For the Skeeter fans

[358156hp]

While we are discussing books by Elmer Keith, I highly recommend "Hell, I Was There!" Excellent book and never grows old.

I have literally worn out a copy of this book. Loose pages, broken spine, the works. For many years, I'd start rereading it when the first snow fell, and finish it at various rates over the years. I stupidly sold off my Skeeter books several years ago when money got tight for me. I should have simply quit eating instead."Hell, I was there!" taught me that the world was a different place in the early 1900s, the Wild West was still pretty wild, and a man was responsible for his own fate. I've seen many posts that "Keith couldn't do that", or "nobody could do this!". How would people who were born fifty or sixty years later know exactly what could or couldn't be done in the middle of nowhere when you needed food to feed your family?

One thing that sticks in my mind were posts about Elmers eyesight. "Nobody can see a deer moving that far away without binoculars". These people grew up without TV, computer monitors, and in the wide open spaces. They didn't have the eye problems we do now, just the opposite. Most people today seem to be nearsighted, back them they were farsighted, and many people had to wear glasses for reading, instead of for seeing distance. They grew up keeping an eye out for tonights dinner, or for predators sneaking up on their livestock. My Mom grew up on a ranch in northern Nebraska and was farsighted. I grew up in the city, and am nearsighted.

[okie john]

O’Conner had been a college professor and was the antithesis of Elmer.

Sitting here as Sunday's first cup of coffee kicks in, I realize that I had a couple of decades to read the work of O'Connor, Keith, and Skelton (plus Cooper and Aagaard) while they were still alive.

O'Connor wasn't just a professor--he was a professor of journalism. He knew how to convey ideas and information, and he perfected the structure that most post-war hook-and-bullet writers adopted: open with a couple of paragraphs about a hunt, then four or five paragraphs about the history of a cartridge or rifle, then six or seven on the technical development of whatever gear the article is supposed to be about, then six or seven more on the idiosyncrasies of handloading for that thing, then a paragraph or two about how the hunt ended, then tie that back to the thing in a sentence or two, then end with a single pithy sentence that sums up the whole story. He made it easy to understand and remember big ideas in a pre-internet world where you had to keep everything you knew in your head.

Keith had the same ideas and the information but his editors had to bring a lunch to make it readable. "Hell, I Was There" reads like it was dictated and transcribed, while "Sixguns" clearly got a lot more editing help. Reading Keith was like listening to a guy tell you how to fix a car while you were both under the same hood at the same time, just pure craft and hard-earned wisdom. If you applied what you learned from reading Keith and Ed McGivern, then you could turn yourself into a solid enough handgun shooter to keep meat on the table and win a few bets here and there.

As a kid, I came away from O'Connor feeling like I had learned something, and I came away from Keith feeling like I had learned how to do something. Both were classically trained riflemen and they covered the same ground when it came to rifles and hunting, but O'Connor did it from the client's perspective while Keith did it from the guide's perspective. I don't know how genuine the feud between them really was, but I believe that both fanned the flames because it sold magazines and books, which kept them in business.

Skelton wasn't an experimenter. He studied what Keith and others had learned, then he went out and used that knowledge. His best work was about using handguns in practical settings, especially hunting small game, deer, and javelinas in the Southwest. He could be funny, but I was always disappointed if all of his space in Shooting Times in a given month was humor--I wanted to read about his experience and wisdom. For most of us in the 70s and 80s, that was more useful than Keith pushing the limits or O'Connor shooting another ram on a guided hunt. I don't remember that Skelton was much on hunting anything bigger than deer until his writing career began to demand it after he left law enforcement.

Cooper was a theorist and experimenter who was also an excellent writer, but he was so good at all three things that he bent the spine of practical shooting from Day One and it's still recovering.

Aagaard was, well, shit, he was Aagaard. Just get yourself a Mauser in 30-06 and go hunt with it.


Okie John

[skipper49]

EXCELLENT post Okie John! I’m in my middle 70’s and grew up reading all the men you mentioned, a lot! Nothing, apart from scripture, had as much influence on my life. I’m truly sorry for a generation that has missed/ ignored them.

Skip

[okie john]

EXCELLENT post Okie John! I’m in my middle 70’s and grew up reading all the men you mentioned, a lot! Nothing, apart from scripture, had as much influence on my life. I’m truly sorry for a generation that has missed/ ignored them.

Skip

Thanks for the kind words.


Okie John

[coldcase1984]

Fantastic thread and a great present for my 63rd birthday, fellow Boomer Shootists!

[Jim Watson]

"Hell, I Was There" reads like it was dictated and transcribed,

Keith said the only reason he agreed to do another book was that they would let him dictate it.

I like Henry Stebbins. He wasn't the innovator a lot of the better known shooters were, but he kept up to date and was a good writer, another professor. He had some good co authors doing chapters, too.

[Oldherkpilot]

This article addresses the old-school writers who are no longer with us, like Skeeter. No tears, but left me smiling with reminiscence.
https://www.fieldandstream.com/artic...src=SOC&dom=fb

[entropy]

I wonder what they all think about Internet forums...lol

[awp_101]

Bump

[BobM]

Bump

Thanks. I enjoyed going through this again. It reminded me that I have my grandpa’s 1955 copy of Sixguns. When I asked him to borrow it again he said “ I told you to keep it the last time you borrowed it “. This would have been about 95 or 96 as he passed in 97.