My friend Monty was always a slightly elusive presence, even in his autobiographical sketch in Amazon, written by himself: “M. R. Montgomery, known to the various government record keepers as Maurice R. Montgomery Jr., and to all his acquaintances as Monty, was born in eastern Montana in 1938, raised partly in California, and now lives …
Tag: RIP
James Lee Mansell, RIP
James was Floyd Mansell’s oldest son, with the woodsman’s heritage and ability one might expect. Perhaps even in extra measure; he was one of the best woodsmen and elk and turkey hunters I ever knew in his youth. I believe he was also a Golden Gloves boxer, as many of Floyd’s kids and proteges were. …
William “Gatz” Hjortsberg, 1941- 2017
Chris Waddington, my old editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and now a happier man in his belovcd New Orleans (even though Katrina flooded his house) emailed to tell me that our mutual friend Gatz Hjortsberg died at his home in Livingston after a “short illness” i.e. pancreatic cancer (it’s a bad one; it’s the …
Vern Dawson 1962- 2017 RIP
Vernon Dawson died this week, tragically youmg. He was a miner, a craftsman, a drinker, a gentleman, and a friend. Perhaps his problem was the one mentioned long ago by Jimmy Buffett in “A Pirate Looks at Forty” (Forty!): “My occupational hazard bein’ / My occupation’s just not around.” The days of the hard rock …
Leonard Cohen 1934- 2017 RIP
I first saw Leonard Cohen play at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967. Joni Mitchell, in an orange striped mini-dress, led him out.He looked like a rabbinical student. He played ‘Suzanne’ as I remember, and I vowed to buy it as soon as it was out. I have bought virtually everything he has done. I …
George Graham RIP
My brother in law and dear friend, George Graham, died early today after a struggle with esophageal cancer. He was not quite 54, and I can’t get my head around it yet. Until a month or so ago he and Karen were pretty optimistic, and I always thought he would outlive me. We were utterly …
Heinz Meng, 1925 – 2015: RIP
Heinz Meng in the 70s. Dr Heinz Meng of New Paltz NewYork, a long -time professor of Zoology at the State University there and the man who first bred falcons in captivity in the US (Not in the WORLD as many news reports chauvinistically state; Renz Waller bred several in Germany before the war, and …
I’ll be back!
The Blog Party will be at Reid’s in Parker, CO, east of Denver, the weekend of June 11. Regular blogging will then resume. I couldn’t have quit if I wanted to with all the response! Health continues iffy: PD under control at the moment, but apparently a bad case of spinal stenosis is next on …
RIP: Merle Haggard,1937- 2016
We are losing a lot of the great ones…. UPDATE: a great tribute from Wisconsin’s Kirk Hogan, MD, scientist, patent lawyer (!) elk hunter, gourmand, and neo- beat, whose letters often read like poems… Great “Kern River”. My top pick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aILGaYsv_bc Didn’t even make the list of Merle’s top 35! A day hasn’t gone …
Charles Schwartz RIP
Bruce Haak emailed me last night that my old friend Charles Schwartz had died, from a fast-acting brain tumor. I hadn’t even known he was sick. Charlie was a great falconer, and a perfectionist. He ended up flying passage Gyrfalcons and Sage grouse, in the high deserts of Idaho; this high-end grouse hawking is still …