November is here and Halloween is FINALLY over. We can now eat all the candy that we did not (or refused to) give to the children, and we can begin to prepare for Thanksgiving. I personally have a lot to be thankful for: my family, my close friends, the Reel Cowboys, the roof over my head, and the food in my belly. Compare all of that to most of the people in this world. I am truly Thankful.
Recently, Robert Lanthier, Randal Massaro, and Frank Painter went to the Happy Trails Parade in Apple Valley; our featured article this month is all about this event.
Lastly, our very own Evans and Rogers
are having an event at the Mayflower Club on November 7th. Check out the calendar (below) for more information. Join us for all the wonderful music. The price is only $15 per ticket if you buy it online (with no service fee) or $20 per ticket if you pay at the door. I have already bought my tickets, save money and buy yours today.
Enjoy.
~Charles P. Scott
FEATURED ARTICLE
Happy Trails Parade, Street Fair, & Classic Car Show ~Rene Ray De La Cruz
Community leader Marcy Taylor said she believes the Happy Trails Parade, Street Fair & Classic Car Show is the perfect way to celebrate the "goodness of Apple Valley.”
The annual fall festival will return on October 9th with parade floats, marching bands, vintage cars, food, music, vendors and more.
Taylor, the founder of the Apple Valley Legacy Museum, said her group’s parade float will recreate a scene depicted in a 1960s promotional brochure that features Roy Rogers and Dale Evans boasting “Apple Valley is for fun...”
Nathan E. Meeker started out as an agricultural writer for Horace Greeley’s New York Herald. He had a particular interest in cooperative farming and living. So Horace Greeley sent him to study what the Mormons were doing in this area. On January 6, 1870 Nathan headed west. But, when he got to Colorado, Meeker decided Colorado was a good place to start his own communal colony. So he started the temperance colony of Greeley, Colorado.
Actor Ben Johnson and I were sitting on the rail of an old wooden fence at Hastiin sani (Old Man) Cly’s place in Monument Valley. Some of the riders were inside the corral getting acquainted with their horses when Hosteen (Mr.) Cly walked over and shook hands with Ben. They had known each other since the late 1940s, when Ben first started making pictures for director, John Ford.
“Do you guys want to see Tombstone?” He was grinning like a mule eating cactus.
We knew “Tombstone” was located in the valley between Cly’s place and Goulding’s Trading Post. In 1946 John Ford shot My Darling Clementine in Monument Valley, and construction crews had built the Western town of Tombstone. We looked off toward Goulding’s but saw nothing but open space. Tombstone was gone. We looked back at the old Navajo...
The Emancipation Proclamation
~Battlefields.org
The Emancipation Proclamation is arguably one of the top ten most important documents in the history of the United States; however, it is also one of the most misunderstood. Here are ten facts providing the basics on the proclamation and the history surrounding it.
Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22nd, 1862. It stipulated that if the Southern states did not cease their rebellion by January 1st, 1863, then Proclamation would go into effect. When the Confederacy did not yield, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863.
President Lincoln justified the Emancipation Proclamation as a war measure intended to cripple the Confederacy. Being careful to...
If you travel to any foreign country and ask someone there what they know about American history, they will undoubtedly bring up cowboys, Indians, shootouts, and other wild west stereotypes. (Trust us—we know from experience.) Stories of the Wild West aren't just popular abroad, but domestically, too, with the likes of ultra-popular video game Red Dead Redemption, HBO series Westworld, and Quentin Tarantino's dialogue--filled, "everybody dies" film The Hateful Eight all informing the most recent generation of Western fans.
Yes, the Wild West was—and still is—awesome, but that's not to say it was as awesome as video games, television, and film make it out to be. There's a lot of false facts about the old west out there in the wild, and we're here to run 'em down...
The Kindly General Lee
~Adam Serwer
The strangest part about the continued personality cult of Robert E. Lee is how few of the qualities his admirers profess to see in him he actually possessed.
Memorial Day has the tendency to conjure up old arguments about the Civil War. That’s understandable; it was created to mourn the dead of a war in which the Union was nearly destroyed, when half the country rose up in rebellion in defense of slavery. This year, the removal of Lee’s statue in New Orleans has inspired a new round of commentary about Lee, not to mention protests on his behalf by white supremacists.
he myth of Lee goes something like this: He was a brilliant strategist and devoted Christian man who abhorred slavery and labored tirelessly after the war to bring the country back...
Fort Yellowstone, Wyoming
~Kathy Weiser
From 1886 until the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, the United States Army was responsible for the administration and management of Yellowstone National Park. However, the park was established in 1872 and for the intervening years, it suffered neglect at the hands of poachers and vandals.
The first National Park in the country, the Federal Government had to learn, over several years, what would work best for administering the park. In 1872, Nathaniel P. Langford was appointed as the first superintendent of Yellowstone. However, there was no money available for a salary, so he was forced to make his living elsewhere and during his five-year term, entered the park only twice. The second superintendent was...
‘Twas just an ordinary mornin’
Somewhere along in May,
When my husband hollered from the yard,
And then I heard him say,
“I’m goin’ to the pasture,
It’ll take an hour or two,
And if you’d like to come along,
We’ll drive out in Old Blue.”
Now I don’t get to tag along
Much, as a general rule,
But I’d finished with the chorin’
And the kids were all in school.
‘Twould be just like we were courtin’
I was happy at the chance,
For you take it where you find it
When it comes to ranch romance.
Now Old Blue is kind of ancient
And he’s got some scars...
