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"Xtreme"
Chapter Sixteen of a novel
by Claude Hall
They drove in silence, wind whipping. After several minutes of
contemplation, she admitted to herself that she was suddenly nervous
around him. Because of him. Because of the flowers. All of these
feelings were totally new. What kind of game was he playing? What did he
really want? Sex? A man didn't have to look very far to find that these
days, if that was all they wanted. Hollywood was full of women who would
settle for a few moments of physical love in place of the real thing
and, sadly, think they were getting something worthwhile.
True, she'd been a little flattered last night when he asked if he could
stay the night. That sort of question sometimes said a lot about a
woman. It meant she was pretty and maybe also meant that she was
desirable. She didn't believe the pretty part, of course. A dishpan
blonde? Short cropped hair? Pugged nose?
She long ago figured out that desire had something to do with the motif
of the moment. You know, moonlight, gentle breeze, the odor of jasmine
or honeysuckle nearby, soft music.
Worse, some men had absolutely no taste when it came to women. She knew
David Moorhead well and she knew his wife, albeit the current wife of
the moment. Unfortunately, she also knew some of the other women who
were passing through his life. None of them were beauties. Not in the
slightest!
Bill Ferguson might be considered a good catch as far as men went.
Ruggedly good looking.
But why even think about that? She reminded herself that she didn't even
like this guy! Besides, she wanted more than just looks. Intelligence,
yes. A lot of things in common, yes, and a willingness to share and
enjoy various aspects of life with someone, meaning with her, of course.
A sense of wonder as well as a sense of perspective. All these
qualities. More, too. She wanted to be in love with the man, whoever
that man turned out to be. Totally and desperately in love and willing
to spend the rest of her life with him. Flaws, he could have. But
steadfast devotion was absolutely necessary.
They parked and walked down to the arch and over the hump down to the
little stand that sold clam chowder in paper containers and a bag of
freshly made potato chips.
Then they took the steps down to the path where glorious freaks in
mini-shorts and in-line skates flew by strumming guitars around their
necks, cute things on thin bikes sped by, women with noses high walked
ungodly expensive poodles with noses high. There is no other world like
the weird world that exists along the pedestrian path at Santa Monica.
It stretches for miles upon miles and every inch is jammed with
something totally outrageous or more so. Here, muscle-bound men flex and
tilt to show any woman or man or those inbetween the way muscle-bound
men are supposed to look. Women flexed, too. There, a guy with pink hair
worn in a cock like a rooster reads a comic book on a bench waiting for
another guy with pink hair to ask him what he's reading. Over yonder, a
young girl with almost nothing on stands in the shade of a palm and
makes faces at the world in general. Beyond, on the pier, a Ferris Wheel
spins and the whole world seems to also be spinning. Actually, there are
myriad "worlds" along the
Here, Susan and Bill walked amidst noises and shouts, music from
boomboxes, so many that it was difficult to recognize any song, any
artist, by fat pigeons who thought they owned the right of way, in
blasting sunshine, in gentle winds with an illusion of coolness. In the
near distance, beautiful, the waters of the bay rippled in the light. As
they walked, they sipped clam chowder and nibbled at the best potato
chips in the world, fresh and crispy and salty.
"I have a problem that I'd like to discuss with you," Bill said.
"Something tells me that you're going to ruin my day," Susan said.
"Well, why not? You've certainly ruined mine. Matter of fact, you're
ruined my whole week."
She paused, turned slightly and looked at him. He took a couple of steps
before realizing that she'd stopped. For a moment, he was poised in
indecision, not knowing whether to continue walking or to turn and face
her.
"Just because I said no?" she asked.
"It's not that alone," he said, "although I admit I frequently have
trouble handling rejection. I think it was the way I was raised. I doubt
if my mother ever said no about anything. I was probably very spoilt."
"Careful. I happen to like your mother. And in my opinion too many kids
blame too many mothers for their own faults when the mothers...nor
fathers...ever had a single thing to do with it."
"I will concede the point," he said meekly.
"For a very pushy guy, you're giving in rather easily today," she said,
immediately suspicious.
