocities I've commited to small animals when I was a kid. I don't think I stopped until I was 14.

I just might not be a good guy, for if I have to live another incarnation for every Sparrow I needlessly killed, well, I'll be posting in HI forum for a while, albeit not by the handle of munk.

My dad taught me safe firearm use with a bb gun. But there was no outlet for competition or hunting. I knew not one person who hunted. That was a mistake, I can see in hindsight. There are actually a couple atrocities I can't say here- they are too shameful. We used to kill all the insects we could, of course, from burning ants to using snails as pincushions, and who could forget popping polywogs in the storm drain/canals? With our pellet and bb guns, no bird was safe. I even killed a Mocking bird. For all Hollowdweller being a rabid Lefty, I'll bet with his land and animal husbandry and belief system, he never did a quarter of what my mixed up friends and I committed. We were Charles Manson.

We tried Wrist Rockets on ducks, slings on rabbits, fire on lizards, chemicals on toads...nothing the Nazis probably did to people we didn't do to small things. And it hurt, but we did these things still. Mark Twain would understand, Sam Peckinpah would understand, but I never will. I once took a ski pole to a possum, though was unsuccesful. I used to make blow guns and darts.
My son today is a lot like me- he has a deep caring inside him. A 'girlish' caring I was ashamed of when I was young, and learned to hide. But he makes no secret of his love for rabbits and animals. That headless rabbit at the end of the Doom PC game haunts him to this day. His bed is full of stuffed animals. ( we can't have animals because his mother is so allergic- bummer)

Kids need structure and good roads. They don't need wide open nothingness. When the psychedelic drug wave hit Southern Ca, what do you think my mixed up bunch of crazies did then?

For some reason, we stopped at an unwritten point- no burning cats or dogs, didn't rob cars of stereo's or anything like that.

My son's are very different. The oldest will take a Millipede outside to avoid stepping on it. His five year old brother will yell with glee and stomp it to a stain on the tile!

Ah, this infinite Life is strange stuff. With my liberal upbringing, I could stay up late, and had different pleasures available to me my peers envied. When I was 12 or so my Artist Uncle gave me a four year subscription to Playboy. This had an interesting effect. Well, the female form remains tanalysing to this day, but I'm not that interested in photos. I never hung the centerfolds on my wall despite the pleas from my gang of fools- I knew it would be silly.

I'll always remember Barbie Benton though.

It makes me wonder about chicken and egg stuff. Did killing small life when I was young save me from later brutality? Or did it make any difference? Did the Playboy mags save me from looking at women with exploitive eyes, or have any effect at all?

My son's are so different. They seem to be born that way.

When I was 16 I was allowed to 'experiment' with pot in my room. Can you imagine that in 1960's Orange County? Well, it took many years and some jail time for that experiment to end. I wouldn't recomend it.


Today I look at my khuks as tools. I only recently finally swung one through the air- cutting air as you say. I must have come out of childhood and teen time with some integrity potential still intact.

I owe the insect, amphibian, reptile, and bird Gods something though. Just kidding.

Reconciling the 'girlish caring' deep inside accured while wandering the high desert of the Mojave. There is a Great Heart, Christians call it the Holy Ghost, and it sees the name inscribed on each of our own hearts.


munk
 
Great post, munk. If it makes you feel any better, and i don't know why it would, we are brothers in the aspect of needless animal torture as kids. I like to think that every young boy goes through that stage as he matures. We outgrow toys so we use God's creatures as experiments and playthings that we could torture, break, and catch another. I like to think this, but most psychotic killers started out killing animals. Toads hopped franticly away at the mention of my name. I never did anything mean to the avis or mammals, though. I had enough of mother in me to feel that if it is furry, then it can be pet and is not to be harmed. I don't know why i did it. I didn't like to do it. It made me hurt inside, but i did it anyway.
I have a lot of sins to atone for to the animal world. Today I don't kill anything. spiders are taken outside where they will be safe from stomping feet. mice stuck in the cruel glue traps that a co-worker put down are freed with WD40 and a little TLC. Turtles crossing the road cause me to pull over and give them a gentle nudge to the other side. Half dead frogs in the pool get a kind of "froggy CPR" that my mother invented;) I have a lot to make up for, but i'm trying to do the right thing. I'll never change the world, but i can help the critter that crosses my path. it's the least I can do.

Jake
 
Theres nothing good about what you did munk. But nothing you did makes you a monster. Every boy does some of those things, unless their parents dilude them with Disney movies and love and crap like that ;) .

