Question for Steve Wenger

No, I Never Met...

csmkersh said:

Question for Steve Wenger.

Did you ever meet "Jelly" Bryce? I went back through your web site again and was surprised you mentioned him and also cover Cirillo's alternate sighting methods.

Yes, I realize that most here would have been kids if the ever met the man.

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...Jelly Bryce.

I did meet Rex Applegate when I was a child in Mexico City, then re-connected with him, in 1997. In fact, I was with him in the hospital in San Diego, just a few days before his death.

I did meet and interact with Jim Cirillo at a few ASLET seminars and had several phone conversations with him, while he was living in Panama City. I will always prize the inscription that he wrote to me in Guns, Bullets, and Gunfights but, like many others, I mostly prize the invaluable tactical lessons from him, whether they came directly or indirectly.

My Recollection...

csmkersh said:

Also have No Second Place Winner by Jordan. Didn't Jordan write for Shooting Times at one time?

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...is that Jordan wrote an occasional piece for Shooting Times, mostly as a counterpoint to Skeeter Skelton. In fact, he may have written those pieces during the times that Skeeter was ill.

I'll be happy to defer to better memories on this one.

If Memory Serves...

csmkersh said:

Had the good fortune to me Adolph Topperwein and Wes Kline. Kline never gained the recognition as a exhibition shooter as Topperwein but that be partly do to Ad's using Plinky, his wife in the show.

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...Topperwein was some sort of relative of Rex Applegate's and had some influence on the eventual development of his eponymous technique.

No Offense Taken...

P. Marlowe said:

I hope you two gentlemen do not find my correction insulting but I just thought you might find this of interest. Have a good rest of the week.

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...by me. I replied from years-old memory and failed to take the time to crack open any of Applegate's books.

I never take offense at any correction of facts.

By the Way...

...Applegate made the point that one of the departures that he made from the technique that he learned from Fairbairn - raising the outstretched gun arm "like a pump handle" - was the result of an unplanned stop in Deadwood SD.

When he realized that the train on which he was riding had stopped there, he got off and sought out what I recall as the local library. Inquiring as to any material on Wild Bill Hickok, the librarian found him a box of unsorted papers. In it, he found an unmailed letter in which Hickok had replied to an inquiry about his technique in gunfights. Again, relying solely on memory, Hickok had penned that he raised his pistol as an extension of his arm and fired just as it was pointed at his target.