Whipped Cream Difficulties

Seriously, I thought by now I’d have a clever intro for this. But I don’t. My Strategic Clever Reserves are exhausted. So why don’t we jump into this one? Warning: I think this is longer than usual…

Uncle Perk’s Jug: More Stories from the Lower Forty, Corey Ford. Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, New York, 1964.

Various gun writers I’ve read have referenced the Lower Forty Shooting, Angling and Inside Straight Club, but I’d never read any of the stories myself. So when Callahan and Company listed this for $80, I jumped on it, even though that’s a lot of money for me.

The Lower Forty started out as an ongoing series in “Field and Stream” (the same place where Ruark‘s “Old Man and the Boy” stories appeared). It could perhaps be described as a loosely organized hunting and fishing club. It could also perhaps be described (to adapt a description of the Hash House Harriers) as a “drinking club with a sporting problem”, as many of the stories involve in some way the consumption of “Old Stump Blower”.

The Lower Forty Shooting, Angling and Inside Straight Club is a very informal organization. There are no dues, because Mr. MacNab abolished them to save money. There are no rules or regulations, because the club doesn’t have a constitution.

…

Some readers of these stories have asked whether Hardscrabble is a real place, and the Lower Forty is a real club, and the members are real people. Of course they’re real, as real as I can make them. Hardscrabble is any small town, and Uncle Perk’s (“Jno. Perkins, Prop., Guns & Fishing Tckl Bot Sold & Swopt”) is any country store where local sportsmen gather to argue and brag and tell tall tales over a jug, and the Lower Forty is any circle of old friends who have hunted together in the cold, and fished in the rain, and shared the same memories over the years.

Several of the stories feature the club’s arch enemy, Deacon Godfrey, who isn’t opposed to hunting and fishing: he just wants the good parts for himself. Of course, the Lower Forty always triumphs. Several of the other stories trace the character development of Chick Keenan, who starts out as an inner city youth, and develops into a better sportsman than the club members themselves. It is kind of a twist, but Chick usually ends up teaching the club members some sort of lesson that they had forgotten, or otherwise proving his virtues. By the end, he’s become a full member of the club.

There are two other volumes of Lower Forty stories: You Can Always Tell a Fisherman; But You Can’t Tell Him Much and Minutes of the Lower Forty precede this one, according to Biscotti.

I was poking around online and found a fascinating article about Corey Ford, which I encourage you to read: “The Real Story Behind the Lower Forty Shooting, Angling and Inside Straight Club” by Robert Sullivan (’75) from the Dartmouth Alumni magazine. Sullivan describes him as “the funniest writer ever to work for the College”. Mr. Ford was a writer: “He had been a writer of significance and high reputation at a time when the competition was spelled BENCHLEY and BROUN and PARKER and WOOLLCOTT and GIBBS and THURBER and E (period) B (period) WHITE!”

Yes, he wrote for the New Yorker back when that meant something. He was also drawn to adventure and the outdoor life, and Sullivan suggests that’s why he never became as famous as the other big names above: because he was frequently out of NYC, hunting, fishing, or pursuing some other adventure like flying over the Himalayas.

Hunting and fishing were front and center in Ford’s New Hampshire life, and those who got to know him best were almost exclusively outdoorsmen. Hall took to traveling with Ford during his undergraduate years, visiting some of the storied salmon streams he had heard about while sitting in the living room of the house on North Balch. In 1952 he was on a trip to Alaska with Ford, and they were shooting the breeze in the Red Dog Saloon in Juneau. “We started talking about this fictitious bait-and-bullet society,” Hall remembers. Thus was born the Lower Forty Shooting, Angling and Inside Straight Club, whose minutes would grace the pages of Field & Stream for the next decade. Suddenly Jim Hall, an aspirant doctor, was Actively reborn as “Doc” Hall. Sid Hayward became the Club’s Cousin Sid.

There’s a very nice tribute at the end of this volume to his friend Parker “Judge Parker” Merrow. I got a little choked up.

Mr. Ford was also a writer in residence at Dartmouth for a time (and sponsored the school’s boxing club). He died at 67. He was a pretty prolific writer on many subjects, not just hunting and fishing, but military history and (of course) other types of humor. He wrote what I think is a casual piece that turned into a book, How To Guess Your Age, which seems to have become viral before the term “viral” was coined, and which may be his most famous work (other than the Lower Forty).

