|
|
|
|
|
And
they come for different reasons. Families take their only vacation of the year
to be with folks they see only once a year. Dreamers would like to believe
that when the big shootoff for the Grand American Handicap is held, they’ll
be there, under the lights, standing between two All Americans. And there are
those who come just to shoot one or two good scores. That would be reward
enough for them. The schemers and the chiselers come too. But I don’t know
why. And
their names—unusual isn’t the correct word, but I can’t think of a
better one. Only trap shooters could be called, “Sparrow”
Young,
“Possum” Killam, Perley Gates, Twinkle Pringle, Emma Wetleaf, Robin Hood
and Bullets Galore. The old average books speak for themselves. These names
once appeared on scoreboards. What
makes the Grand American so great is the fact that something unusual or
different happens most every year. I’ve been to over fifty of them and
always drive home thinking about a certain incident I didn’t expect to see,
or watching a shooter win who wasn’t supposed to. But
it was always like that. Always different. The 1915 Grand at Chicago was held
in Grant Park, practically downtown. The shooting could be heard in all the nearby
buildings. A record number of 828 shooters competed over traps facing Lake
Michigan. But there was a problem. No one could eat. Upon arrival, the old
Interstate Trapshooting Association learned there was an ordinance against
selling anything in the park. Shooters wandered up and down unfamiliar
streets, often missing their squad in search of nourishment. At one time, park
police put Bill Moore, the old Sportsmen
Review (forerunner of Trap
& Field) under arrest for selling subscriptions. The Grand moved to St. Louis in 1916. A colorful character from Milwaukee, who was just a so-so shooter, started to tell folks a month or so ahead of the big shoot that he was going to win the Grand American Handicap. Folks didn't pay much attention as he never had won anything important in the past. Things got more than ridiculous when Capt. Jack Wulf bought a new Panama suit, had his picture taken, and started handing out autographed photos. He thought people would like an autographed picture of the 1916 Grand American winner even though the shoot was a few weeks away, They laughed at Capt. Wulf for days, but no one was laughing when he broke 99x100 from 19 yards and won the event that he predicted he would.
Old Hank had a terrible
thing happen during the 1918 Grand American Handicap. The big event was back
in Chicago, but entries were down due to the war in Europe. Pendergast broke
97x100 from 22 yards (23 yards was the maximum in 1918). The score held up
until late in the day when J. D. Henry, a barber from Elkhart, Indiana tied
him. Henry was shooting from 16 yards (in the old days poorer shooters often
shot handicap events from the 16 yard line). The barber from Indiana had an
80% average at the time, and Pendergast was the big favorite to win the
shootoff. The moving picture business was in its infancy in those years, but two or three men wearing their caps on backwards showed up for the shootoff with noisy cameras. Pendergast was standing six yards further back than the barber in the shootoff, and midway through, each man was down one. As Pendergast raised his gun to shoot the first target from Post 5, the cameras started to grind away no more than two feet from his ear. He missed the next two targets and eventually lost the big title by a single bird. My
father said that old Hank would never go to the movies after that day, even
after they became popular. Grand
American stories wouldn’t be complete without the tale of Perley Gates,
a barber from Bennington, Perley
shot registered targets throughout the 50s and early 60s. No man alive or dead
ever loved to shoot more. They say his poor wife divorced him as he spent
every dime he made from cutting hair on trapguns or shells, or going to
shoots. Perley could be shaving someone, and if the gun club called and said
they were shooting doubles, the customer sat there, lather and all, until
Perky got back. He
saved his money for years to go to the Grand American just one time. It was
unbelievable to Perley that a place existed where you could shoot singles,
doubles and handicap for over a week. Finally, he figured he had saved enough
for a round-trip plane ticket, hotel, meals, plus shell and target money to
shoot the complete program at Vandalia. Playing any purses was out of the
question. The
second or so day at the Grand, someone asked him if he was going to Camp Troy
for the night jackpot shoots. This was a small club about ten miles from the
Grand that held events under the lights, every night while the big shoot was
going on at Vandalia. About
the time the big-money handicap events were starting, someone asked Perley why
he wasn’t playing the money They reasoned he was a short-yardage shooter and
an unknown—just the type of person who goes out and wins the Grand American
Handicap. And historically it had been won by a barber on more than a few
occasions. So
Perley got to thinking. Suppose he did win one of the big handicaps, and he
wasn’t playing the purses or optionals. He’d lose thousands and worse yet,
be the laughing stock of all the New England states. But he didn’t have the
money to play any purses either! The
answer came quickly. There was only one more doubles event left on the
program, and he didn’t care if he shot it or not, If he wasn’t going to
shoot any more doubles, why did he need his doubles gun? So Perley Gates sold
his nice Winchester Model 21 and with the money played the complete program
for the last three days. He
never broke in the nineties. His money was gone; his Model 21 was gone; and
his plane ticket home was gone. But there was good news, too. Howard Peterson,
a Vermont shooter who had just bought a new Cadillac, told Perky he’d give
him a ride home. “We
left the grounds fairly late on the last day following the Vandalia Handicap.
I was driving. Perley kept saying he’d like to drive straight through. I
didn’t know at the time he had no money for a motel, but I
should have suspected
because he didn’t eat when we stopped for gas. After about three hours, I
got tired, and Perky took over the driving. “I
laid down in the back seat and went to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept,
but I awoke to a terrible burning smell, and the car was sort of lunging. I
asked Perley what was wrong, but he didn’t know. He just said it had been
acting sluggish for the last hour or so. Well, it didn’t take me long to
determine what was wrong. Perley had never taken the big Cadillac out of first
gear! Luckily, we made it to a gas station, but it was closed for the weekend.
The clutch and transmission were gone. Four days later new ones arrived, and
we started east again. Perley said he was sorry, I was afraid to ask him if he
had a driver’s license. I doubt he did.” Neither
Perley Gates or Howard Peterson ever attended another Grand American. If you are interested in trapshooting history, try to stop by the National Trapshooting Hall of Fame and Museum located at the ATA headquarters in Vandalia. The museum houses one of the largest collections of trapshooting memorabilia in the world and is open to the public free of charge Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Should you have a trapshooting artifact that you would like information about, contact me at the Trapshooting Hall of Fame and Museum, 601 National Rd., Vandalia, OH 45377. The museum is always looking for select items to add to our collection of shooting memorabilia. Visit us on our web site at www.traphof.org. |
very
August they come, as they have over 100 years. The tall, the short, the rich,
the poor come in pickup trucks from the wheat fields of
Henry
J “Hank” Pendergast of 
Vt.