"Wondering is there anything left worth sticking around for. "


robert:

check out the sun rise. and then the sun set. and anything that pleases you in between.

ed

Thanks Bill! I'll have to take a picture of the gun and that Power Pac. The device is beautifully made with a wonderful blue and obvious fine machining. Most people don't have the additional screw in chokes. I do. I don't know why my little Model 12 20 doesn't cycle. EH poured his Model 12 full of oil. Patrick Hem said it puffed oil smoke on every shot. I usually shoot my guns pretty dry. Maybe I should slick my little 20 up a bit.

I've only shot my 20 at hand tossed skeet and it was frustrating to shoot, never knowning if it'd cycle or not. I put it down in disgust and wanged away with my old Knickerbacher DU 20. I think it's a Baker. It's a side lock gun and was my dad's, given to him, used, when he was ten.

I did the same, but probably some of my EH motivation was subliminal. I read my first EH book when I was about 15 and within a few years I had pretty much read them all. I still can't get through Death In the Afternoon, but I love the title.

I also read Boyington's Ba Ba Blacksheep and a few years later I was flying in that squadron. This was taken just before I joined VMA-214
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...kyhawks003.jpg

steve: could be a little gunk build up behind the shell stop? try squarting it with a fast drying silicone spray...if that does not work, maybe the shell stop is bent. anyway, if you want to solve problem professionally, let me know via private post and i will refer you to a gunsmith with the skill and experience to fix it. ed

Gun is in the safe. I'll dig it out and mess with it. I'll also take some pics. I've got a pretty good Model 12 gunsmith close by. He's done some work on them for me before. He's got two right now.

Thanks again.

Delk & McCarthy:
Kudos to you both. And no... there is little left hanging around for. Everything is a disappointment in the end. Papa knew that. And he sadly decided to deal with it. But please excuse me. I might have had a pint. And I'm in the same business he was. On the other hand, "cheers!" Why the heck not!

Best, Kensal

The existential concept, that life is what one makes of it, may have been the source of EH's "get'r done" motif. I find his masculinity, which has fallen from vogue in the US today, refreshing. I think he killed himself because his over the top male image, which was so important to his make up, had slipped. In addition his thinking may have been muddled.

Is there something worth "hanging around for"? In the mind of the existentialist, there is only if one is capable of making life worth living. EH thought not. He blew the entire top of his head off. His death provided a stange sort of continuiety with his beginning and middle. He went out in a flash of gunfire and gore, somehow it fits.

This is a good thread and has me interested in getting the Hemingway book now.

boys if these parker threads dont want to make you hang around then......lifes to short as it is im trying to enjoy every moment even though a rock gets in the road every once in a while... charlie

EH's life is compelling because so many "real men" would like to mimic Hemingway's. Certainly Hem thought that he lived a near perfect existance, but did he? That is the rub and to find out if he did, many of us are drawn to his writings and bios.

I think it was Hotchner, a Hemingway Pal and a biographer, who said, "All real men either want to be like Hemingway, or be liked by him." I wonder. But I have to admit, I would have enjoyed hunting with him and running around the Carib hunting for Nazi subs and attending bull fights sitting next to him listening to his running dialogue.

Was Hem a "nice guy"? Not sure. I suspect that he only liked people who also liked him.