

# More

# Ten-minute Tales

by Dennis Goodwin

Another collection of read-aloud true short stories of notable people and events, arranged by the month of the person's birthday or the event's anniversary. As with the first book, some are famous; some not so famous. All, though, are colorful slices of history.

Copyright 2018 All rights reserved.

Other historical books by the author:

Ten-minute Tales

Out of the West

Brass Bands and Snake Oil Stands

Fate, Flukes, & Fame in Country & Bluegrass Legends

Dedication

To one of our country's greatest institutions of higher learning, the

Waffle House. That's where I reviewed the research and wrote these

stories, amidst the clanking of coffee pots and the sizzling of bacon.

dennisgoodwin1947@gmail.com

January

January 1 New York's American Museum opens, leading the way for decades of fascinating and bizarre Dime Museums (1842)

January 1 (1889) Paiute prophet, Wovoka, has a vision that will lead him to develop the notorious "Ghost Dance" which leads to the massacre of Wounded Knee Creek

January 4 First radio barn dance is broadcast on Fort Worth's WBAP radio (1923) story: early radio barn dances

January 14 Country singer, Reba McEntire, joins the Grand Ole Opry (1986)

January 19 Samuel Hancock's birthday (1818) – an early explorer who bluffed his way to safety from an attack by angry Snohomish Indians, using an "inexhaustible gun"

February

February 5 Belle Starr, a colorful and notorious American outlaw, is born (1848)

February 6 First full Minstrel Show (The Virginia Minstrels) (1843) story: origin of the Minstrel Show

February 7 Eliza Wilkinson's birthday (1757) - She wrote detailed and humorous accounts of Colonial life during the Revolutionary War

February 8 The Smithsonian Institution opens (1855) story: early museums

February 14 Jack Benny's birthday (1894)

March

March 3 Alexander Graham Bell's birthday (1847)

March 4 Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt begin their 12 year tenure as president and first lady (1933)

March 22 Mountain Man Jim Bridger joins William Ashley's expedition and begins a life of wilderness adventure (1822)

March 23 John Collins heads west and encounters a potentially deadly raging prairie fire (1864)

March 27 Origen Thomson sets out from St. Joseph, Missouri, on a colorful trek to "far off Oregon" (1852)

March 30 Vincent Van Gogh is born in Zundert, Netherlands (1853)

April

April 6 Merle Haggard is born (1937)

April 20 Legendary raid on Minsky's Burlesque (1925) story: Louis Minsky

April 28 Osborne Russell's frontier adventure includes a raging Grisly bear and treacherous Blackfoot Indians (1834)

April 29 Willie Nelson's birthday (1933)

April 30 William Marshall Anderson sets out on a trek "outside the United States" (past the border of Missouri) (1834)

May

May 2 Battle of Cut Knife, where Cree War Chief, Fine Day, convinces Canadian soldiers they are encountering five hundred Indians. In reality, the soldiers are "surrounded" by about fifty warriors (1885)

May 13 Roy Rogers and Dale Evan's first movie together (The Cowboy and the Senorita) is released (1944)

May 20 Norman Rockwell's first post cover (1916)

May 21/22 Charles Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight (1927)

May 23 Irving Berlin's birthday (1888)

June

June 7 Civil War soldier, John Brobst, is mustered out of the Union army to return to his teenage "pen pal," who will soon become his wife (1865)

June 15 English Quaker, William Tallack, begins a colorful trek through the early West on a Butterfield Stage (1860)

June 21 The Ferris Wheel debuted at Chicago's Columbian Exposition (1893)

June 25 Chief White Bull may have been the one to kill Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn (1876)

June 28 (1861) Central Pacific Railroad is founded, which would create the town of Palisade, Nevada that staged over a thousand fake shootouts, bank robberies, and massacres

July

July 3 Robert-Houdin, considered the "Father of Modern Magic," opens a magic theater in Paris (1845) story: The Golden Age of Magic

July 4 Nat Love, the West's most famous black cowboy, wins Deadwood, South Dakota's shooting contest and begins his legendary career (1876)

July 4 First Coney Island amusement park opens (1895) story: history of Coney Island's amusement parks

July 4 Marcus & Narcissa Whitman reach the apex of the Continental Divide on their historic trek along the Overland Trail to build a mission among the Cayuse Indians (1836)

July 23 Jackie Robinson, who broke major league baseball's color-barrier, is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame (1962)

July 27 Mel Blanc's first cartoon appearance as the voice of Bugs Bunny in Merrie Melody's "A Wild Hare" (1940)

August

August 2 Wild Bill Hickok is shot in a bar in Deadwood, SD, while holding aces & eights (the "dead man's hand") (1876)

August 3 Olympic legend, Jesse Owens, wins the first of four gold medals in Berlin (1936)

August 5 Julia Archibald Holmes, the "Bloomer Girl," becomes the first woman to reach the top of Pike's Peak (1858)

August 12 The first day of Woodstock '94, the 25th reunion of the original Woodstock festival (a personal reflection) (1994)

August 24 Birthday of Texas cowboy-in-training, James McCauley, who headed west for the setting sun (1873)

September

September 14 Helen Keller receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor (1964)

September 15 First major theatrical performance in America (Williamsburg, Virginia – 1752) story: the birth of American theater

September 17 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery to later become history's most famous Underground Railroad conductor (1849)

September 25 The brave "Little Rock Nine" students walk through the doors of the previously segregated Little Rock Central High school, and into history (1957)

September 26 First radio broadcast of "The Shadow" (1937) story: early radio's crime fighters

October

October 10 Judy Garland leaves her handprints and footprints in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater (1939)

October 17 The Sager orphans arrive at the Whitman Mission after losing both parents along the overland trail. Narcissa & Marcus Whitman adopt all seven children (1844)

October 20 Roy Acuff, the "King of Country Music," records his most requested song, The Great Speckled Bird (1936)

October 28 First public performance of Blue Grass music - story: Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys (1938)

November

November 3 Union soldier, John Collins Welch, begins a harrowing escape from a South Carolina prison-camp (1864)

November 14 Ray Charles' Georgia on My Mind hits the number one spot. (1960) It eventually became Georgia's official state song

November 17 Garth Brooks' first live album is released and eventually became the best-selling live album in music history, going 21-times platinum (1998)

November 21 Hetty Green's birthday. (1834) She was a multibillionaire who cooked oatmeal for lunch on a steam radiator, and walked down Wall Street in a raggedy black dress. She was nicknamed "The Witch of Wallstreet"

November 26 Great Diamond Hoax of 1872 was exposed

December

December 11 Brenda Lee's birthday (1944)

December 13 Charlie Chaplin signs with Mack Sennett's Keystone Pictures, which ignited his career (1913)

December 17 Wright Brothers' first successful manned flight (1903)

December 29 Sioux warrior, Black Elk, fights in the Battle of the Little Big Horn, with only an unusable "sacred bow." (1890)

# "One Thin Dime"

When Dime Museums mixed science with showmanship

The poor fellow is simply out for a peaceful walk. Like so many before him, he has no intent of disposing of the dime jingling around in his pocket. But the gaudy little building around the corner will soon transform his leisurely walk into a cluster of one-of-a-kind memories. First, he encounters a frenzy of multicolored banners and flags while he is bombarded by raucous automated music in front of the garish red and gold entrance. And then it happens.

Before he can turn away, his eyes fall on the promotional pictures along the museum's entrance. Caught up in their spell, our afternoon rambler is lured a little closer. The portraits of the wonders waiting inside, gaze back at him. A towering giant – larger than he has ever known, glares down from his lofty stance. A fat lady of enormous dimensions smiles out to him. A shapely woman returns his gaze as her long flowing beard lays gracefully across her lap. Nature's most intriguing human oddities are beckoning him to continue down the hallway. They are all waiting for him, just on the other side of "one thin dime."

Yes, the Dime Museum, now just a distant memory, once furnished a retreat for hundreds of thousands of less than elite curiosity-seekers. Beginning in the mid-1800's, the little establishments often tucked away in the shoddy side of the city – enticed the common man like the refined museums tempted the more sophisticated. The Dime Museum was usually split into two sections – a small theater, and an exhibit area known as "Curio Hall." Likely the most important part of the museum, however, was the entrance. There, it needed to work its magic on the poor innocent souls who happened to be passing by.

As the pictures, the music, and the glitter slowly broke down his will power, the visitor traded his dime for a greasy yellow ticket, which had been reused several hundred times. Once inside the museum, he walked down a corridor lined with more pictures of the curiosities that awaited him. Then, finally, he arrived at Curio Hall. Set against a bright red and yellow background, small stages and booths lined the walls of the room. On the stages and in the booths, the characters pictured in the lobby materialized in the flesh. In the transformation from pictures to people, they had changed a just a bit. The fat lady was not quite as massive, and the giant didn't tower exactly as high as the pictures had depicted. Nevertheless, there it was – a room full of human wonders!

As the visitor scanned the room, a loud thumping suddenly drew his attention to a distinguished older gentleman wearing a black frock-coat. "Behold," he cried out as he tapped the floor with his gold-headed cane. "Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Cherrie Burnham, the fair, the beautiful! Marvelous! Marvelous! Stand up, Cherrie!"

While the aging professor enticed the crowd to move closer, the fat lady stood for their admiration. "Look at her," he continued, "a mighty girl, fat, magnificent. Five chins! Cheeks like the sun-kissed melon! Arms like vats of luscious Falernian wine!" As she exhibited all of her six-hundred-and-ten pounds, the professor continued to praise her bulging femininity.

Then, as quickly as the crowd's attention had turned toward Miss Cherrie, their eyes again followed the professor's tapping cane. Now he introduced Signor and Signorina Pastorelli, the couple, "known throughout the world as the Tattooed Mars and Venus." Standing and shedding their bathrobes to reveal scanty costumes, the couple displayed the multicolored artwork that covered their bodies. "Pictures of beasts and birds; of foreign lands," the professor pointed out. Even though Signor Pastorelli was Italian by birth, the professor told the attentive crowd, he loves our country. "See there," he said as the tattooed man turned to reveal a colorful American flag etched across his back, "The Star Spangled Banner! Oh, long may it wave!"

And so it went. Accompanied by his tapping cane, the professor focused the attention of the wide-eyed crowd on one human attraction after another. Their pulses stirred as the Wild Man of Borneo and the Human Skeleton came forward. Their breathing halted as the sword swallower and the fire eater executed their hazardous stunts. By the time the visitor had viewed all of the sights in Curio Hall, watched the Punch-and-Judy show and had his palm read, he began to look for the exit. The museum owner however, wasn't quite through with him. He sent agents circulating through the crowd, selling tickets for the "grand concert after the performance."

A reserved-seat ticket could be purchased for only one more thin dime. He was informed that a "magnificent stage-show lasting nearly an hour" awaited him in the rear room. With ticket in hand, he tentatively entered the dark musty room. As his eyes slowly became accustomed to the dim lighting, he could distinguish rows of threadbare opera chairs. Sitting, he settled back to watch a small stage behind an "orchestra" of four less-than-impressive musicians. A man passed among the chairs hawking chewing gum and songbooks.

As the lights suddenly came up, the little musical group burst into an overture flavored with a heavy drumbeat. Throughout the show, a small assortment of second-rate vaudevillians took turns performing short musical and comedy bits in a valiant attempt to give their little audience a full dime's worth of entertainment. For a conclusion, a "bioscope" displayed dim flickering segments of moving pictures. After the small curtain dropped and the houselights raised, the visitor exited the tiny theater through Curio Hall. As he walked out, he likely wasn't aware that he was stepping through a vanishing piece of entertainment history.

With the passing of the years, the Wild Man from Borneo, the Human Skeleton, the Fire-eater, and the rest, have disappeared from museums, as the country's taste turned toward more refined and credible displays. At times though, even in the most sophisticated of modern museums, night watchmen have reported a strange occurrence. In the still of the night, they say they have heard a peculiar tapping sound. Then, according to the accounts, as they strained their ears, they have all heard the same distant call – "Behold, ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Cherrie Burnham, the fair, the beautiful! Marvelous! Marvelous! Stand up Cherrie."

# "Trouble is Sure to Come"

The infamous and disastrous Ghost Dance

Paiute prophet, Wovoka, came face to face with his deceased ancestors in the Land of the Dead. They promised him, he would later relate, they would one day return to their loved ones. As he watched in wonder, he also witnessed a mystical dance. It was a circle dance like many other Paiute rituals, but there was something unusual about this one. The dancers sidestepped left around the circle at an unusually fast pace. In addition, they wore shirts and dresses adorned with magical symbols, including suns, moons, stars, birds, and various animals.

A frenetic drum beat accompanied a series of songs and chants. The words told of the rebirth of an earlier lifestyle. The members of his Paiute nation and the surrounding tribes would be lifted into the sky while the earth was being restored to its former beauty. When the Indians were lowered back to the land, they would be joined by their deceased relatives – now very much alive. Together, they would witness beautiful sprouting flowers and trees, as well as the return of massive herds of bison and elk.

Yes, the world would be peaceful and enchanting – for everyone that is, except the troublesome white settlers who had been steadily encroaching on their land. During the resurgence, according to the vision, they would be unceremoniously sucked into the ground. The images of Wovoka's vision were stamped deeply into his memory. Those pictures seemed especially vivid since his eyes could see nothing other than shadowy outlines, due to an ongoing solar eclipse on the first day of January in 1889.

In his mid-thirties at the time, Wovoka was a shaman, or medicine man, of the Northern Paiute tribe in Nevada. His vision occurred at a time of intense suffering among the Plains Indians of the West. Disease had ravaged their communities, and countless broken treaties left them stripped of their lands, their cultures and their hopes. The prospect of seeing their departed relatives, the return of the buffalo and...not least of all, the disappearance of the white man, was very appealing.

The word of Wovoka's vision soon spread to neighboring tribes. Curious representatives came to hear his prophecy and witness the new ritual dance. "When you get home," he would instruct the visitors, you must begin a dance and continue for five days." Wovoka explained that they should dance for four successive nights and on the fifth, they should continue dancing until morning. If enough people did this, he promised, his vision would become reality.

The dance was considered by the Paiute to be a spirit dance because it summoned their dead ancestor's spirits. Soon, the media translated that into "Ghost Dance." Wovoka was not the first one to experience a vision about the dance. Twenty years before, another Paiute shaman, Wodziwob, experienced a similar prophetic image. As in Wovoka's vision, their deceased ancestors reappeared, the earth was renewed, and the white settlers eradicated. The earlier version, like Wovoka's, elicited a great deal of attention. After performing the ritual dance with no results, though, most Paiutes abandoned the practice. Perhaps it was the deep despair of the later time period that led to a resurgence of hope. Whatever the reason, the dance and accompanying religion caught on with the frenzied speed of the Ghost Dance itself.

