This is my favorite season of the year. My family and co-workers can attest that I’m a pumpkin-spice-on-everything kind o’ feller. They indulge me.
I love everything about the autumn season — the colors, the crisp bite to the morning air, the golden light, the harvest moon. The pumpkin spice. Indian Summer is especially rewarding, as that bite in the morning air mellows into perfect warmth that entices us out into forest and field.
Interestingly, no one really knows the origin of the term. The first recorded description of “Indian Summer” comes from a French farmer in America named J. H. St. John de Crèvecoeur, who wrote in a 1778 letter:
“Then a severe frost succeeds, which prepares it to receive the voluminous coat of snow which is soon to follow; though it is often preceded by a short interval of smoke and mildness, called the Indian summer.”
So, the term was in common usage by the late 18th Century, and I’d bet long before that. I had always assumed that it referred to the last flurry of activity among the natives of the Eastern Woodlands — the harvest, the hunt, the raid — before the long haul through winter. Seems reasonable, but there’s just no evidence.
Indian Summer is also the title of the Hugo Pratt/Milo Manara Euro-erotica graphic novel classic featuring Puritans and Indians. I figure Manara took inspiration from Betty Zane’s legendary run for gunpowder during the 1782 Siege of Fort Henry on the Ohio River frontier. I’m not sure Betty brought the sexy quite so flagrantly, but… print the legend.
Given the current climate, it’s not surprising that the term is considered “problematic” in woke-world. Indigenous Corporate Training, Inc. included “Indian Summer” among its “culturally offensive phrases” that are risky in the work environment.
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I’ll be all over the forthcoming edition of True West Magazine. Lookit that, will ya?
I wonder if Gene Baldwin could make me a sugarloaf sombrero…
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October is also a month to explore and celebrate the weird, the uncanny, the downright terrifying. I hope to spend some time this month on the dark trails through the forbidding woods. I’ll start with what maybe technically should be considered a winter song — one of my favorites from 1970s Workingman’s Dead. Don’t murder me…
“The imagery occurred to me in a dream. I woke up and grabbed a pencil before I was entirely awake and wrote the whole song down. I think I managed to capture the quality of the dream by writing it down before I was wide awake.”
— Robert Hunter
Billy Strings…
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Looking ahead… Reader “Melodious Thunk” scouted out news of a springtime release of…
It is the mid-eighteenth century, and in the 13 colonies founded by Great Britain, anxious colonists desperate to conquer and settle North America’s “First Frontier” beyond the Appalachian Mountains engage in a never-ending series of bloody battles. These violent conflicts are waged against the Native American tribes whose lands they covet, The French, and finally against the mother country itself in an American Revolution destined to reverberate around the world.
This is the setting of Blood and Treasure and the guide to this epic narrative is none other than America’s first and arguably greatest pathfinder Daniel Boone―not the coonskin cap-wearing caricature of popular culture but the flesh-and-blood frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero whose explorations into the forested frontier beyond the great mountains would become the stuff of legend. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of the brutal birth of the United States is told through the eyes of both the ordinary and larger-than-life men and women, white and Native American, who witnessed it.
This fast-paced and fiery narrative, fueled by contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, and eyewitness accounts, is a stirring chronicle of the conflict over America’s “First Frontier” that places the reader at the center of this remarkable epoch and its gripping tales of courage and sacrifice.
Drury and Clavin have teamed upon several works of frontier history, notably The Heart of Everything That Is, which restored Red Cloud to his proper status as a Frontier Partisan badass. Sure do like that cover painting.
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The research and writing work is nearly complete on the first series of the Frontier Partisans Podcast on the complicated legacy of Kit Carson. It’s shaped up into a four-parter:
I. Kit Carson’s People: The Scots-Irish Frontier Culture
II. Mountain Man — I’ve Been Everywhere, Man.
III. The Fremont Expeditions — Hunter, Guide, Explorer.
IV. Indian Agent and Soldier
Going to get the technical work and recording in order through October and I aim to launch this thing at the beginning of November.
I am really glad I ended up choosing to start along this trail with Carson. His story offers so much opportunity to engage constructively with the current tensions over the nature and meaning of our history. And he’s just darned interesting company.
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(Addendum): Melodious also reminds us about Peter FitzSimons’ Breaker Morant due out October 27. Looks like it’s only available on Kindle in the States.
Does Breaker Morant deserve his iconic status? Who was Harry Morant? What events and passions led him to a conflict that was essentially an Imperial war, played out on a distant continent under a foreign flag? Was he a scapegoat for British war crimes or a criminal himself?
With his trademark brilliant command of story, Peter FitzSimons unravels the many myths and fictions that surround the life of Harry Morant. The truths FitzSimons uncovers about ‘The Breaker’ and the part he played in the Boer War are astonishing – and, in the hands of this master storyteller, make compelling reading.
Melodious Thunk says
The Mata Hari of the Mexican revolution…..what……could that be…….?…….anyway,
don’t forget about FitzSimons’_”Breaker Morant”, Jim, looks like you’ll be able to get
that on Kindle.