"The truth is," he said, "that I lack people skills."
"What have people skills or lack of people skills got to do with
anything?"
"Well, I don't know how to act or react around women," he said. "In
college, I felt I had to prove myself. Harvard was not easy for anyone.
In my case, I spent more time studying than I probably should have. I'm
not apologizing for the studying, I'm just stating it as fact. That's
why I blundered last night. I hope I didn't make you mad."
"No. Of course not."
"Good," he said, then, nervously, he blurted out: "Let's go get
married."
"What!" She was totally astonished at him. Sudden. Brash. Careless.
Worse, uncaring. "Is that what you think a permanent relationship is?"
"I haven't had much practice at this sort of thing."
"You're going to get a lot of practice at this rate," she said.
She had been so astonished that she spilt some of her clam chowder on
her blouse. She sat the container down on a bench and quickly took out a
handkerchief from her purse and dabbed at the spot. Too late. It would
need both a soaking and good washing. Or, hell, perhaps she'd throw the
blouse away in honor of the occasion. This was, after all, her first
marriage proposal. And from a man with whom she'd refused to sleep. To
tell the truth, she hadn't had all that many men ask to sleep with her
either. One guy back in college hadn't bothered to ask even that in a
futile attempt to rape her and he'd ended up with a broken arm and two
cracked ribs and the last time she'd bumped into him on the campus, he'd
ran with a frightened look on his face.
"I really want to marry you," he said.
"No," she said. "Definitely not."
She gave up on the blouse. Actually, it was a fairly pleasant spot, she
decided. Dry out soon. Since she had no meeting this afternoon--just
that Green mess on which to work--she'd wear the spotted blouse back to
the office. It was fitting enough.
She picked up her container with the rest of the chowder and continued
sipping at it. No sense wasting good chowder. The last of the contents,
she ate with the plastic spool the little restaurant had provided.
"Could I ask why?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I don't think so. Any explanation would be rather
complex and I'm not sure I want to bother with anything that complex
this afternoon."
"Well, can we walk some more?"
"Sure. Why not?"
They continued walking along the pathway. But now there was a certain
amount of tension between them. It had fallen around their shoulders
like some damp cloud. Nothing else had changed. Girls in shorts that
were almost illegal whirled by, spinning, on skates followed by
bare-chested men in shorts that were also approaching illegal.
After a few minutes of silence, Bill mumbled words that she barely
heard.
"Guess I'll always be too pushy," he said.
She thought about the statement which, perhaps, she wasn't supposed to
have heard. But after thinking about it, she decided it didn't matter
much whether he knew or not.
"Just for the record," she said, "I don't really mind the pushy part."
"You don't?" He brightened just as if she said something really nice.
"The reason is that I'm sort of pushy myself," she said.
"Yes. I've noticed that," he said.
"You don't have to agree with me," she said in a sharp tone.
"No. In this case, I have to agree," he said. "I've noticed several
situations in which you were pushy."
"Well, I'm not exactly that pushy."
He seemed to have regained considerable composure. Suddenly, he grinned
in that boyish manner that he had--one of his few likable traits--and
remarked carefully:
"Not quite, perhaps. Shall we return? At the very least, I've still got
work to do."
"Yes, so have I," Susan said. "Not that I'm going to enjoy doing it very
much."
"That Green article?"
She nodded. "Chase Dudley, the copyeditor, said he would help with it.
You know, sort of pad things out."
"Good. He's a nice guy, isn't he?"
"One of the bests," she said. "Been in the business a long, long time.
Knows everyone. Everyone knows him. Pretty good writer, too. Does a book
now and then."
"He wouldn't have any reason to kill your Mojo Man, I suppose."
"Absolutely not," Susan said. "Chase knows Peggy Lee and he thinks Frank
Sinatra is still a punk; he wouldn't know someone like the Mojo. I think
it was Toady who killed him. I don't know that for a fact, of course.
Just a guess."
"Women's intuition?"
"Call it that," she said, "if you wish."
"Why would Toady--lord, now you've got me using that term--want to kill
this Mojo Man character?"
