January 2009 NewsletterJim Casada
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www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com January—A Month For ReadingOne of my late mother’s favorite stories involved recollections of how, over the course of the summer between the first and second grades, I forgot how to read. That tickled her fancy because of the fact that she was the local librarian for a number of years and also because I subsequently became such an avid reader. Indeed, books have been an integral and extremely important part of my life. These words are being written in a room where thousands of books, housed in floor-to-ceiling shelves along the walls as well as in library-style stacks with narrow, lighted aisles between them, surround me. Pretty much the same holds true for two bedrooms, the den, and a portion of the living room. There’s also a storage shed where thousands more books, not to mention complete runs of Field & Stream, Sports Afield, and Outdoor Life beginning in the 1930s, are housed. Seldom is there a night when I don’t read for an hour or two before turning off the light, and my areas of reading interest are quite eclectic. Since my first career was that of an academic historian, it should come as no surprise that I read a fair bit of history and even more biography. I also enjoy adventure novels, with Wilbur Smith being my favorite author in that field. Other favorites outside the confines of literature on the outdoors, which we will get to momentarily, include Georgia doctor turned writer Ferrol Sams, a whole host of classic British mystery writers beginning with John Buchan (who also wrote some fine outdoor-related material), Rudyard Kipling, the poetry of Robert Service, Westerns by the likes of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour, and the novels of H. Rider Haggard. Still, the literature of the outdoors is my consuming passion, and presumably most of you who receive this newsletter on a monthly basis share at least a degree of that interest. Since January is, as my Grandpa Joe was fond of saying, “a month for staying close to the fire, piddling, scheming and dreaming, along with doing anything else a body can to ward off the miseries,” it seemed appropriate to share the primary way I follow his advice. That is accomplished by lots of reading, and with the weather forecast at the moment calling for rain, gloom, and doom for the next five days, it’s comforting indeed to be writing about books and to be able to look up and see these steadfast friends on shelves all around me. Not surprisingly, given my roots and the fact that I’ve lived in the South my entire life, my tastes in outdoor literature have a distinctly regional bent. I think Robert Ruark is, without question, the finest sporting scribe our country has produced. The Old Man and the Boy, The Old Man’s Boy Grows Older, and Horn of the Hunter are all classics, and you can dig deeper into this aspect of his work in Michael McIntosh (editor), Robert Ruark’s Africa and The Lost Classics of Robert Ruark (edited by yours truly). Ruark was also a blockbuster novelist and the serious fan will want to read books like Uhuru, Poor No More, Something of Value, and The Honey Badger as well. Be sure to include the massive biography of Ruark by his longtime secretary, Ruark Remembered, which I edited. Close behind Ruark, at least in my personal estimation, come a trio of staunch sons of the Southern soil—South Carolinians Archibald Rutledge and Havilah Babcock and Tennessee’s Nash Buckingham. Rutledge was the most prolific outdoor writer of the 20th century, producing dozens of books and thousands of magazine articles. Most of his books have now become pricey collectors’ items, but you can get a good sampling of his efforts in a trio of collections I put together—American’s Greatest Game Bird: Archibald Rutledge’s Great Turkey-Hunting Stories, Tales of Whitetails: Archibald Rutledge’s Great Deer-Hunting Stories, and Hunting and Home in the Southern Heartland: The Best of Archibald Rutledge. I’m presently completing an anthology of Rutledge’s Christmas stories, most of which dealt with the annual hunts at Hampton Plantation. The book will also include a closing chapter on Southern culinary traditions associated with the holiday, with plenty of recipes and food lore. If you want to be notified when this book appears, just drop me an e-mail. Havilah Babcock was an English professor at the University of South Carolina plagued by chronic insomnia. He wrote to help fight off sleeplessness, and his rollicking tales of quail hunting and fishing are both funny and filled with solid factual information. The titles of his books alone, I Don’t Want to Shoot an Elephant, Tales of Quails ‘n’ Such, Jaybirds Go to Hell on Friday, The Education of Pretty Boy, and My Health Is Better in November, give a hint of the delights which await those who read his books. While I’ve shared it in print before, I can’t resist offering one anecdote from his career. It typifies both the man and the books he wrote. When quail season rolled around in November (that’s where the book title mentioned above in connection with the month comes from), Babcock was wont to dismiss his English classes on a fairly regular basis. After all, there were bevies of bobwhites beckoning, and pedestrian matters like the teaching of vocabulary (his class, “I Want a Word,” was immensely popular) could wait. One morning he rushed into the classroom, clad in his Duxbak hunting attire, and hastily scribbled on the board: “Dr. Babcock will not his classes today.” He then rushed off with visions of staunch points and nifty doubles in his mind. Alas, when he reached his old jalopy, it was to discover he had left his shotgun shells in the desk in his classroom (imagine something like that in today’s world!). Babcock hastily returned to the room, only to find the