Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/787068
the little vignettes that open each chapter are delightful. Indeed, there were only two jarring notes for me, and both may be as much a matter of personal peccadilloes as true shortcomings. I'm no prude, but the excessive use of four-letter words was grating. Jim doesn't talk that way, at least not in my experience, and a work that otherwise might make a great read for an outdoors-loving adolescent is marred by gratuitous use of foul language. Secondly, and this is in one sense a measure of how important I consider the book, it is paperbound. A work that is this well written, on a figure of Jim Zumbo's importance, deserves to be hardbound so it can hold a place of enduring pride on the shelves of reading sportsmen for generations to come. I f Jim Zumbo's name is of the household variety in the sporting world, the subject of a second biography is virtually unknown. Yet veteran and highly accomplished scribe Duncan Dobie does posterity a great favor in Arthur Woody and the Legend of the Barefoot Ranger (Hardbound, illustrated, 512 pages, $34.95 plus shipping from the author, duncandobie03@comcast.net). Arthur Woody (1884-1946) was one of those quaint, delightfully eccentric characters that the rural South of yesteryear seemed to produce with some regularity. I knew a passel of them as a youngster growing up in North Carolina's Great Smokies, and they so intrigued me, then and now, that I'm presently writing a book, Profiles in Mountain Character, on some three dozen interesting individuals. Duncan Dobie's earlier efforts in sporting history, especially in connection with white-tailed deer hunting, have garnered him a solid place in the ranks of those preserving our rich outdoor heritage. In his new book, he provides a great example of how "forgotten" characters can bring flavor and flair, not to mention considerable insight, to the history of sport. After all, encounters with barefoot Forest Service rangers aren't exactly commonplace, but that's not what qualified Woody for this richly detailed, deeply researched, and well-written biography. Arthur Woody was single-handedly responsible for stocking rainbow and brown trout in the North Georgia mountains until they "took holt" and began 140 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S