Another component of the new religion was its emphasis on living a good life. Wovoka felt the dance would only work if the participants followed rigid rules. Instead of engaging in their old practices of war, he explained, they must love each other and not fight – even with the white man. "Treat one another justly," he assured those visiting his demonstrations, and "all evil in the world will be swept away." Somehow, though, as the new belief spread across the country to the Lakota Sioux of the recently established states of North and South Dakota, the emphasis seemed to shift. The participants talked less about the values of honesty, love and peace, and more about the hopeful eradication of the white settlers. Their demeanor during the ceremonies also took on a more ominous tone.

Kicking Bear, a Miniconjou Teton Lakota, had traveled to Nevada, along with a mystic from the same tribe, named Short Bull. When they returned to their Pine Ridge reservation, they reenacted the ritual with their people. Their version was even more harried than Wovoka's, and the dancers often drifted into trances and fell unconscious. As they did, observers from the local Bureau of Indian Affairs as well as nearby settlers, became increasingly alarmed. Their apprehension only increased when they learned the dance's purpose included the eventual elimination of the white man.

In early October of 1890, Kicking Bear met with Sitting Bull at the Standing Rock reservation to seek his approval of the new dance. Although Sitting Bull doubted the ritual's ability to bring dead ancestors to life, he did not object to his people participating in it. He had heard rumors, however, that the Indian agents were so worried about the dance; they had called in soldiers to some of the reservations. He told Kicking Bear that he didn't want any violence to befall his people. If the dancers wore their magical Ghost Dance shirts, Kicking Bear assured him, no bullets would reach them and they would be safe. In response, Sitting Bull allowed Kicking Bear to remain at the Standing Rock reservation to teach the new dance his people.

The Lakota at the Pine Ridge reservation soon poured their energy into the dance. They began making ghost shirts, mostly of white cotton cloth. They painted them blue around the neck and adorned them with the traditional designs of stars and moons, bows and arrows, and varieties of animals. Rows of feathers hung from the sleeves and flew in the breeze as they danced. Many dancers also wore birds or squirrel heads tied in their long hair. To top it all off, their faces were painted red with a black half-moon on the forehead or on one cheek. As the furiously paced dancing progressed, first one, then another would break from the ring, stagger away and fall down. By the end of an evening, as many as 100 participants would lie on the ground unconscious.

Tragically, the result of the volatile fusion of the agitated Lakota and the overzealous soldiers was recorded in blood on the frigid morning of December 29th in 1890. The day before, about 350 Lakota had been marched to a camp in the Pine Ridge reservation, near Wounded Knee Creek. The next morning, the military ordered all Indian weapons to be relinquished and burned. Despite glaring looks and disgusted grunts, the Lakota turned over their weapons without resistance. One of the last men asked was a young Minneconjou named Black Coyote. He was deaf, and was likely unaware of the reason that the soldiers demanded his rifle. Black Coyote defiantly held it above his head, rather than turning it over. Immediately, two soldiers grabbed him and spun him around. In the process, his gun accidentally discharged.

That shot launched a massacre, which included the army's rapid-fire Hotchkiss guns. Many of the previous dancers were still wearing their Ghost Dance shirts and dresses. Sadly, as the horrified Lakota soon realized, the clothes held no magic powers. By the time the smoke cleared, over two hundred men, women and children lie dead. Despite the ominous appearance of the Ghost Dancers and the fervent temperament of the soldiers, the volatile combination never had to mix. A former Indian agent with the improbable name of Valentine McGillycuddy – had previously written a warning to the federal government, which went completely unheeded. "If the troops remain," he cautioned, in what was to become a historic understatement, "trouble is sure to come."

# Handmade Fiddles

#  and Homemade Fun

The birth of the rollicking radio barn dances

Shortly after the birth of radio itself, fiddle-playing farmers and honky-tonk heroes leaned over huge carbon microphones and filled the air with their music. As they did, country plowboys and hardworking housewives tuned their magic dials and strained their ears to pick them out of the static. The music that the early country radio shows brought to life over the quivering radio waves, was filled with real-world joys and tears. Farmers and mechanics laid down their tools to pick up timeworn fiddles, banjos, and guitars. The stories they sang, told of love, death, heartbreak, and the simple joys of life.

From the Sagebrush Roundup to the Iowa Barn Dance Frolic, they were filled with characters like "Slick and Sleepy," Hiram Hayseed," "Big-eared Zip," and all the other colorful pickers and grinners. The shows brought the rough-edged simple country fun of a neighborhood Saturday-night barn dance to the millions of town dwellers who may have never had the chance to sweep out the barn and welcome neighbors and friends in for a night of singing and swinging.

The early rural or "hillbilly" music, not yet universally called country, was played mainly for farmers during the times they were likely to tune in. Being early-risers, after breakfast they went out to their fields for a full morning's work before they headed back to the house for the noon meal and a little rest. Therefore, their favorite music was programmed for the early morning and noontime slots. The shows often had names like Sunrise Serenade or Midday Matinee.

In many cases, the station owners gritted their teeth as they gave the okay to station directors to begin programming the hillbilly format. This low-brow music was often distasteful to their more refined ears. However, they knew that the mixture of the newly invented entertainment form of radio and the old-time melodies from the roots of the country, was a successful blend. As always, when money talks; people listen. While more and more listeners tuned in, advertisers bought time-slots to pitch their products to them. As their profits grew, the radio station owners gritted their teeth a little less often when the early morning fiddlers picked up their bows or the midday pickers tuned their guitars.

Soon, the creative program directors looked for other time slots for this popular rural entertainment. Weekday evenings didn't seem to be a logical choice, since the farm folks were usually early-to-bed types. But what about Saturday night? Even the most hard-working serious-minded farm family didn't mind putting on their best dancing clothes and heading over to a neighbor's barn for a Saturday evening of wholesome family fun. The first Saturday-night barn dance to find life over the radio waves was broadcast in 1923, from WBAP in Fort Worth, Texas. It wasn't long before the word got out to other stations that the successful barn dance format had appealed to a good-sized segment of listeners. Stations like WSB in Atlanta, WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota, and KMA in Shenandoah, joined in.

Although these scattered barn dance formats popped up and gained local fans, none had yet found national recognition. That would come in April of 1924. About a week after going on the air, a Chicago radio station owned by Sears and Roebuck, put on a Saturday-night barn dance show. The show didn't have a very impressive beginning, having been broadcast from a small mezzanine in the Sherman Hotel. It would, however, grow into the "granddaddy" of the barn dance shows, and would lead the pack into the 1940's. The station's call-letters, WLS, described the Sears and Roebuck building – the World's Largest Store. The WLS Barn Dance would truly become the WLS "National Barn Dance."

Throughout the life of this famous show, it tended to follow the format of mixing popular and country music. The show contained a much greater variety of music than most of the barn dances that followed it. Mixed in with the pure hillbilly fiddlers, guitar pickers, and yodelers were popular-music singers and Irish tenors. Sentimental tunes were a staple of many of the Midwestern listeners, who also enjoyed the rural hillbilly style. "Down by the Old Mill Stream" and "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" poured out through the radio speakers, right along with "Bringing Home the Bacon" and "Little Old Sod Shanty."

During the 1930's, radio barn dances began to spring up in cities everywhere. By 1932, Midwesterners could tune into the Iowa Barn Dance Frolic, out of station WHO in Des Moines. The Wheeling Jamboree originated on WWVA in West Virginia in 1933. Charlotte, North Carolina began broadcasting the "Crazy Barn Dance" on WBT in 1934. Knoxville turned the noon-time programming into the now-famous "Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round." New York's WHN Barn Dance got off the ground in 1935. And in 1937, the Renfro Valley Barn Dance hit the airwaves from WLW in Cincinnati.

The Grand Ole Opry, National Barn Dance, Louisiana Hayride, and the other big-name barn dances have left an indelible mark on the history of country music. Many of the smaller local shows, however, created equally warm memories for those who grew up around those stations. In fact, some of the most memorable characters will only be recalled by the people within the limited signal-range of the small-town stations. Yes, the Hickory Nuts; Cowboy Roy Lykes, the Yodeling Fence Rider; Poslo Bill's Razor Backs; Slick and Sleepy; "Hiram Hayseed" Godwin and all the rest left indelible memories for their local audiences.

Since many of the entertainers were now being seen by radio studio spectators as well as the audiences at show dates, it was important that they looked like professional entertainers. Little by little, they were setting the stage for the showy sequins and spangles that would become part of the outfits associated with so many country singers of the fifties. That style would reach its peak with the gaudy stage suits made by Nudie Cohen in California. Having several Nudie suits in your wardrobe meant you had made it to the big time. Incidentally, the Nudie name seems appropriate since, before making sequined suits for country musicians, Nudie Cohen created outfits for striptease dancers in New York City.

As the individual country stars began to shine brighter, some of the small radio stations were realizing that the local musicians couldn't always draw the listeners that the better-known singers and bands could. Year by year, more stations began to hook up with nationally syndicated radio shows. Not only that, but between the syndicated programs, the stations were beginning to play records of nationally popular musicians. One by one, the Sunrise Serenades and Mid-day Music shows signed off the air for the last time. In most areas, only the large super-shows like the Opry held on.

It was becoming obvious that the local hillbillies in overalls, who gathered around old carbon microphones with their fiddles, banjos and guitars, would soon be sadly hanging up their instruments and picking up their farm tools and mechanic's wrenches again. Fortunately, the new musicians no longer had to pose in overalls, surrounded by pigs and hay bales. And the listening audience didn't have to hear them fake their hillbilly accents or chew on a piece of straw while they talked. But, then again, those listeners weren't able to close their eyes and be surrounded by the smell of newly swept hay and the warm friendly "hillbilly" sounds of handmade fiddles and homemade fun.

#  "Oh Say Can She Sing!"

Reba McEntire's rodeo national anthem that would

one day bring the country music world to its feet

The sun-dried cowboys were primed and ready to ride. They had racked up a year's worth of hard-earned bruises to get here. And the raging broncos were definitely raring to go. This was their annual chance to buck off America's best, in front of thousands of screaming spectators. Even the bulls had finished dreaming up new ways to dislodge their unwanted cargo. As soon as somebody sang the national anthem, the whole rough-cut cast of characters was prepared to tear loose.

Suddenly a small redhead bounced toward the microphone. Surely they weren't going to let her sing the anthem! After all, this was the 1974 National Finals Rodeo. The Oklahoma City organizers certainly would have found someone with more gusto. The gritty collection of leather-skinned cowboys and wild-eyed beasts definitely needed more to set them off than a trembly-voiced little cowgirl.

The second that little cowgirl began to sing, however, everyone knew why she had been chosen. Her powerful and agile voice reached out like a golden lariat, encircling each audience member. Her performance was not only an ideal beginning for the National Finals Rodeo; it would mark the opening of a career that would send that little redhead on a wild ride that not even the broncos and bulls could have envisioned.

That career opening would spring from a meeting with another redhead. Country-music singer, Red Steagall, happened to be in the rodeo audience that afternoon. Following the performance, a mutual friend introduced him to the dynamic anthem singer – Reba McEntire. At a party later that evening, Reba further impressed Steagall with her rendition of Dolly Parton's "Joshua."

After the event, Reba returned to her day-to-day life at Southeastern State College in Durant, Oklahoma. Within about a month, her mother received a phone call from Steagall. He asked if she could get Reba down to Nashville to cut a demonstration tape. He didn't have to ask twice. Along with her mother, Jackie, and her brother, Pake, Reba was soon Nashville-bound.

Her mother not only supported Reba's singing, she had inspired it. As the family traveled from rodeo to rodeo, Jackie McEntire devised a clever way to keep her son and three daughters occupied. She taught them harmony singing. Jackie was a talented singer herself and might have turned professional had she not dedicated her time to her family.

The four children soon soaked up their mother's passion for singing and threw themselves into the music. Month-by-month, the little back-seat quartet began to sound more professional. By the time Reba was in high school, they had transformed into "The Singing McEntires." They began entering...and usually winning talent contests. Soon, their mother booked them into rodeos, community centers and clubs as they traveled the circuit. In 1971 they recorded a tribute song to their grandfather – "The Ballad of John McEntire." The record became a regional hit.

The popularity of the young group on the circuit would eventually lead to Reba's being selected as the anthem singer for the rodeo finals. The ensuing Nashville demonstration tape would snag her a contract with Mercury Records the following year. But the door she had entered didn't exactly swing wide open. Her first record, "I Don't Want to be a One-night Stand," went nowhere. She turned out two more unsuccessful singles in 1977.

Being the practical type, Reba finished college. It would be 1979 before fortune would look her way. Her remake of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" climbed to the Top Twenty. The next couple of years yielded two Top-ten hits " – (You Lift Me) Up to Heaven," and "Today All Over Again." The climb was often frustrating for her, despite her scattered successes.

Once, Reba remembered, nearly everything had gone wrong during a show. As she sat in her van grumbling, her cousin asked her why she didn't simply quit. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life," she fired back. "I'll never quit!" At that moment, she realized that backing away from her goal of becoming a successful country-music singer was simply not an option.

Her determination stemmed from her youthful experience in the rodeo game. She followed in the footsteps of her world champion' steer-roping father, Clark McEntire. Her grandfather, John, had been the rodeo legend she and her siblings sang about. As a teenager, Reba competed in horseback barrel riding. "Just 'cause you're a girl," she reflected, "they're not gonna cut you any slack, so I never asked for it from the beginning."

Her perseverance paid off. She was finally getting recognition in the country music field. In 1982, her producer suggested she record a song titled, "Can't Even Get the Blues." Reba resisted. She hadn't had much luck with emotional ballads and thought she should concentrate on upbeat numbers. But her producer recognized the song's potential and insisted that she record it. That insistence produced Reba's first Number-one hit.

With her 1984 album, "My Kind of Country," Reba took off like a bronco out of the gate. The best-selling album was packed with hits like "How Blue" and "Somebody Should Leave." The album showcased her unique sound perfectly. She decorated her strong voice with the trills, twirls and near-yodels of the old-time mountain songs. The beautiful mixture not only opened the door to her future career, it blew the hinges off.

That year, 1984, the Country Music Association selected her as "Female Vocalist of the Year." Both the CMA and the AMC would present her with that award for an unprecedented four years running. In 1986, the CMA awarded her its highest honor – "Entertainer of the Year."

