The more I think about poor old Fred Pruszinski and the suitcase he took from Broken Hill to Somerton Beach perched on the back of a stolen motorbike the weekend just before the Somerton Man died, the more I want to know the rest of what happened.
In my opinion, Pruszinski’s story could well turn out to form a parallel strand of the Somerton Man’s history: while I don’t yet know how these could be linked, I do now have a strong suspicion that I’m starting to ask the right kind of questions – and to me, that’s a really big deal.
So… rewind the time and place, if you will, back to November 1948 and Broken Hill. Pruszinski was just out of school, and was an avid miniature rifle shooter (he became Honorary Secretary of Silver City Miniature Rifle Club in 1949, and then shot for West Rifle Club), and went on to work for the local mines as an engine driver: so he must surely have had a reasonably wide network of friends and acquaintances.
Many of those people will have been at Pruszinski’s (sadly early) funeral in 1953. According to newspaper reports, his pall-bearers were J. Heslop, Don Hargreaves, Don Carlin, Kevin Cook, John Winkler, and Pat Fitzpatrick (along with Don Purcell, another close friend), while F. Anderson and Jack Brownett of West Broken Hill Rifle Club were there too, along with Pruszinski’s family and doubtless many more friends and workmates.
Some of those people must surely still be alive, right? I don’t honestly believe all trace of memory of Fred Pruszinski can already have been wiped from the world’s collective mental slate. And the unusual sequence of events that happened that weekend in November 1948 must surely have been the talk of Broken Hill for some time. People talk, that’s what they do: so why not listen? 🙂
Unsurprisingly, what I want to do now is place a small advertisement in Broken Hill’s Barrier Daily Truth, saying something along the lines of:-
Can you help? I’m an historian trying to find people who knew Richard Frederick Arthur (‘Fred’) Pruszinski, formerly of 247 Williams Street, Broken Hill. He was the Honorary Secretary of Silver City Miniature Rifle Club, and then a member of West Broken Hill Rifle Club. At his funeral in 1953, his pall-bearers were Don Hargr[e]aves, Don Carlin, Kevin Cook, John Winkler, J. Heslop, and Pat Fitzpatrick, assisted by Don Purcell. Do you have any memories of Fred Pruszinski? If so, please email [email protected] , thanks very much!
It’s a pretty good first attempt, but it has a fairly obvious shortcoming: people who knew Fred Pruszinski first-hand in 1948-1953 will be quite old now (85 or so, in fact), to the point that email may not be a good first way of asking for a response – so I think that including a telephone number as well could well yield much better results.
Hence here’s my request to you lovely people: would any Cipher Mysteries reader in Australia be kind enough to volunteer to help this by putting forward their phone number for me to add to this ad?
This many years after the event, I don’t realistically expect it to raise more than two or perhaps three telephone calls (in fact, zero or one may be closer to it), but I’d like to try all the same.
Someone out there must know what Fred Pruszinski was doing back then, surely?
I would contact (email) all Pruszinski in Australia (Linkedin, Facebook)…there are not so many of them and I think they all come from the one Polish emigrant family The Pruszinski.
There is one Jakob Pruszinski living in Broken Hill right now…
5 pruszinski in the White Pages – 2 in broken hill, 3 in Adelaide suburbs
http://www.whitepages.com.au/searchRes.action?name=Pruszinski&location=&initial=
not that you necessarily want to, but international dialing:
(08) bwcomes +61 8
so (08) 8123 4567 becomes +61 8 8123 4567
Lots of the ‘older’ generation don’t like to talk on the phone either Nick. How about adding an address for snail mail? Or if you are worried about costs there may be for any responders, maybe look into an aussie based mail forwarding service who can open and upload any letters you may recieve and forward a scan over to your email.
RobLaw: that’s a good point – and, luckily enough, a very kind Cipher Mysteries correspondent has just offered an Australian snail mail PO Box address for me to use for precisely this purpose. Which just leaves the matter of a telephone number…
I must admit to being a bit of a ‘lurker’ for the last 3 or 4 years on this site, I don’t really have a mind built for ciphers but I love the mystery and intrigue of such puzzles as the Somerton Man and Beale. Whilst I am feeling so ‘talkative’ Nick, I really must thank you for maintaining such an enjoyable and thought provoking site!
Back to topic though…….have you considered making direct contact to the rifle club? Many associations like these, like in scouting, generations of families get involved because the previous did, and the membership can stay rather localised too. I apologise if you have already tried this and I have missed the commentary but if not, maybe this ‘targeted’ approach may work?
RobLaw: thanks for the kind words, they’re apparently in rather short supply these days. =:-o
Contacting the rifle club is a good idea, one which I’ve considered but not got round to doing. West Broken Hill Rifle Club is still going strong after more than a century: while Silver City Smallbore Rifle Club (it changed its name in the 1950s) is also still going, though not apparently quite as strongly – https://bdtruth.com.au/main/news/article/3512-Revival-the-aim.html
I think most of these people are in retirement homes, if you could get somebody of the nursing staff to be able to go to their ‘clients’ i think then you could have ACTIVE detectives at work ! How ? Just offer money and ask very precise questions.
Nick: What kind of mines? Silver, as in Silver City? Or uranium, copper, salt mines? Does Silver City have an Historical Society? I’m now going to link to the bdtruth link.
Ciao!
Hmmmm — interesting. A long time ago, when my family lived in a small ‘cow-town’, I would go to the High School gym, on Saturday mornings, to target shoot (army-issue .22) (no scope). I got to Sharpshooter (standing) level 3 — before my Dad moved us to a new town. I was heartbroken.
Some 40 years later, at a very much larger shooting range, I was handed a scoped thirty-ought-six rifle. The owner of the rifle pointed out the target/gong 500 yards away. My first shot hit the dust at the bottom of the target. Because I have always been part-deaf, with my second shot, I didn’t hear the gong — nor did I see any dust kicked up. The rifle-owner very carefully took the rifle from me and said ‘congratulations’ !
So, Nick, see if you can find competing Rifle Clubs which might be hosting competitions in each of their (home) locations.
ps: with a ‘scoped rifle, one must close the other eye. So, I don’t mind being blind in one eye.
beady-eyed wonder
Good day!
My name is Nikolai.
To a question about the key to the Voynich manuscript.
Today, I have to add on this matter following.
The manuscript was written no letters, and signs for the letters of the alphabet of one of the ancient languages. Moreover, in the text there are 2 more levels of encryption to virtually eliminate the possibility of computer-assisted translation, even after replacing the signs letters.
I pick up the key by which the first section I was able to read the following words: hemp, hemp clothing; food, food (sheet of 20 numbering on the Internet); cleaned (intestines), knowledge may wish to drink a sugary drink (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to think (sheet 107); drink; six; flourishing; growing; rich; peas; sweet drink nectar and others. It is only a short word, mark 2-3. To translate words consisting of more than 2.3 characters is necessary to know this ancient language.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages indicating the translated words.
Sincerely, Nicholas.
[email protected]
And I think I have a textual model for folio 72v.
Just a matter of finding someone with appropriate language/s and level of madness and it’ll be all go.
….yep!…D.N. O’Donovan … i agree
(I analyzed already about 30 important and lesser important European and World languages, there are only 4 that are interesting based on my scientific analysis. After detailed inspection just one pops out as best. But it seems impossible to transcribe more than only some words in that language. I tried to contact a professional linguist, but they want to charge money for their help. Another expert in that field i am researching, died recently. So, nothing is new: I made no progress whatsoever. So yes, i feel stupid wasting my time again.)