Category: Sleuthing

Audiobooks: George S. Irving Reads Pat McManus Stories

On the Quick-Find a Story page, Andrew asked:

“I have a question:  what happened to George S. Irving?  He was the best voice ever and I can’t even hardly listen to the audio any more with the new guys being used. Is there any way to get a hold of the originals of audio?”

If you search on Audible.com for Pat McManus stories you will see they are narrated by quite a few different people—none of whom are George S. Irving.

I have frequent inquiries about George S. Irving. Sadly, he passed away last December (2016). Here is the obituary.

For those interested in tracking down the audio cassettes of Patrick’s stories read by George S. Irving, here is the most helpful info I can provide:

  1. Here is a link to all Patrick’s books that can be found on Amazon.com.
  2. When you click on a book title and go to the Amazon page, under the title info you’ll see a link that says “All formats and editions.”
  3. Click “All formats and editions” and you’ll see if there are audio tape versions available. They are from third-party sellers since they have been long out of production.

Downloadable versions of George S. Irving’s recordings are not available. I’ve been trying to research how I might find them but the company that produced the audio cassettes has gone out of business and I’d have to hire a lawyer to track down the rights and permissions. Someday when I’m richer I plan on tackling that!

Story About Dog That Ran Away

I’ve had a request from a visitor via the Quick-Find a Story link here on the site. This is what he requested: “Field and Stream story from the 70’s about Pat’s dog running away.”

The email address he provided was not valid, so I’m posting this here in hopes he sees it:

Hi Gary,

I’ve researched all the stories about Pat’s dog, Strange, in all his books and have not found any mention of his dog running away. There is one story where Strange came home after being gone for two days and meeting their new cat, Matilda Jean (“Strange Meets Matilda Jean” in the book Real Ponies Don’t Go Oink!). I’ve even read through the memoirs he wrote in How I Got This Way and Whatchagot Stew, and no mention there either.

Patrick said he has a stack of stories in his closet that have been published in various magazines but not yet collected in book form. It’s possible the story you’re looking for is not in one of his books yet. My index is only for all the stories that have appeared in his published books.

If any of you are familiar with this story, please help us out in the comments below.

 

Finding the Hairy Bonnet

I’ve been doing some sleuthing tonight. Recently I received a request to find a story from my Quick-Find a Story page. After spending hours searching, I finally found it.

Normally it takes only a few minutes to find a story. What makes it more challenging is when people mis-remember story elements.

Ah, the human memory!

In case there was any doubt, our memories are not very reliable to begin with. We might remember a story of Retch Sweeney mentioning “a lot of people don’t know blackburries is good to eat,” when it was actually Rancid Crabtree teaching Pat how to live off the land, saying, “Lot’s of folks don’t know wild razzburries is good to eat.” Close, but it makes it a little more challenging to track down the right story.

Another example, the sleuthing I mentioned at the beginning? Here is a brief rundown of key elements in the actual story:

A friend named Lester spends the night with Patrick, sleeping out in the backyard on an old mattress.  Pat had an earache and his grandmother gave him a ratty old bearskin bonnet to wear to keep out the chill. During the night the bonnet gets twisted, and, suffocating and moaning, Pat lunges at Lester for help. Lester levitates.
Since the story is titled “Psychic Powers for Outdoorsmen,” (in the book They Shoot Canoes, Don’t They?) and “levitation” seemed to be a likely keyword, that is one of the ways I had it indexed. I also had it indexed under “sleeping out.”

But that is not how the person remembered the story. The request was worded thus:

“Pat is camping with a childhood friend and his mask slips around to muffle his mouth/face and he claws/moans for help but his friend runs out screaming.”

I finally found the story by looking up “camping,” and the only reason I found it then was because “camping” was mentioned in another part of the story.

Now, I don’t want you to think that I spent the night in frustration. Far from it. Even when I can’t seem to find the story as quickly as I’d like, I always end the search with a smile on my face and sides aching from laughter.