Oooo, I loved all of these, and my dad said Saturdays wouldn’t be Saturdays without walking to the theater to meet his friends for a cowboy movie.
I liked High Chaparral as a kid, but I was too busy running around to watch it for long.
My favorite movie about the west is still Giant. I think it paints the most realistic picture of ranching in the first half of the 20th century.
Off on a tangent…
It’s Interesting to know that back in their heyday, the average cowboy was fourteen years old, and he spent the majority of his time on the range for days at a time mending fences. And those who drove cattle were very young and foolish and wasted most of their money on liquor and wimmin. Good ranchers held back pay until the end of the drives to make sure they didn’t blow every last sent. The drives are also the reason most midwestern towns have very wide main streets.
Most of where my family is from is ranch country, so you are still more likely to see men running around in cowboy hats and boots than not; they are the real deal, though they use a lot more 4 X 4s than horses these days.
I could talk about this day; my great grandpa was a U.S. Marshal in Indian Territory. When his arm was partially shot off in a shootout with a horse thief, he cut the rest off with a knife he kept in his saddle.
Tonto know that Kimosabi
Never ever have a woman
Tonto sometime stop and wonder
What the trip with the great white brother
Maybe masked man he a poofter
Try it on with surly Tonto
Let me say to mister lawman
Tonto doesn’t mind
When my great-grandfather, Henry was about seven, his family, along with his younger brother, were moving from Texas to Arkansas in an open wagon. Near Magnolia, Arkansas, they were attacked by two carpetbaggers, and great-great grandpa was shot and killed. The murderers then robbed the family of the visible money they had and whatever else they could grab. With no other choice, his mother continued the journey, and they managed to make it to the hill country of Arkansas where other relatives lived.
What she didn’t know is that the boys vowed retribution, and they spent a good amount over the next few years of time tracking them down. My mom told me that she heard Henry, even as a very old man, say that he could remember every detail of those men’s faces.
One fall week, they rode their horses back to Magnolia and killed both of them.
That whole experience made Henry fiercely on the side of law and order, so he made his way west where he became a marshal in Texas and Oklahoma.
As for the arm shooting, my mom told me that he got into a shootout after they caught a horse thief. Henry said he looked down and part of his arm was severed, leaving it hanging by tendons and ligaments. Still dealing with the thief , he used a knife and cut the rest of it off. My mom said that used to joke that he felt bad that he never gave his arm a funeral. When she was little, my mom was creeped out by it because he would sometimes ask her if she wanted to feel his stump. She did not .
To say that it was quite a story is being rather understated if you’ll forgive me for saying so!
It should be made into a film
Tough people your ancestors, thanks for sharing!
I couldn’t sleep and thought of some more: The Cisco Kid,Bonanza,Bronco Lane,Cheyenne,The Range Rider,Wells Fargo,Boots and Saddles,Laramie,Wagon Train,The Virginian,Champion the Wonder Horse,Fury,and my favourite Maverick (with James Garner)
It’s a wonder they had time for anything else in the schedules.
He was called the Lone Range because in the story, he was the sole survivor from a group of 6 Texas Rangers who were ambushed at Bryant’s Gap. It was later into the story that Tonto discovers the sole survivor and nurses him, John Reid back to health. They then teamed up with Tonto naming Reid Kemo Sabe which means trusted scout.
I remember watching the Cisco Kid. The end of each adventure always ended the same way. Cisco, with a smile, would lean into his sidekick ‘Pancho’ and say, “Oh Pancho” - Pancho would reply similarly with, “Oh Cisco”
.
