If you could get past all the balderdash & hucksterism's a lot of his items were both well made and very serviceable as Miller says. I once worked with a guy who grew up just down the road from Herter and spent time as a boy in his home. He said that in real life, the guy was genuinely fun and always pleasant to be around. Can you imagine having a neighbor like that when you were growing up?!
We used to shoot his 'chalice' wads when they came out; one of my buds still has a supply and they remain pliant to this day, better plastic than what is in some other wads I can think of. Too, some of those chalice wads were golden in color. I imagine George was having a little private joke w/that color choice. In Jr. high school my buds & I thot his 'rotary fletcher' was about the funniest sounding item in the catalogue. Found out the hard way that some of the bargain fishing things were sized more for minnows than what I'd call fish. Bought a box of 500 assorted hooks once when I was in perhaps the 4th or 5th grade that turned out to be about half the size of a penny match box. It had a perfect snarl of VERY tiny fish hooks in it. I quickly realized the nature of that game and 'Gordian' wasn't even in my vocabulary yet, but I knew a perfect knot when I saw one. I took his word on the quantity. The lesson learned was worth the price of admission.
Reading any of his books is a real hoot. One that I have around here someplace speaks to the 'art' of making gin and how the modern use of 'gin heads' is very close to, if not blasphemy! It sounded like he may have been sampling the subject matter at the time of writing that particular disputatious dialogue.
Anyway, thinking of those days brings an inner smile, if not an outright laugh. Thanks, Joe!
