Burton Spiller Question

[Bill Bolyard]

This is a question for you eastern guy's. In Spiller's book Firelight there is a story called Dog Day's. Spiller talks about a place called Tracy's Sportsmen Lodge. The question, is this a actual place, and if so what state would it be in? Are any of Burton Spiller's relatives alive, if so do any of you know them?

Bill

[Dean Romig]

Hmmmm . . . giving your question some serious thought. I'll read that story this weekend and try to pick up some clues.

[Bill Bolyard]

Dean,

I knew I could count on you! You are the Guru of classic sporting literature, there must be some kind of Parker award or title we can bestow on you. After reading the description of the lodge I felt it is a place I must visit.

Bill

[Autumn Daze]

Bill,You are absolutley right..."Ol Mr. Romig" has cost me a small fortune on books to add to my library...

But...In his defense.. the guy sure knows his stuff..

And that Mr. Romig is about as close to a compliment as I will venture..

[Dean Romig]

Bill, Spiller was a great writer of sporting literature and most all of it was drawn on his own lifetime experience in the uplands. I was however, quite disillusioned many years ago when I learned that quite a lot of his stories were fictional in nature. This is not to say these things didn't happen with him and his friends but rather, to say that there was a great deal of fiction woven into his stories simply to enhance the often ordinary day spent afield. Bearing this in mind, "Tracy's Sportsman's Lodge" may never have really existed . . . but, then again, it may have and hopefully we will find it.

Oh, and Thanks Dave

[Bill Bolyard]

Dean,

Some years ago I went on a Caribou hunt in Quebec with a bunch of outdoor writers. What a experience, Traditional bows only in an area that white man had never supposedly hunted. The articles they wrote were almost factual. I asked one of them about it later and his reply was " A good story is not necessarily a sequence of fact".

Bill

[Bill Murphy]

Do you mean to imply that Hentracks Hennessy didn't own a .410 Parker with single trigger and beavertail forend? I may sell my collection of Field and Streams, cheap.

[Dean Romig]

Bill, Corey Ford 'invented' characters for his Lower Forty stories based on real people - only the names were changed (). I'm willing to bet Mr. Hennessy really did own such a Parker and the current owner knows his gun is bestowed with a certain immortality ol' Corey is responsible for

[Bill Bolyard]

Originally Posted by Bill Murphy

Do you mean to imply that Hentracks Hennessy didn't own a .410 Parker with single trigger and beavertail forend? I may sell my collection of Field and Streams, cheap.

Bill,

Hentracks may have been a Man of integrity, I don't know. We use to have another outdoor writer in Michigan that I met, who had the largest collection of outdoor periodicals I have ever seen. He used them regularly to plagiarize articles, how he didn't get caught is beyond me. He would write dead dog articles regularly, the mail he would get from some poor guy who just lost his Dog were in piles around his office. Those that knew him joked about the impending doom of another of his poor hapless imaginary dogs.

Bill

[Bill Murphy]

Well Corey Ford only wrote one Parker .410 article, so I guess it was a true story. Whew!