JimC says
Mata Hari… Wonder about that, too…
JimC says
Re FitzSimons’_”Breaker Morant” — I’ll get on that. Have to recharge the Kindle…
Quixotic Mainer says
I know what you mean about fall, it just gets the blood going. Today marks our first day of grouse season, so the woods are shouting to me in a particularly insistent manner. My teenage brain of decades past would debate the matter of how sexy Betty Zane was, reading those as a kid I imagined her as vaguely Jennifer Connelly. Looking forward to the Carson podcast!
JimC says
Jennifer Connelly, eh? Well, maybe she DID bring the sexy…
Matthew says
I read Drury and Clavin’s Lucky 666 about a bomber crew in the Second World War. I enjoyed it.
Can’t wait for the Kit Carson podcast.
Ugly Hombre says
Indian summer is a super time of the year.
Deer season, model 12 shotguns, bird dogs, and apple cider.
Holloween parties with sexy girls in dangerous costumes and beer.
Fantastic!
http://thegreatwesternmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/WonderfulCountryFindingRifles.jpg
Jim you really need to get that hat!
Great post
J.F. Bell says
…I assume by Model 12 you reference the finest repeating shotgun known to man?
Fun sidenote. Years ago I seem to recall reading that one such animal formerly belonging to Hemingway was still at large, separated from his estate after his death along with a dozen or so other guns. The disposal was undertaken by a local pawnshop which set the lot out amongst their extant stock and without any kind of distinction. By the time it was known outside the family those particular guns had sold.
I recall his was in 20 gauge. Used to have the serial written down somewhere – never did find it, but I used to get an electric tick when I’d walk into a place and see one on the used rack.
No idea if they ever tracked down the Thompson he kept on his boat, either…the odds of that one turning up are probably somewhat less.
JimC says
Here’s my Model 12 story. It’s a tragedy. When I was working at Pachmayr, we had a fair number of Model 12 aficionados turning out to shoot trap with their prize shotguns. We also had many trapshooters who were reloaders. You may be seeing where this is heading…
One day I heard a horrid BLAT! sound out on the range, which was just outside the pro shop that I managed. I ran out and saw a man holding what was left of his M 12, the receiver peeled back like a banana and the barrel split. On the ground was the brass base of a shell that had flattened down to the thickness of a razor. Doubled reload, apparently. The man had a piece of the receiver driven most of the way through his palm, but he had no time for that. He was beside himself that he’d destroyed his Model 12. The pain from his wound went away, I’m sure, but a ruined Model 12 is forever.
Ugly Hombre says
Yes Sir, the venerable Mod 12 Winchester!
https://gundigest.com/gun-reviews/shotguns/winchester-model-12-the-perfect-pump-action-shotgun
My Dad had a early one that had belonged to Grandpa, a fantastic shot gun, could use it near any time I wanted, we had a bird dog, drive the old pickup with a camper on it, outside of town to the prairie, sniff out the ring necks, super fun for a young man- more fun for a good bird dog.!
One thing about the Model 12 you can still find them in pretty good shape fairly reasonable, I’m always on the look out for one, may seem a abomination, but I thought about buying and having a beat up one cut down to “Riot” configuration a’la “crazy Lee” of “The Wild Bunch” .
Would never do that to a clean Mod 12 of course.
Sacrilege!
“But a ruined Model 12 is forever.”
Damn! that hurt.
J.F. Bell says
I have a standing policy never to modify any gun still in its original configuration. Probably this is a result of seeing cowboy-action shooters whacking original Model 97s and double guns in pristine condition into make-believe coach guns.
Figure that falls somewhere along the lines of neutering a dog when he turns fifteen; if it made it this far in one piece, leave it alone.
If the damage has already been done by the time one floats into my possession it’s a little different story. Those fitted with aftermarket polychokes, recoil pads, and poorly-fit stock replacements are fair game.
…which is coincidentally why there’s a 18″ bootlegger gun and a Model 12 trench gun clone living in the safe.
JimC says
A reasonable policy. Refinishing and reblueing are a grey area. I’ve seen a lot of people crestfallen to discover that they’ve greatly diminished the value of a piece by doing so, and a bunch of others who did it knowing full well what they were doing. Me, I like a patina, but some people really want everything to be shiny.
Ugly Hombre says
I came across a Mod 12 Riot recent- cheap, US marked no less, on line, it was etched with ”DIABLO CITY COLLEGE” all G.D. over it. Via electric pen. Like a Tondo tattoo job.
Horrified and disgusted- almost upchucked my Phad Thai left over lunch.
I was so jarred I did not save a picture of it which I should have done. But my eyes were hurting.
https://www.shootingtimes.com/editorial/handgun_reviews_st_bustamontehate_200903/99245
Yeah- G.D. It- Bustamonte I Hate You!
JimC says
They know not what they do.
Ugly Hombre says
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ed/29/d7/ed29d749ebc8accb2be619d540ddd04b.jpg
Jim Hayden says
This fella is on Facebook and makes custom/authentic sombreros:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/RJPrestonSombreros/about
JimC says
Great stuff Jim.