May 31, 2007
From the Comments
Daryl Scroggins:
Sheila: It’s great to hear that your grandfather worked with Wallace Stevens. Have you read Peter Brazeau’s Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered? It’s an oral biography that appeared back in the 80s–North Point Press. Anyway it’s great, and there is an interesting connection noted in it that relates to your practice of shooting coins: did you know that the model for “Mercury” on the mercury dime was Stevens’s wife? The book is full of 1st person accounts of people who knew Stevens, including many people who had no idea that he had anything going but the insurance job.About shooting coins: I have fond memories of sitting on the roof of my friend Chuck’s house when I was 12, shooting green plastic soldiers set up in a sand pile below. We made all the right sound effects and were only stopped by parents when we started to employ lighter fluid in alarming ways. My .177 Benjamin pump would make wonderful dents in the green guys that looked like the blast holes made by Arnold’s shotgun in the Terminator II liquid-metal-cop.
comments
Matter of fact, I’ve not read Brazeau’s book, but I will on your recommendation. That business about Stevens’s wife and the Mercury dime does ring a dim, distant bell, though. Of course, we draw the line at shooting Mercury dimes, in part from respect for antiquity, in part from a disinclination to take aim at mythological figures, and in part from some old-timey sense that it just ain’t right to shoot ladies — or androgynous beings.
Jon has for-sure done a number on FDR plenty of times. Not out of disrespect for the man or anti-New Deal sentiment (though there is plenty of feeling agin the gummint in general in our households). One of these days I’ll post a photo.
And if I ever realize my deferred (and nigh-on demolished) dream of establishing a desert redout, all of y’all are invited to come out and shoot stuff — or just bask like lizards in the sun.
I want to bask like a lizard in the sun while shooting stuff, if that’s OK.
the desert! I love the desert. let’s go, Sheila.
Oh, you can do that. You bet.
One of my first-and-favorite desert shooting experiences was ten or so years ago. Jon and I were out in the secret place where we wanted to build the Desert Redout, and Cooper’s and my long-time friend Allen drove down from LA to visit. Among Allen’s many accomplishments is his work as a Disney animator, and you can bet he appreciated our producing a Lion King popcorn tin by way of a shooting target. We shot the hell out of that sucker.