While I admire the engraver’s art and can appreciate the wow factor on a custom-engraved firearm, it’s really just art appreciation. I can never really picture myself wielding an art gun. I tend to gravitate toward the plain and simple, especially in rifles. But I could go for this. Oh, yes, I could…
Rigby, of course. An addition to the battery of a Texan (presumably of Celtic descent, and presumably an oil man). Crom!
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My friend, ace photographer Cody Rheault, shot what has to be either my next author photo or an album cover:
Why is our Frontier Partisans correspondent in the back of a patrol car? Glad you asked. We were given a lift by the Black Butte Ranch Chief of Police Jason Van Meter to a presentation of a Quilt of Valor to a local Sisters man named Bob Grooney, a 93-year-old U.S. Marine veteran who fought on Iwo Jima in 1945 at the age of 16. The Chief is himself a Marine combat veteran, which contributed to the depth of meaning in the event. Marines take their history seriously, and an Iwo Jima veteran is somebody.
It was a fine thing, and I asked Cody to shoot it because he has made a special career focus on telling veterans’ stories. Speaking of telling stories, Craig Rullman, also a Marine veteran, wrote about a special interaction with Grooney at The Bunkhouse Chronicles. Read it here.
Cody thought it was the height of good fun taking pictures of his editor in the back of a squad car. Tell you this: A guy my size does NOT fit well. Guess I oughta avoid arrest…
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Barry McKnight scouted up a story about Ojibwe horses. I had never heard of Ojibwe horses before and this is wonderful:
Em Loerzel grew up hearing stories about the Ojibwe horse from her uncle, about small ponies that would roam free near Ojibwe communities tucked among the forests and lakes along the Minnesota-Canada border, and help with tasks such as hauling wood and trap lines.
“I think when people think about Native people and their horses, they think of Lakota people or southwest people, but he would tell me, don’t forget that we are horse people too,” said Loerzel, a descendant of the White Earth Nation.
Loerzel has taken that teaching to heart. Earlier this year, the 28-year-old graduate student in social welfare at the University of Washington raised money to rescue six of the horses from a Canada rancher who could no longer afford to keep them.
She brought them to a farm owned by a friend outside River Falls, where Loerzel moved last year with her husband. And she started a nonprofit called The Humble Horse, to raise awareness about the breed–which is also known as the Lac La Croix pony, and to help revive it. Only about 180 Ojibwe horses remain, mostly in Canada.
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A fine soul who goes by the handle of Half Step uploaded the audio from both nights of Billy Strings’s stand at McMenamins Edgefield, which means I can retrace that musical adventure at work. Which is pretty cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hFhZtgn1v0
Katie Williams says
Great story Jim! I like the photo in the back of the squad car. It would a perfect album cover .
JimC says
Good to hear from you Katie.
Aaron Yetter says
Just finished watching a pretty good werewolf movie, The Cursed. Give it a try. I was hoping for a different ending but was entertained none the less.
JimC says
Synchronicity. I am in the midst of compiling a list of things I want to watch and read in the horror realm this fall. I will give this one a go.
David Wrolson says
My “Back of Police Car” story might be better. Although, it doesn’t involve an Iwo Jima vet.
It involves a:
1) Broken down pickup (A Friends)
2) A girl that I met that night that could have been my first kiss. I was trying to start the truck and was trying to get the nerve to kiss her when the cop pulled up behind us. IIRC-she had been driving (I had been drinking) but I was behind the wheel to try and start the truck.
3) Alcohol,l of course-not much-but it was probably smellable-which may be the reason she told the cop that I should ride in the back. He then gave us a ride to the friend’s house where we were staying.
JimC says
Hah! Sweet bird of youth… no easy keeper.
J.F. Bell says
Over the years I’ve come to appreciate the kind of craftsmanship involved in taking a working rifle and using it for a canvas. Two of my former classmates are well on their way as engravers – one starting out, one established – and I’ve got a standing arrangement with the former for some eventual work on an otherwise beater-grade piece of hardware.
That being said…
The best kind of artistry on a gun doesn’t happen in a shop. It happens unexpectedly in tall grass or dense tropical undergrowth, on the sides of granite mountains and in the whiteout of blowing snow. Environment provides the tooling – a sharp outcrop leaving notches in walnut grain, razor thorns that carve uneven lines on rifle and rifleman alike, dust and dirt and cleaning that wear to show silver at muzzle crown and the hard lines of the receiver, darkened places on a hand-rubbed stock where skin and wood and oil and sweat mingled in those uncertain minutes of the hunt.
In the most storied examples, the actual battle scars. The crease left by horn or claw of an animal mounted now above the fireplace. Other times, the graze of a bullet from more dangerous game yet. Reminders that if the rifle had to prove itself, so too did the man.
Hardship is a prerequisite, as is wear. Those factors that otherwise devalue an item in the eyes of those who grade by dint of books and percentages of remove from a golden ideal of UNFIRED/NEW IN BOX.
A presentation-grade rifle that never goes afield is a waste. It is the champion horse never ridden, the classic muscle car with a dozen original miles plinthed in a museum, and the possession of vintage liquor by a teetotaling collector. A article with native qualities which far outstrip any artificial values fixed on it after the fact, but which qualities will never be called upon because – as a designated Thing of Beauty – it cannot be risked, lest the resale value suffer.
A plain and dependable woman, a field-grade rifle, and a mutt will get you further and yield better stories, anyhow.
JimC says
Wonderful wordsmithing as always. Love this:
In fairness, I do believe that Rigby has emphasized that this Texan’s battery IS being used in the field, so hat’s off to him for that.
J.F. Bell says
Thanks. Someday I gotta find a way to get somebody to pay me for said wordsmithing, but I think that’s a ways off yet.
As an aside…I always assumed somebody from this crowd would wind up in the back of a cop car. Not jail, maybe…but definitely a cruiser.
lane batot says
….And don’t forget toys(including “Action Figures”), that are kept as collectibles and stay in the box, never played with! A travesty!
lane batot says
Never heard of the Ojibway horses either–intriguing! I HAVE heard of Seminole ponies, that supposedly were very skilled at manuevring in the swamps–I doubt there are any more of those left, alas…..
Rob says
Ojibwe became Chippewa in the States…ojibwe and chippewa were then meant to describe both (chippewa was easier to say for whites, ojibwe was preferred by the tribe)…Chippewa now describes those tribes in the US, Ojibwe those in Canada…