Bennett Owen
Credit: Stan Lynde: www.stanlynde.net
This print is the most beloved Rick O’Shay print of all time and has been etched in my memory ever since the first time I saw it as a young boy. For its use as part of My-West’s first Christmas celebration we gratefully thank our friend and supporter Stan Lynde, a most talented artist and award-winning author. What he doesn’t know about the old west isn’t worth knowing. See for yourself at www.stanlynde.net.
]]>It’s said the world is divided into those who can wear a cowboy hat and those that can’t. Have fun sorting them out, and send us your additions!
The Dalai Lama. Credit: thieu_y
Pope John Paul II, with a Mariachi sombrero, in MexicoCredit: endlesscancun
John Lennon. Credit: celebseniorlaundry
William Shatner. Credit: generaltomfoolery
President Gerald Ford. Credit: huskerduds.com
Marilyn Monroe. Credit: Thisismarilyn.com
Burt Reynolds in Smokey ad the Bandit. Credit: withfriendship.com
It’s said the world is divided into men who can wear a cowboy hat and men who can’t. Still, most of Tinseltown’s elite has donned one at least once in their careers and sometimes the headgear became just as legendary as the person wearing it. Even Fred Astaire got in on the act…
Credit: ebay
…although he probably should have stuck with the tails and top hat. Cowboy hats have been an integral part of Hollywood since 1903 and what’s commonly referred to as the world’s first feature film, The Great Train Robbery.
Credit: Hollywood.com
The folks at ‘The Last Best West’ have replicated some of the most famous cowboy hats in movie history, right down to the sweat in the band if you desire. But be warned. If you go to the site, be prepared to spend some time because it is a treasure trove. Here’s our personal short list of favorite Hollywood headgear:
Clint Eastwood – Pale Rider
Said to be a mockup of the original Stetson “Boss of the Plains” hat. This preacher’s method of conversion was to shoot first and let God sort ‘em out.
Credit: fridaynightboys300
Money Quote: Coy LaHood: Do you imbibe?
The Preacher: Only after nine in the morning.
Brad Pitt – Legends of the Fall
Widely considered the movie that put Pitt on the A list. His role as Tristan has been described as ‘female Viagra.’ For my money the hat should have won an Oscar…
Money Quote: Samuel Ludlow: Still hung over?
Tristan Ludlow: Still drunk!
Credit: nadinejolie
Val Kilmer – Tombstone
Kilmer channels Doc Holliday in one of my favorite westerns. The experts’ take on the hat: “The fedora working to the crown suggests culture and education, and the left turn up on the brim infers a dangerous bent to his personality.”
Money Quote: Why Johnny Ringo, you look like somebody just walked over your grave.
Credit: BeyondHollywood.com
Clint Eastwood – Outlaw Josey Wales
The hat might not quite fit the Civil War era but it sure does fit Clint’s head to a Tee. Eastwood has said this is his favorite western and it certainly makes my top five.
Money Quote: Jamie: I wish we had time to bury them fellas.
Josey Wales: To hell with them fellas. Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.
Credit: alsolikelife
Robert Duvall – Lonesome Dove
Simply the best western movie, adapted from the best western book ever written. Duvall’s hat actually started a western cowboy craze with the up front crease.
Credit: 317am
If you’re a My-West regular you’ve seen the following clip before and you’ll see it again. Humor me.
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Tom Mix, 1931. Credit: the circus blog
Five things you probably didn’t know about Cowboy Hats –
Credit: Newworld encyclopedia
One of my favorite Rick O’Shay cartoons featured Rick and his cowboy hat in action. In one frame he fans the flames of a campfire. In another he uses it as a dipper for creek water. It shields him from the sun, keeps him dry in a cloudburst, helps him round up ornery cattle. And when Rick returns to town, a ‘city slicker’ comments that ‘those hats are just for show.’ Well, if there’s no telltale ring of sweat the city slicker is probably right.
One theory of cowboy hat evolution traces back to the Vaqueros of Mexico with their broad-brimmed hats and sombreros. They favored a high peaked crown and the brim was measured in ‘galleons’, which the American cowpunchers soon distorted to ‘gallon.’ Hence Tom Mix’s 10 Gallon Hat… a model made purely for the movies.