Despite the continuing deluge of praise and awards, Reba has retained the soul of a little redheaded cowgirl. Following her 1987 divorce from rodeo hero, Charlie Battles, a disturbed fan wrote to ask how Reba could possibly get a divorce. "I was patterning my life after you," she complained. "Don't you dare put me on a pedestal," Reba fired back. "I'm just a regular old human being."

# The "Inexhaustible" Gun

Samuel Hancock is able to bluff his way to

safety from an attack by angry Snohomish

Indians, using an "inexhaustible gun"

Young Samuel Hancock knew the fifteen Snohomish warriors intended to kill him. As they yelled and danced, clothed only in black paint dotted with bright red spots, they frantically slashed the air with their huge knives. There was no confusing their intentions. They planned to serve up the same fate to Hancock they had dished out to his two predecessors – death.

The night before, the Virginia-born Samuel Hancock had been allowed to pitch his tent near the lodgings of the village chief. The residents of the Snohomish village in the Puget Sound area were on their guard. They had originally greeted Hancock and his two guides from another nearby tribe, with a wary silence. As the three poled their canoe ashore, Hancock knew that in the summer of 1849, a white man was a rare sight for the Indians of the recently established Oregon Territory. But he had reason to believe there were valuable coal deposits in their territory. After handing out several presents, he felt he had likely paved the way for his acceptance in their region.

His feelings changed abruptly that night as he lay awake listening to loud conversations in the chief's residence. "By this time," Hancock would write in his 1860 narrative, "I had learned enough to know they intended killing me..." Rather than escaping, he chose the bold course of marching directly into the chief's house, armed only with another round of presents for his would-be attackers.

Once he distributed pipes and tobacco, he did his best to engage the members of the little council in friendly conversation. After about an hour, Hancock returned to his tent to await the outcome. With intense relief, he eventually heard the council members return to their individual dwellings. Hoping they would sleep late, he prepared to leave early in the morning. Before he left, he woke the chief and obtained permission to travel further up the Snohomish River.

Hancock and his guides hadn't gone far when they heard the whooping and yelling of an angry band of young warriors. The fifteen knife-wielding braves apparently didn't share the sentiments of the older council members. They frantically poled their canoe toward Hancock and soon closed the gap. His only option was to pull his canoe ashore.

When he did, his two guides instinctively jumped out and prepared to run for their lives. Hancock, however, remained in the canoe. The guides tried desperately to convince him to join them. Having no success, they solemnly returned to the canoe, telling him they would not leave him to die. Hancock gave a knife to each of them and firmly grasped one of four loaded Colt revolvers he had previously stashed in his coat pocket. When the irate warriors landed their canoe, they jumped out and began to dance and yell while they brandished their menacing knives.

Before the warriors were ready to commence their attack, another canoe arrived, occupied primarily by older members of the village who were unarmed and wore no paint. Their mission, Hancock correctly surmised, was to convince the young warriors not to kill him. He was undoubtedly delighted the council members hadn't slept late. The elders told the angry warriors that this white man was not like the other two they had previously killed. He was friendly and had given them many presents. Although Hancock wasn't thrilled to learn the fate of his two predecessors, he was relieved to see the calming effect the council members' lecture seemed to have on the young men.

Taking full advantage of the situation, Hancock asked if he could say a few words. He called upon his limited knowledge of their language, and informed the warriors that they should be forever grateful to their elders for saving their lives. "I very calmly informed them," he wrote, "that I had a gun of such wonderful power and capacity that after loading it in the morning it would shoot all day without being exhausted."

Aware that the Indians would expect an exhibition of the inexhaustible gun, Hancock withdrew one of the Colt revolvers from his coat pocket and leisurely fired six shots. He then calmly returned it to his pocket with the other three. "Of course, they were perfectly astonished at this," Hancock noted, "never having seen a revolver before." After much excited discussion, his astounded audience asked if the gun would still shoot. Reaching into his pocket for another identical Colt revolver, he again emptied the chamber and returned it. Once more, they asked to see it continue to fire. "I told them it could shoot all day if necessary," Hancock reflected in his journal, "and to satisfy them, emptied a third pistol."

The warriors began to laugh nervously and congratulate each other on having escaped certain death from the miraculous weapon. Playing the situation for all it was worth, Hancock told them that even though the Snohomish now seemed friendly, he was very disappointed with the reception he met and would return down river. Likely worried that he would come back with other white men bearing magic guns, the Snohomish virtually begged him to travel anywhere he pleased in their country. His ruse had worked perfectly.

Hancock's western adventure had begun about four years previously. He and several others had heard of the fertile beauty of present-day Oregon's Willamette Valley. Setting out with a small party in the spring of 1845, they encountered the wondrous sights of the plains. As they trekked northwest into present-day Nebraska, they crossed the Platte River and were suddenly confronted by a thundering herd of buffalo headed directly for them. Several daring members of the party perched on a rise between the buffalo and the wagons and fired their weapons to divert the charging beasts. Their strategy worked, and the sea of buffalo flooded by about two hundred yards from the anxious pioneers.

Some of his encounters, fortunately, were more on the lighthearted side. As the party continued their journey toward present-day Idaho, Hancock and the rest camped at Bear River. There, they ran across a small party of Indians busily engaged in catching Army crickets. The wingless insects nearly blanketed the ground as they marched along on their seasonal migration. The Indian women had set up traps that crowded the insects into baskets. They then dried and ground them into a type of meal, which they boiled into a thick mush. Three Frenchmen had taken Indian wives and were living with the tribe. One of them enthusiastically told Hancock that the mush would last up to a year. "It would last, in my possession," Hancock dryly informed him, "much longer."

Once Hancock reached the Willamette Valley, he began exploring other areas. During 1949, he trekked around the Feather and American Rivers, eventually turned his sights from gold toward coal deposits. As he traveled around California and present-day Oregon and Washington, he heard stories of the hoards of robbers and murderers who preyed upon miners. Oddly, the rumors of those vicious outlaws would actually save young Samuel Hancock's life. Not only did he manage to avoid them, but his concern for safety led to his purchasing and carrying a perfectly matched set of four loaded Colt revolvers in his coat pocket. Without them, he could never have convinced the knife-wielding Snohomish warriors that he possessed a unique piece of white man's magic — an inexhaustible gun.

# The Border-war Belle

The deadly skirmishes that helped shape

the flamboyant and notorious Belle Starr

Even though Myra Belle Shirley's father had been considered the black sheep of his affluent Virginia family, he managed to send his daughter to the reputable Carthage Female Academy. Described by her teachers as a bright student with polite manners, the Missouri teenager not only learned the classical languages, but had become quite proficient at the piano. In fact, she was well on her way to becoming a prissy little rich girl. While watching the well-dressed little scholar, it would have been easy to picture her one day sitting erect in satin fineries and a dainty hat, enjoying a neighborhood tea.

That image, however, would have missed the mark just a touch. Oh, she would wear a hat alright, but it wouldn't be dainty. It would be a man's hat topped off with a spray of flamboyant feathers. Her favorite accessories hung from her hips in the form of a matched set of pistols. And rather than gracing the social register, Belle made her mark in the annals of America's Wild West. As she dashed across the pages of history, she gained several nicknames. Various newspapers of the day christened her "The Lady Desperado," "The Wild Woman of the West," and "The Petticoat Terror of the Plains." None of these mirrored the aspirations for her future held by the teachers at the Carthage Female Academy.

Somewhere along the journey from the academy to her notorious criminal career, a tempting side road lured Belle off the straight and narrow pathway. That detour was constructed by the feuding militias of the raging Kansas-Missouri Border Wars. As the abolitionists and proslavery forces clashed along the borders of the two states, Belle's family firmly cast their lot with the confederate cause. Her father beamed with pride when his son, Edwin, usually called "Bud," joined the conflict and led his own band of Rebel-leaning bushwhackers.

Mr. Shirley's pride rapidly turned to despair in the middle of the Civil War when word reached his family that Bud had been killed by Union soldiers in Sarcoxie, Missouri. Fifteen-year-old Belle, like her father, was devastated. She idolized her older brother and had learned the ways of the outdoor life from him, including sharp-shooting skills. According to witnesses, when she heard the news, she strapped on a pair of pistols and vowed revenge for his death. As she did, Belle forever discarded any remaining vestige of that academy-trained prissy little rich girl.

The war took a financial as well as an emotional toll on the Shirley family. Belle's father had constructed an inn and tavern in Carthage, complete with a livery stable and blacksmith shop. Before the war, business thrived. By the time of Bud's death, though, the constant unrest had driven off most of the customers and depleted Mr. Shirley's fortune. He sold his property, loaded up his family, and headed to Texas where they settled in a dugout home on an 800-acre land grant near Dallas.

As the border gangs dissolved, several members of the confederate factions turned their attention to the lucrative careers of horse thievery and bank robbery. Among them were Frank and Jesse James, as well as the Younger brothers. Belle had previously known them through her brother, Bud, and they often hid out on the Shirleys' farm. The teenaged Belle, in fact, was reportedly smitten with the daring outlaws and was delighted to renew her relationship with them in her new Texas setting.

Once in Texas, her outlaw friends again began to use the Shirleys' home as a sanctuary. During the next few years, Belle's affections would flit from one of the drifting bandits to another. According to most sources, Jim Reed was the first, although some feel she may have previously had a brief affair with Cole Younger. Reed ran with several gangs, including the James brothers and Youngers. During one of the gang's hideaway stays on their Texas farm, she renewed the friendship, which quickly turned to romance. As Belle tied the knot of matrimony with Reed late in 1866, she also forged the link that forever coupled her future to that of the notorious outlaw gangs.

Some historians portray her as riding alongside Reed and the others with guns a blazing. Others feel her role was more that of the brains of the outfit, helping fence the loot and obtain lawyers to spring captured gang members from jail. Either way, despite giving birth to a son and daughter, Belle didn't exactly fit into the domestic scene, and drifted further off the conventional pathway. That trip took a particularly dark side-road when she and Reed reportedly tortured a wealthy Creek Indian couple to gain access to their stash of gold coins. Belle and Reed's perilous journey screeched to a halt in August of 1874 when Reed took a fatal bullet in a gunfight.

Not one for an extended mourning period, Belle left her children with relatives and returned to Indian Territory. There she again linked up with the motley bands of outlaws, and during the next few years, added two more husbands to her total. Turning her charms toward a handsome but infamous Cherokee rancher named Tom Starr, she soon took the name she would carry into the history books – Belle Starr. His last name would stay with her, but due to a failed gun battle, Tom Starr wouldn't.

Belle's next spouse was a young Creek Indian named Jim July. This marriage didn't end in her husband's death, but in hers. Apparently life with Belle was not always a picnic – likely due to her lack of interest in confining her romantic endeavors to marital partners. Like the border wars that helped create her legendary life, Belle Starr raged with a wild, uncontrolled spirit. Although Jim July was never convicted, Belle's third and final husband had reportedly offered gunman, Milo Hoyt, $200 to kill his irritating wife. Hoyt testified that when he declined the offer, Jim spurred his horse and galloped away, shouting, "Hell, I'll kill the old hag myself and spend the money for whiskey!"

# The Pounding of the Sheepskin

#  and the Rattling of the Bones

The Minstrel Show: our country's

first "National entertainment"

The outrageously dressed end-men adjust their instruments and check the fit of their wigs. Mr. Bones moves the set of hand-polished rib bones to just the right position for perfect rhythm. Mr. Tambo slowly revolves his sheepskin tambourine as he anxiously waits for his cue. Mr. Interlocutor quietly clears his resonant throat as his gaze focuses on his silver pocket watch. It's nearly eight-fifteen. No more time for practicing in the opera house basement. It's time to rare back and give 'em what they came for. Then, just like the clockwork of his pocket watch, the callboy walks backstage for his last-minute rounds and a stage-whispered, "All up for the first part."

As the band members quickly find their places on the raised platform in the rear of the stage, the minstrels hustle around to stand in front of their assigned seats in the semicircle of chairs. The stage manager's eyes flick across the faces of the burnt cork entertainers to make sure everyone is ready to roll. His proud features relax as he signals the fly-man with the ringing of a bell. The curtain rises, the applause bursts out of the darkness, and with a sedate "Gentlemen, please be seated," one of entertainment history's most popular and most peculiar offerings was ready to echo through the theater with the rattling of rib bones and the shaking of tambourines.

Now often viewed with mild curiosity or outright disdain, the minstrel show was once the undisputed king of entertainment. During its heyday, from 1850 until 1870, the nation was caught up in a minstrel craze. Little boys were offering to clean up the table so they could collect the rib bones to scrape them off, dry them out, and make their own set of bones. There was scarcely a self-respecting college that didn't have a young men's banjo club. Minstrel groups grew from eight or ten entertainers to forty, and eventually to troupes of over a hundred. Minstrel song sheets were printed at breakneck speeds and gobbled up by amateur and professional minstrel entertainers. During these gravy days, any good minstrel company could book the best theater in a city and fill it to overflowing. In fact, nearly every city had a theater that featured nothing other than minstrel entertainment, and they were often forced into giving three shows a day. Some even added a morning concert.

During those years, the odd looking troupes of black-faced performers dressed in gaudy clothes and wild wigs were such a draw that many of the more legitimate entertainers became outraged. "How frequently the most eminent in tragedy or comedy, have toiled through the choicest efforts, to scanty listeners," one critic complained, "while upon the same evenings, fantazias upon the bones, or banjo, have called forth the plaudits of admiring thousands." In 1855, a well-respected traveling concert troupe was forced to give its concerts in the morning when they played Cincinnati because all the theaters and halls were booked that summer with minstrel companies.

Occasionally however, some competing entertainers were clever enough to use the minstrel craze to their advantage. Once, in Richmond, Virginia, a stock theater company was having trouble filling a theater with their production of Monte Cristo. The quick-thinking manager booked a minstrel band to play between the acts. They packed the theater, and saved the day.

The minstrel show came along at the perfect time to become the country's first real big-time national entertainment. Cities were starting to grow large enough to build huge theaters that could hold a hundred minstrel entertainers and thousands of fans to cheer their efforts. Chicago was nearly 300,000 strong. Philadelphia had reached three-quarters of a million and New York was nearing an incredible one-million people. Also, there wasn't a lot around to compete with the new musical phenomenon. An evening's entertainment usually consisted of taking in a quiet lecture or visiting a local museum. Circuses and ornate fireworks displays were popular, but the new minstrel concept would soon dominate the entertainment scene.

