Happy upcoming Valentines Day for all you Reel Cowboys. I hope you have not broken your New Year's resolutions yet; I know I have. Remember this year's motto, "Be Better Than You Were Last Year".
On another note: I am continuing the clothing drive for the Reel Cowboys. Bring me all you old clothes, freshly washed please, and I will distribute them to other 'Cowboys and Cowgirls' in need. What does not get used will be donated the the Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission in Northridge, California to be given the the San Fernando Valley homeless community.
~The Editor
FEATURED ARTICLE
What History Has Taught Me ~ by Michael Dante
Michael Dante was born Ralph Vitti and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. He got his start when Tommy Dorsey saw him rehearsing in a play at the University of Miami, Florida, just before spring training with the Washington Senators. He arranged a screen test for Dante at MGM Studios; they signed him to a contract and he never went back to baseball. The rest is history: 30 films, 150 television shows and so much more.
CHRONICLE OF THE OLD WEST
Tombstone, Arizona Territory ~ by Dakota Livesay
The Old West was full of wild towns. But none was like the one that started as a mining claim on September 3, 1877. And it continues to this day as a monument to the wild days of the boomtowns.
As the story goes, Ed Schieffelin, while prospecting in southeast Arizona, was told that all he would be able to find would be...
Ever since a man rode a horse, there has been cowboy wisdom. Here are some words to live by according to cowboys. Some are really good advice and all are funny cowboy sayings. What would a cowboy, or cowgirl, for that matter, be without his or her horse? Is it even possible to be a cowboy without a horse?
Here are some words to live by according to cowboys. Some are really good advice and all are funny cowboy sayings.
Hawaiian Rodeo Cowboys
~ by David Wolman / Julian Smith
When three young men from Hawaii showed up to compete in the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo, the West’s most competitive rodeo, no one took them seriously. That didn’t last long.
Few people saw them as a threat. This was Wyoming, after all, home to rodeo champions and cattlemen as rugged as the landscape they worked. Still, they were clearly outsiders, like unknown drifters stepping into a dimly lit saloon.
“They [the Sioux Indians] are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts and by no means as people." —Gen. John Pope, in instructions to his officers during an Indian war in Minnesota (1862).
The West. The frontier. Few terms, or images, are as quintessentially Americans or as culturally loaded as these. Interestingly, the West—unlike other regions—is often defined as both a time and a place. It is also hopelessly shrouded in myth. Americans leaders, from George Washington to Donald Trump, frequently claimed that the West, the frontier, somehow defined us as Americans. It was long seen as a place of opportunity, rebirth even. If a man failed in the East, well...
Real Life of Doc Holliday
~ by Ian Harvey
The names of the most famous legends of the Old West are known to most people. Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Jesse James, and Doc Holliday have been written about numerous times, and, just as the story of George Washington’s run-in with a cherry tree, facts are sometimes clouded by legend.
Three very well researched books about Holliday, The Illustrated Life and Times of Doc Holliday, by Bob Boze Bell, Doc Holliday, A Family Portrait, by Karen Holliday Tanner (a cousin), and John Henry (The “Doc" Holliday Story), by Tombstone historian Ben T. Traywick, aim to correct the legends with actual documentation such as letters, census and church records...
36 Photos of the Old Wild West
~ by Carolyn Guerro
The Wild West was a challenging time to be alive. Living in the Frontier during the 19th century meant saloons, cowboys, Native Americans, gunfights and lots of mustaches. There was a lot of brawling going on, but also a lot of traveling and new discoveries happening. Without this time, our world wouldn’t be what it is today! Here are some amazing photographs that define this time period:
Goldie Griffith was a part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, but she wasn’t there to look pretty! Goldie Griffith was known for her mean abilities as a boxer and wrestler, she also rode broncos and performed various other acts.