"I don't have any women's intuition on that," she said. "At first, I
rationalized that someone was trying to frame me. But I discarded that
idea almost immediately. Too obvious, don't you see? My desk. My knife.
No cop would fall for that sort of stuff."
"They almost did," he said pensively.
"Nyah."
"That was their idea for a while."
"I don't believe that. How are you so sure?"
"Rumor," he said as they reached her car. "Have you ever seen an
industry where there was so many rumors? Nothing but rumors and rumors
within rumors. Then, you have complex situations based on rumors.
Psychological ploys, if you will. Gambits like in a serious chess match.
I don't quite understand how everyone keeps everything straight."
"Perhaps they don't," she said. "Life itself may be nothing more than an
obstacle course with the goal to reach the other side."
"Now that wouldn't surprise me at all," he said, "but the other side of
what?"
He seemed to be in a cheerful mood as they drove back to her office. She
wondered why. Because this was strange, she thought. He'd asked her to
married him, almost demanded that she marry him, and she'd said no and
now he appeared to be just a little too happy about it!
She, too, was almost cheerful and that was also strange. It wasn't how
many requests for marriage she'd had before that bothered her, even
though the amount was exactly zero, it was the number of requests yet to
come. What if no one else asked? And she ended up an old maid teaching
English or journalism at some little high school in a horrid town like
Winters, Texas, or, worse, Enid, Oklahoma? That would be just absolutely
horrible! She hated to even think about it. She would also hate to be
married and live in a town like Enid. No, Los Angeles was the place
where she wanted to spend the rest of her life. Maybe Santa Barbara
would be okay. Carpinteria. Heck, anything on the coast of California
would be just sensational. And maybe someone else would ask. Be patient,
she told herself.
But she admitted to some curiosity. And, although she really didn't want
to ask, she felt she must.
"Why do you want to marry me?"
"Research," he said.
"Research?"
"Yes. I've checked your genes and I looked into mine about a year ago.
And we seemed like a pretty good match when it came to genes. There was
other research, of course."
Susan was quite fascinated by this revelation. She heard--girl
talk--myriad reasons for getting married, up to and including the fact
that the girl in question was pregnant. So far as she knew, no one
admitted to pure, solid research as the reason for selecting a mate.
"What other research, if I may ask?"
"College grades, the courses you took, personal interests, job
experience."
"You couldn't check my grades! They're confidential."
"I talked to a lot of people," he said quickly, as if covering up some
information.
"And what you discovered about me met with your approval?"
"Best of the lot so far," he said.
"You've researched a lot of women, I suppose?"
"Not too many, no. But a few this past year or two."
"And you're determined to get married to one of the women you've
researched?"
"Of course," he said.
"What if she's not very pretty? This perfect girl you find through all
of your research might be ugly."
"Beauty, I've discovered, is a lot like wine tasting. Depends to a great
extent on the person drinking the wine. There are other factors about
beauty, you know. Some women, you just glance at them and you realize
that they may look pretty nice right now, but those good looks won't
stand the course. Give this woman, that woman, a few years and the
beauty is gone. It was just their youth that attracted men. Real beauty
is the kind of beauty that stays with you. Old age won't mean a thing to
a woman with real beauty because she'll still be quite attractive.
Stunning, perhaps." "Good luck on your search," she said.
"Thanks," he said.
She parked in her usual place on the roof and draped the seats with her
Mexican blanket.
"It was a very pleasant lunch," she said.
"It was?" he remarked, just as if he wasn't sure.
"I enjoyed myself," she said.
He wagged his head as he stepped into his own car.
"You are definitely strange," he said.
"So are you," she said.
The rest of the afternoon, except for several phone calls, she wasn't
disturbed as she wrote the George Green piece. It was simple to write,
but very difficult because she had to invent some of the incidents and
embellish the others. But she kept the adjectives and adverbs to a bare
minimum and tried to keep the words action-packed. George Green became a
character in motion, busy, dynamic. Fiction.
When she finished, she took the pages immediately to Chase Dudley and
dropped them in front of him.
"Remember your promise," she said.
"I've done quite a few of these things," Chase said. He smiled at her.