Theatergoing would no longer consist of a trip to the small-town opera house for a sedate little drama. Huge marble palaces were springing up across the country, and the minstrel performers were only too glad to fill them with their rattling bones and harmonic voices. Before minstrelsy would leave the center stage, it would spread from the east coast to the developing West. In 1849, it followed the gold rush to California.

As the excited miners built their wooden theaters, the minstrels joined in competition with the theatrical troupes and dancing ladies, to give the miners a taste of their hand-clapping rhythm and raucous comedy. Twenty years later, and still going strong, with the completion of the 1869 transcontinental railroad, the minstrels would spread their music along the small towns that were springing up alongside the railroad's path. Murphy and Mack's Minstrels, for example, would travel on that train and give a ten-day show at the famous Salt Lake Theater of the Mormons, in Utah.

During the bitter Civil War, the minstrel show, oddly enough, continued to flourish. The tensions during the four years of conflict left the fighting men and their relatives back home, hungry for something to take their minds off the war. Both sides turned to the comfort of the relaxing diversion they had come to love – the minstrel show. The racial sensitivity of the times did, however, call for modifications in different sections of the country. Most minstrel companies instinctively changed jokes and added appropriate patriotic songs.

Not only did the minstrel show carve out a unique place in history, but it set the stage for a lot of the various types of entertainment that would follow it. The yodeling of the barn-dance cowboys, for example, found its introduction to the minstrel show through Tom Christian, a member of the Christy Minstrels. The straight man who became the popular butt of his partner's jokes in vaudeville, developed from the minstrel master of ceremonies, Mr. Interlocutor. He was always the unsuspecting fall guy for both of the end-men. The second part of the minstrel show would set the stage for the concept of variety entertainment. Variety would become the nucleus for the review, the burlesque show, and the vaudeville show. During that section of the minstrel show, everybody contributed his own specialty, like a buck-and-wing or soft-shoe dance, quick and lively speeches, or a few quick one-line jokes.

The irony of the minstrel show was that it ended up as a gaudy caricature of the people it depicted. According to several reports, it began as an attempt to bring the joyous and lively quality of black music to people who had never experienced it. What started out as a tribute, however, soon became an insult. Years later, the stars of vaudeville, musical comedy, and the silver screen, would thumb through the history books and gaze with mild curiosity or unveiled disgust at pictures of minstrel showmen.

They would be unaware that the oddly dressed white men smiling out through outlandish black faces, had made many of the footprints they had followed to success. They wouldn't know that the sophisticated soft-shoe they proudly danced to stardom or the sparkling variety acts that shot them into the spotlight, had taken root between Mr. Tambo and Mr. Bones – somewhere in a small-town opera house, amidst the pounding of the sheepskin and the rattling of the bones.

# "That Hated Scarlet"

Heartfelt words in a young Charleston

widow's diary tell a colorful colonial

American story with a unique twist

" '0!' exclaimed I, in wild fright, yonder are thousands – tens of thousands of the cruel enemy!" As Eliza Wilkinson recalled her words in a letter to her cousin, she relived the terror of that 1779 summer day. "They came from the ferry-way, where the enemy was camped," she continued, "which made me conclude they were the whole British army coming out against our worthy general..."

The object of the young Charleston widow's concern was General Benjamin Lincoln. Originally from Massachusetts, Lincoln had been appointed southern department commander in September of 1778. General Lincoln had molded an assortment of veteran soldiers and green recruits into a force designed to repel the British invasion in the southern states. Eliza was afraid that Lincoln had no knowledge of the approaching enemy. She said she envisioned the beloved general and her unsuspecting countrymen being ambushed "like sheep for the slaughter."

Her sister and a friend shared Eliza's concern as they watched the marching soldiers from the window. The servants were equally upset. "Never was there such a scene of confusion," Eliza observed, "sighs, complaints, wringing of hands – one running here, another there, spreading the dreadful tidings..." Within seconds, the terrified ladies stashed away teacups and silverware. Soon the avenue leading to their house was packed with horsemen. Eliza noticed many wore blue and red uniforms, and thought for a second they might be her American countrymen. Then she remembered hearing that the Hessian uniform bore the same colors. Eliza and the others hid in a building behind the house while the men dismounted under a shade tree out front.

In time, they cautiously approached the soldiers and began to ask questions. Suddenly, an officer rode up wearing a scarlet uniform. "Then I was assured," wrote Eliza, "that it must be an enemy..." Her attention shifted toward an approaching throng of foot soldiers. Noticing her fear, the officer tried to calm her. "Be not alarmed, Madam," he told her, "those are our men." Ah, thought I, Eliza recalled, that is what alarms me; were they Americans, I should be happy.

Her distaste for English soldiers had been recently reinforced by a roving band that had plundered nearly everything her family owned. As Eliza eyed the soldiers, she could no longer contain herself. " 'O, Heavens!' cried I aloud,' " she noted, " 'I wish I were on some desert island; but anywhere rather than here.' "

The officer in the scarlet uniform told her that if she would feel safer elsewhere, he'd furnish her with a horse and escorts. "I want none of your horse," she snapped back, wringing her hands and stepping away from him. "I was sure of his being a British officer," she wrote, "he had the most fierce and terrible countenance I ever beheld..." Eliza said he kept trying to pacify her, but "he might as well have bid the ocean be calm in a tempest."

As the soldiers milled about, talking among themselves, Eliza's fears intensified. Soon an officer approached on horseback and noticed her anxiety. He instructed the men to move the horses away, thinking that the sight of so many horses and soldiers might have caused her distress. His attempts at appeasement, however, produced the opposite results. "He spoke this in broken English," Eliza disclosed. "Well, thought I," she concluded, "their being enemies is past all doubt; for that is a Hessian officer to be sure."

Before long, that officer sat at a desk in the next room and began to write. He asked Eliza several questions, including the distance to General Lincoln's camp. Her worst fear had materialized. Obviously they were planning the ambush she had envisioned. She told him she had no idea where the general's camp was. "I will sooner bite my tongue off," she later confided to her cousin, "than designedly or inadvertently betray my friends and country." Minutes later, Eliza witnessed two neighbors she knew to be loyal Americans, calmly galloping right toward the house and the enemy soldiers. "I began to be divided in my opinion concerning them," Eliza noted, "and could no longer contain myself..." She said she and her friend Miss Samuels ran to the officer in the scarlet uniform, grabbed his arms and cried, "O tell us, tell us, whether you are friends, or what?"

"Why, whom do you call friends?" the startled officer replied.

"O, Americans! Americans!" Eliza responded.

"I am, I am an American," he replied, taking them in his arms. "We are all friends. Good God! Could I have thought you suspected us as the enemy all this time, which distressed you so!" "This man, who but a moment before appeared to me so terrible," Eliza wrote, "all of a sudden was transformed to one of the most agreeable, best-looking men I had seen in a great while."

A humiliated Eliza quickly set about apologizing to her countrymen for her previous rude behavior. She soon learned that the man she suspected of being a Hessian soldier was actually a Frenchman. The officer in command, wearing the scarlet uniform, was Major Moore. After profusely apologizing to him, she said, "O Major, that red! That hated scarlet...made me suspect you as a British officer, and we have been used so cruelly by Red Coats, that I shall never love that color again."

Major Moore promised her he would no longer wear that uniform and told her that he too, had mistaken her loyalties. "Your distress at the sight of us made me conclude we had got in some Tory family," he informed her, "and that we were very unwelcome visitors. We began to wish ourselves away." In seconds, the mutual anxiety and distrust had transformed into intense relief and good humor. Eliza said one of the soldiers laughed and told her "They really expected, by the time I had done wringing my hands, I would have no skin left upon them."

This incident provided Eliza with a warm memory and a colorful story. She would need that lighthearted episode, since the American troops were eventually unable to prevent a British occupation of Charlotte. Widowed after only six months of marriage, the beautiful young Eliza was thrust into a dark year-and-a-half British domination of her beloved Charlotte.

Eliza's own spirit as well as her sense of humor, helped to sustain her through the ordeal. In the spring of 1781, she wrote that she had "just got the better of the small-pox, thanks be God for the same." During the illness, she noted, her nose was "honored with thirteen spots." Proud of the number because she felt it represented the thirteen colonies, she nevertheless said "I am pleased they will not pit, for as much as I revere the number, I would not choose to have so conspicuous a mark."

The British yoke was finally released following Cornwallis's surrender in October of 1781. Eliza made no attempt to stifle her rebellious spirit in a letter to her cousin. "Our red and green birds, who for some time past, flying about the country and insolently perching themselves upon our houses," she wrote, "will be all caged up in Charleston." "Do you not think it a little spiteful to laugh at them?" she asked her cousin. "I must, I will...out of a little sweet revenge." In addition, the sweetness of her revenge would be forever flavored with the terrifying – then hilarious memories of that hated scarlet.

# Birds, Beasts and Mystic Mermaids

The humble birth of America's museums

Two years before Paul Revere's midnight ride, a group called the Charleston Library Society founded the first museum in America. With the goal of "promoting a Natural History of South Carolina," they began to collect acquisitions for their new creation. The first recorded object collected was "a drawing of the head of a bird." Unfortunately for the bird drawing and other subsequent acquisitions, a fire broke out during the Revolutionary War and destroyed the museum. By 1792, however, the fledgling museum found a new home in Charleston's courthouse, and was off and running again.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, an artist and naturalist named Charles Peale turned a wing of his home into a museum. Combining his interests, he displayed animal and mineral specimens as well as his collection of artwork. Printed on an admission ticket, the visitor would find that "The Birds and Beasts will teach thee!" The ticket would "Admit the Bearer to Peale's Museum, containing the wonderful works of NATURE and the curious works of ART." Included among the curious works of art were not only paintings of presidents and other famous Americans, but portraits of his family and friends. After all – it was his museum.

Through the years, Peale expanded his collections with such attractions as the petrified bones of a Mammoth, a "Jackal Dog," weapons from South-Sea islands, the feathers of a tropical bird from Tongataboo and a host of intriguing items. Although his museum thrived for years, it began to decline after his death. But the public's appetite for museums had already been whetted. One by one, museums began to spring up across the nation. Not only were they becoming popular, they were also growing more professional. Visitors wanted to see well-organized exhibits, rather than indiscriminate displays of assorted oddities.

Not just everyplace, however, wholeheartedly endorsed this more cultural trend. P. T. Barnum's American Museum in New York City, for example, specialized in several rather questionable curiosities. One of the most famous of these was brought to him in 1842 by Moses Kimball of the Boston Museum. Kimball had purchased a preserved specimen from a sailor whose father bought it in Calcutta. The father was convinced it was actually a mermaid discovered by Japanese sailors. The odd little specimen looked like anything but a beautiful mermaid. It was only about three feet long, black and shriveled. Barnum privately thought it had likely been made in the orient, by deftly joining the upper half of a monkey with the lower half of a fish. He had read about similar objects used in religious ceremonies. His suspicions however, he quietly kept to himself.

Barnum may not have been a believer in mermaids, but he was a definitely a believer in publicity. As soon as he bought it, he set about the task of promoting his new-found treasure, which he called the Fejee Mermaid. He began by writing letters for his various friends in different states, to send to New York newspapers. Each of the letters casually mentioned that a Dr. Griffin of the Lyceum of Natural History in London, had recently visited their city, and had mentioned his upcoming trip to New York.

A letter from Montgomery, Alabama appeared in the New York Herald. It discussed the good doctor's recent return from Pernambuco, with a marvelous specimen – a preserved mermaid! Later, papers from Charleston, South Carolina and Washington D. C., told similar stories. After a few days, one of Barnum's employees, Levi Lyman, registered at a Philadelphia hotel, under the name of Dr. Griffin from Pernambuco and London. As he left, he casually asked the hotel-keeper, if he might be interested in viewing a curiosity he had recently acquired. Displaying his new marvel, Dr. Griffin attracted the attention of several of the hotel keeper's friends as well.

By the time he arrived in New York, the Doctor had a ready-made audience for his wondrous discovery. All that was left for Barnum to do, was to work his wonders with the local papers. He gave a different engraving of the mermaid (each just a tad embellished) to each of the New York papers. The engravings were no longer of any use to him, he explained. Despite his previous pleading, it seemed the esteemed Dr. Griffin had told him it would not be possible to exhibit the wonder anyplace but London. He was after all, an agent for London's Lyceum of Natural History.

Disappointed, but magnanimous in his defeat, Barnum unselfishly gave the engravings to the newspaper editors (without letting them know he had given another one to each of the rival editors). That Sunday, all the New York papers – right on Barnum's schedule – printed a picture of the mysterious mermaid. Suddenly the public was intrigued. The combination of the letters, and the pictures of this rare find, had the town buzzing.

Well...what could Dr. Griffin do? The gentlemen of science in New York were now insisting that he share a glimpse of this miracle. Reluctantly, in the name of education, he consented. He agreed to exhibit it "for one week only" at Concert Hall on Broadway. Barnum's strategy had worked flawlessly. Concert Hall was packed. And due to the overwhelming fascination of the American public, Dr. Griffin graciously agreed to continue the exhibition for an unlimited period at, coincidentally, Barnum's American Museum.

Not everyone shared Barnum's interest or talents in museum showmanship. Legitimate historical societies formed and exhibited local curiosities. Several states established their own museums. As more and more state museums developed, the next logical step was for the country itself to consider creating a national museum. The idea may have seemed logical, but the development of our country's museum wasn't exactly a smooth-sailing project.

The genesis of a national museum was, oddly enough, not to come from within America. James Smithson, the son of the Duke of Northumberland, willed over a half a million dollars to the American government. His instructions were to use it to develop "an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." Government officials were baffled. Why would an Englishman give a fortune to another country – especially for such an unusual purpose?

In fact, when the executor of his affairs wrote America's Secretary of State to inform him of the gift, he voiced the opinion that Smithson must have "labored under some degree of mental aberration." The probable reason for this aberration would come to light later. Smithson had originally left his fortune to the Royal Society of London. However, the society later rejected several scientific papers he had submitted, so in retaliation, he changed his will.

Nevertheless, mental aberration or not, In 1838, America received a huge sum of money (about 15-million in modern-day currency) to build an establishment to increase and diffuse knowledge among men. The only problem was, everyone seemed to have a different idea of what that establishment should be. For ten years, government officials quibbled over details.

