“His Grandfather was the one and only Elgin Gates...”
WOW!!!
Hunting royalty!
The man who quite literally wrote the book on hunting in Africa and Asia. So Cool.
What was the guy like as a private person?
As far as the heads, we had a moose head (from only God knows where) and a buffalo head (again, from where only God knows). Deer and bear weren’t around. Dove, rabbits and squirrels were the most abundant wildlife.
Not just hunting... Boat racing, flying, archaeology... He was a nice regular kind of guy. He was out of town a lot and we had he place to ourselves most of the time. But he always had time to treat us kids like we were human and have in depth discussions, he was like a teacher. He loved to share his hunting and arrowhead hunting stories and of course there was no end to them.
If he was home on weekends he would take us out boating or flying. Or out to the range to trap shoot. We often went and goofed around with racing boats against Jimbo McConnell who was much younger at the time. Jimbo lived there also, another boat racing legend. I was also good friends with Jimbo’s son David, we were the same age and lived only a block from each other.
It was a lot of fun to grow up in that little town because of folks like this who lived there. And everyone closely knew everyone, it was like one big family. :)