assembled undergraduates giggling and smirking in a mysterious fashion. A glance at the blackboard revealed the cause of their mirth. Some student had changed his message to read: “Dr. Babcock will not meet his lasses today.” The erstwhile professor barely broke stride. He grabbed a box of shells with one hand and an eraser in the other. As he departed a single stroke with the eraser changed his message to read: “Dr. Babcock will not meet his asses today.” Now there was a man students had to love, and his writings are equally delightful. As for Buckingham, no one has done a better job of capturing two aspects of the American sporting scene—the joys of waterfowling along the Mississippi flyway and the special role blacks played in genteel sport in the South of yesteryear. Mr. Buck was a master of dialect, and his collections of stories—The Shootinest Gent’man, Mark Right!, Ole Miss, Game Bag, Tattered Coat, Blood Lines, and Hallowed Years—contain dozens of timeless tales. Some of the best of these were brought into a single volume, The Best of Buckingham, edited by George Bird Evans. I’d add a few more writers from the South to this list, although their efforts might be just a tad less enduring than the works of the above-mentioned authors. Among them would be Charlie Elliott, Charley Dickey, and a personal favorite many of you may not recognize, Horace Kephart. “Kep” was for decades known as the “Dean of American Campers,” and his book, Camping and Woodcraft, remains the single best volume on the subject ever written. It is one of the ten bestselling outdoor books of all time and has never been out of print in the century-plus which has passed since its original release. Currently it is available in paperback form, with a lengthy biographical introduction I wrote included. One other Southern writer, this one still alive and kicking (as well as writing), is the undisputed master of turkey hunting tales, the old Colonel himself, Tom Kelly. Anyone who loves the magic, mystery, mesmerism, and misery which are the essence of the sport needs to read Kelly’s books. In that regard, I’ve got some good news. In the next few months look for The Best of Tom Kelly. This will be a collection of his finest tales, chosen by veteran turkey-hunting scribe Jim Spencer and me. Both of us include an introductory essay as an appreciation of the man and his body of work. If you’d like to know when this becomes available, again, just let me know by e-mail. Moving outside the South, let’s touch on a whole bunch of writers I’ve enjoyed over the years, offering a thought or two on them as we go. When it comes to “doggy” literature, it’s difficult to beat the talented and prolific John Taintor Foote. Corey Ford was another great dog writer, and he also ranks at the top, in my view, as a humorist. His rollicking tales of The Lower Forty are a pure delight, and his “The Road to Tinkhamtown” is probably the single best outdoor story every written by an America. For those who love Western hunting, big game, and gun lore, Jack O’Connor stands in a class by himself. He knew his subject intimately, could craft a wonderful tale as well as handle technical matters adeptly, and enjoyed great popularity during his long tenure with Outdoor Life. You can get a pretty solid sampling of his work in The Lost Classics of Jack O’Connor, a book which I edited. It is now out of print, but I’ve got a few copies in stock. Another personal favorite is Theodore Roosevelt. TR was not a particularly accomplished hunter, marksman, or woodsman. But whatever he lacked in ability he made up for with enthusiasm and a solid determination to live what he styled “the strenuous life.” He was a masterful wordsmith as well as America’s greatest conservationist, and his outdoor-related books are chock full of the sort of wisdom and insight we need to keep firmly in mind as our national political bent becomes increasingly bent toward political correctness and as threats to the Second Amendment surround us. Up to this point I’ve devoted coverage almost exclusively to hunting writers, but I have a deep love for angling literature as well. I think Hemingway was actually a better fishing writer than he was on capturing the glories of African hunting, and the Canadian writer Roderick Haig-Brown was a lyrical fishing scribe. Speaking of Canadians, Farley Mowat’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be is outlandishly funny, while his The People of the Deer and Never Cry Wolf are great ventures into natural history. Two splendid fishing writers I’ve been privileged to know are the late Harry Middleton (The Earth Is Enough and On the Spine of Time are his best books) and the wise, winsome Nick Lyons. Both are worthy successors to the literary tradition of Arnold Gingrich, another favorite among fishing writers. Then there are a host of others I’ll merely mention by name. Russell Annabel, Ben East, and Gordon MacQuarrie all knew how to bring real-life adventure to the printed page. Elmer Keith was an editor’s nightmare but a man who knew guns and who knew how to tell a story. Burton Spiller, Harold Sheldon, Horace Lytle, and Horatio Bigelow are all grand when it comes to hunting upland birds. Ray Bergman and Lee Wulff can’t be left out when it comes to fishing. I could readily suggest a dozen favorites among the tribe of turkey hunting scribes, but this already long list of suggestions has to end somewhere, so I’ll cease and desist. In closing though, I’d simply suggest that short of actually being afield or astream, books remain as warm and wonderful a way to spend a winter’s day as I can imagine. Books on the outdoors have sustained me almost all my years, and seldom do I feel more comfortable and at peace with myself and the world than when I’m comfortably settled with a good book in my hand. Thank you for subscribing to the
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