They proposed everything from the development of a huge library to a series of normal schools. Some thought they should build a structure to house a collection of natural history specimens that had been stored in the U.S. Patent Office. As the arguments raged on, it began to look as if the best solution might be to simply give the money back to England. Fortunately, the decade of turmoil finally resulted in a decision, and the nation built its own museum – the Smithsonian Institution.

# Thirty-nine and Holding

Jack Benny, the lovable skinflint of the airwaves

An increasingly flustered Benjamin Kubelsky poured his best efforts into his violin performance. He could see, though, that the attention of the little group of soldiers was not exactly riveted on the instrument. As he pulled the bow across his violin, not only did he witness a sea of vacant expressions, he was sure he also heard the low rumbling of a mounting chorus of "boos."

Like many other young men, with the advent of World War I, Benjamin had joined the armed services. Because of some vaudeville experience, he was often chosen to entertain his fellow servicemen during his stretch in Waukegan's Great Lake's Naval Station. This particular day, though, his little audience simply wasn't in the mood for violin music. Noting Benjamin's predicament, one of his friends walked on stage and whispered to him, "For heaven's sake, Ben, put the damn fiddle down and talk to 'em." Drawing on some jokes he had recently heard, as well as his ingrained ability to ad lib, he put down his violin and saved the show with humor.

From then on, Benjamin, later using his name of Jack Benny, utilized the violin merely to add flavor to his comedic skills. Those skills would eventually fly through the air on a radio signal that turned seven o'clock Sunday evening into sacred time. Political discussions, chit chat with relatives, or arguments about sports teams could wait. It was time for Benny! In fact, when Jack Benny finally signed off the airwaves, he left behind a void. For over three decades, that void had been graced by a lovable skinflint who never aged beyond thirty-nine and who could deliver a line with possibly the best comedic timing ever known.

Jack Benny's comedy style seemed effortless, but was actually developed through years of practice. Like many entertainers of his generation, his roots were nourished in vaudeville. The violin, although it later became famous for being tortured by Benny's squawking renditions of various songs, furnished his opening into show business. When six-year-old Benjamin Kubelsky plunked down the 50-cents his mother had given him for Professor Harlow's violin lessons, he had no clue he was putting a down payment on a world-renowned future.

Although he would never become a master at the instrument, he was actually quite proficient. In fact, his parents hoped he would one day make a living as a professional violinist. That, however, was not his destiny. He loved the instrument, but like many youngsters, hated to practice. But he did learn to play well enough to perform in local Chicago vaudeville theaters, for $7.50 a week. In 1912, when he was eighteen, he teamed up with a piano player named Cora Salisbury, billing their act as "Salisbury and Kubelsky: From Grand Opera to Ragtime."

This period would also prompt his name change. Popular violinist, Jan Kubelik, claimed that Benjamin's similar last name infringed on his name recognition. In response, Benjamin adopted the catchy name of Ben K. Benny, changing the act's name to "Salisbury and Benny." A little while later, he would be pushed to change his first name as well.

Soloing as "Ben K. Benny: Fiddle Funology," he was contacted by an irritated violin-playing performer named Ben Bennie, who felt he was infringing on his name. According to Benny, he was dining with a friend, discussing the need for a new first name, when two former sailors walked by and greeted him as "Jack." In the sailor slang of the day, Jack was often used like "Bud" or "Fella" for a man you didn't know. They inadvertently gave birth to one of the most famous names in entertainment history.

Through the years ahead, the name of Jack Benny steadily crept higher on the vaudeville marquee and into the show business weeklies. During these vaudeville days, more than good reviews and an increased salary caught his attention. While he was playing the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles, he was introduced to a fellow vaudevillian's young sister-in-law, Sadye Marks. Instantly smitten, Jack learned she was working at the hosiery counter at the May Company, near the theater. Over the next few weeks, he often dropped by to chat, usually buying a pair of socks to provide a reason for his visits. Eventually, he bought so many socks, he helped her set a company sales record.

They were married in 1927, and Sadye began to take part in some of his vaudeville bits. When he moved to radio in 1932, he gave her a call at home when a scheduled actress hadn't arrived for the show. The actress had been scheduled to play a character named Mary Livingston. Thinking his wife could play the part, Jack arranged for her to join him at the radio studio, and she handled the brief role like a champ. It was originally slotted for only two episodes, but NBC received so much fan mail, she soon became a regular on the show. Eventually, in fact, Sadye officially changed her name to Mary Livingston.

In a similar manner, radio actor Eddie Anderson turned a one-time bit part into a lifetime career. He played a train porter named Rochester on a 1937 episode and like Sadye, prompted a flood of positive listener reaction. On a later episode, Jack would hire him away from the railroad to become his butler. Through the years, Anderson provided some of the biggest laughs on the show, often at Benny's expense. In fact, Mary, Rochester, Dennis Day, Don Wilson, Mel Blanc and the rest of Jack's wacky companions would often have lines as funny or funnier than his. Benny understood the value of creating a comedy team. "As long as the show is funny," he explained, "it doesn't matter who tells the jokes."

One of the most memorable of those jokes, originated in March of 1948. Two of Benny's staff writers were playing to his notorious on-air stinginess. A mugger, they decided, should accost him on a lonely street, demanding "Your money or your life!" Then, after a long pause, he would repeat "Look Bud! I said your money or your life." One of the writers, John Tackaberry, began pacing up and down, trying to concoct Jack's perfect response. The other writer eventually became anxious and grumbled, "For God's sake, Tack, say something." In defense of his extended concentration time, Tackaberry responded with a line that would become Benny the tightwad's classic answer to the impatient crook: "I'm thinking it over!"

Radio's most famous inter-program "feud" was set in motion in December of 1936 on fellow radio comedian, Fred Allen's show. A young violinist named Stuart Canin had just given a standout performance of a Shubert melody on Allen's program. "A little fella in the fifth grade," Allen quipped, "and already he plays better than Jack Benny." This began a comic squabble that lasted nearly twenty years. As most radio listeners realized, the two actually were best friends and genuinely admired each other's talents. "You couldn't have such a long-running and successful feud as we did," Benny once said, "without having a deep and sincere friendship at the heart of it."

When the Jack Benny Show moved to television in the 50's, viewers were delighted to see the wide variety of dead-pan facial expressions and gestures that accompanied Jack's comedy. Visions of the program, whether produced by his hilarious television mannerisms or by Mel Blanc's wide-ranging radio sound effects, painted indelible images in the minds of the show's multitude of fans. When Jack finally left us at the age of eighty, he let the world know his heart was as big as his talent. He arranged for his beloved Mary Livingston to receive, every day for the rest of her life, a solitary red rose.

# "My God, It Talks!"

How Alexander Graham Bell eventually

interconnected the world with

grand thoughts, good news, and great gossip

The peculiar little brass and wooden gadgets just sat motionless among the other attractions. On all sides of them stood amazing inventions conceived by the greatest minds in America. As visitors roamed through Machinery Hall at Philadelphia's Centennial Exhibition, their senses were filled with the sights and sounds of America's progress. Remington's Typographic Machine, George B. Grant's mechanical calculator, Thomas Edison's newest telegraph, and hundreds of other history-making contraptions all vied for their attention. In fact, even the machine that supplied power in the building was an eye-catcher. The fifty-foot-tall Corliss steam engine ran most of the exhibits in the thirteen-acre structure. With a theatrical pull of its great levers, President Ulysses S. Grant and his guest, Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro, had started the huge mechanism on the fair's opening day, May 10, 1876.

No, the diminutive items at Scottish-born Alexander Graham Bell's display were not much to look at compared to the sparkling new locomotive engine, glistening fire truck, and the myriad of scientific innovations that surrounded them. One piece looked like a miniature black megaphone mounted on a slab of wood. The other gadget, even less impressive looking, appeared to be a small upright metal canister with a partially open lid. Apparently the quaint little contraptions had somehow proven their worthiness for display at the prestigious 1876 national showcase. They must not have impressed the organizers too much, however, since only eighteen words in the exposition's catalog were dedicated to them.

Emperor Dom Pedro was called upon to help judge the exhibits. As he was ushered toward Bell's display, he may have wondered why the unimpressive-looking apparatus was even included in the great hall. Within minutes, any uncertainty he may have experienced, dissipated. Bell handed the little upright cylinder gadget to the emperor and asked him to step back about twenty feet. After making a few last-minute adjustments to his small megaphone device, Bell quietly spoke two phrases, "to be or not to be" and "there's the rub." As the words mysteriously transformed into electric signals, traversed the connecting wire and reassembled in the emperor's hands, Dom Pedro's eyes widened. "My God," he blurted, "It talks!"

Bell's invention, which he first called his electrical speech machine, would soon be the talk of the fair...and shortly, the talk of the world. Like most history-changing innovations, it didn't appear fully formed. Young Alexander had shown a strong curiosity as a child, for all things mechanical. When he was twelve, he asked his best friend's father what took place in his flour mill. He was told that the wheat first needed to be de-husked, which was a laborious process, and was then ground into flour. Bell promptly set about creating a device with rotating paddles and a set of nail brushes that he constructed with his friend, Ben. When Ben's delighted father found it actually worked, he gave the boys a small workshop for their creative projects.

Bell's fascination with language, and eventually with the creation of electronic speech, was sparked by his parents. His mother began to lose her hearing when Alexander was twelve and he learned a manual finger language to communicate with her. As family members and friends gathered in the parlor, Alexander sat by her side patiently tapping out their conversations on the palm of her hand. In addition to his mother's influence, his father taught elocution to the deaf. He had developed a method of communication, which he called "Visible Speech." The technique included manuals illustrating the shape of the mouth and position of the tongue required to produce various sounds and words. Alexander studied his father's system until he became proficient in the method.

Consequently, both his father and his mother had provided him with a purpose early in his life. There was, however, one thing they had never given him – a middle name. When Alexander was 10, he pleaded for them to give him a middle name like his two brothers had. On his eleventh birthday, they gave him the middle name of Graham. The name honored a patient of his fathers, Alexander Graham, who had become a close family friend.

Alexander's older brother, Melville, also developed an interest in creating human speech. In 1863, their father took them to see an exhibit of Sir Charles Wheatstone's "mechanical man," which simulated basic human language. The display set a creative fire under the brothers and they decided to develop their own automaton head. Melville began building a simulated throat and larynx while Alexander set to work creating a realistic skull. As the boys adjusted the little fellow's "lips" while a bellows forced air through the windpipe, their creation voiced a very recognizable "Mama." Their neighbors and family were delighted at their little invention.

Motivated by that success, Alexander decided to transfer the concept to a live subject. After teaching the family's Skye Terrier, Trouve, to growl continuously during a demonstration, he would reach in Trouve's mouth and manipulate his lips and tongue. With an uncanine-like patience, the little Terrier produced a crude sounding "Ow ah oo ga ma ma." Employing his playful persuasion, young Alexander convinced many of his friends that his talking dog had just uttered the question, "How are you grandmamma?"

Despite his intense interest in scientific experimentation, especially in the electronic transmission of speech, Bell was not a scholastic standout. Sliding along on mediocre grades and absenteeism, he excelled only in science. At fifteen he left the Royal High School, Edinburgh without graduating. The next year, though, his lifelong love of learning and experimentation was kindled. Disappointed by his son's lack of academic success, his father sent Alexander to live with his grandfather in London. His grandfather, also named Alexander Bell, engaged his grandson in serious discussions and study – particularly about elocution, also his main interest.

Young Alexander, he proclaimed, would need to speak clearly and with conviction, since his future should also follow his family's field of study. Fortunately, that suited young Alexander perfectly. The next year, he secured a position as a "pupil teacher" of elocution and music at the Westin House Academy at Elgin, Moray, Scotland. Later he relocated to Boston where he taught at three different schools for the deaf. That move would eventually lead to a lasting marriage and family. One of his students, fifteen-year-old Mable Hubbard, had lost her hearing at the age of 5 from a near-fatal case of scarlet fever. Four years after Alexander began working with Mable, they were married.

The journey from his talking dog to the electronic transmission of language was not an easy straight-line trek. Along the way, Alexander took a few rather peculiar side roads. In the mid-1870's, he told an ear-doctor friend that he was trying to build something for his experiments that would approximate the human ear. "Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel?" his friend asked. A few days later, Alexander unexpectedly received a cadaver ear in the mail. Eventually, the many twists and turns of his experimentation reached their destination – just two months before the exposition.

Bell and his friend and assistant, Thomas Watson, had hooked up experimental receiver-transmitters in separate rooms. History is unclear why Alexander called for his friend to join him. What is clear is that his request, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you," the first clear sentence ever uttered over a telephone, attracted the attention not only of his partner, but of the entire world. During the years ahead, the new language-transmitting miracle was welcomed into homes and businesses across the planet. There was, however, one place it was never welcomed, because the owner of the room didn't want to be bothered by it...Alexander Graham Bell's studio.

# Anchors in the Storm

The turbulent times of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt

The peaceful setting provided the ideal getaway for the campaign-battered politician. As Franklin and his family relaxed on Campobello Island, off the coast of New Brunswick, the swirling world of national politics seemed far away. He had battled long and hard alongside Democratic presidential candidate, James M. Cox, during his 1920 run for the presidency. After their sound defeat by Warren G. Harding, the disappointed and exhausted vice-presidential candidate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, escaped from the political scene. In the summer of 1921, his family's New Brunswick summer home seemed to furnish the perfect retreat for Franklin, his wife Eleanor, and their five children.

After unwinding and soaking up the sunshine on a bright August day, the 39-year-old Franklin began to feel weak. He retired early, hoping he could sleep off whatever was bothering him. When he awoke the next day, he was even worse. A high fever raged through his body, and his legs felt weak and painful. Within two days, he could no longer stand up. Eleanor called a number of doctors to examine her ailing husband. Several days later, one of them diagnosed the disease – poliomyelitis, commonly called polio.

The path ahead would take even more courage and determination than Franklin's disheartening vice-presidential run. As he clung to the hope that he could defeat the devastating effects of his illness, he envisioned the day he could cast off his heavy metal braces. But month by month, the realization bored into his consciousness that he likely never would. "I think probably the thing that took the most courage in his life," Eleanor would later reflect, "was his mastery and meeting of polio. I never heard him complain." Although he resolutely accepted his fate, Franklin decided his disabling illness signaled the end of his political career. After all, who would vote for a candidate who couldn't walk around shaking hands and kissing babies?

His mother, Sara, agreed with him. A dominant force throughout Franklin's life, she told him it was time to retire from politics, and turn his attention elsewhere. Eleanor, though, had always noted the sparkle in his eyes whenever a conversation turned political. She knew Franklin was never happier than during a spirited exchange of how his state of New York, or the nation itself, should be run. Family friend and advisor, Louis Howe, agreed with her. Together, they managed to thwart his mother's will and turn Franklin's goals back to the political scene.

