It is that time of year again, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
I’m going to be on the road for a bit. Blogging will be catch as catch can, but I will try to keep up with obits and maybe even post a few photos here and there.
In the meantime, how about a musical interlude?
From YouTube: a factory tour of the Smith and Wesson plant in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I have been on that tour…
Barbara Bryne. She was in the original Broadway productions of “Sunday in the Park With George” and “Into the Woods”. Other credits include “Amadeus”, “Love, Sidney”, and “Best of the West”.
Eileen Saki. Other credits include “Meteor”, “History of the World: Part 1”, and “Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story”.
Another obit for Bart Skelton, this one from American Handgunner.
• All the world loves you if you have a song to sing, or a story to write: Unless that narrative is a warrant, then expect you will piss some people off, and they will hate you.
I ordered a copy of Down on the Border: A Western Lawman’s Journal (affiliate link) and am about four chapters into it. I’ll let you know when I’ve finished it.
As promised, NYT obit for Jerry Springer.
In 2008, some students objected when Mr. Springer was invited to give the commencement address at Northwestern.
“To the students who invited me — thank you,” he said. “I am honored. To the students who object to my presence — well, you’ve got a point. I, too, would’ve chosen someone else.”
Massad Ayoob has posted an obit for Bart Skelton on his blog. This is the only source I’ve found that I can link.
She was working in her husband’s general store on Aug. 24, 1955. She was white, married, and 21 years old. Her husband was a trucker who was working that day.
A group of black teenagers came to the store. Mrs. Bryant (at the time) claimed that one of the teenagers, a 14-year old boy, “made a sexually suggestive remark to her, grabbed her roughly by the waist and let loose a wolf whistle.”
That boy was Emmett Till.
He was killed four days later. Mr. Bryant and his half-brother were charged with the murder, but were acquitted.
NYT obit for Ken Potts, U.S.S. Arizona survivor. I think this one is a little better than the NYPost one I linked a few days ago.
I feel like I’m not giving Mr. Potts as much attention as I should, but since I posted the longer obit the other day, I also feel like this is mostly supplemental.
I am seeing reports that Bart Skelton, gun writer and son of Skeeter Skelton, has passed away. I don’t have anything I can link to at this time, but I’ll update if I do find something.
Alton H. Maddox Jr. has passed.
Mr. Maddox, along with C. Vernon Mason and the Rev. Al Sharpton, were the pivotal figures in the Tawana Brawley kidnapping and rape hoax.
Ms. Brawley was a few weeks shy of her 16th birthday when, in late November 1987, she cast herself as a victim of rank depravity: She, an African American teenager, had been abducted, she said, and held for four days near her home in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., a Dutchess County town about 60 miles north of New York City. She said she was sexually assaulted by a half-dozen white men.
Indeed, she was found in appalling condition. She lay dazed in a trash bag with some of her hair chopped off, feces smeared on her and “KKK” and a racial epithet written in charcoal on her body. Her assailants, Ms. Brawley said, included law enforcement officials.
…
Their insults were nonstop, their allegations outlandish. The Ku Klux Klan, the Mafia and the Irish Republican Army were somehow all involved, they said. They accused the state’s attorney general, Robert Abrams, who led a seven-month grand jury inquiry into the Brawley matter, of having masturbated over a photo of her.
Mr. Maddox, who was given to referring to whites as “crackers,” went on later to call New York “the Mississippi of the ’90s” and New York’s governor at the time, Mario M. Cuomo, “the George Wallace of the ’90s.”
…
But in October 1988, the grand jury concluded in a 170-page report that Ms. Brawley had not come anywhere near the truth, dismissing her account as fiction. There was no evidence of sexual assault, it said; she had smeared herself with feces, written the racial slurs herself and faked being in a daze. Her motive was not made clear, but a boyfriend said later that she had wanted to avoid the wrath of her stepfather for having stayed out late.
For Mr. Maddox, the consequences were severe. In May 1990, after he refused to respond to charges of misconduct in the Brawley case, appellate judges in Brooklyn suspended his law license. He never bothered to seriously try getting it back. “The white man thought that after 13 years I’d be so much on my knees,” he said in 2003. “They don’t know me.”
There was also a price to pay in dollars. Steven Pagones, a Dutchess County prosecutor accused by the Brawley team of having assaulted her, won a defamation suit against Messrs. Sharpton, Maddox and Mason. Mr. Maddox was held personally liable for $97,000, a penalty that he paid with help from benefactors.
None of the three apologized for their roles in the hoax. Mr. Sharpton became a national figure with a television program. Mr. Mason, who was disbarred in 1995, became an ordained minister. And Mr. Maddox, who had moved to New York from Georgia in 1973, wrote columns for The Amsterdam News, offered radio commentary and for a while led a group called the United African Movement.
I thought I’d throw up a post real quick, since I’ve been in Waco at the TGCA show the past few days and radio silent.
