A Clymer bonus

Yes! It always brings a feeling of gratitude when anyone has nice things to say about something presented here in this column of over 50 years, and it is even more gratifying when someone takes the time to give interesting additional information. A fine example of this reader reaction came last week when I received the following email from long time local friend, Betsy Wood:

Hi, George -

I enjoyed reading your column in the Aug. 19 Hungry Horse News about artist John Clymer. It was especially meaningful to me because my husband and I just recently visited the Clymer Art Museum in Ellensburg, Washington, his birthplace and hometown for many years, until he moved to Connecticut, where he established his career as an illustrator for American magazines. The museum has all of his covers from The Saturday Evening Post, as well as some from Woman's Day, Field and Stream, and Argosy, plus a lot of other great art.

So, in case you don't know about it, and have not been to this museum in Ellensburg, I thought I'd let you know. Perhaps on some trip to the coast you can stop by to see it. I highly recommend it to all art lovers.

As ever,

Betsy Wood

Adding a bit of personal magazine writing adventures I mentioned in the column about telling a Saturday Evening Post editor that I had written for his publication once "before" the Clymer disappointment. That other article was about "Herbert R. Gibson" founder of the giant chain of Gibson Discount Stores. It never got published either, BUT I got paid anyway.

Doing that story in the late 1960s involved my going to Gibson's plush hunting camp located on a private piece of property right in the middle of a Forest Service Wilderness near Durango, Colorado. Before finishing the story, I requested the Post send me to the Gibson's home in Dallas, Texas, and tour their biggest store of its kind in the world at that time.

After these two trips out of state I worked several weeks polishing the article to Saturday Evening Post's requirements and did the final work in an all night session. Was doing a final read through at dawn's early light and heard the thump of a daily newspaper landing on our porch. Was shocked to read headline story about Curtis Publishing Company "Folding up the Saturday Evening Post."

Knowing it was later back East, I frantically called my assigned editor. He told me not to worry. Said, "Send me the manuscript and we'll send you five hundred dollars, but you probably won't get the other five hundred at time of publishing."

Thankfully, I had been paid several hundred dollars earlier along with my travel expenses. Was still disappointed but figured I got away lucky.

There we have it, "The rest of the story."

Want to thank Betsy Wood for her addition to the John Clymer column. She mentioned Field and Stream covers he painted, reminding me one of those was a dandy showing anglers climbing down the cliff above George Lake in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Author of that yarn was engineer for early day Columbia Falls Aluminum Plant and noted outdoorsman, Hal Kanzler.

Life is good.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning columnist for the Hungry Horse News. He lives in Kalispell.