Hemingway's guns

[Steve McCarty]

Originally Posted by Andy Kelley

Steve, you make many thoughtful remarks and I'm glad we're still friends..I think my clinical impression about the PTSD diagnosis comes mostly from my experience with VN vets in the Tucson VA hospital when I was doing an internship there. One common thread among the vets was a seemingly normal life prior to the war and then living a nightmare when they returned. Speaking about war experiences or not speaking about them really wasn't a hard and fast measurement of sound mental health. I think that it is very telling that in The Sun Also Rises the narrator, a war vet, has been emasculated due to a war wounding. Maybe that was Hemingway trying to tell us how he felt about his own war experience ....Aren't we supposed to be discussing Parkers.

Ahhhhh, yes; Parkers, a finely made shotgun....As for PTSD you are obviously more qualified to discuss the condition than I. I take the lead from a post and run with it and therefore am guilty of jumping off thread. I enjoy discussing interesting things and thus my journey back to Ketchum, Idaho and its quirky writer.

[Mills]

It is hard to believe, but a lot of people who like to shoot don't care about having fine guns. I have two great uncles who were great shots and avid hunters "back in the day" and who had the means to acquire fine shotguns, but who preferred Model 12's, Auto 5's etc. My Dad swears by his Winchester 101 and 870.

[Mills]

And while we are talking about great writers and great hunting stories, let's not forget my favorite . . . The Bear by William Faulkner.

[Steve McCarty]

Originally Posted by Grantham Forester

I am going to order a copy of this book about Hemingway and his guns- from all the replies posted here, it sounds like a great read. So-- the question before us-- did the late Ernest Hemingway ever own and shoot Parkers??

He did not. Hem was married to the Winchester model 21 and owned a few. He bought a W.C. Scott double in Spain, as I recall, and used it during his final years. He fired his last shot with that gun.

Hem shot a Browning 16 for several years and owned two, one a Sweet Sixteen. In Africa and elsewhere he shot his Model 12, a full choked gun made in 1928. He owned several O/U's, a few Merkle's a Berreta and a Superposed. He probably liked shooting an O/U best.

I have never heard or read of him shooting a Parker, but of course, he may have.

[Steve McCarty]

Originally Posted by Mills Morrison

It is hard to believe, but a lot of people who like to shoot don't care about having fine guns. I have two great uncles who were great shots and avid hunters "back in the day" and who had the means to acquire fine shotguns, but who preferred Model 12's, Auto 5's etc. My Dad swears by his Winchester 101 and 870.

Interesting thought...I suspect that if people love the hunt and have a place to hunt, a well made and reliable shotgun is plenty. Engraving, after all, is merely cosmetic.

When I was young I considered owning "fine" shotguns as an affectation and an indication of snobbery. Now I consider it an appreciation of the fine art of gunmaking.

Most shooters cannot afford fine guns. I recall when I considered a Superposed as way, way out of reach. No one who I shot with owned one. We all shot 870's and Rem model 11's or something we bought at Sears. If Ted Williams said it was a good gun, that was good enough for us.

In addition, the owning of fine guns is generally a pursuit of the wealthy. I am not wealthy, so I don't own many fine guns and those I do own I had to save for.

One last thought, if one has one exceptionally fine shotgun, a Purdy, a high grade Parker, graded Ansley Fox, that gun becomes the Alpha Male of one's collection. It is the one you show last, the one that gets the ooohs and ahhhs. If one has two such guns doesn't it somehow take away from the Big Dog? While I understand that what I'm about to say is sacrilegious; one really fine gun just might be enough.

[Steve McCarty]

Originally Posted by Mills Morrison

And while we are talking about great writers and great hunting stories, let's not forget my favorite . . . The Bear by William Faulkner.

I have never heard of The Bear! I'll have to give it a read. In Oxford, Miss. they just celebrated Faulkner's centennial. One of my favorite short stories is a Faulkner tale and for the life of me I can't recall its title. It is the story of the torpedo boats that ran across the English Channel during WWI to attack German shipping. When the captain of those little boats spied a German ship he would shout "beaver!" and ran at the ship releasing his torpedo and passed so close to the hull that the enemy guns could not depress enough to get in a shot. Then they high tailed it for home...if they were lucky; many, as the story goes, were not.

Hemingway is easier to read than Faulkner IMV. I have tried many times to read Joyce (like his short stories) but have not been able to get very far into Ulysses. I plan to die with it lying on my chest, opened to page four.

I don't know if Faulkner shot a Parker or not, but I've been to Oxford and it looks like pretty good bird country so I suspect that Faulkner would have shot one.

[Mills]

The Bear is a chapter in Go Down Moses. A loooong chapter, but very readable by Faulkner standards. Apparently, someone asked Faulkner if he had advice for people who had read his novels 3 times and still could not understand them and Faulkner replied "read it a fourth time" I suspect the firearms of Faulkner's Mississippi were muzzleloaders from the frontier days or Sears/Roebuck double guns. There was not too much money around Mississippi in his time.

[George Lander]

I had heard that William Faulkner and Shelby Foote were drinking buddies. I met Mr. Foote in Charleston, South Carolina not long before his death when he came to see Fort Sumter and Charleston for the first time. I asked him about his association with Faulkner and he cryptically responded: "I cannot clearly recall most of the times I spent with Bill and neither could he", but he was a dear friend.

Best Regards, George

[Steve McCarty]

Originally Posted by George Lander

I had heard that William Faulkner and Shelby Foote were drinking buddies. I met Mr. Foote in Charleston, South Carolina not long before his death when he came to see Fort Sumter and Charleston for the first time. I asked him about his association with Faulkner and he cryptically responded: "I cannot clearly recall most of the times I spent with Bill and neither could he", but he was a dear friend.

Best Regards, George

One of my favorite things to do is to walk along the Battery, he raised slate sidewalk on top of the sea wall in Charleston on the way to the park of the same name. The Hunley crew is buried there. Great cemeteries in that town! Walking there in the summer gives one an excellent excuse to drink cold beer.

Didn't we all fall in love with Shelby Foote when we watched the Ken Burns Civil War series? What a wonderful chuckle the old sage had and then there was the ancient blind black women who recited the melancholy poem of the dying soldier! She was memorable too.

Foote loved the Old South and Faulkner was on the cusp of being part of it. Both men were acquainted with many CW vets. I was stationed in Meridian, Miss for three years and drove to Oxford often. I loved living in the South in the 60's. I wish today that I had bought every Parker that I ran across. Trojan's were cheap.

I'll bet those two guys could put away bourbon, copius like.

[Steve McCarty]

Originally Posted by Mills Morrison

The Bear is a chapter in Go Down Moses. A loooong chapter, but very readable by Faulkner standards. Apparently, someone asked Faulkner if he had advice for people who had read his novels 3 times and still could not understand them and Faulkner replied "read it a fourth time" I suspect the firearms of Faulkner's Mississippi were muzzleloaders from the frontier days or Sears/Roebuck double guns. There was not too much money around Mississippi in his time.

Faulkner had a highly developed love/hate relationship with Southerners which is the thrust of his novels. I've read only one, but it has been fifty years and I can't recall which one I read. I recall it not being an easy read.