In the old west, after a town had a public hanging, boys used to go around hanging stray dogs for days.
 
Munk, you and I are kin in a lot of ways. The treatment of animals when we were young being one of them. :(
There's a couple of things I won't ever speak of either due to the shame I felt afterwards and still do to this very day.
That's just one of the reasons I tell everyone that I am just a man when they tell me I'm a good man.
They haven't seen my innermost secrets and hopefully never will.

The powers that be/are today say that kids who harm animals will grow up to harm adults. I think that's just so much bullshit as all kids left to their own devices will almost always commit some kind of atrocity against an animal at some time in their life.
Some like me many more times....:(
 
Good post, munk. I too regret my ill treatment of creatures as a lad. I'd like to think I've atoned for it along the way, but I don't even know if that's possible.
 
Yvsa said:
...all kids left to their own devices will almost always commit some kind of atrocity against an animal at some time in their life...
Click to expand...
I have never harmed an animal, except when hunting. I have committed lots of atrocities against humans, and I feel no shame for it. They are a nasty and dangerous species and deserve it.
 
Munk, every man did that as a boy. Now that we're grown up we don't talk about it, but there it is just the same.

Sometimes I wonder about this. Upbringing didn't seem to play a part in it. Girls don't seem to do it. My personal theory is that it's a man's desire to impose his will upon the world without the means to change anything at that point and without the knowledge to grasp the basic concepts needed for understanding it; I know that I still feel this to this day, although I've come to realize that there are other ways to maintain a degree of control over my surroundings rather than killing and tormenting things - as have we all.

My friends think I'm odd in that I'll take the trouble to catch the big hairy bastid spiders that live around here and toss them outside. They don't think I'm odd with my kill-on-sight policy for brown recluses. I don't think it's odd at all - it's simply the proper application of force to keep my corner of the universe as I see fit.

Children don't realize this and probably wouldn't understand the concept if it was explained to them; what's important is that most eventually figure it out.
 
Ben Arown-Awile said:
I have never harmed an animal, except when hunting.
Click to expand...
Ben that's why I said, "almost." There's "almost" an exception to every rule.;)
 
Ben Arown-Awile said:
I have never harmed an animal, except when hunting. I have committed lots of atrocities against humans, and I feel no shame for it. They are a nasty and dangerous species and deserve it.
Click to expand...

Youre the reason people should be armed.
 
No, Satori, not everyone did it. But many of us did.

You notice I haven't started a thread on hitting siblings? There is a time to let it go. I asked my Sister's forgiveness many years ago, and the memories of my stupidity haunt me forever. And just think- she was one of the few in the family that actually would defend me from time to time!!!


Guys, I speak of things that come to me from time to time. I've brought my pain to the forum, my passing fancies, stories of khuks and boys, humor, everything I would give my friends. Sometimes I need your help. Or just your voices. But today, it was the face of a thing which popped up in another thread, and I thought it had value.

The Human Comedy- the undeclared war boys have on anything smaller than they and many much bigger.
I think of the children which were cruel, and I think of the men they became. Here's some thread cross over- I think of the Marines, and other Services, and couldn't watch BlackHawk Down without crying.



munk
 
Ben and I seem to be in the minority here.

Aside from one incident involving an ant hill and a magnifying glass when I was about 5, I have never killed an animal that I did not intend to eat (pest control such as insects or rodents doesn't count in my book). I handle fish with great care and release them unless I am fishing for dinner or to control the poppulation of gills in my pond. I have never purposely hurt an animal, nor child nor woman. The only remaining creatures have demanded my attention and received it. I feel no remorse. While this lack of remorse has concerned me, there is no case where I would have done anything differently.

I pray that this will remain so for the rest of my life.
 
I've killed a few birds when I was a kid with my pellet gun. Only starlings. I've killed a lot of animals for food with guns and cutting their throats with knives and axes for food. I never have taken any pleasure in any killing. Always felt bad about it, but I was raised pretty religious and the do unto others thing kind of bled over into our furry friends.

I'm glad all of y'all that did do stuff turned out ok, but overall they have found that most people who torture animals as kids have problems :( Most mass killers in fact. :eek: started out small.

Munk, my parents were both liberals and I was raised by Dr Spock. Letting a kid do whatever they want would be a conservative upbringing right? Making a kid think about how his actions affect others being concerned about the weaker and less fortunate, THAT's a liberal upbringing.
 
