I grew up with family in Salmon, Idaho. As a youngster, when visiting my family, one of my 'summer' jobs was to mow my Aunt & Uncle's yard. My uncle 'loaned' me out to a 'friend' to mow his yard. That was my first meeting with Elmer Keith. He took me up to the city dump and tried to teach this youngster all about shooting a handgun.
As for influencing me, primarily he influenced my ideas on handguns and handgun cartridges. One of the things he taught me was to pick a cartridge I was comfortable shooting. Seemed a bit different from his thoughts and ideas on rifle cartridges after the fact but, though he liked the bigger handgun calibers he understood that a 12 year old kid probably wouldn't enjoy shooting a 45 LC.
I have three autographed books by Elmer Keith; one was to my Dad the other two were to me.
I didn't read much of JOC and still haven't though the one's I have read have a lot of good information in them.
Finn Aagard and JB have had a lot of input into my shooting but the # 1 influence on my has been my Dad and all of his brothers. Each served in WWII and each had learned to shoot prior to joining their respective branches of service. None of the pushed one type of cartridge over the other, rather, they pushed learning your rifle by shooting as much as you can at what ranges you hope to take game and, to them most importantly, hitting your target where you will do the most damage with what you are shooting. Their ideas still color my thinking though all are long gone.