Credit: liveauctioneers
Credit: liveauctioneers
Cowboys in the early west were essentially lowlifes on a totem pole of rank and privilege that put the ‘cattleman’ up top, followed by his foreman, referred to as ‘Top Hand.’ Cowboys of the antebellum west tended to be drifters and malcontents who wore any kind of cover that would keep the sun out of their eyes. One turn of the century newspaper mogul even anointed the bowler as ‘the hat that won the west.’
Credit: consombrero
Once the cowboy hat gained popularity, lawmen like Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp saw it as a signal of trouble waiting to happen.
Credit: kpbs and the Craig Foults Collection
Another vein of hat history takes us to the gold fields of Colorado and a young man named John B. Stetson and even this story has multiple interpretations. In one version Stetson fashioned a hat from a Beaver pelt to shelter him from the elements while panning for gold. Another has him bragging to fellow prospectors that he could ‘make cloth out of fur without weaving. ‘
Credit: thelastbestwest
What is certain is that the first Stetson hats were sold in Colorado in 1865 and the single model was called the “Boss of the Plains.” It sold for five dollars and became THE prototype for all cowboy hats to follow. The Montgomery Ward catalogue fanned the hat’s popularity and by 1886 Stetson was the world’s biggest hat maker. The rest is what legends are made of.
Credit: My-West.com ©
Western wear has its own mystique and Calgary, Canada hands out exquisite white hats to visiting dignitaries. We mention this only because it gives us a reason to show the Duchess of Cambridge wearing one. I mean, how often do we have the chance at My-West?
Credit: Pacific Coast News
Credit: nmai.si.edu
They were at Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa .. They were in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific theatre from 1942 to 1945. The idea to use them came from Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary to the Navajos and one of the few non-Navajos who spoke their language. Johnston, a World War I veteran, knew of the dilemma the U.S. forces were facing: During the early months of World War II, Japanese intelligence experts broke every code the U.S. had devised. With access to the codes, and with plenty of fluent English speakers, the Japanese were able to use the U.S. communications to their own advantage – sabotaging messages, setting up ambushes, issuing false commands.
Photograph of Navajo Indian Code Talkers Henry Bake and George Kirk. Credit: Still Picture Records Section, Special Media Archives Services Division (NWCS-S)
Credit: US Navy Museum Web site. Photo #: USMC 127-MN 89670
In response, the U.S. devised more and more complex codes – to the point of absurdity. At Guadalcanal, military leaders complained that they now required more than two hours to de-code a single message. Something had to be done.
Private First Class George H. Kirk, USMC and Private First Class John V. Goodluck, USMC. Credit: Photo #: USMC 127-MN 94236
Philip Johnston believed that the Navajo language answered the military requirement for an undecipherable code because it is extremely complex, tonal (in that high and low tones of the same phoneme can mean different things), and has no alphabet or symbols. Needless to say, speaking and understanding Navajo requires extensive exposure and training. In 1942, it was estimated that only 30 non-Navajos in the world spoke Navajo – none Japanese.
Private First Class Alec E. Nez, USMC, and Private First Class William D. Yazzie, USMC. Credit: U.S. Marine Corps. Photo #: NH 107263
Johnston convinced the U.S. forces to give the Navajos a try by demonstrating that they could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line English message in 20 seconds, increasing the military’s efficiency by a factor of 360,000 – or something of the sort. Within a matter of weeks, 200 Navajos were recruited.
Credit: U.S. Navy Museum Website
Private First Class Hosteen Kelwood, USMC, Private First Floyd Saupitty, USMC and Private First Class Alex Williams, USMC. Credit: U.S. Marine Corps Photo #: USMC 129851
The rest, as they say, is history. The Navajo code talkers accrued praise throughout the war for their skill, speed and accuracy. At Iwo Jima, six code talkers working around the clock sent and received over 800 messages in the first two days of battle. The 5th Marine Division signal officer said of their dedication: ‘Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.’