"Don't worry about it."
"Just don't paint him real," she said. "He isn't."
"Show business has a lot of people like that," he said. "California
changes everyone. And show business is its main religion. Even Baptists
develop a devilish flair in California."
Then Susan, back in her office, called Nails. Yes, Nails was still in
and, no, she wasn't all that busy and, yes, Susan could drop by for a
few minutes. For some reason, Nails wasn't exactly Nails. Not on the
phone. In her present position as radio-TV editor of Songdust News,
Susan had to watch her tone of voice very carefully. Disc jockeys and
program directors, who likely either were or had been disc jockeys
themselves, were all voicemasters. They could recognize whether you were
feeling good, whether you were lying or telling the truth, even if you
had a slight cold. Their job dealt with vocal tone, inflection, selling
on the air; they were experts when it came to voice. Harvey Glascock,
when he was general manager of WNEW in New York City, always referred to
his radio personalities, including William B. Williams, as on-air
salespersons.
Thus, Susan realized that something was plaguing Nails at the moment.
But who else could she turn to?
But when she got there and told Nails about the marriage proposal, Nails
flew into a rage.
"Marry him, honey!"
"I don't even know him, for god's sake!" Susan said.
"Take it from me, honey child, you won't ever really know him. That may
take years and years. By then, you'll be too old to do anything about
it. Guarantee!"
"Well, what kind of guy is he that does all of this research on a woman?
He said he knows my college grades and how he found those out I'll
probably never know. And he knows my genes."
"So, he's careful. What's wrong with that? Most guys these days want to
test the waters before they go swimming. This one, at least, just wanted
to find out everything about you."
"That's not exactly the way it happened," Susan said. "He did ask to
spend the night a day ago. I told him no. Today is when he asked to
marry me."
"Well, what more can a woman get today, I ask you?"
"It's not enough," Susan said.
"You've been reading too many books," Nails said. "You ought to call him
up and apologize."
That statement angered Susan. It was such a cliché response and quite
unlike Nails, who generally flourish a sharp and biting wit.
"I can see, Nails, that you're not the person with whom I should be
talking."
"Ain't too many women, honey, that will tell you different. It's a
crazy, crazy world out there today when it comes to men."
Totally confused, Susan got into her MG and drove over to Mind's Eye
Books, just praying that Bill Ferguson wouldn't be there and very
grateful when she found only his mother, tea cup in hand, as she came
from behind her desk.
"What, for god's sake, is with your son?" Susan demanded.
"Ask him, not me," Maud said. "Would you like a Camus to read."
"I'm not interested in Camus tonight," Susan said.
Maud, however, refused to mention another word about her son and
eventually Susan gave up and went home.
The dark car was parked at the end of the parking area, just like
always.
(continued next week)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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June 21, 2004
Commentary
by
Claude Hall
PAST PONDERINGS
This study compares outlaw John Wesley Hardin
and western writers Max Brand and Louis L'Amour with Gene Autry
and John Wayne and others who rode the not-so-silver screen.
The article below was written circa 1985-6 while I was teaching
at the State University of New York at Brockport and published
in a monthly tabloid distributed by country music radio stations
courtesy of Jonathan Fricke,
studio2812@msn.com.
"They Went Thata Way..."
An interesting thing happened to country music on its way to
success and popularity-it went past the western movie. While
only a very few of the western films considered today to be
classics featured country music singers, some country music
singers such as Gene Autry, Roy (Leonard Slye) Rogers, Jimmy
Wakely, and Tex Ritter, among others, achieved considerable fame
and fortune in films. A notable exception to this rule of thumb
would be the classic film "High Noon"; though Tex Ritter was not
featured on screen, his rendition of the title song during the
movie literally made the film.
The marriage of cowboy tune and the cowboy in western movies was
predestined-the first film to tell a "story" was "The Great
Train Robbery" produced in 1903 by Edwin S. Porter and,
coincidentally, it happened to be a western. Strictly speaking,
perhaps it was not the first western; in 1898, the Edison
Company produced a film called "Cripple Creek Bar-room" complete
with cowboys and a pitcher marked Red Eye.
