[AF] Ha!

[Milton R. Holladay Jr.]

Speaking of guns, I rec'd this email earlier :

"By way of shameless self-promotion, I thought you'd have some degree of
interest in watching the Carolina Stories series that will air at 9 p.m.
tonight - Thursday July 2 - that focuses on the career of Melvin
Purvis..."The Man Who Shot John Dillinger". It's particularly timely because
of the release of "Public Enemies" on Friday.

Purvis, a main character in the new movie, was the Florence native whose
successes embarrassed J. Edgar Hoover who then sought his own brand of
vengeance. Tonight's program fills in a lot of intriguing facts about
Purvis' life and death.

I provided the narration for the ETV one-hour special. The script was very
well written. ETV's
Betsy Newman was kind enough to ask me to work with them on the
presentation. I've seen only the first seven minutes of it when it was in
the early stages of production and understand there's a lot of archival
footage in it.

Hope you'll like the program. There may be some folks you know who might
like to see it...if so, please let them know.

Thanks,

Jim Seay"



I doubt if anyone outside SC can see this, but maybe it'll be on some
accessible outlet. (Purvis was also a partner in WOLS in Florence and his
law office was above and accessible only through the station.)

I am acquainted with Purvis' godson, Ross Baird, who is a big arms collector
(most in the SC Military Museum)  and who authored a biography of Carbine
Williams, designer of the M-1 carbine.

About 10 years ago, I ran into him at an auction. He said "come out to the
car; I've got something to show you ! I had to get a grade 8 FFL to buy it."
He opened the trunk and then opened a leather case: there was John
Dillinger's custom made sawed off Parker shotgun and accessories !

M