I thought this was rather neat, and it gave me a chance to tweak the Saturday Movie Group. If you can’t read the tag, this is an original Winchester Model of 1873 “One of One Thousand”. Like you might have seen in “Winchester ’73”. You don’t see many of these in the wild, for a good reason: Winchester didn’t make a whole bunch of them.
(This is a really neat book on the subject. I was lucky to get my copy before prices went out of control, and I absolutely would not recommend paying that price.)
Mauser Model of 1918 Tankgewehr anti-tank single shot rifle chambered in 13X92SR. The photos are with the bolt in and out.
Ammo pouch that comes with the gun, along with about 22 rounds of ammo.
This is what one of the rounds looks like. I should have included something for scale, but I didn’t have anything handy and didn’t want to impose on the seller.
If you’re interested, this is going to be in an upcoming Poulin Auction: the pre-sale estimate is $12,000 to $18,000.
And it is classified by BATFE as a “curio and relic”, so it is exempt from registration (and the tax stamp) as a “destructive device”.
I’ve been holding off on book posting until I get other stuff done, but I did want to post this for two reasons:
Vintage catalog from holster maker S.D. Myres Saddle Company, Inc. Judging by the postmark and price list inside, I believe this dates from around 1966.
The first reason for posting this is for great and good FotB (and El Paso native) RoadRich. Apple Maps seems to show 5018 Alameda as being a Family Dollar store, but I can’t tell what (if anything) is at 5030 Alameda. One of these days, I’d like to go back to El Paso and spend a few days there…
The second reason for posting this is: this was actually a kind and generous gift from my good friend David Carroll, purveyor of fine firearms to a grateful nation. If you are so inclined, why not wander over to his website, or check out his auctions on GunBroker?
Tiger McKee, noted firearms trainer. American Handgunner.
I never had the pleasure of taking a course from Mr. McKee, but I did read his AH columns and The Book of Two Guns: The Martial Art of the 1911 Pistol and AR Carbine. (Amazon says I bought that in 2008. Wow.) And I think I knew that he was doing custom Smith and Wessons, but those were probably out of my price range.
This is a bad loss. And 61 seems a lot closer these days.
Carol Locatell, actress. Other credits include “M*A*S*H”, “The Pretender”, “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors”…
…and “Mannix” (“Desert Run”, season 7, episode 6.)
Almost a month ago, I posted an obit Lawrence sent me for Gloria Dea. Yesterday, the paper of record ran their own obit.
IMDB. She’s credited as “Girl”.
During the Troubles (that is, the conflict in Northern Ireland), the British Army had a deep cover mole known as “Stakeknife”.
Mr. Scappaticci led that unit.
There are a lot of people who believe he was Stakeknife. He consistently denied it.
Mr. Scappaticci may well have taken some of his secrets to his grave, shielding government intelligence and military handlers from one of the central moral conundrums of the case: Did the British state collude in the killings in order to protect Stakeknife’s identity?
British officials have described Stakeknife as the “golden egg” and “the jewel in the crown” of their infiltration of the I.R.A. They have said that intelligence he delivered alerted them to myriad I.R.A. operations, saving hundreds of lives.
…
There is an inquiry going on into Stakeknife. It’s been going on since 2016.
Wikipedia entry. Why am I reminded of Whitey Bulger?
Well, I did end up getting a gun for National Buy a Gun Day.
Sort of. I actually got the night of the 14th, not on the 15th, but that still counts as far as I’m concerned.
It was one of the guns I had on layaway at my local gun shop: for various and uninteresting reasons, I ended up paying off the layaway a few weeks early, and was able to bring it home that night.
Photos to come: I may do a teaser photo, but a full write-up will have to wait until after part 2 of “Day of the .45”.
Good news: I’m taking time off this week for my birthday.
Bad news: Wednesday I’m participating in a mass casualty exercise at the airport. Friday I’m leaving for the Texas Gun Collector’s Association show in Waco, and plan to be there through Sunday afternoon.
So I may have some time on Thursday, but I’ll have to see what else comes up on the schedule. I do have at least one other thing I’d like to do that day…
Technically, National Buy a Gun Day is tomorrow, not today. Even better, tomorrow is a Saturday, so your gun shopping should be unobstructed.
However, I anticipate it being a busy weekend: Mike the Musicologist and I are planning to go to Kerrville tomorrow for the gun show, followed by Lawrence’s and my annual birthday dinner. So I’m posting today instead, because I don’t think I’ll have time otherwise.
Do I have my eye on anything in particular? Not really this year: I’m still waiting for my special order gun to show up, and I actually have two guns on layaway at my local gun shop, so I’m not much in the market right now. But gun shows are targets of opportunity, and you never know what might show up…
And some random gun crankery for you from The Firearm Blog:
Henry Repeating Arms, who is pretty famous for making modern lever-action rifles, is branching out. Now they’ve gotten into the revolver market. Doesn’t turn my crank, but if you own a Henry lever gun, you might like one of these as a companion side piece.