The roots of the singing western, however, can be traced back to
1935 and Gene Autry's first major starring vehicle-"Tumbling
Tumbleweeds," a movie which launched the musical western (and,
incidentally, the practice of some stars using their own names
in their film adventures), according to Michael Parkinson and
Clyde Jeavons in their book "A Pictorial History of Westerns"
published in 1972. Earlier, Ken Maynard offered a few songs in
some of his films, but Autry was the first singing star of the
western film. And he confided in an interview several years ago
that he thought Bob Nolan, one of the original Sons of the
Pioneers, had sung for Ken in even those sporadic attempts.
Singer/performer Gene Autry today ranks among the richest people
in America.
Most of the classic westerns, of course, did not feature a
singer and, in fact, many of the original outlaws of he west
probably never saw a guitar. On a cattle drive, the normal
trade of most people in the so-called west, you would have
looked damned silly chasing a stray heifer with a "get-box"
flopping over your back. I'm afraid that a guitar wouldn't have
lasted long during the long-drawn, dusty, back-breaking strain
of a trail drive. Roy Rogers seldom, if ever, carried a guitar
with him; there was always one wherever he went and the film
writers never bothered to explain how that guitar kept getting
around hither and yon.
Actually, the real west had little in common with the "west" in
movies per se, in spite of the great stories that evolved on the
screen. Louis L'Amour, author of the book "Hondo" that became a
western film with John Wayne and the largest-selling western
writer of today and perhaps one of the top-five best-selling
writers of all time according to the CBS television program "60
Minutes," bases his locales and many incidents in his novels on
reality. His personal library contains approximately 10,000
books that he uses for research; he knows the west, too, from
personal experience when he was a youth and worked in the real
west.
"Generally speaking, most western writers write of the western
man as illiterate and he wasn't," the late L'Amour told me in an
interview several years ago at his home in Beverly Hills, CA.
"Actually, the level of literacy in the west was higher than it
was in the east. In the east, they were getting a great influx
of immigrants from southeastern Europe, you know, who were
coming in and stayed mostly in the factories. Out west, we were
getting all kinds of adventurers and drifters, many of them
college men, many of the former Army officers who were coming
out west. After the Civil War, a whole bunch of southern
planters and people from good families came west looking for new
homes."
L'Amour knew about 30 old-time outlaws and gunfighters
personally, including two men who rode with Billy the Kid.
"Bill Tillman, one of the old frontier marshals, taught me to
use a six-shooter," he said. A lot of bad guys have died in
western movies and critics of these films point out that if all
of the people killed in western movies had been real, the west
would still be unpopulated. But to L'Amour, it made sense.
"At the time there was so much shooting going on in the west
there was a good deal going on all over the world. Andrew
Jackson, who was president of the United States, killed one man
in a duel and was involved in 102 others in one way or another
as a timekeeper, referee or something of the kind. Alexander
Pushkin, the Russian poet, was killed in a duel about that time
and he'd killed several men himself. And there was a lot of
that going on all over the world, except that here in the west
it was not formal. Nobody presented a visiting card. They just
went to their guns and started shooting."
One of the greatest western writers of them all-Max Brand-never
saw the west; his 350-plus novels and myriad short stories about
the west were utter fiction. A relative performed what little
research he needed in a library and sent him the facts. During
part of his heyday as a writer, in fact, Frederick Faust (for
that was his real name) lived in Italy. Yet, one of his
fictional characters named Destry will live forever in book and
movie. It is one of the few novels to have generated at least
six films and even a Broadway musical! James Stewart starred in
one of the movies, Audie Murphy in another.
Yet, there is a striking resemblance in many western movies to
reality. If you've never given yourself the pleasure of reading
'The Life of John Wesley Hardin" that he wrote about himself,
you should do it. The book is obtainable from the University of
Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK. A movie-not a very good or accurate
one-was made about his life starring Rock Hudson. Bob Dylan
titled an album in his honor. And if you watch the movie "True
Grit" and you see John Wayne charging a whole posse
single-handed, that was actually done by John Wesley Hardin
whether the writer(s) of "True Grit" knew it or not.
