19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

The main peeve everybody here has is the caption on one of the pictures which says, "Boys on horses have been known to line courts ogling pretty players." Whoever wrote this didn't know what he was talking about. In the second place, horses are not allowed anywhere near the tennis courts and never have been (since 1940 anyway). Thirdly, the choice of the word "ogle" is enough to make anyone angry. This word went out in Rudolph Valentino's era and has never staged a known comeback since the invention of dark glasses.
TONY THACHER
Ojai, Calif.

Sirs:
My complaint is of your ridiculous caption above the picture of the Thacher School tennis courts. Perhaps back in the year zero there were "boys on horses lining the courts ogling pretty players," but that is hardly the case today. If you had intended the caption to be humorous, I can assure you that the falsity was indeed a feeble attempt.
S. P. WHEATON
Thacher School
Ojai, Calif.

?We are delighted to see that the student body, including the grandson of the founder of the distinguished Thacher School, is mulling over this matter of ogling. Ogling is defined by the dictionary as "to eye amorously," and we don't think it ever went out of style.—ED.

DREAM STREAM: PENN'S IKE SYLER
Sirs:
I was rather surprised when Sparse Grey Hackle stated that there was no special Penn's Creek fly. The Ike Syler Special, custom-tied by Dave Johnson, is a proved killer on this beautiful stream. This wet fly (which may also be fished dry) is tied on 8 to 16 size hooks and is the fly for browns, rainbows and an occasional lunker brook trout.
VIC HUNT
Lewisburg, Pa.

?Herewith tying instructions from David Johnson of Lewisburg, creator of the Ike Syler Special: "Use any color hair or wool body, but black, brown or yellow wool seems most effective in this area. Tie all materials in at tail of fly; first the wool, then gold or silver tinsel, followed by the hackle to match the body (except that the yellow body seems most effective with grizzly hackle"). Wind body fairly close to eye and tie off. Follow with tinsel, evenly spaced but not too close, and tie off. Finally the hackle is tied sparsely between the tinsel. Whip finish and you have it [see enlargement below]. This may be fished wet or dry, but produces best results fished wet."—ED.

Sirs:
Just a P.S. to the article by Sparse Grey Hackle about Penn's Creek. One mile of the stream will be set aside for fly-fishing only. It will be the portion from the bridge at Weikert for a distance of one mile downstream.
A. R. GRETZ
Punxsutawney, Pa.

READING: BLISS AT THE BUCKLEYS
Sirs:
The good news from the Buckley household is that after eight years of marriage it has dawned on my husband that I never really enjoyed our fishing vacations as he thought (I hated every mosquito-bitten minute of them), and this summer we are going to take to the hills of New Hampshire. Bliss! To assuage the pain somewhat for Mr. B., a lover of all sports, I would like to present him on arrival with an armload of books about sports, including some fishing.

Therefore, would you please recommend some for me? If you ever need a reading list in French medieval poetry (my field), you may turn to me.
BETTY BUCKLEY
Cambridge, Mass.

?String up the hammock and start with these. For a pleasant pictorial review of the past 12 months there is The Year in Sports, 1958 edition, edited by the A.P.'s sports editor, Ted Smits, and published by Prentice-Hall. From the same publisher comes SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's volume of color photography, The Spectacle of Sport, of which modesty prevents us from saying anything more than that it is magnificent and now hard to get. Two fine auto racing books are available, On the Track of Speed by Stirling Moss (Putnam) and The Race, a handsome book on the Indianapolis "500," brought out by Bobbs-Merrill in loose-leaf format and boxed. We recommend The America's Cup Races by Herbert L. Stone, a classic on this great event rewritten and updated by Pulitzer Prizewinner William H. Taylor (Van Nostrand).

Taylor has also done The Story of American Yachting with masterful photography by Morris Rosenfeld (Appleton-Century-Crofts). For Mr. Buckley in a glum mood there is a new edition of The Best Short Stories of Ring Lardner (Scribner's), a classic even for lovers of French medieval poetry. In baseball we have Frank Graham's standard The New York Yankees, updated through the '57 series and published by Putnam, as well as Joe King's manual for hinterlanders, The San Francisco Giants (Prentice-Hall). Out this month is Barnaby Conrad's The Death of Manolete ( Houghton Mifflin), well illustrated and written, as were the author's previous books on bullfighting. Mr. Marquand's happy golfing series first published in this magazine, Life at Happy Knoll (Little, Brown), is, we think, fine vacation reading, and so is the late Dr. Long's Spirit of the Wild, brought out by Doubleday. There are many fine books about fish and fishing, including the classic Trout by Ray Bergman, updated with two chapters on spinning (Knopf). Also from the Borzoi Books for Sportsmen (Knopf) is Salt Water Fishing by Van Campen Heilner. The revised edition carries a preface by Ernest Hemingway. Out now is a facsimile copy of The Arte of Angling, 1577, with a modern text which both Mr. and Mrs. Buckley would enjoy ( Princeton). Matching the Hatch, a practical guide to the imitation of insects found on eastern and western trout waters might enrich Mr. Buckley's native cunning to the extent that he won't begrudge his enforced idleness. It is written by Ernest G. Schwiebert Jr. and published by Macmillan. Finally, there is the one we like: How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself, a dissertation on the art of leisure by Robert Paul Smith.—ED.