{New Article} 1941: Roughing It

This short article appearing in Cosmopolitan Magazine (yes, you read that right) in July 1941. It is basically Clark detailing how much he enjoys the outdoors, riding horses and training dogs.

You can get a world of pleasure out of owning and training a hunting dog. A good one can be bought for around twenty dollars, and you can get books out of the library and do the training yourself. Studying up should be part of the fun. There is always something new to be learned about an animal. From the time I was six, I have had some kind of mutt at my heels. The first dog I owned was a beagle-mongrel who helped me hunt rabbits. One day he disappeared. I’ve never been able to ask my father what became of him. Of the five dogs we have now—two German short-hair pointers, two dachsies and one Labrador retriever—two were trained by me in the initial stages.

 Clark always had dogs, many different kinds. One of my favorite quotes about him came from Spencer Tracy: “Clark never met a dog who didn’t like him.” As they say, dogs always know the good people…

When you’re doing something for pleasure, don’t be too serious about it. When Mrs. G. first went along with me on hunting trips, I bought her small-sized man’s clothes, since I couldn’t find hunting wear for women. They were hot and coarse and heavy, but she had so much fun discovering the outdoors that she didn’t mind them.

Companionship plays a big part in having fun. At first, Mrs. G. was merely being a good sport when she went along with me on hunting trips. Now she enjoys camping as much as I do. And she’s handy around a camp, whether it’s our cabin up near Bakersfield or a tent down in Mexico, where we frequently hunt.

I knew Mrs. G. was going to make the grade the first time I took her duck hunting in Lower California. It was actually a part of our honeymoon; we were having a vacation together, the idea being to devote part of it to my hunting and the rest to a visit to New York.

Now, there is nothing fancy about a Gable camp; no hot water in the morning, no sheets, nothing beyond the bare essentials. Food has only to be filling, and it is best prepared in one big frying pan and over an open fire: eggs, ham, beans, spuds, trout, quail, or whatever luck provides. After two weeks of roughing it, up at dawn every day, never seeing a newspaper, we returned home.

It was now Mrs. G.’s party and New York. She fidgeted a day or so, then said, “Let’s not go to New York! We can have more fun camping.”

 Typical Carole! Always a trooper and up for anything. And I do believe that she enjoyed hunting and camping. She was truly someone who would jump into anything and go with it and enjoy it.

You can read the article in its entirety in The Article Archive