John Wesley Hardin was the fastest man alive with a gun; he was
a dead shot and seldom missed. How many men John Wesley Hardin
killed, no one really knows for sure...not even himself. He
killed his first man at the age of 15 and, according to Robert
0. McCubbin who wrote a foreword to the above book, "became a
fugitive" because Texas was then ruled by Union military forces
and the hated State Police of Reconstruction Governor Edmund J.
Davis.
"In the 10 years between his first killing in I868 and his final
capture and imprisonment in 1878, the outlaw killed more than a
score of men in personal combat," said McCubbin.
True, he was considered an outlaw by many, but a vast number of
Texans at the time thought of John Wesley Hardin as their hero
and in their minds he was greater than ever a Robin Hood. He
defended them against the despised carpetbaggers who flooded
down from the east to rape and vandalize town after town in
Texas. The probability is quite strong that Hardin may have
killed more than 50 men, for he didn't count many members of the
hated State Police in that Reconstruction period in Texas. One
he did count, and most certainly notched on his revolver, was
that of Jack Helms in 1873, the sheriff of DeWitt County in
Texas and the leader of a secret vigilante committee.
"Some of the best men in the country had been murdered by this
mob," wrote John Wesley Hardin in his autobiography. "Anyone
who did not endorse their foul deeds or go with them on their
raids incurred their hatred and it meant death at their hands.
They were about 200 strong at this time and were waging a war
with the Taylors and their friends."
Helms tried to get Hardin to join him and in conversation told
him of a dozen or more of his friends-including Manning
Clements, George Tennilley and the Taylors-he wanted to kill.
Hardin pleaded off, saying he and his friends only wanted peace.
"About the 23rd of April, l873, Jack Helms and fifty men came
into our neighborhood and inquired for Manning, George, and
myself. They insulted the women folks and Jack Helms was
particularly insulting to my wife because she would not inform
him of some of the Taylor party. We were all out hunting cattle
at the time."
A fight erupted a few days later; Jim Cox of the vigilantes was
killed. Hardin refused to take credit for the killing, but
seemed to know an awful lot about it. Then on May 17, Hardin
met Jack Helms in a little Texas town called Albukirk. Helms
threatened to kill Taylor on sight. Hardin was having his horse
shod when he heard Helms out in the street. "Hands up, you
damned son of a bitch!"
Hardin stated, "I looked around and saw Jack Helms advancing on
Jim Taylor. with a large knife in his hands. Some one hollered,
'Shoot the damned scoundrel'. It appeared to me that Helms was
the scoundrel, so I grabbed my shotgun and fired at Capt. Jack
Helms as he was closing with Jim Taylor. I then threw my gun on
the Helms crowd and told them not to draw a gun, and made one
fellow put up his pistol. In the meantime Jim Taylor had shot
Helms repeatedly in the head, so thus did the leader of the
vigilante committee, the sheriff of DeWitt, the terror of the
country, whose name was a horror to all law-abiding citizens,
meet his death. He fell with twelve buckshot in his breast and
several six-shooter balls in his head. All of this happened in
the midst of his own friends and advisors, who stood by utterly
amazed. The news soon spread that I had killed Jack Helms and I
received many letters of thanks from the widows of the men whom
he had cruelly put to death. Many of the best citizens of
Gonzales and
This shooting scene smacks somewhat of a John Wayne or Randolph
Scott movie-minus, I suppose, the reality of the language of the
time. John Wayne was not adverse to using a shotgun in a
film...nor using a cussword in his later years. Roy Rogers
never, of course, uttered the slightest off-color word and,
along with Gene Autry and Tex Ritter and the others, always gave
their enemies more than a fighting chance and often fought with
fists rather than guns.
Another time in Trinity City in Texas, Hardin won some money
from a Phil Sublet in a bowling alley and saloon. The man went
to get his guns and a few minutes later Hardin heard someone
yell in the street: "Clear the way. I will shoot anyone that
interferes with me. Come out, you goddamned son of a bitch."
Compare this to the classic confrontation scene between Jack
Palance and Alan Ladd in "Shane."