Over the next few months, Franklin struggled to improve both his physical and political strength. He avoided being seen in his wheelchair, and was eventually able to walk short distances in his braces. He also had steel leg braces designed, which could be locked in place to keep his legs straight when he gave a speech. Slowly, Franklin began to reconnect with the political allies he had made during his two terms as a New York state senator, his seven-year stretch as the assistant secretary of the Navy, and his run for the vice-presidency. His acceptance among the party elite was confirmed when they asked him to nominate New York governor Al Smith, for president at the 1924 Democratic convention.

By that time, though, his relationship with Eleanor had changed. Three years before the onset of Franklin's polio, Eleanor was devastated to discover Franklin's love letters from Lucy Mercer, her young social secretary. Confronting Franklin, Eleanor offered divorce. According to several resources, he considered it. His mother, however, soon straightened him out. She informed him that if he disgraced the Roosevelt name through divorce, she would disinherit him. Louis Howe further explained that the move would end Franklin's political career. This outcome was likely more threatening to him than the fear of being disinherited. As early as his law-school days, he began telling friends that he seriously planned to become president.

This self-confidence likely took root because he grew up as the apple of his mother's eye. His father, James, was 53 when his 27-year-old wife, Sara, gave birth to Franklin, their only child. Both sides of his heritage, the Roosevelts and the Delanos, were prosperous New England families. James, who was often described as aloof and detached, happily turned over the reins of child rearing to his wife.

In addition to Sara's constant control of Franklin's social contacts and schooling, her intense nurturing wouldn't end with his marriage. When Franklin fell in love with Eleanor Roosevelt, his fifth cousin once removed and Theodore Roosevelt's niece, Sara made it clear Eleanor didn't match her vision of Franklin's future mate. The family relationship didn't seem to bother her, but she didn't feel Eleanor fit the mold of the sophisticated society type her son should marry. In time, she reluctantly accepted the pairing.

That acceptance, though, didn't encompass releasing her hold on Franklin's future. The newlyweds settled into a townhouse supplied by Sara, connected to her own residence by sliding doors. In fact, her dominance in family matters continued to reach into the raising of her five grandchildren. Eleanor's oldest son, James, later recalled that Sara told him, "Your mother only bore you, I am more your mother than your mother is."

Eventually, though, Eleanor's fiercely independent character materialized. Ironically, many historians cite her discovery of Franklin's affair as the point in her life that transformed her from a milk-toast wallflower into a resilient social crusader. Her early life had certainly not instilled the confidence she would require. Her beloved father's increasing alcoholism led to his commitment to a sanatorium. As if this wasn't a bad enough blow to her emotional stability, she suffered a string of intense losses during a two-year period. At eight, her mother died, and her father and younger brother passed away during the next year..

Eleanor and her younger sister then became the wards of their maternal grandmother. Sadly, she had little use for Eleanor. Due to the little girl's plain looks and serious adult-like demeanor, she nicknamed her "Granny." Needless to say, this was not a confidence-building time for Eleanor, and likely helped develop her painfully timid nature. Years later, however, after learning of Franklin's infidelity, that passive demeanor dissolved. She and Franklin remained married, but their relationship became more of a political partnership of strong independent personalities.

Once she stepped out of Franklin's shadow, Eleanor forged a new model for the nation's first lady. She turned her energy toward her long-held concerns in the areas of child labor, civil rights, women's emancipation, and other social issues. As she did, she captivated millions of America's underrepresented citizens who felt, for the first time, they had a voice in their government. Simultaneously, Franklin provided the country with a stable and optimistic father figure who helped to calm their fears.

Through their twelve legendary years in the White House, Franklin and Eleanor led the country through the dispiriting years of the Great Depression, as well as the horror-filled battles of World War II. Along the way, they left a collection of vivid images – still preserved in history books. Unfortunately, when today's students look at those pictures, the sterile black-and-white photographs can't convey the whole story.

As they glance at the photo of a family leaning toward the radio to hear Franklin's Fire-side Chats, they don't feel the calming effects of his soothing, deliberate messages as the waves of war battered a fatigued world. And the picture of Eleanor's confident smile as she sat in the midst of protesting World War I veterans, don't portray how her very presence calmed the raging gales of poverty and disillusionment. It's a shame they can't step into those pictures to witness a time when millions of Americans desperately clung to the words and deeds of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt – their anchors in the storm.

# Ashley's Advertisement

The notice in a St. Louis newspaper

that pointed mountain man, Jim Bridger,

down a path of immortality

The letters of the little ad in the September 17th 1822 edition of The Saint Louis Intelligencer were meaningless black squiggles to young James Bridger. Like many other country kids in the early 1800s, he had to forgo formal education to help out on the family farm, and had not learned to read. The advertisement, placed by General William Ashley of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, sought to "engage one hundred young men to ascend the Missouri to its source." Fate, apparently, felt that was too important an opportunity not to communicate it to the adventure-hungry 18-year-old. Bridger overheard someone reading it and began to picture a much more exciting career than his blacksmith-apprentice job.

As the excited Virginia teenager imagined a future in the mountains, pictures flickered through his mind of a much more stimulating life than that of hammering horseshoes. He had, in fact, previously created those pictures when he heard buckskin-clad customers in the blacksmith shop, spinning their colorful mountain tales. Yes, even though Bridger couldn't make out the words of General Ashley's advertisement, they were definitely speaking his language.

Once he responded to the notice, Bridger became one of the first members of what would become known as "Ashley's Hundred." One by one, other adventure-seekers scrawled their names or their X's on Ashley's growing list of future mountain men. That list would eventually include such frontier legends as Jedediah Smith, James Clyman, William and Milton Sublette, Thomas Fitzpatrick, and Hugh Glass. Despite their reputations as daring risk-takers, Bridger and the others would soon find more risk than they had bargained for.

In early June of 1823, a band of about 600 Arikara Indians staged a pre-dawn attack on Ashley's group. The Arikara were also fur trappers and had no interest in sharing their territory with newcomers. Shots rang out as the mountaineers peacefully camped at a beach area near the present-day North Dakota-South Dakota line. In addition to the Arikara's overwhelming numbers, many carried muskets that would, as Ashley recorded, "carry a ball with great accuracy and force." They used the guns, he added, "with as much expertness as any men I ever saw handle arms." Suddenly the previously serene wilderness images in Bridger's mind were stained with blood.

Before the attack concluded, at least twelve of the mountain men lie dead, and about the same amount were wounded. Desperately clambering for their keelboats, some had made it aboard while others clung to the vessels or simply swam down the Missouri to safety. The Arikara swarmed the campsite but fortunately did not follow Ashley's group downstream. The life of a mountain man, young Bridger and the rest were learning, would involve much more than merely trapping furs and camping out.

Later that same year, 1823, Bridger would become involved in one of the most notorious incidents in mountain legend. As the men headed up the Grand River Valley, Hugh Glass, a hunter for the group, was surprised by a female grizzly bear and her two cubs. Before Glass could aim his weapon, the grizzly charged, inflicting horrendous gaping wounds. The fierce beast continued to maul him until some of his companions responded to his screams and put her down. As they surveyed the gory scene, they discovered Hugh had sustained claw-slashes on his back all the way to the bone, as well as a lacerated windpipe. Their traveling companion, the men dismally concluded, had only minutes to live.

Their assessment, however, didn't take into consideration the fact that Glass was a mountain man. Hours crept by as he somehow clung to life. According to several reports, Thomas Fitzpatrick and Bridger volunteered to stay behind and bury their comrade when he expired. Their grim task of digging Glass's grave was suddenly interrupted by an attack of Arikara warriors. Convinced Glass was on the verge of death, they grabbed his rifle and ran. Fitzgerald reported to the expedition that Glass had died and they had buried him. While Fitzgerald and Bridger were trying to convince themselves that Glass had died minutes after they left him, the incredibly resilient frontiersman was gradually regaining consciousness.

As his swirling brain pushed through the severe pain, Glass eventually realized he was stranded without a weapon, over 200 miles from any American settlement. After setting his own leg, he began the excruciating task of crawling through the wilderness. Surviving on berries and roots, Glass inched his way toward the river, week by excruciating week. When he finally reached it, he painfully constructed a makeshift raft and managed to float down river to Fort Kiowa.

Needless to say, he was not in high spirits when he stumbled into the Fort and encountered a very unnerved Jim Bridger. Fortunately, Glass had figured Fitzgerald was the instigator of the abandonment. He was unable to wreak his vengeance on him since Fitzgerald had recently joined the Army. Bridger was immensely relieved to hear Glass say he had no plans to harm him. "For your youth," he informed the trembling teen, "I forgive you."

That youth would soon melt away to reveal one of the most able mountain men in history. He would be one of the first to set eyes upon the Yellowstone region. His reports of its spouting geysers and hissing cavities, incidentally, at first convinced many of his fellow trappers that he had most likely lost a good portion of his mind. He and several friends also discovered a path through the Rocky Mountains, now known as the South Pass, which opened the way for hundreds of thousands of later immigrants. And as he set out to trace the course of the Bear River, he became one of the first white men to view the Great Salt Lake. Those little black squiggles in Ashley's advertisement may have been meaningless to young Jim Bridger, but they weren't to our young country.

# "Green Pilgrims"

The frontier trials and triumphs that seasoned

John Collins and his fellow first-time travelers

"The sight was grand and awful," John Collins reflected in his frontier journal. "It was a line of fire a mile long coming like a great wave, at times leaping fifty feet in the air." The flaming monster Collins described was a prairie fire he encountered in the Nebraska territory during mid-April of 1864. He said that as he nervously eyed the raging blaze, still about a mile away, he could already hear the roaring and cracking of the flames.

The fire advanced, he continued, "with the speed of a racehorse..." As it did, prairie dogs, rabbits and deer escaped the onrushing furnace and bolted past him. The cattle in his wagon train brayed like wild beasts. "We could feel the heat," he remembered. "It was almost stifling." The fiery monster seemed determined to devour everything in its path. Then suddenly, only a quarter of a mile away, the inferno halted.

Fortunately for John and the rest of the novice pioneers, they had elected Thomas Prowse as captain of their wagon train. Prowse understood the prairie. When he first noticed the smoke of the distant fire, he snapped into action. "If the wind changes and that fire comes this way," he informed them, "we must work fast or we are goners." He directed the group toward a secluded area between a marsh and a small lake, and gave orders for everyone to help back-fire the ground. Giving every man a bucket of water and a grain sack, he told them to light a patch of the dry grass, let it burn a little, then put it out with the wet sack. They were told to continue until all the ground between the lake and the marsh was blackened. Within an hour, they had burned off a safe space of several acres.

As Prowse had feared, the great wall of fire suddenly veered their way. When it reached the burned area, however, the fire swept around on both sides of the frightened group, leaving them unharmed. The great cloud of smoke that accompanied it, though, surged directly past them. "The smoke was so blinding," Collins reflected, "that we were compelled to throw ourselves flat on the ground until it passed over." Once the smoke had cleared, everyone assembled and the captain called out their names. Fortunately, there were no goners. Every member of the wagon train was acutely aware that he had Captain Prowse to thank for his life.

As John Collins stood and brushed off the ashes, he likely had to remind himself exactly why he was risking his life out in the middle of the wilderness. After all, though only in his mid-twenties, he was already a successful leather merchant. He and his brother Gilbert had expanded their father Eli's saddle and leather-goods business by opening a branch store in Omaha in the spring of 1864. But like so many other young men of his time, the pull of the West was too strong to resist. For John, that pull was spiced by the promise of adventure, but its main ingredient was business. He knew the ranchers, farmers and miners moving west in the 1860's, would need leather goods. So in March of 1864, while his brother, Gilbert, traveled east to purchase supplies, John headed west to test the leather goods market in the new frontier.

On March 23rd, Collins joined a wagon train of about 150 men in Omaha, headed toward Virginia City, Montana. His adventures began right away. On their second day, as they camped along the Elkhorn River, Collins said "Pawnee Indians came down on us by the dozens..." They meant no harm, he observed, but often dropped in on pioneer camps to beg. Apparently they didn't always deem it necessary to wait for the emigrants to offer gifts. Collins said they "showed a fondness for our tin cups, pans, knives, and everything in this line they could pick up and conceal under their blankets."

The Pawnees weren't the only ones who added to their wealth at the travelers' expense. Several of the local ranches offered to board and feed the emigrant's animals for a fairly hefty fee. "If you did not patronize these ranches," John explained, "the alternative was to camp where you could and wake up in the morning to find one or two head of stock gone."

Continuing on, they approached the Loup Fork River, where they were told the ferryboat had sunk. The current was too swift and deep to ford, so they pitched in and helped the boatmen raise the ferry. Despite the assistance, the ferry owners charged them the usual rate. Apparently the neighborly pioneer spirit had already begun to yield to the hard-nosed affairs of commerce.

Once Collins' group reached Fort Kearney, their concern about Indians switched from the petty stealing by the Pawnees to a potential attack from the Sioux. "The Sioux were in an ugly mood," Collins noted. He said when they dropped in on the camp, he wasn't sure if it was to "look us over, expecting to return at daylight and attack us, or not." They heard stories about outfits ahead of them that had already been assaulted. "There was always great danger," Collins declared, "in the land of the Sioux."

As they traveled near Fort Kearney, they stopped at a point where they had the option of fording the Platte River and cutting nearly fifty miles off their trip. They sat on the bank and observed another outfit trying to cross. Collins said twelve yoke of oxen and five men waded into the current and were soon "floundering and wallowing in the shifting quicksand." Two hours later, the exhausted men and animals stumbled out of the icy swirling river onto the other bank. "After witnessing this sight," Collins commented, "our party was not long in deciding..." They readily took the longer northern route.

While they journeyed along that path, directly through the Sioux nation, they decided to organize their train by electing a captain. That's when they made the fortunate selection of Thomas Prowse. He was, as Collins put it, "a quiet, level-headed man, stern of disposition, sound of judgment, and with plenty of sand." All of those attributes would soon be called upon when Prowse faced the roaring prairie fire.

By early June, Collins' group crossed the Continental Divide to the eastern slope. As they descended and passed through a rocky canyon, they happened upon a tollgate. It was manned, Collins stated, by a "western character, with the regular six shooter and belt of ammunition strapped upon him." He charged $1.50 per wagon. "With the exchange of a few choice western epithets between the man at the gate and the men driving stock," Collins noted, "the incident was closed."