And Hi-Point’s introduced a new carbine…in .30 Super Carry. This seems weird, and not just because it is Hi-Point. .30 Super Carry, as I understand it, was designed more as a pistol cartridge, I’d be interested in seeing what it does out of a carbine, but not really interested enough to buy one.
(This is not me sneering at Hi-Point. I don’t find their guns attractive, but they are reasonably priced and work. The guys at Tex-Guns always used to say they’d sold “hundreds” of Hi-Points, and only had one or two come back needing work.)
And, yes, I know I owe everyone another gun/gun book post or two. I’m trying to work on it, but the weather and scheduling has not been cooperative. Soon…
Edited to add: If you aren’t busy on Sunday, though, and live in Austin, there’s a free “Stop the Bleed” course being offered. Details at the link.
Great and good FotB Borepatch lost his younger brother yesterday. We extend our condolences to him and to the other members of his family. May his brother rest in peace, and may his memory be a comfort to them.
I’m a little late on this one, but I just found out today: John Linebaugh passed away on Sunday.
Mr. Linebaugh was an influential maker of big-bore revolvers.
Fuzzy Haskins, of the Parliaments, which became Parliament, which became Parliament-Funkadelic.
Since this is from 1976, I am assuming (but can’t confirm) Mr. Haskins is in this. (According to the obit, he left the group in 1977.) Even if he isn’t, this is still a neat slice of history.
We went to see “Cocaine Bear” yesterday.
Summary: if you only see one movie called “Cocaine Bear” this year, this is the one to see.
More seriously, “Cocaine Bear” delivers exactly what it advertises. There’s a bear, it eats a bunch of cocaine, and it mauls people. If this sounds like your cup of dark humored tea, you’ll probably enjoy this movie. If you’re asking yourself “Why would anyone go see a movie called ‘Cocaine Bear’?” or “Is there anyone in it I’ve ever heard of?”, this is almost certainly not the movie for you.
Two quick spoiler free notes:
1. There is not, as of this moment, an Internet Movie Firearms Database entry for “Cocaine Bear”. I hope this changes soon. I want to know what Ranger Liz was carrying. (It looked like some sort of Smith and Wesson to me. Maybe a Model 19 Combat Magnum, although it could possibly have been a Model 27. Lawrence observed that he thought the gun changed size in between scenes, so there could have been a continuity problem and perhaps they used both?) Other people wanted to know what Syd was using, and I’m kind of curious about that myself. And then there’s Bob (a Detective Special?) and Daveed (a Tokarev?)…
2. It is rare that a trailer actually makes me angry. But there’s a upcoming movie with Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx doing voice work that succeeded in doing so. I won’t name the movie here (though a quick IMDB search would probably turn it up) so that I don’t give it any publicity. But based on what I saw in the trailer, everyone who worked on this pile of canine (waste) starting with the producers, extending down to Ferrell and Foxx, and going on down the line until we get to the craft services people, should have their license to work in film revoked and should be forced to get honest work. Perhaps cleaning out dog kennels.
Geez. Even the trailer for “Indiana Jones and I’m Getting To Old for this Stuff” didn’t make me mad. (Actually, I think there’s a possibility that could be fun. But I’ve only seen “Last Crusade” out of all the Indy films. No, I’ve never seen “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, and I never watched “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles”. Point being, I don’t have a huge personal investment in the Indy franchise, so I may not be the best judge of these things.)
(The last trailer I can think of that actually made me angry was “All the Vermeers in New York”. And the problem with that wasn’t so much the movie itself, or even the trailer. It was that I seemed to be going to a lot of movies at the old Dobie Theater back then, and every time I went to one, they played that d–ned trailer until I got sick of it.)
Number 100. I was hoping for something more spectacular, or at least less distasteful, for such a milestone event. But you take what you get.
The mayor of College Park, Maryland, Patrick L. Wojahn, resigned Wednesday night.
He was arrested Thursday morning.
The charges against him are “40 counts of possession of child exploitative material, a misdemeanor, and 16 counts of distribution of child exploitative material, a felony, according to the Prince George’s County Police Department.”
Specifically:
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had notified the county police on Feb. 17 that a social media account operating in the county possessed and distributed what were suspected to be images of child sexual abuse, the police said.
Court records indicate that the account was on the social media app Kik.
Prince George’s County Police investigators determined that videos and an image had been uploaded to the account in January, and that the account belonged to Mr. Wojahn, the police said.
On Tuesday, detectives served a search warrant at Mr. Wojahn’s home, where they seized cellphones, a storage device, a tablet and a computer, the police said.
A small bonus: I can’t say for sure that Mr. Wojahn is a card-carrying, dues-paying member, of Criminal Mayors Against Law-Abiding Gun Owners, but: he did sign this “Bipartisan Mayors Call for Background Checks” letter, along with 99 other mayors (including the late unlamented Lori Lightfoot and Lovely Warren), so I feel like calling him a member is a safe bet.