Early on, George was a scientist/oceanographer who worked at Scripps Institute of Oceanogrophy and lived in La Jolla. He was married for a time to the daughter of Roger Revelle, one of the founders of UCSD. That is the time that I first became aware of him.
Interesting story about his home; the house was build squarely upon the cemetary grounds of a 7000 year old, La Jolla Indian site. He had shadow boxes in the patio and backyard of skeleton burials, which excited a great deal of comment.
George beat me to a grand, early Lancaster rifle which turned up about 1960 in a San Diego gun shop, (when we were still allowed to have such shops out here) and he bought it for $75. It was carved and had the daisy patchbox. Don't remember if he ever found out who made it, or not. I remember the long, swamped barrel it had.
At shows, George always put up a good display of KY Rifles, horns and such even though they were somewhat hard to find out here. One great rifle he had was a VA rifle signed 'Innes of Edinburg' on the top barrel flat. The PB door had an elk engraved on it which he felt had been done in the Victorian era. The gun is shown in one of his RCA volumes and he later told me that it had been destroyed in a disastrous fire that burned up most of his collection, papers and such. What a loss.
Sorry he has gone on; we all owe him a great debt for his scholarship and hard work which has shed light and truth on a lot of ignorance and myth. Enjoy his work!
Dick
