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FROM THE LIZARD

Another newsletter so soon? Yep; because it is necessary.

First let me explain a few things on the “degree” shooting that I’ve started. First, it is working good here in Danville. Believe it or not the Preacher and Digger are actually coming over and shooting for it. That’s a first, to see them practice.

Now to clarify a few events that I just sent you. First of all, all the long gun shooting is to be done Offhand. We don’t do chunk gunning in this degree work. On the ‘smoothbore’ shoot the targets are to be charcoal brickets, not the primitive charcoal that comes in ‘big chunks’. Also a ‘hit’ is at least a ‘chunk’ out of the bricket the size of the ball you shoot. Anyone who disintegrates all the charcoal brickets and grapes will have an extra piece put on his or her broach.

The cans that you shoot with the pistol have to have a full size hole in the can, not a nick or a slice. On the rifle match, a ‘chunk’ of the grape has to be out of the grape, not a little nick.

The knife throw, all of the knife blade has to be in the plate, and stuck. The hawk also has to ‘stick’ when cutting the card.

This idea has been working well for me. I have been out shooting everyday. I hope it does the same for everybody else. The whole club has to shoot good, like we used to do in the beginning.

THE BIG ONE

Now for the big one! Bluejacket himself has made two pipe tomahawks. The one we have now is on a plaque with the names of the winners of the Shingle Shoot for each year the match is shot at each rendezvous. Getting back to the old days when we smoked the pipe for our friends who have passed away, and some of those were people who helped to get Buckskinning on a national basis. These people need to be remembered. Last June at Friendship, I restarted this tradition. I took eight people to the “wall” behind the old cabin and we had a pipe ceremony. Roy Gerbech and Curly Gostomski’s ashes were put there by me and others at a special ceremony so I figured that would be the place to do it. I also buried something of theirs at the wall, where we have the pipe ceremony. I used the Bluejacket pipe hawk. Every year in the Spring and Fall I will be doing this and everyone’s name who participates will be put on a large elk hide. This is tradition and “meant a lot” to the old timers and me. I know, I was there.

At the pipe hawk ceremony, I read the names of the people who are on the Widowmaker’s death strip and tell something about each and everyone. It’s tradition, and it means to me as much as shooting, and I hope it does to you all too. All of us would not be doing our rendevous all over the world, if it weren’t for people like Bluejacket, Danny Powell, and Max Egolf as well as the men whose names are on the death strip. If you haven’t noticed by now, I am damn serious about this.

Now the punch line. I want the other pipe hawk that Bluejacket built at the same time he built the one that is now at Friendship. The Friendship pipe hawk is meant to be displayed on a plaque and smoked behind the cabin. The other hawk is just as beautiful and well made as the one at Friendship. Bluejacket made two for us to decide which one the NMLRA wanted.

I want to get the other pipe hawk. The pipe hawk that the Widowmaker’s get will be smoked at all the rendezvous all over the country and will get well used, and dinged up in the process as it should be. Just as the oldtimers did.

The price of this hawk is $2,000.00. Bluejacket has turned down over $3,000.00 for it, but for what we are doing, he will let us off a thousand dollars. Blue makes his living building guns and hawks, and he is as poor as I am. Blue stated to me, “I just can’t afford to give it away, Lizard, I need the money for me and my family.” I know the feeling well.

I am asking each club member to send $60.00 to our editor, immediately so we can purchase this pipe hawk for the traditions that were here in the old days, and our club the Widowmaker’s are bringing back to the sport of Buckskinning. If we succeed in doing this, I will write an article for Muzzle Blasts “that is guaranteed to be put in” and it will be on the front cover of the magazine.

I know that all the members can’t send in $60.00 and that is OK, but if you can make a great effort, do so. The Widowmaker’s started as a traditional primitive club in the early 1970's. I started with the name of Lizard’s Rangers. Our club has had many names over the years, but we are still here. We have survived one overthrow of our club, and I have put my heart and soul into our club for 27 years. “The Widowmaker’s is the only surviving traditional club that started in the early 70's.” That is something to be proud of.

Help me out here, I want this to happen. In the past I have given to some of our members their hats, silver, leather goods and other things. I did this because you were like family to me, but now I am calling in my markers. We need that pipe hawk to bring back (Hopefully) the feelings we had in the old days. This hawk is just a taste of what’s coming up next, and you’ll be glad that the rest of the traditions won’t cost you a penny.

Becoming a Blood Brother was a great and honorable thing in the old days. Bluejacket and I became blood brothers at last years Western Rendezvous. It took us that long to both of us to feel it should be done. We had it done in a lodge by a Ute medicine man. I felt that was as close to God that I’ll ever be, and it meant a lot. (So you all thought you knew the Great Lizard). I am not used to laying out my guts to all of you, but I think the time has come so I have.

This serious ceremonial aspect is what is missing today in Buckskinning, and hopefully our club can bring it back, at least to our club members.

If you can support this please do. Send the $60.00 to the Editor of the Broken Arrow immediately, so we will know how much we have. If we don’t get it, fuck it, the Editor will send the money back to the people that have sent the money in. If we get all the members to send in $60.00, that will be over $2,000.00 and the extra money will be split up and sent back to the members. The pictures that you have are the two hawks that Bluejacket had built. The top one belongs to the NMLRA. The bottom one can belong to the Widowmaker’s

Red Eyes Corner: Well Lizard certainly has put a challenge in front of us. Let me add my two cents worth. Something is missing in Buckskinning. That item is brotherhood. We have folks that won’t talk to others because of past slights and injuries.

We all forget what a small piece of the whole pie that Buckskinning is. There are so few of us that we really can’t afford to have enemies within the sport/lifestyle that we all love.

There is no group of people more willing to argue than a bunch of Buckskinners, but by damn, they must be tough to even exist in today’s Yuppie/BMW world. Let’s begin to celebrate our points of agreement rather than our arguments.

A good friend of mine (damn good shooter, even if he does only shoot percussion) was telling me that he is better treated on the main line than on Primitive hill even when in costume. How did this happen? When did we all get to be so “Elite” that we can no longer welcome a Pilgrim.

Anyway, we only need to raise $1,900.00 I’m chipping in $100.00. This is a worthy cause. Do it because it feels good. Well enough editorializing. Here comes the end of the paper. Send what you can to: