THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
Jerry Lee and I got to know one another just a few years ago, because I’d entered the firearms industry later in life. I was introduced to him by way of Gun Digest The Magazine and its books department. He’d asked me to take over the ammunition, ballistics and components section of the Gun Digest Annual, in addition to giving him a feature article each year. To say that I was honored doesn’t quite cover the emotions.
We’d discuss the parameters each fall, usually in late October or early November, settling on the feature article’s topic and spending a bit of time conversing about families, firearms and just life in general. For five years, I’d look forward to our annual telephone conversations and brief, face-to-face chats at the SHOT Show. Perhaps I worked too efficiently, because Jerry would just send me “good work!” e-mails after everything was submitted in the spring.
The fall of 2019 saw me hunting quite a bit, and with the workload I carried, time certainly flew by. Before I knew it, November had arrived.
My mind had turned to thinking, when I received the terrible news: My friend, Jerry, had passed away unexpectedly—at least to all of us in the firearms industry—on November 1 . I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye or tell him that although I deal with a healthy number of editors and work with, and for, some great folks in this industry, working with him was an absolute pleasure. Jerry, in spite of his vast knowledge and experience in the industry, told me what a fan of my work he was and how he’d followed my stuff. The point is that Jerry Lee knew how to work with a writer—especially one who was as “wet behind the ears” as I was—to get the most from him or her; and those editions of the for which he served as editor certainly reflect that.