"I appeared at that door with my pistol, and he fired one barrel
of a shotgun at me,' said Hardin. "I thought I would kill him,
but did not want to get into any new trouble so fired at him,
not intending to hit him, and stepped back. As I did so, a
drunken man got up and caught me by the vest, saying that he and
I could whip anybody. He had a big knife in his hand and I told
him to turn me loose, but before he did it, he pulled me into
the door.Sublet fired the other barrel of the shotgun.
"I knew I was shot, so I instantly took after him with my
six-shooter, but he threw down his gun and broke for his life.
I ran after him through the streets and into a dry-goods store.
As he went through the store, I fired at him, but my pistol
snapped and I found I had my pistol with the broken cylinder
spring.
"My man was still on the run, and I was getting weak from loss
of blood. I fired again as he went out the door and the ball
passed through his shoulder. I was getting mighty weak now, but
staggered to the door as he ran, hoping to kill the man who I
thought had killed me. He was about 75 yards away, and now I
saw I could never kill him, so I turned to some friends who were
near and told them, 'I am either killed or shot. If all the
gold in the world belonged to me, I would freely give it to kill
him. I have one consolation, however, I made the coward run'."
Can you imagine a John Wayne even owning a pistol with a broken
spring? Western movie heroes always had good guns. I don't
recall a Gene Autry or Roy Rogers getting blasted with a
shotgun, either.
Hardin recovered from those wounds, managed to escape the law,
and lived to fight again. Many of the real events of Hardin's
life have been depicted fictionally in countless western
films-his escape from a jail, his facing down Wild Bill Hickok
in Abilene, KS; his escape from a posse near where Brownwood,
TX, is today. But no movie ever carried pathos similar to the
occasion when a posse couldn't catch John Wesley Hardin, but
satisfied themselves with hanging his brother Joe, a law-abiding
citizen. At one point, the State Police held his wife and
children hostage.
Those were pretty hectic times, of course, in Texas; everyone
carried a gun. Killings were like a fever. In his
autobiography, Hardin admitted: "True, it is almost as bad to
kill as to be killed. It drove my father to an early grave; it
almost distracted my mother; it killed my brother Joe and my
cousins Tom and William; it left my brother's widow with two
helpless babes; Mrs. Anderson lost her son Ham, and Mrs. Susan
Barrickman lost her husbands to say nothing of the grief of
countless others.
"I do say, however, that the man who does not exercise the first
law of nature-that of self preservation-is not worthy of living
and breathing the breath of life."
Finally, Hardin was captured and couldn't escape and sentenced
in Comanche, TX, September 1878 to 25 years in prison. Not
everyone thought he was a villain. "When we got to Fort Worth,
the people turned out like a Fourth of July picnic, and I had to
get out of the wagon and shake hands for an hour before my guard
could get me through the crowd."
Hardin was pardoned in March 1894. He was shot in the back in
El Paso, TX, in the Acme Saloon on the corner of Utah and San
Antonio Streets near midnight Sept. 19, 1895. Unquestionably,
he was the fountainhead of much of western fiction and almost a
mythical figure during his own time and certainly since.
Without question, too, he was the personification of all of the
cowboy singers of the movie screen in the years to come,
although few, if any, of them in "playacting" could come even
close to the real person.
- 30 -
OTHER MATTERS
Phil Gelormine,
Gelormine@aol.com:
"Remember me? Maybe my name anyway, as we never met. I worked
as a reporter for Billboard's New York Bureau from late '72 to
early '74. Paul Ackerman hired me. Ian Dove was office manager
and Lee Zhito was in charge in LA. I was googling Lee's name
when I came across your article. I understand Lee was killed
in a tragic accident. Train wreck or something. What ever became
of Ian Dove? Now there was a character. I know Paul died in
'77. A few years ago his best friend, Sun Records founder Sam
Phillips, made an appearance in New York at the Museum of TV and
Radio in conjunction with an A&E special. I made him weep when
I presented him with an 8x10 b/w portrait of Paul I shot in his
office. I knew how close they were. He then asked me to sign
it! Paul gave me the job because I recognized Sam with Paul in
a picture that hung over his shoulder on the wall in his
office. I've always said that picture got me the job. Sam
liked that story. Glad you are up
Phil, there's so much stuff out there floating
around that, sadly, I don't even know which item you're talking
about. Lee Zhito, according to his obit in the Los Angeles
Times, stepped in front of a car on a street in Santa Monica.
