and first read Buckingham I liked his stuff. But the older I got, and get, the less I like him...
IMO he was an elitist, racist, arrogant, pampered, egotistical, GAME SHOOTER, who was also a "passable" writer. I said that once in a group of people, (you were there Eric), and was chastised by one of the people at the table who reminded me that I had to consider that when he wrote his stories that was "the way it was", at least as regards his attitudes towards "the help"....
I agreed with that then, and still do, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't recall anything that I've ever read of his where he wasn't "taken", "shown", "paddled" and "pampered", by those that he might have indicated he was "fond of", or, "found humerous", and was required only to "shoot when dem ducks gets here"...
He was driven to the RR station where he traveled in luxury to the hunting area, where he was picked up by "the help" who carried his baggage to his carefully appointed sleeping area....his drinks we're poured for him and his plates were filled and cleared by other "help", while yet more "help, scouted, prepared blinds, and then shuffled off to their less well appointed sleeping areas anxious, if you care to believe his story, to get up a couple of hours earlier than he did so that they could make his breakfast, pack his lunch, polish his apples, wax his shells, dry off his boat seat and then paddle his arrogant ass to the blind and back; whereafter they were expected to clean his ducks, and pour his drinks yet again....and he made sure that he pointed that out, usually more than once, in every story of his that I've ever read of his...
Thats privledge, and it might have been "the way it was done back then", but it isn't "hunting" as we think of it now and referring to him as a "Waterfowl Hunter" I think overstates what he was. No question he could kill ducks, but so can the guys that go to Argentina and pop a case of shells in the morning at ducks that someone else has scouted, baited up paddled them to, picked up for them, and then cleaned their guns, and given away their ducks for them when it was time for the first toddy of the afternoon.....might be grand but it isn't hunting and requires only money to accomplish...(for those that have been, or got to, Argentina that is not meant to be a condemnation of those trips just a statement of fact as I see it)...
For sure a good many of the writers of that time found themselves in that same lofty place, (after all given the time those that hunted for pleasure, and then wrote about it, were the rich, while those that hunted for food weren't interested in how "long" their guns could shoot, shells being expensive and far better spent on a water shot into a flock of birds), so his books do provide us with an "historical" look into the time but there are, IMO, certainly books that I believe do a "better" job of that.....
Someone mentioned Van Campen Heilner and thats a good example. He was indeed one of the rich and priveledged. Never far from his incredibly rich parents "tit", never went to even High School, never did an honest days work in his life, yet I find his writing far more compelling because he never emphasises his place in life, (in fact if you didn't read about him elsewhere you'd never know he was one of the filthy rich of his time from his duck hunting book--and how sad that there was only the one)....he never talks down about the help, never denegrates them by emulating their speech, never presents himself as being "waited on", "catered to", or "pampered" like Buckingham did so I enjoy reading him far more than I do the stuff written by "Mr. Nash"....
One persons opinion for sure and I'm equally sure that many will disagree. No argument that the guy was a good shot, (just ask him he'll tell you-repeatedly-in his stories), and no question that he killed a great number of ducks in his time but that doesn't, at least to me, make me want to include him in the "old days" hunters that are held up as "examples"....
I'll take Heilner, Connent, Holland, Claflin, Grinnell,over Buckingham if I want to read about the way it was back in the "good old days" because those guys give me the impression in their writing that they were actually "hunters" and not just "priveledged shooters)....
Steve
