Team Parker

[Bruce Day]

Taken by Charlie Herzog and posted on his request.

[Double Play]

Every one should take note of the young (15) man in the front second from the left. Forgive me if I get this wrong but I believe his name is Edward Blake. Last year he shot a 19 and missed making the Parker team by one bird. He has obviously been practicing because this year he broke 26 of 30 birds for the second highest qualifying score and shot a total of 48 birds which was only 4 birds behind our high overall total. He showed amazing cool shooting his 30" tight choked gun and crushing targets that challenged even the best shooters on both teams. Watching this young man compete was the highlight of the show for me.

[C grade]

Please also not the oldest shooter on the team(I think?) was Tom Carter at 75. Tom qualified with a 24 and went on to win the coveted Oscer Gaddy award for the high score with a Damascas gun.
David

[Buddy Marson]

Congratulations to Tom Carter and Ed Jr. for a job extremely well done!

Buddy Marson

[John Liles]

Not that his scores would have been any less impressive if he had been 15, but I believe that Edward Blake is 13 years old! Man, I hope I shoot that well when I grow up!
John

[John Bleimaier]

L.C. Smith & Parker Brothers, Forever!
By John Kuhn Bleimaier

The northern mills are silent now, the gears and belts gone slack
At Fulton in old New York and in Meridan on the banks of the Quinnipiac.
Overgrown and cold the forges, idle the ingenious Yankee tooling
That once built the double guns that had the whole world a drooling.
Eternally at peace the men whose muscle and whose brain
Conjoined to craft the finest works of art gunsmiths can e’r attain.
Burnished Damascus steel and well cured walnut burl if I have my druthers
The foremost were made by L.C. Smith and also Parker Brothers.
Those legendary rivals have long been laid to rest,
Side by side in the history books among America’s best.

But down in Old Catawba, south o’ the Dixon line
You’ll hear a very special sound, a music oh so fine.
The ghosts they do come out to play in April every year
Spirits of sport and comradeship not ones you need to fear.
That rivalry of L.C. Smith and Parker from bygone days
It plays out now in the cool pine woods in a round of sporting clays.
A gallant band of siblings, aficionados of the fleet smoothbore
Gather for good fellowship, to break targets and keep score.
And to maintain the memory of the greatness of our workers and of our nation
From the fine old glory days before financiers, finaglers and globalization.


April 25, 2010

[Bruce Day]

Well said. Nicely done.