Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JOC 50 years later

I've enjoyed this thread. When I was 9, in 1969, the barber in the closest town of Lindsay, MT found out I was interested in guns and hunting. He got the "big three" and started dropping off the month old issues in our mailbox for me. What a thrill....seeing his little green car pull up and going out to the mailbox and having three month old magazines at once...all smelling slightly of cigar smoke. Though I liked all the writers, O'Connor stood out for me. When I read Hail and Farewell in the summer of 1972, it was a serious blow. Like Greydog,, I at first didn't give Jim Carmichael much of a chance. Darn upstart! But I learned to appreciate his teachings and writing as well....had I have been 9 when I started reading him, I'd have seen his expertise sooner. I think he was worthy successor, and he made his own way, in his own style. I think he was shooting editor for OL longer than O'Connor was. That said, I still read O'Connor regularly...I have most of his books. I don't read them anymore for the info, I've assimilated that over the past 50 years. I read him because reading Jack O'Connor is a pure pleasure, and a glimpse into a time when the world was simpler and a 30 day pack trip into the Yukon was still a possibility..