Airman Jose Porcayo, assigned to USS Constitution shares a laugh with veterans who served in the U.S. Marine Corps as Navajo Code Talkers during World War II at a book signing during Albuquerque Navy Week. Navy Weeks are designed to show Americans the investment they have made in their Navy and increase awareness in cities that do not have a significant Navy presence, 4 October 2009. Photographed by MC1 Eric Brown, USN. Credit: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photo #: NH 107218-KN (Color) Navajo Code Talkers
The Japanese never cracked the Navajo code.
Credit: clydemcdonnell.blogspot.com
In 2001, President George Bush spoke at a ceremony honoring 21 surviving Navajo code talkers: ‘Today, America honors 21 Native Americans who, in a desperate hour, gave their country a service only they could give. In war, using their native language, they relayed secret messages that turned the course of battle. At home, they carried for decades the secret of their own heroism. Today, we give these exceptional Marines the recognition they earned so long ago.’
President George W. Bush presents Congressional Gold Medals to four of the five remaining former Navajo Code Talkers who served during World War II in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, 26 July 2001. Credit: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photo #: NH 107229-KN (Color). Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution
Sources for more information about the Navajo Code Talkers:
]]>He was quiet and contemplative, a chain smoker, a full blooded Crow Indian, leathery, skinny, almost gaunt…a WW2 Vet who’d ‘been in the thick of it.’ Impeccably polite, a ranch hand with a voracious appetite for work, a teetotaler who’d gotten there the hard way. We called him ‘Red Mike.’
Credit: Library of Congress
We were friends of a sort. I was seven. Red Mike was ageless and the deal was that if I’d supply him with grasshoppers, he’d go down to the creek of an evening and bring home brook trout for breakfast. A natural storyteller, Red Mike’s tales always began, “when I was your age…” then on he’d go, about growing up in a Tipi on the Crow Agency, sleeping on Buffalo hides, eating gophers baked in hot coals, the Medicine Men summoning spirits. I was always fascinated, sometimes skeptical but never frightened. Until that night.
‘Weather’ was brewing. A late summer wind was swirling, the sunset a hideous mural of violet and scarlet. And as I made my nightly delivery of insects, rounding out back of the barn, I felt my first moment of quiet, irrational dread. A glance over my shoulder. The ranch house wasn’t more than a quarter-mile away. “He’ll think you’re a scaredy cat,” was a boy’s reasoning. And so I continued, though every ounce of instinct told me that the silhouette waiting out there on the bluff was not Red Mike.
Credit: Library of Congress
And yet it was, though a side of him I’d never seen before.
“Now hear me out and be warned,” he said. The words were a deep croak. “Take your Rosary to bed with you. Cover yourself tightly and don’t move a muscle. Wait ‘til you hear the war drums for that means you are safe. And now listen to my story,” and this is what he told me:
“I was back from boot camp, driving an old jalopy out of St. Xavier to visit my girl in Prior, heading west right into the setting sun. There was something freakish in the air, just like tonight, something sinister. But I was too stupid to take note. On I drove, nothing but dust and desert and lots and lots of nothing.
“When I saw him standing on the roadside my instinct was to keep on driving, but I stopped of course…do unto others… He got in and as we drove I made small talk but received no answer and within two miles, a smell permeated my old pickup that I can only describe as evil. I looked over. And what stared back at me had slits for eyes like a goat and hooves instead of feet. It smiled and gurgled and I braked so hard I almost flew through the windshield.
“I said to the thing, ‘By the power of the Holy Spirit, I command you to get from me!’ The thing hissed and retreated, replying, ‘it’s too late for that…’
Credit: Library of Congress
“As it left my truck I hit the gas and sped away. I could see it in the rear view mirror, running after me and I floored it, leaving the specter in the dust. Finally I could see it no more. My escape complete I concentrated on the road and gathering darkness ahead giving silent thanks…even as I glanced to the side…and saw the thing, running next to me, smiling, hissing. There was a bar in Prior. I never met up with my girl.”
And then Red Mike said to me, “Remember my warning. Now run.” And I ran. I ran to the house and up the stairs to my bed and pulled the covers tight. And waited. And late at night the drumbeats came as the first boom of thunder echoed off Bald Mountain.
