[ramonmark]

Originally Posted by scruffy

Those are fascinating pictures and stories ! I love them. I wonder if they visited Jack O'Connor's house when he was still in Arizona? O'Connor wrote of having a big trophy room in that state and when he moved he lost a bundle.

I was told that I would be disappointed when I went down to Lewiston, Idaho to visit him back in the early '70s.

As a surprise, my wife had set up a visit with him as a gift to me. We drove down in very early September if I remember correctly. He had a big white colonial house over looking the Snake river. I remember driving across the bridge to say that I had been in Washington.

Although O'Connor said that he would be home, he wasn't. He had just got back from a stone hunt in B.C. and promptly left for Africa. I talked to a kid mowing his lawn and he got a hold of a very nice lady who used to be his secretary when he worked for Out Door Life.

She took pity on a couple of disappointed young Canadians and took us on a tour of the house.

What I remember:

There were no mounted animals in the living room. There was a bronze of a big horn. It cost $750 which O'Connor thought was too much so the artist gave it to him.

Going upstairs was a tiger rug on the wall and in his study he had a bunch of heads including addax and scimitar oryx that he shot in the Sahara in about 1955. Maybe with Elgin Gates..

We went out to the back and he had taken out a wall on the garage and lengthened the room. That is where he had his great sheep heads, a fabulous mule deer buck, a head mount of an African lion (I thought it did not do that cat justice), and other heads. The walls were done in pine.

Most of his guns were stored elsewhere for security reasons. I think that I saw a Ruger #1 and an Ithaca pump shotgun. Maybe one other?

I do not remember ever seeing any full mounts of anything. Maybe the bear was back in Arizona? I do not know.

I am glad that I saw the house and heads. He certainly was my hunting hero back when I was a yonker.

I also used to read John Jobson's articles. Sports Afield. A very cool guy.

At least ten years ago or more I saw some of Colonel Charles Askins' rifles for sale by his kin. I am left handed like him so I thought that I would love to own one. I was willing to pay an outrageous $2,000 for a regular one. About the cheapest one for sale was a plain Jane Remington 700. The price was $18,000 U.S.

That's a super cool experience! Thanks for sharing. Unfortunately I'm just a young fellar myself and many of these stories are the ones that my brother, sister and I all remember. My grand father passed away in 1997 and my dad in 2005. SO I can't ask for more details anymore. What I wouldn't take to go back and record these memories. Many of them are ones we heard over and over from dad, and some are close memories that we shared with grandpa himself. I've always been pretty reluctant in telling them. When I was a child I used to tell these grand tales to my friends and many of them used to say I was a fibber or a liar. Even there parents got on bored. It really stung, these were stories of my dad and grandpa's life! I guess its hard to image a lot of this stuff happening if all you've ever seen is a city and spend most of your time in front of the TV. I don't mind sharing these memories with the likes of outdoors men (and women) as they would appreciate the history or story itself. I'm sure some of the details were embellished from my dad about his father. But, what I do know is the people and the situations did happen.