One .22 Rifle Changed The World
Simple Choices Sometimes Have Profound Results
An inexpensive .22 rifle like this one indirectly changed the course of American history.
In 1946 a boy and his mom walked into Tupelo Hardware on Main Street in Tupelo, Miss. The kid was an only child. His identical twin born 35 minutes earlier had been stillborn.
This family was dirt poor. The boy’s father had built their two-room family home himself. The man worked odd jobs but suffered from a pathological ambition deficit. Eight years prior, the patriarch had spent several months in jail for altering the amount on a check from his landlord.
The boy was shy and introverted. He had few friends but was profoundly attached to his mother. His mom reciprocated the affection. Despite a dearth of worldly possessions, she did her best to give the kid a decent upbringing.
There’s a bronze placard ensconced in front of Tupelo Hardware
today memorializing the day an 11-year-old Elvis Presley left the
store with his first guitar.
Tupelo, Mississippi, is a delightful little Southern town.
A Rare Treat
This particular day was a really big deal. It was the young man’s 11th birthday. Tupelo Hardware was typical for its era, the sort of mom and pop business once ubiquitous across America in the days before Walmart and Amazon. The place was absolutely packed with the hardware, tools, farm implements, sundries, and similar widgets necessary to support modern life. Shelves on the walls stretched floor to ceiling. Rolling ladders allowed store staff to gain access to hard-to-reach stuff.
The quarry this day was a bicycle. The boy’s mom had scrimped for months to accumulate the money to buy it. For a kid in the Deep South immediately after World War II, a bike meant freedom. A bicycle expanded a young man’s horizons. The woman also hoped it might help her son make a few new friends.
All little boys are flighty, and this one was worse than most. Boys invariably tend to live in the moment. At age 11 and facing the imminent onslaught of puberty, a young man can be notoriously difficult to tame. In this case, while the kid was indeed stoked about the bike, something else caught his eye.
One particular young customer at Tupelo Hardware back in 1946 had an outsized influence on American culture.
Tupelo Hardware hasn’t changed a great deal since 1946. It still
sports cool stuff, friendly people and some simply epic history.
Get Thee Behind Me, Satan …
Back in 1946, firearms sold over the counter “cash and carry” in hardware stores, farm supply businesses and department stores from sea to shining sea. My dad’s first .22-caliber handgun set him back $12 new-in-the-box when he was 15 years old from a similar establishment in 1954. On this fateful morning, the young man’s eyes were drawn to the rack of rifles adorning the long wall.
The bolt-action, single-shot .22 rifle was long and sinister. It conjured up images of battling hostile Indians in Western movies or creeping through African jungles in pursuit of dangerous game. The boy immediately lost all interest in the bicycle. He became instantly enamored with the prospect of packing heat.
Any parent can empathize with this mom’s quandary. Even the most respectful, well-adjusted adult male was a bit of a savage in childhood. The poor long-suffering woman didn’t want to make a scene, but she had not come in this day to exhaust her hard-earned nest egg on a firearm. In consultation with Forest L. Bobo, a long-time clerk at the hardware store, mother and son settled on a compromise.
They decided to abandon the bicycle and pass on the rimfire rifle. In exchange Mr. Bobo sold the young man a spanking new acoustic guitar. The inexpensive instrument set his mom back $7.90. This turned out to be a fairly solid investment.
Red Ryder BB guns still adorn the walls at Tupelo Hardware.
Changing The World
Elvis Presley indeed took to that guitar. The previous year, Elvis had performed in his first singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. He placed fifth. With the benefit of hindsight, I can only imagine how awesome the top four must have been.
The cheap hardware store guitar became Elvis’ constant companion. His two uncles and the pastor of his local church gave him some basic instruction. He later said, “I took the guitar, and I watched people, and I learned to play a little bit. But I would never sing in public. I was very shy about it.”
Elvis began sixth grade at a new school. His teachers described him as a loner. He began bringing his guitar to school every day so he could practice over his lunch break. His classmates often teased him as that “trashy” kid who kept playing hillbilly music. However, not just everybody felt the same way.
A fellow pupil had an older brother with a local radio music show. That kid made an introduction and his elder brother showed Elvis how to play chords. At age 12 Elvis was scheduled for two radio performances. He succumbed to stage fright and canceled the first. The second, however, went quite well.
Elvis Presley ultimately sold more than a billion records worldwide. His music literally changed the world — and it all started with a .22 rifle hanging on the wall at Tupelo Hardware, a rifle that tempted him out of a bike.