Credit: Library of Congress
If there are no horses in heaven, I don’t want to go there. -- Fanny Sperry Steele
Credit: Cowgirl.net
She was a stunning beauty with long braided hair, a warm and engaging personality…and an iron will…make that Steele. And when that fanny sat in the saddle, it was by God gonna’ stay put. By age 25 Fanny Sperry had already made a name for herself throughout the west but it was her performance at the inaugural Calgary Stampede in 1912 that cemented her standing as a western legend, riding ‘Red Wing,’ a hellacious bucking bronc that had stomped a cowboy to death just four days earlier.
Credit: geocaching
Here’s a description of the ride, courtesy WILD WEST Magazine:
Red Wing came straight out of the chute standing on his hind legs. He bucked…hard! He sidestepped, circled, head down, head up. The crowd exploded as they watched Sperry's waist-long black braid flounce up and down to the rhythm of the horse under her. She heard the 10-second whistle blow and jumped to the ground. She knew this magnificent sorrel had given her the ride of her life. 'GIVE THE LITTLE LADY A NIIICE HAND!' said the announcer.
A hand and a $1,000 dollar paycheck, a custom saddle and a gold belt buckle. In all, a pretty decent payday considering that ride lives on as one of the best in rodeo history.
Fanny Sperry was born in 1887 at the base of Sleeping Giant Mountain near Helena, Montana. Her mother, Rachel, taught all five children to “ride as soon as they could walk” and as a child, Fanny and her brother made sport of rounding up the wild pintos in the surrounding foothills and then riding the roughest ones. By age 15 she was performing in ‘Horse Shows,’ the precursor to the rodeo.
In 1913 she met and married Bill Steele, a champion rider and rodeo clown and they spent their honeymoon…rodeo-ing, with Sperry Steele riding as many as 14 broncs in a single weekend and earning a reputation of ‘gluing herself to the saddle.’
Credit: National Cowboy Museum
The young couple started up a Wild West show, touring with Buffalo Bill Cody.
Credit: PatchesWorld.org
In addition to her horse and bull riding skills, Sperry Steele was a steel-eyed marksman who would shoot the ashes from her husband’s cigar.
Credit: PatchesWorld.org
She also became a fashion icon for her ‘divided’ skirts with a front panel that allowed her to ride astride and keep a ladylike appearance…always a consideration, especially when ‘sticking to the saddle like a cocklebur’ atop the infamous “Midnight” in Madison Square Garden.
Credit: BirchStreetClothing.com
The Steeles eventually went into ranching near Lincoln, Montana.
Widowed by 1940 she kept the ranch by herself for nearly 30 years, breaking horses, and saddle guiding hunters into rough country. In 1975 at nearly 90 years of age Fanny Sperry Steele became one of the first three women inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame. And as she edged toward the century mark, Steele summed up her life thusly: “…to the cowboys I used to know, to the bronc busters that rode beside me, to the horses beneath me, I take off my hat. I wouldn’t have missed one minute of it.” Now that’s one heck of a ride.
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Credit: gngoat
“So I logged onto the Amtrak website. My computer not only crashed, it rolled down an embankment…”
- Jay Leno
Steamliner Crossing Mississippi River over Stone Arch Bridge. Credit: ioffer
It is the only stone arch bridge spanning the Mississippi river, an enduring monument to the vision of railway tycoon James J. Hill. Minneapolis, Minnesota was the terminus of the Great Northern…at its zenith, a 27-hundred mile network connecting the central plains with the Pacific Northwest…the “top of the continent” as Hill described it.
A Canadian by birth, Hill exemplified the American dream, going to work as a young boy, helping to support his family on four dollars a month. By age 25 he was a partner in his first railroad, the St. Paul and Pacific with a single line that stretched a grand total of 10 miles. By the time he turned 50 in 1889, Hill was one of America’s richest men, with river shipping lines and the Great Northern Railway network stretching to the Puget Sound. He became known as the Empire Builder. A remarkable businessman, Hill was also ruthless when the need arose, as this popular 19th century ditty attests:
“Twixt Hill and Hell, there is just one letter.