Letting a kid do whatever they want would be a conservative upbringing right? Making a kid think about how his actions affect others being concerned about the weaker and less fortunate, THAT's a liberal upbringing.>>

You honestly wish to say now in print that a conservative upbringing is to let a kid do whatever he wants and a liberal one is 'making' a kid think about the consequences of his action and being concerned about the weaker and less fortunate?

OK. Let's go from there, I've no problem with that. The answer is no, and your descriptions apply to neither a 'consevative' nor a 'liberal' upbringing. I'm mildly concerned you break it down like that. But you can only improve with airing it out, and as we both know, I'm not your enemy, and who better to run it by?

take care

munk
 
Note to all who point out correlation between serial killers and cruelty to animals; yes, it is there in the DSM4 and listed as indicators for various personality and character disorders. However, it is one indicator designed to be used in conjunction with other diagnostic criteria, something no one is qualified to apply on this forum over the net.

I knew a few who stole things. Serious money. They weren't any different from you or me, they just seemed to fall into it- running from the cops in fast cars, making as if it were a joke. The vast majority of them grow out of this, but that's in the DSM4 too.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are all of in the DSM4, it is just a matter of degree.

The lesson of Nazi Germany is not that Germans are bad, it is that the potential for abuse lies in all of us.


munk
 
hollowdweller said:
...my parents were both liberals and I was raised by Dr Spock...
Click to expand...
My parents were both stupid, and I was raised by them. I have no way to judge how I turned out, but I'm glad I did.
 
munk said:
...running from the cops in fast cars, making as if it were a joke.
Click to expand...

:D *This* I did do...and even more frequently on fast motorcycles!

We had a scooter cop that we used to call "Crater-face"...if you stayed on the road, your a$$ was his...but we used to cut cross-country and eventually lose him. I guess back then they had to actually get you in the act since he knew perfectly well who we were yet we never had anyone knocking on our parent's door.

Ah...the good old days when I thought I would live forever!
 
There was a rash of putting bumper stickers on cop cars- things like, "Follow me to the Donut shop"
The Police made this a felony. Put anything on an "official vehicle' and if caught your ass was ruined for life with a nice felony jacket.
I think that says a lot for our world and why people have adaption strategies that are different and not always productive.


I have no, or not much idea what they sound like, but the band, "Rage Against the Machine" has a band name I relate to.

munk
 
munk said:
I have no, or not much idea what they sound like, but the band, "Rage Against the Machine" has a band name I relate to.

munk
Click to expand...


They sing happy songs:

Rage Against The Machine
Evil Empire (1996)
Revolver

His spit is worth more than her work
Pass tha purse to the pugilists
He's a prizefighter
He bought rings and he owns kin
And now he's swingin'
And now he's the champion
Hey revolver, don't mothers make
Good fathers ?
Revolver
A spotless domain
Hides festering hopes she's certain there's more
Pictures of fields without fences
Her body numbs as he approaches the door
Hey revolver, don't mothers make
Good fathers ?
Revolver
 
I don't remember doing any things like that off-hand. I do have a vague memory that I used a BB-gun on birds, that at least at least I tried.

Later, in my early teens I had a single-shot .410 and a handful of shells with me and tried to hit a pigeon. I finally did, then missed with my last shell when I tried to put it out of it's misery. I left it and headed a hundred yards or so back to my uncle's place where I had more shells, and then came back. Thing was still flopping when I got back to dispatch it.

I have an uneasy feeling that I don't remember plenty of stuff that I didn't feel like remembering..
 
Hey now!
Hold on!
Don't try to psychoanalyze too much of what you do as a child. We are animals that evolved and hunting is most definitely part of our adaptation set. It is natural for boys to want to hunt and kill little animals and little girls want to have a baby doll and tea set.

I recognized my own "ninjosity" pretty early on, so I tried to make my small-animal activities into something productive, something that would teach me, improve my skills.

Basically, my friend Peter and I decided that we wouldnt kill anything unless we could do it "ninja style."
That included blowguns, poison, throwing knives, bow and arrow, shuriken and a pump-up BB gun with a sawed off barrel and stock that you carried inside your jacket like the hero from terminator 1.

Our main targets were squirrels, Bald Eagles, cicadas, snakes and cats that were peeing in the back seat of Peters ' dad's saleen mustang. Peter's dad gave us explicit permission to kill that cat.

(In point of fact, despite months of stalking and many different attempts, we never did get that cat. He did disappear though, so maybe we scared him off so much that he found a new home.)

Hitting a cicada with a blowgun is challenging and fun.











** the bald eagle thing is a joke. please be smart enough not to post some angry reply about that.
 
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