Finally, on the morning of Sunday, June 12, 1864, eighty-two days after leaving the Missouri River, they camped in sight of Virginia City. The day was spent, Collins remembered, bathing in a nearby stream, washing their clothes and preparing to "enter the city in decent order the next day, where our train disbanded."

After they separated, John Collins stayed in the Montana area for a while and then headed back by stagecoach to rejoin his brother Gilbert in Omaha. Through the years, they expanded their business across the west with branch stores in the Wyoming and Montana regions. President Grant later appointed them, both individually and as partners, to stock Fort Laramie with their high-quality leather goods. Yes, as John Collins looked back over his life, he could review a long string of successful events. No other experiences, however, were as lively and colorful as his eighty-two-day trip in the American wilderness with a hundred-and-fifty other green pilgrims.

# The Borders of Civilization

The travels of Origen Thompson, as he trades

the familiar comforts of home and family for the

allurements and adventures of the untamed West

"To the west, following the course of the trail, there was no object to obstruct the vision," wrote young Origen Thompson. He said that as far as his view extended, "wagon followed wagon until the foremost ones dwindled into insignificance." As his senses drank in the stirring frontier panorama, Origen perched, barefoot, on top of a ridge near the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains.

"I was standing on the dividing ridge separating the east from the west," he recorded in his evening notes. "On the one side was home with all its endearments; on the other was hope with all its allurements..." Like so many other young adventurers in the mid-eighteen hundreds, Origen was pulled by both forces. "But hope," he asserted, "bade me view the scene on my left, showed me there a new home, new duties, new pleasures..." Plucking a flower that grew on the summit, Origen descended to his wagon train and once more turned his gaze resolutely toward the West.

The young Indiana adventurer had begun the voyage that led him to that summit, several months earlier in the spring of 1852. "From my boyhood," Origen later reflected, "I have had a preference for Oregon." Along with his sister, Camilla, and her husband, Zelik Donnell, Origen made plans to join a wagon train headed across the "Great American Desert" to Oregon. Their expedition numbered about a hundred, and included potential settlers from Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Origen and Camilla's father traveled with them for the first day of the journey, then wished them well and returned home. "Although courage and enthusiasm was kept up," Camilla reflected, "deep down in our hearts was a load of sadness."

The sadness was offset by the lure of the Donation Land Claim Act that disbursed unoccupied western land to settlers. A man and his wife could obtain six hundred and forty acres, and a single man or an unmarried woman could have three hundred and twenty. This inducement, as Camilla put it, "caused many more home and gold seekers in the older states to turn their thoughts and inquiries toward the land of the setting sun." The wagon train Origen, Camilla and her husband Zelik would join, was to depart from St. Joseph, Missouri and trek across the already-established Oregon Trail. As they worked their way from Indiana toward St. Joseph, they boarded a new boat, the Kate Sweeney, for her maiden voyage on the Missouri River.

During a stop at Boonville, Missouri, Origen said that a great many citizens visited the boat. "What most attracted my attention," he wrote, "was a company of very pretty girls." He said that they nearly induced him to stop at Boonville, then added, "But pshaw! could women have prevented me from going to Oregon, I would never have left Greensburg."

Another feature on the Boonville stop was an Indian chief who dressed in the full costume and ornaments of his tribe. For a small fee, he was prompted to come aboard the boat and shake hands with the passengers. As the Kate Sweeney neared St. Joseph, however, they were approaching Indians who were not always so friendly. On Friday, March 26th, Origen wrote, "In the evening we passed the mouth of the Kansas and caught the first glimpse of the Indian Territory, and are now running on the borders of civilization."

Once they reached St. Joseph, they waited about a month for all the expedition members to assemble and prepare for the journey. Finally, on Wednesday April 28, 1852, everyone was packed and ready for the expedition. After an easy day's travel, the wagon train pulled into a lush grove with a flowing stream. As instructed, Origen and his group tied their cattle up. But he said they decided to let a "gentle yoke" roam free and nibble the grass overnight. The next morning, they discovered that the gentle yoke had gently wandered away. Eventually, Origen and several others rounded up the missing cattle.

During one of his cattle-hunts, Origen encountered an astronomical lecturer who carried his apparatus on a packhorse. As the lecturer plodded along, the horse he was riding suddenly became, as Origen put it, "quite frolicsome." That horse's antics caused the nearby pack horse to break away and gallop off, kicking his bundles loose along the way. "The last I saw of them," Origen wrote, "he was chasing his horses back and forth across the prairie."

Later, Origin's group discovered a large pile of wood outside a small fort along the way. Several of the men began to help themselves. "Thinking that as it belonged to Uncle Sam," Origen explained, "of course, any person might use it." The quartermaster who saw them, however, was of a different mind. He ordered them to bring back every piece, under penalty of the guard house. "As their appearance trotting it back can easily be imagined," Origen added, "I will not attempt to describe it.

By early June, the group began to pass the already-famous landmarks of the trail. Court House Rock, Origen stated, reminded him more of Noah's Ark than a court house. Chimney Rock, he said, had the appearance of a circus pavilion "I inscribed my name on the Chimney about twenty feet high. Another person in his group, cut his name on a buffalo head, and then climbed as high as he could and stuck the head in a hole he cut for it."

As their wagon train slogged along the trail toward the Black Hills, they passed a picturesque canyon. Several girls and their male companions wandered into the canyon for a relaxed stroll. They fell behind the group, so a few men leading spare horses, headed back for them. Origen said the "termagants of the company" expressed dismay that the young ladies and gentlemen "should go in such places together without their pa's and ma's attending them."

Further along the trail, Origen, like the multitude of adventurers before and after him, wrote his name on Independence Rock. "It is pretty well covered with inscriptions," he said, "some in paint, others tar and others cut in solid rock. I noticed some as far back as '44." His favorite was a poem penciled on a small piece of paper and stuck into a crevice. "He is a poor devil, whose name, for want of tar, is lost to fame."

Stopping at another landmark, Devil's Gate, Origen was not satisfied with simply peering up at it. "It seemed that nothing but a fly could climb such a rock," he wrote, "but by dint of hard exertion I gained the top." As he usually did, he took off his shoes to get a better foothold. "I then walked to the summit and had the satisfaction of laying down on the overhanging rock and gazing on the rushing waters far beneath me."

A week later, on July 3rd, 1852, he once again took off his shoes for a climb. This time it was the hill near the South Pass where he stood to observe the stirring scene and reflect on the "endearments of home" and the "allurements of hope." Like the hundreds of thousands of others who carved out our early country, he chose hope. After all, he was already well into his dream, and far beyond "the borders of civilization."

# Inspired Insanity

The turbulent life of Vincent Van Gogh

If chickens could smile, the coop of clucking hens surely would have done so when they viewed the man in the blue shirt against the swirling green background. It was about time their owners brightened up their dreary environment of chicken wire and weather-beaten boards! Even though the family they shared the yard with, apparently didn't like the vibrant picture, they did. It provided a colorful distraction during their mundane egg-sitting duties. It didn't matter to them that the painting had been re-gifted, it was now theirs. Then, sadly, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the portrait vanished, leaving them once again staring at boards and wire.

The picture's subject, Doctor Félix Rey, had shown the appropriate gratitude for the complimentary portrait when it was presented to him. His enthusiasm had not been particularly easy to muster, since he was not exactly in love with it. Years later, Rey confided his true feelings to an interviewer. He said that when he saw Van Gogh had painted his hair and mustache "in blazing red on a biting green background," he was horrified. Fortunately, Rey was as good an actor as a doctor, and masked his feelings of horror. As he profusely thanked the artist, he not only needed to employ his best performing abilities, he had to project nice and loud. After all, his benefactor had only one ear.

Doctor Rey was the young intern who was on duty at the hospital in Arles, France in December of 1888, when a bleeding, hallucinating Vincent Van Gogh appeared. Rey was informed that the previous night, Vincent had severed his own ear and was suffering from severe blood loss. The policeman who accompanied him not only turned Vincent over to the doctor, but gave him the ear as well. Realizing it was no longer able to be reattached, Doctor Rey plopped it into a jar of alcohol and turned his attention to its previous owner. Employing his newly acquired medical skills, the young intern treated and bandaged the patient, unaware he was also entering the art-history books.

Later, the discarded portrait ended up in Doctor Rey's attic. That's where his mother found it when she was snooping around for something to patch a hole in their chicken coop. Like her son, she despised the picture and felt this would be the ideal use for it. Apparently Doctor Rey later had second thoughts about the use of his portrait to repair a chicken coop. History is fuzzy as to whether he sold it to a local art dealer for a nominal amount or simply gave it to him.

Either way, the painting entered the art world. Like most of Van Gogh's pictures, nobody was interested in purchasing it. Several years later though, "The Portrait of Doctor Rey" would find a home in Moscow's Pushkin Museum. Although the legend of the painting that once graced their ancestor's coop has likely been passed down through generations of local chickens, they will most likely never be able to reacquire the portrait. A 2015 estimate set its value at 50-million dollars.

Like Van Gogh's legendary painting style with its dramatic swirls and bold quick brushstrokes, his life flew by in a series of striking condensed scenes. During his intense 37-year existence, he was called everything from a bum to a madman to a genius. Even his childhood in the Netherlands fit the bizarre mold that would shape the rest of his life. His father, Theodorus, was a stern and emotionally detached country minister. Vincent's mother, Anna Cornelia, was locally known as a moody artist. Both her love of art and her morose nature were apparently transmitted to her oldest child. In a bizarre fluke, Vincent was born exactly one year after his parents' first child, also named Vincent, who arrived stillborn. They buried him, which resulted in Vincent's name, birth month and day already etched on his dead brother's headstone.

Much of his early life was plagued by a growing depression. At the age of 15, Vincent left school and began working to help shore up his family's failing finances. His first job, at his uncle's art dealership, would seem to be the ideal start for an artist in the making. As with many of his later enterprises, however, young Vincent's moodiness and quarrelsome streak often sabotaged his own goals. Although he had not yet decided to become a painter, this exposure to artwork aroused his creative sensitivity.

Unfortunately, he expressed that sensitivity by frequently telling potential customers not to buy paintings he felt didn't meet his standards. Usually, he didn't recommend other pictures in the gallery they should buy, but simply talked them out of buying the "worthless art" they were considering. As might be expected, when his uncle learned about this situation, young Vincent's future was freed for other employment opportunities.

Following abbreviated jobs as a language teacher and lay preacher in England, and a bookseller in the Netherlands, he decided his life's work should be in the ministry. After a brief training period in Brussels, he took up theology. Once again, his limited interpersonal skills and lack of interest in developing any, bombarded his plans for the future. When ministering for the Church of Belgium, he decided to give away his belongings and move to an impoverished coal-mining village in the south of the country.

The villagers loved him as he preached and ministered to the sick, and drew complimentary pictures of the miners and their families. In fact, he was given the nickname of "Christ of the Coal Mines." The evangelical committees of the church, on the other hand, felt he was "overzealous" and was taking on a tone of martyrdom. Accordingly, they refused to renew his contract.

"They think I'm a madman," he told an acquaintance, "because I wanted to be a true Christian." This rejection would prompt his decision to pursue a career as a full-time artist. His future ministry, he decided, would be accomplished through his artwork. "I want to give the wretched a brotherly message," he wrote to his younger brother, Theodore. He said when he signed his paintings with only Vincent, "it is as one of them." Following his decision, he briefly attended the Antwerp Academy, then visited numerous art museums and studied with several emerging impressionist artists. Although his artistic career would span only one decade, from 1880 until 1890, his style passed through various phases. Much of his earlier work, like the gloomy depiction of poverty in The Potato Eaters, was dark and morose. After he met and studied with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Camille Pissarro and Paul Gauguin, he began to enliven his work with vivid colors.

Most of his celebrated work sprang from only the last three years of his life when he began to work with a compulsive abandon. He painted the first series of his now-famous sunflower pictures in Arles, France, not long before his infamous ear incident. During the months following his emotional breakdown, he recuperated in an asylum in the south of France, where he painted the scenes around him, including olive orchards and wheat fields. The results of this period now grace the world's museums.

At the depth of his mental illness, during his voluntary stay in the asylum, he was confined to two cells – one of which he used as a studio. "This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise," he wrote his brother. "There was nothing but the morning star," he continued, "which looked very big." The vision of that star would be forever immortalized in The Starry Night. "Though I am often in the depths of misery," Vincent would explain, "there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me."

# The Voice From the Vent

The advice of the "Red Light Bandit"

that helped light up Merle Haggard's future

If Merle Haggard's life had been a horse race, the odds of his even crossing the finish line would have probably been about five million-to-one. Not only had he given up his name for a number – San Quentin's #A-45200

but now he was spending his 21st birthday in solitary confinement. At least he wasn't totally alone. He could talk through the ventilation system to another secluded convict. His neighbor during this period happened to be Caryl Chessman, nationally known as the infamous "Red Light Bandit." Chessman, although he maintained he was innocent, was accused of a series of robberies and sexual offences in Los Angeles. They each began with the perpetrator stopping a car, by flashing a red light similar to those police use.

Chessman sensed Merle's despair as the two began to talk. When asked how he had arrived at San Quentin, Merle's mind flashed back through the years. His early childhood was filled with poverty, but not yet with the anger and confusion that would fuel his teenage rebellion. His parents had migrated to Bakersfield, California after losing their Oklahoma farm to a fire. Their new "home" consisted of a modified railroad boxcar.

The rage and turmoil that would infect Merle's teenage years started at the age of nine, when his father died from a brain tumor. Merle's resentment and anger about the loss of his father began to steer him toward the wrong crowd. His mother had tried her best to keep him on the right track, but as his classic fictionalized song "Mamma Tried" would one day explain, she simply couldn't fight the destructive forces that swirled inside the bitter young boy's mind.

Then, frame-by-frame, the pictures of his troubled youth passed across his mental movie screen. First the constant running away from home, then the series of reform schools, and finally the string of petty crimes that eventually grew into car thefts and burglaries.

Then came the most ludicrous scene of all – the drunken burglary in 1957, which had landed him in San Quentin. He vividly recalled the ridiculous evening when he and a couple of equally drunk partners-in-crime, robbed a restaurant. They had carefully removed the back door's hinges and were sneaking in, when the restaurant's owner as well as a policeman he had contacted, suddenly greeted them. Merle could still recall the sinking feeling when he realized it was earlier than they had thought, and the restaurant was still open!

