Once I sent a copy of my "Fred Bear Showed Me How" tape to the bear museum. Frank Scott called me up and we must have talked for 30 minutes. A week later a got a care package from Frank that had every picture of Fred Bear that was ever made. He also sent me the books "Field Notes" and some others. I regret that I didn't take him up on his offer to come down and visit with him.
I also received a Christmas Card from Charlie Kroll the Christmas before he passed.
I did a turkey video with a Georgia Camo company once. One of the fellas that hunted with us loved that Fred Bear song so much he sent me a bow that Fred had signed with a picture of him signing it. He said he had two with multiple serial numbers and he wanted to give me one.
My favorite memorbilia story though is about Roy Rogers. I wrote a song for Roy's autobiography and got to spend time with him on several occasions. The first time I got to meet him, he took my wife Doris and me on a personal tour of the museum. Afterwards I asked him why I didn't see any of his old archery stuff there.
He looked at me kinda funny and said "Jim, in all the years we have had this museum I think your the first to ask about that and bowhunting was something I loved. I use to hunt with Howard Hill and Errol Flynn you know." I went on to tell him how I remembered seeing him on Ed Sullivan shooting balloons with six-guns and then pulling out that old longbow and quiver and shooting balloons off a big windmill. A couple of years later I was back in California to sing at "End of Trail Cowboy shoot".
Roy had passed away by then and Doris and me went to visit his grave. We drove back back by the Museum and lo and behold we found an exibit with that old longbow and quiver full of arrows.
The amazing thing was that it was next to a little theater that they had built in the museum since I was there. As I was looking at the exibit I heard myself singing from the theater "What ol Roy Would Do" Doris smiled and said "I think he's trying to tell you something."
