Customer Reviews

The Corey Ford sporting treasury: Minutes of the "Lower forty" and other treasured Corey Ford stories

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A child of the '50s, I grew up in a small Midwestern town where I learned to hunt and fish in country very much like Mr. Ford's fictional Hardscrabble, USA. One of my first magazine subscriptions was to Field & Stream, in the pages of which I quickly became a devout vicarious member of The Lower Forty Shooting, Angling and Inside Straight Club -- even if in those days I hadn't a clue as to what an inside straight might be.

As things turned out, mine was to be a life membership. Those wry, folksy hi-jinksy denizens of Uncle Perk's hardware and dry goods store -- Doc Hall, Judge Parker, Angus McNab, Colonel Cobb, Cousin Sidney, Dexter Smeed and others -- stayed with me into manhood, forever fussing amongst themselves in some stove-warmed, nostalgic recess of my memory -- long after Mr. Ford passed away and Field & Stream became just another slick magazine with more ad inserts and attached postcards than real pages.

Thus, I met with excitement and a little nervousness the publication of this book -- The Corey Ford Sporting Treasury -- happy to be reunited with the old gang, yet wondering if they would stand up to the passage of time. I'd been disappointed before revisiting books that enthralled me as a youngster, finding as an adult that I couldn't recapture the magic.

Not so with this collection. If you'd believe me, I'd say the grey started leaving my hair and the pains from my joints as once again I perched unseen on a cracker barrel and listened to the old boys needling each other and plotting some practical joke on Deacon Godfrey or Owl Eyes Osborn -- a joke that more often than not would backfire on one of the club members.

But the real reward in discovering this treasure, besides the choicest of the Lower Forty's "Minutes," were the other pieces Mr. Ford had published over the years he was writer-in-residence at Dartmouth College.

By far the most profound -- in fact, one of the most moving stories I have ever read -- is the grand finale of the book, winning an entire Part of the book's three divisions. It's called "The Road to Tinkhamtown," and it's about an old hunter and his beloved old hound, Shad. This beautifully crafted story has just enough of Ford's signature droll humor in it to keep one guessing, but not enough ultimately to keep away the tears. And if you want to know why, you'll have to take the road to Tinkhamtown all by yourself.

If you are a hunter/fisherman you will greatly enjoy Corey Ford stories.

For us older folks that remember "Tales of The Lower Forty" in Field & Stream many years ago this is a very pleasent return to our past. This book appears to be a collection of the old Field & Stream column. There is also the Corey Ford book "Minutes of The Lower Forty" which is excellent.

All of Corey Fords work reminds of us "simpler" times, every story leaves you chuckling and feeling a litle happier.

Highly recommended.

I read most of the original "Lower Forty" stories in Field and Stream as a youth and more as a young adult. Re-reading them as an old man brings back treasured memories of time spent afield with friends and times with our own local sportsman's clubs. In many cases life does imitate art. Corey Ford had a gift for capturing real life characters on the pages of his books. I still get teary-eyed reading "The Road To Tinkhamtown", probably his best work. Any true sportsman would enjoy this book and I highly recommend it!