I think this is just about perfect. I want to call it “near fine”. No chips, no tears, no edge wear that I can see…the only flaw is that the dust jacket is price clipped. Now if Callahan would just get in some more Lower Forty volumes…it’d be nice to see a Lower Forty revival before I join Mr. Ford.

Know Your Ruger Single-Action Revolvers 1953-1963, John C. Dougan. Blacksmith Corporation, Southport, Connecticut, 1981.

Know Your Ruger Single-Actions: The Second Decade, 1963-1973, John C. Dougan. Blacksmith Corporation, Chino Valley, Arizona, 1989.

Found these at Half-Price Books over Memorial Day weekend. Haven’t had a chance to read them yet, but I have flipped through them and they seem to be what they say on the tin: comprehensive guides to the Ruger single-action revolvers made between 1953-1963 and 1963-1973. These are too late for Riling, but Biscotti does list the 1953-1963 volume.

Mr. Dougan seems to be very comprehensive, even including photos of what came in the boxes with the guns (warranty cards, etc.)

The 1953-1963 volume has some wear: a fairly large tear on the front cover (covered up by the plastic protector), and smaller tears/chips around the edges. The 1963-1973 volume has one small tear on the front cover, and a little edge wear, but is otherwise in good shape.

I only have one Ruger single-action (a Single Six with both the .22 LR and .22 Magnum cylinders), but I wouldn’t mind picking up some more if I found them at a good price, so these seemed like a reasonable investment. Yhe cheapest copy of 1953-1963 on ABEBooks right now is a $60 softbound version in “near fine” condition. The cheapest hardcover in good condition (signed) is $80. The cheapest 1963-1973 in “very good” softcover is $42: the cheapest “very good” hardcover with jacket is $85.

They were priced at $14.99 for 1963-1973 and $25 for 1953-1963, but take 20% off of that because HPB was having a sale, so I ended up being out $32 plus tax. Seems pretty reasonable for two good reference books.

I can’t find a lot about John C. Dougan online, but he has written some other Ruger books. One additional one that I do have is Compliments of Col. Ruger; A Study of Factory Engraved Single Action Revolvers, which was also a HPB acquisition a while back, and which I thought was pretty neat.

These last two are sort of tangentially gun books. I think they may fall more under “Western history” than “guns”, but I’m fairly sure Massad Ayoob has done “Ayoob Files” entries on both subjects. However, I can’t find those right now to link to…

Ben Thompson Man With a Gun. Floyd Benjamin Streeter. Frederick Fall, New York, 1957. As far as I can tell looking online, this is a true first. Too late for Riling, and not listed in Biscotti.

Ben Thompson was a legendary Texas lawman, gambler, and all around rough guy. At one point in his career, he was the city marshal of Austin. And I’m going to pause here and include a photo from the book, which I believe falls under “fair use”.

I believe the current Austin American-Statesman (which apparently is not related) would be vastly improved if there was a gambling hall on the bottom floor, and Ben Thompson was around to send a few rounds upstairs when he felt frisky.

This is in good, but I don’t think I’d say “very good” shape. There’s some visible wear to the jacket edges, a small chip missing from the top of the spine, and another small chip missing from the bottom left rear of the jacket.

Youngers’ Fatal Blunder: Northfield, Minnesota. Dallas Cantrell. The Naylor Company, San Antonio, Texas, 1973. Pretty sure this is a first. Too late for Riling, and not listed in Biscotti.

Also haven’t read this yet, but as far as I can tell from the jacket copy, this is about a subject that I find interesting: the James-Younger Gang and the Northfield, Minnesota Raid of 1876. In brief, the gang tried to rob the First National Bank of Northfield and got shot all to hell.

I know Mr. Ayoob did a column on this incident (emphasizing the role played by the town’s citizens) but unfortunately that’s not available on the American Handgunner website right now.

This is in “very good” shape, I think. The only flaws are a small tear on the upper left front jacket, and the jacket itself is price-clipped.

Half-Price Books was running a sale on Texas and Western books, so I bought both of these together. I paid $25 for Ben Thompson, which is probably a bit above market, but I don’t feel rooked. Younger’s Fatal Blunder was $15, which seems to be right around market.

I don’t think I’ll be able to get another gun book post in before I go on vacation, and I’m not sure about any gratuitous gun porn. We’ll have to see what comes next, though I do want to do a post about two books at the intersection of hunting and photography.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 7th, 2024 at 7:06 pm and is filed under Books, Guns, History, Hoplobibilophilia, Ruark. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.