In the 1950s for men and boys macho was king

 This killed or maimed a lot of men and boys then and always has down through the ages.

However, without that "spirit of adventure" we might all be living in caves still if it weren't for the women in our lives that didn't want to live in caves anymore and wanted a better life. so, they convinced the men that they loved to build nicer places for them to live and have better food anyway that they could for themselves and their children.

So, part of the reason I have some hearing loss (especially in the upper ranges where women's voices are) is because of this macho way I was raised to be starting in the 1950s when I was 2 to 12 years old until 1960.

I can remember being 12 to 14 and shooting (literally) a .22 magnum round that shot a bolt into a wall in a warehouse with vertical cement walls without hearing protection. This is what my father had done and so of course he was teaching me the electrical building trade too.

Climbing up 30 foot tall or more ladders was normal too. I had to learn the technique of wrapping one arm through the top of the ladder so I didn't fall 30 feet to the cement floor during times like this too. 

In fact, when I was 5 years old my father did fall off a 30 foot extension ladder and broke his wrist and had to not work for about 6 weeks when we lived in El Cajon, near San Diego.

But, luckily I never fell 30 feet off an extension ladder ever so I was very lucky in this between the ages of 12 and 17 years old as he taught me the electrical building trade weekends and summers. But, he also paid me well so I could buy things like a record player for myself as well as my first motorized vehicle which was a 2 1/2 horsepower Tecumseh 4 cycle engine mounted on to a mini-bike frame with a centrifugal clutch but could do 30 mph on the flat after gaining enough speed. I drove this thing from about age 12 to my 30s I still kept this metallic blue mini-motorized bike riding it in the desert where my father and I eventually built his retirement home near Yucca Valley, Califronia up on the high desert mesa which was at about 3500 feet I believe up above where Palm Springs is today past Morongo Valley. Eventually I was in a mining business with my father and cousin and uncle when they bought a mining mill with a ball mill that had 8 to 12 inch ball bearings to crush rocks being mined down into powder for refining.

Then we bought an ancient Jaw Crusher that would break down rocks from about 1 foot in diameter down to 1 inch or less in diameter rocks and then they went on a conveyor belt into the Ball mill to take them down to a powder form and then ran them across a shaker table which converted this with water and shaking down to black sand where all the metals concentrate then.

However, the jaw crusher was REALLY dangerous because when it started pieces of rocks would come back down on top of you and possibly could kill you. So, we eventually got a remote starting cord rigged so we didn't die or get injured when we started that Jaw Crusher we bought  from Van Tassel the UFO guy who owned Giant Rock Airport there near Landers who had a UFO Convention and pilots flew in then in 1969 for the UFO convention and even Hynek was there for that. 

Working for my father also allowed me to buy my first car for 800 dollars in 1964 one month after I turned 16. So, with a car I soon had a girlfriend from church who was 21 years old. Looking back I wonder why my parents allowed me to date a 21 year old girl (a very nice and beautiful lady) by the way when I was 16 years old?

But, I think mostly they wanted me to marry someone from our own church that believed the way that I did. Because boys who didn't marry girls in our church often drifted away from our church and all churches for that matter for a variety of reasons.

So, anyway one month after I turned 16 I was able to buy myself my "Surf Wagon" because I was a Los Angeles Surfer then and we would drive to the beach in my surf wagon with our 10 foot plus long surfboards then to go surfing at places like Huntington Beach or Malibu then.

I got used to driving 300 to 400 miles a weekend too with friends and camping all over in the mountains and deserts and even at beach campgrounds with friends there starting at age 16. The world was my oyster then because I could do anything I wanted to on weekends if I wasn't working somewhere then. Also, I often took after school jobs in high school so I always had enough money for gas and dating too and visiting friends all sorts of places then too.