Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Pat McManus News???

I do not believe Patrick should get such praise for simply following me and my friends around and writing about what we did. Racid was actually a man named Jack. Retch was my friend Dave. When he wrote about every boy needs to dig a hole, Dave aka Retch and I had just finished digging a huge hole in the neighbors field to use as a pit trap. His square bowed canoe was a direct copy of the one Dave and I built and attempted to float down the Roaring Fork River, with the same results. His mountain car was a dead ringer for my old Jeep Wagoneer. The proof in the pudding was his spot on description of my grandmothers and my relationship. He told the reader the events happened in Idaho, when in real life it happened in a small valley in long ago Colorado. My mother read everything he wrote and would remark while laughing "remember when you and Dave did that exact same thing?" I got to meet him once and he was quite the gentleman. He will be missed.

He did have a way of putting a picture in your mind with his words.

I can't tell you how many times I had tears in my eyes after reading some of his passages

^this^

I can't imagine the total hours of pure enjoyment and stomach aches from laughter he's brought to his readers, but he deserves every penny he's made. I wish him the very best, and hope he's enjoying his retirement.

I met him at a book signing back in the early 90's. There wasn't the chance for real conversation, but I feel privileged to have at least met him.

I'm picturing him bringing the deer he THOUGHT was dead down the mountain on his bicycle

I was thinking, what you were typing.

One time McManus published a story in the Missouri Conservationist. One reader liked it so much that she wrote a letter to the editor urging McManus to quit whatever else it was he did and "write, write, write!"

Nobody told her he had already figured that out.

The funniest stories are those that are just a RCH past the truth. McManus, Foxworthy, . . . who?

My sentiments exactly. He was here in town one time at a local bookstore signing books but due to work I could not get there to meet him.

I truly enjoyed Pat's writings through the years. May God bless him with health and strength.

My left-wing former father-in-law would have never found McManus if it wasn't for me recognizing their similar troubles with trailers. Father-in-law laughed until, like many of us, he cried reading a Pat McManus story on trailers. Soon, father-in-law owned several McManus books even though he was neither a hunter or fisherman.

Growing up in a rural family where we produced most of our own food makes me remember a McManus line about subsistence farming that said something like 'back then, we had a personal relationship with our food.' Yes indeed, I got to know well dozens of chickens, ducks, rabbits, pigs and calves before eating them. It is OK that Mr. McManus has retired since, at age 60, I'm probably one of the younger people who had a youth recognizable in his stories. There's a generation or two now that might see some humor but just can't understand the full meaning of his writings.

The unexpected twist in a story line, the subtle pictures he painted with words and the ability to convey stories much like we've lived made Pat McManus a treasure. He was truly a gift from God for many of us.

It hurt but we survived the retirement of Gary Larson and his infamous 'Far Side'. It'll hurt but we'll survive this. Both are and will be missed, to be sure.

The last Pat McManus I red was "The Horse In The Garage."

A book. The horse, the house's big lot, the garage/stable, the kids. A side-splitter because I think it was true. Now that I hear his age, it must be.

I grew up reading Pat McManus articles in Outdoor Life. When I got married I reread them all for my wife.

I have all of his humor books. I have literally laughed til I cried several times while reading them. I started reading them in high school in the mid 90's. Several times I got some odd looks during study hall when I would start laughing uncontrollably. I've read several stories to my wife who would end laughing at the story, and at my attempts to read and not laugh.

I too grew up reading, no actually studying his work. And loving every bit of it. My sons read every one of his books that I have. When one became a camp counselor at a youth camp in Wyoming he "borrowed" my books and read his kids one of the stories each night. He said they all howled with laughter and Pat's legacy continues!

Loved reading his stories as a kid!

Thanks Pat!

Did he actually write stories? I've just seen the comics.

Pat's book on writing was a great read.

have a set of his books sitting around waiting for my nieces and nephews to get just a bit older when uncle gets stuck babysitting....

also have one of Ed Zern's books that i found in a used book shop out in Washington.....least if its still with the rest of my stuff and Scott didnt steal it

Dad gave me THEY SHOOT CANOES, DON�T THEY? for Christmas, 1982, the day before my son was born. I worked 3-11 that night in ICU, but we only had two patients in pretty good shape, so I spent most of the shift with my wife and son in L&D while Mom, Dad, My aunt, and my brother babysat the girls. They started celebrating the new grandson/nephew before I got home, so I had to play catch-up. The folks went then drove home (they were in no shape to walk) and my brother stayed. He read aloud the first half of "All You Ever Wanted to Know About Live Bait but Were Afraid to Ask", and I read the second, crying and holding my belly all the way. Tried to start the next story, but had to quit. Couldn't see the page anymore. We laughed ourselves to sleep that night.