By then, I believe he was virtually blind. But it's good to
hear from you. And you're right, Sam was devoted to Paul. But
I could name several who also considered Paul one of the
greatest people on earth, including me. I'm very glad you did
the picture tango. Nice thing to do.
Richard Kimball,
aaskdick@earthlink.net, notes that "we finally made it! The
Road/west coast is finally moving into new digs as of june 21,
2004. All mail, CDs, packages and correspondence of any kind
pertaining to Richard Kimball, the Road, United Stations radio
networks, usrn and/or aask, should now be sent to the following
new address: 69779 Camino Pacifico, Rancho Mirage, CA 92270."
Phone, fax, email remain the same.
Jim Rose,
rosekkkj@earthlink.net:
"I read an article by Corey Deitz in LARRY SHANNON's Radio Daily
News about Radio Remote Stalkers which brought back a few
memories of the hundreds of remote broadcasts I did at KBUC and
KBER in San Antonio in the 60s and 70s! Two different times
gunshot holes were discovered through the glass directly toward
where my head would be, right on back to the wall behind! These
were noticed when opening up the remote early in the morning at
KBUC in 1968, later at KBER in 1972! Just a little
frightening to say the least! San Antonio was still a pretty
wild frontier town! Girls would sneak by to get a glimpse of
what you looked like! They'd try to not be as obvious about it!
Others had nothing else in life to do but stand and watch your
every move! Once, I saw this gorgeous blonde drive by! She
parked across the street. When she got out of the car, I nearly
bit my pen in two! WOW! She went inside a store. She got back
into her car, drove away. I wondered if she was listening
Jim has a new web page where some may get a chuckle:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rosekkkj/jimroseremembers/.
I can indirectly top you on San Antone, Jim.
Harry O'Connor,
hairo@webtv.net, once known as Mushmouth on the radio there,
remembers seeing a herd of cattle driven down the street.
Harry, of course, is better known for producing a radio program
that helped a late B actor become president. Before that, he
worked for Bugs Bunny, etc.
The reach of my website sometimes astonishes
me. Just heard from David Kester,
legalresearch44@comcast.net: "I am David Kester, yes,
that's right, the progeny of Howard. I'd enjoy hearing from you
although I have no anecdotes of oranges. Well, maybe one or
two...."
Radio was replete with colorful people. Your
father, David, was one of them. A great number of people who
knew your father, many of whom no doubt worked for him at one
time or another, will be pleased that you've surfaced. Just
FYI, one of his former disc jockies will be quite involved in
the Republican convention this year. At Bush's elbow, no
doubt. A lot of others fared well, too. Your father always had
talented people around him.
Also heard from Tony Richland, but not via website. Tommy
Noonan, tenoonan8@aol.com,
was kind enough to send me his address and I wrote Tony a
personal letter. Can't tell you how much his letter in reply
meant to me. The record industry had/has some phenomenal record
promotion people. I was fortunate to know quite a few. Tony
was not only one of the best, but one of the record industry's
nicest people. Tony is still promoting records (now CDs, of
course). He started Mar. 22, 1954.
Remember Rising Star from a few columns ago?
Well, she's back again, albeit briefly...sorta looks as if she'd
heading south. Taylor Hook,
Shininstar2b@aol.com:
"Hey, Claude! How are you doing? I was just wondering if I could
have the link to that talent songwriting contest again because I
have just finished my songs and I was planning on entering it,
but I accidently put the papers that I printed into storage with
my furniture. It would mean a lot! Thanks! Would u like me to
send a copy of my newest work to u? It's an unedited version and
also there will be no CD jacket until August when I return from
Costa Rica, but it's pretty neat stuff!!! Send me your address
unless you wanna wait."
Watch out, world! Here comes Taylor Hook!
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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