Were Hill in Hell, we’d feel much better.”
Shouldn’t “Burma Shave” come at the end of that?
In 1891 the railroad magnate completed the largest residence in Minnesota, the magnificent James J. Hill House. It’s still a St. Paul landmark.
But one of Hill’s greatest visionary feats was recognizing the tourist potential of what would become Glacier National Park. His idea was to capitalize on the wealthy travelers who normally visited Europe and lure them to Glacier, riding on his railroad. His ‘See America First’ campaign spawned a chain of hotels, chalets, boat launches and roads as Hill created his ‘Playground of the Northwest.’ The Many Glacier Hotel opened in 1915, just a year before Hill’s death. In 1927 his son unveiled the Prince of Wales Hotel just across the border.
That was the great era of luxury train travel and I will readily admit to a 21st century nostalgia born of beautiful ads like this one:
Credit: gngoat
And this one:
Credit: gngoat
During the war years the park facilities were closed down and the Great Northern let its mascot, Rocky break the news:
Credit: gngoat
Once the war was over, the Rocky returned with happier tidings:
Credit: gngoat
Even the best-run railway couldn’t stall the takeoff of commercial aviation the relatively rapid demise of train travel in America. Nevertheless, as Jay Leno points out, we still have Amtrak.
For more information please visit the Great Northern Railway website.
Credit: gngoat
Credit: Pictoscribe - Moseying Back to The Wild
I don’t know about their self-esteem but it appears the rural eighth graders ‘back in the day’ actually knew a thing or two when they left those creaky clapboard temples of learning. For a truly humbling experience, check out this document that purports to be the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas.
Credit: alansheaven
The actual exam is extensive but for brevity’s sake I’ve provided a quick overview along with some helpful hints:
Grammar:
Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar. – I fail that with every post at My-West.
Arithmetic:
Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent. - I find absolutely no interest in that.
US History:
Give the epochs into which US History is divided. – That’s easy. The pre and post wireless Internet eras.
Orthography: (yes, I had to look it up too!)
What are the following and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals? - I think a diphthong is something Lady Gaga wears.
Geography:
Describe the movements of the earth. - That’s what happened the first time I kissed Rita Grand.
Health:
Where are saliva, gastric juice and bile secreted? - Hey, let’s keep Washington, DC out of this.
Credit: JohnsonCreekHistory.com
At any rate, here are some people who most likely could have passed that test with flying colors:
Herbert Hoover - the first US president born west of the Mississippi, Hoover attended a one-room schoolhouse in West Branch, Iowa – He spent much of his youth with his pioneer uncle in Newberg, Oregon.
Laura Ingalls Wilder – Attended a one-room school in De Smet, South Dakota, the basis for her Little House on the Prairie books. She also taught at one-room schools beginning at age 17.
Grant Wood – One of America’s best-known painters taught at a one-room school in Iowa in the early 1900s.
Clifford E. Paine – designer and engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge attended Peachbelt School in southwest Michigan.
The Graduates of the “One-Armed School” – The wives of atomic scientists transported to remote Los Alamos, New Mexico in the early 1940s, started up a one-room school in a log cabin for their kids. Early estimates put the pupils’ average IQ at 150. The local joke was that anybody who couldn’t make the grade at school could always qualify for a job at Los Alamos labs.
And finally, if a kid has to go to school, it really should be in places like these:
6. Mesa Schoolhouse, Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Credit: DQmountaingirl
Credit: DQmountaingirl
5. The Old Schoolhouse, Jefferson, Colorado – Built around 1901
4. Schoolhouse with the Hearst Castle in the Background.
Credit: KatRya
2. Grafton Schoolhouse, near Zion Park, Utah – One of the most photographed structures in the western US.
Credit: motionblur
1. Calf-A, Dell, Montana – Originally built as a schoolhouse in 1903, it is now a café with some of the best pies in the western United States.
Credit: My-West.com
Credit: My-West.com
Send us your one-room school photos and anecdotes!
Credit: t.magnum
