Oh man. I'm just not ready for an animatronic Elmer Keith.

[Questor]

I just read John Taffin's article in the 2008 Gun Digest. He says that Cabelas will or has put an Elmer Keith museum in the Boise, Idaho Cabelas. Sounds like a pretty good tribute, except for a couple of things:
1) At the push of a button, an animatronic Elmer Keith turns away from his ancient typewriter, waves his cigar, and gives a seven minute talk.
2) The copy for the talk was written by Taffin, so it probably has a lot to do with watching cowboy movies with his relatives, or some other bland subject.
3) The presentation of the guns was designed by Taffin.

Where the heck is Ross Seyfried when you need him most?

As you can tell, I'm not a Taffin fan.

Hopefully the museum is a fitting tribute to one of shooting's greatest. I'm afraid that the casual observer might think an animatronic geezer is corny and stupid. I'd like to be wrong about this.

I think I'll go to bed now and count rosary beads while reading Sixguns for the fiftieth time.

[Lloyd Smale]

I dont know why you dont like Taffin and i guess thats your bussiness but hes one of the most honest and careing Christian guys youd ever meet. Without him the Elmer museum would have never happened. He spent many many hours of his own time setting that up and not only that but took care of the original museum in Elmers home town. Taffin might not allways print what someone wants to here, as not everyone agrees when it comes to about anything but one thing you can take to the bank if he prints it it aint no made up BS!!

[Questor]

Lloyd:

The genesis of my disaffection for Taffin was in Big Bore Handguns. Very poorly written. Deeply sub-par. The only book I ever returned for a refund. He write anything interesting in his articles either. Compare the articles in Gun Digest. The chapter on autoloaders is very crisp, concise, and well written and researched. Taffin's article on sixguns reads like it's written from distant memory, and recycled from rejected magazine articles.  That's just his style.

I've often read how good an Christian he is, and how he shoots a lot, but I can't ever recall anyone saying he's a good writer.