Chessman could sense the hopelessness of Merle's broken spirit. He urged him to try to salvage his life while he still might have time. As Merle soaked in the senseless pictures of his broken life and the sensible advice of the Red Light Bandit, he could see a tiny glow at the end of his long dark tunnel.

When he left solitary confinement, he continued to head toward that glow, working and studying in prison. Then, just as the Red Light Bandit had, another man stepped in to help focus that dim glow – this time, a "man in black." Johnny Cash visited San Quentin to perform for the inmates. His strong character and powerful music rang in Merle's ears long after he left. Watching Johnny reminded him of his earlier love for country music.

Years later, when Merle would meet Johnny, he told him that he had been there when he played at San Quentin. Johnny was puzzled since he couldn't remember seeing Merle playing guitar or singing back-up for him. "No Johnny," Merle explained, realizing he didn't understand, "I was there!"

During his prison term, he focused more and more on the vision of becoming a country music performer. He fell back on an early love for the music of Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, and Jimmy Rodgers, and he began to emulate their styles. As his musical skills improved, he entertained his fellow inmates, who were an appreciative "captive audience." His good conduct earned him a parole after two years and nine months. Released in 1960, he moved back to Bakersfield and worked with his electrician brother. He soon began to perform in the local bars and clubs. Little by little, he began to build a reputation as a talented guitar picker.

In 1963, Merle got the first turn of good luck he had seen in quite a few years. A well-known Bakersfield country musician named Wynn Stewart hired him to play bass in his backup band. Stewart had written a song titled "Sing a Sad Song" and had intended to record it himself. When Merle heard it, he begged Stewart to let him record it instead. Seeing the gleam of desperate hope in Merle's eyes, Stewart decided to let him give it a try.

He recorded it on the small Tally label, owned by Arkansas musician, Charles "Fuzzy" Owen. That record would be the first hint that the dim glow at the end of Merle Haggard's dark tunnel might one day illuminate his shadowed life. The song climbed to Number 19 nationwide and introduced America's country music fans to a new legend-to-be – "The Hagg."

By 1965, Merle had his first Top-ten hit, also on the Tally label. Liz Anderson, Lynn Anderson's mother, had written the song "My Friends Are Gonna Be Strangers." Merle recorded it in late 1964, and by early the next year, it had jumped into Billboard's Top Ten. The success of the record led him to name his backup band The Strangers, and led Capitol Records to put him under contract.

The next year he not only crashed into the Top Ten again, but this time with two of his own songs: "Swinging Doors" and "The Bottle Let Me Down." Later, he would draw on his dark past for a string of hard-driving ballads including "Sing Me Back Home," "Branded Man," and "Mamma Tried."

Ironically, even though he is known for writing from the heart, one of his most popular songs was derived from a comment meant more as a humorous remark than as a social statement. As Merle and The Strangers toured through Oklahoma, drummer Eddie Burris noticed a city limits sign. With tongue in cheek, he declared, "I bet the citizens of Muskogee don't smoke marijuana." Merle's resulting song, "Okie from Muskogee" was selected CMA Single of the Year in 1969.

The next year he nearly swept the field, winning Best Song, Best Album, Top Male Vocalist and Entertainer of the Year. Through the following years, his light never stopped shining. His music would be taken on the Apollo 16 Moon mission, and in 1994 he would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Apparently, if you listen closely enough, good advice can be found almost anywhere...even from a "voice from the vent" in San Quentin.

# Minsky's Regret

The sedate old-school immigrant who watched

his cherished family name flash from the gaudy

marquee of the raucous Minsky's Burlesque

A dark scowl crept over the old Jewish businessman's face as he shuffled down the sixth floor hallway of the National Winter Garden Theater. His eyes darted toward the row of pictures along the wall. The photographs of girls prancing around in abbreviated costumes were definitely not his idea of appropriate decor. He couldn't avoid them since his office was located on the same floor, but he didn't have to accept them.

"Prostitutes, prostitutes," he muttered aloud in his native Yiddish tongue. He would have likely ripped them from their frames and burned them, had he known what those showgirls from his sons' theater would eventually do to his cherished family name. For decades to follow, the very mention of the name "Minsky" would evoke vivid images of raucous bumps and grinds and the screeching sirens of frenzied police raids. New York City's Minsky's Burlesque became synonymous with cooch dancers and shimmy shakers.

Yes, Minsky's Burlesque would give thousands of young men some pretty wild stories to tell in their later years. It would, however, give the old Jewish businessman who muttered at the showgirls' pictures, nothing but headaches and worry lines. As Louis Minsky glared at the gaudy images, he could still remember how proud he had been when he had chosen the name Minsky. The year was 1883 and the persecution of the Jewish people in Russia and Poland had become severe. His father earned enough money to send him to America. As was the custom, he took on a new name. He replaced his first name of Aryeh with "Louis." To substitute for his last name of Lev, he chose the name of the city nearest his family – "Minsk." Adding a "y" he proudly introduced himself as Louis Minsky.

Once he arrived in America and had settled in, Louis evaluated his new neighborhood in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Like many of the other Jewish immigrants, he set out with a pack on his back to peddle goods to the brownstone's inhabitants. He didn't mind. After all, he was in a new land with an opportunity to save enough money to send for his wife and child to join him. And he was quite a salesman! Within two years, he was successful enough to open his own store – Minsky's Dry Goods and Notions. The store did well until about 1890, when most of the old brownstones were replaced by towering tenement buildings.

Undaunted, Louis switched to a retail dry goods business. His decision was perfectly timed. The new business prospered and before long he was looking for a larger building to house his dry goods store. His choice, the Grand Museum, would suit him perfectly. There was, however, a slight problem. The building was occupied by a number of entertainers. On the various floors, boxing exhibitions, magic shows and minstrel companies performed regularly. There was even a curio hall, complete with Herman the Strongman and The Armless Wonder.

It didn't take Louis Minsky long to decide what to do with his new tenants...he threw them all out. Life was much too serious to waste time with such frivolity. Ironically, frivolity was the very thing that seemed to follow him around throughout his life. Once Louis had earned enough to send for his wife and son, he settled into a disciplined family life, proudly raising a large family of sons. Sadly, two died early, but he still had four strong sons to carry on his proud family name – or so he hoped.

His hopes were high in 1908, when he heard that Abe, his oldest son, planned to go into business with another young man. They had raised enough money to rent an old Lutheran church on Houston Street. Since motion pictures were the newest rage, this seemed like the perfect time to set up a neighborhood nickelodeon. Abe and his friend proudly christened their new theater the Houston Street Hippodrome. The customers soon poured in, each leaving behind a hard-earned nickel.

For three profitable years, Louis's son was a constant source of pride. That pride faded abruptly though, when word finally reached him why there was always such an enthusiastic audience at the shows. The movies, as it turned out, were not exactly the slapstick comedies or heart-rending dramas of the day. Instead, they bore titles like "The Butler and the Upstairs Maid." Yes, young Abe, the son of the orthodox Jewish immigrant with old-country morals, had been showing dirty movies in the old church. Without any fanfare, the Houston Street Hippodrome closed its doors forever.

With his father's assistance, Abe was eventually steered in the direction of the respectable real estate business. As fate would have it, however, Abe was simply not destined to become a real estate agent. His brother Billy, had also joined the work force and was beginning to make a name for himself as, of all things, a society reporter. Somehow, he had landed a reporting job on the New York World. Soon, he began to show up right in the thick of the action of important stories. He interviewed the elusive J. P. Morgan and was the only reporter to cover the Gladys Vanderbilt wedding. He worked his way into the private no-press wedding by disguising himself as a messenger boy. For his efforts, Billy was rewarded with the society reporter position.

As a reporter, he began to crank out stories about a New York Police Lieutenant named Charles Becker. Becker and a gruesome collection of underworld hoods had been skimming money off the prostitution and gambling rings in exchange for police silence. Billy's stories began to upset some of Becker's buddies, especially Gyp the Blood and Billiard Ball Jack. Their irritation increased when the stories resulted in jail sentences. The culmination of that irritation was a bullet narrowly missing Billy's head as he walked home one night. Following this, the young reporter felt a sudden shift in career drive.

That drive steered him back toward his family. His father had recently acquired another building – the National Winter Garden Theater. Billy and his brother Abe, had already been discussing the idea of opening a movie theater in the top three floors. The building already had a built-in theater. The sixth floor contained the orchestra level and the theater stretched up and into the eighth floor. And the timing would never be better; movies were new and exciting. Abe thought the idea was great as well. Now only one obstacle loomed in the foreground – convincing their father, who was already soured on the idea because of Abe's previous movie career. Somehow though, through pleading and promising, his sons wore down Louis's resistance. After all, they wouldn't show sexy movies. What could possibly go wrong?

As the next few years passed, Louis Minsky likely wondered many times what went wrong as he shuffled down that hallway lined with showgirl pictures. But one thing was certain. Somewhere between the innocent plans for movies and vaudeville performers – and the stage filled with chorus girls and cooch dancers, something definitely went wrong! When Louis heard someone mention the name Minsky, he expected it to be accompanied with lewd smirks and knowing winks. Although he knew what the smirks and winks referred to, he never saw for himself. Throughout his entire life, he never once set foot in the theater.

# A Blood-red Sky

When a vibrant frontier light show

saved veteran trapper, Osborne Russell

"The northern lights commenced streaming up, darting, flashing, rushing to and fro," Osborne Russell wrote in his frontier journal. "At length, the shooting and flashing died away," he continued, "and gradually turned to a deep blood red, spreading over one half of the sky." As the seasoned trapper took in the vivid scene, he was unaware that it would soon save his life.

Russell watched the spectacle from an encampment in the Yellowstone Valley in late February of 1837. He and his fellow trappers had recently clashed with a nearby band of Blackfoot, and Russell was standing the first guard of the night. At midnight he was relieved from duty and slept soundly until sunrise. Throughout the morning, Russell and the others, piled logs and brush around their campsite as a fortification against the expected Blackfoot attack.

Several group members scouted out the enemy. They returned and reported spotting the Blackfoot camp about three miles away. The night passed without incident until sunrise, when a shot rang out from a cluster of nearby trees. A concealed warrior fired at the cook who was gathering wood outside the camp. The fusee ball from the smooth-bored Fusil flintlock pistol, missed its mark. The Blackfoot's flintlocks, ironically, had likely been obtained through trades with earlier trappers. A second Indian surprised a lookout on top of a nearby bluff. As the startled trapper plunged down a fifty-foot snow bank to escape, the Indian fired off a shot, wounding him in the heel.

Russell and the rest hastily prepared for the upcoming onslaught. For a nervous half hour, nothing stirred. Then suddenly, the Blackfoot party of about a thousand warriors materialized from the bend of the Yellowstone River. As the trappers readied their guns for the attack, the Indians veered abruptly to their right and then halted. "The chief," Russell observed in his frontier journal, "came forward a few steps and gave us the signal that he should not fight, but return to his village." With that, he led his warriors northwest across the plains.

"After numerous conjectures" Russell reported, he and his friends came to the conclusion that the blood-red sky must have been their savior. The chief, they decided, had interpreted the scene as a bad omen. Russell conjectured the Blackfoot had "started from their village with the determination of rubbing us from the face of the earth, but that the Great Spirit had shown them that their side of the heavens was bloody, whilst ours was clear and serene."

Osborne Russell's side of the heavens may have been clear and serene that day, but that was not always the case. The path he had traveled in the years leading up to this incident had sometimes been as rocky as the mountains he roamed. Hungry for adventure, Russell had left his quiet Maine village at sixteen for a life at sea. He soon decided the ocean was not his calling, and joined a trading and trapping company operating in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Later, on April 4, 1834, he signed up in Independence, Missouri for an expedition sponsored by the Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company. The company planned to send out two parties, both headed for the Columbia River. One would travel by river on a two-hundred-ton brig. The other was an overland party under the direction of Nathaniel J. Wyeth.

Still preferring land to water, Russell joined Wyeth's group. On April 28, he noted that "about forty men leading two horses each were marched out in double file with joyous hearts enlivened by anticipated prospects." The remainder of the party, under the direction of Captain Joseph Thing, trailed behind, leading the extra horses and cattle.

By midsummer, Russell might have been questioning his choice of the overland party. He was hunting with another man when they flushed out a grizzly bear. His partner fired off a hurried shot, striking the animal's shoulder. The wounded bear lurched into a nearby thicket and Russell's excitement momentarily overpowered his common sense. He talked his partner into following him into the thicket to finish the job.

The bear, however, had a different plan – finishing off the hunters. With "enormous jaws extended and eyes flashing fire..." Russell wrote, the wounded animal suddenly vaulted toward them. Neither man had time to fire a shot. They bolted away as the beast chased first one, then the other. Russell's partner fired a quick shot, which completely missed its mark. Frightened by the rifle's blast, the grizzly then whirled back toward Russell. "I could go no further," he noted, "without jumping into a large quagmire which hemmed me in on both sides."

Russell said the enraged grizzly came within ten paces and "raised his ponderous body erect, his mouth wide open, gazing at me with a beastly laugh." Russell managed to raise his rifle and fire. The bullet drove straight to its target, piercing the bear's heart. With a final death-growl, the towering animal collapsed.

"I trembled as if I had an ague fit, for half an hour after," Russell admitted. He and his equally flustered hunting partner finally stopped shaking and butchered the animal. Russell said they then returned to the fort, proudly bearing "the trophies of our bravery." "But I secretly determined," he revealed to his journal, "never to molest another wounded grizzly bear in a marsh or thicket."

On July fourth, 1835, several of Russell's party attempted to cross Lewis's Fork with a bull-skin boat they had constructed. Crossing the river was no problem. But on the return trip, sharp reeds pierced the skin, and the boat quickly filled with water and sank. "We now commenced making a raft of logs that had drifted on the island," Russell reported. When it was completed, they loaded the remainder of their supplies aboard and set out. This craft also ran into difficulty. "We no sooner reached the rapid current," Russell noted, "than our raft...became unmanageable." Fearing the rapids that were drawing them closer, they abandoned the raft and all the supplies onboard.

To add to their misery, the rain poured incessantly. Fortunately, a fire they had previously started was still burning. As Russell hunched over the little flame with his companions, he reflected on their pitiful situation. "I thought of those who were perhaps at this moment, celebrating the anniversary of our independence," he wrote, "seated around tables loaded with the richest dainties..." "Instead," he noted, "here presented a group of human beings crouched 'round a fire, which the rain was fast diminishing, meditating on their deplorable condition – not knowing at what moment we might be aroused by the shrill war cry of the hostile savages..."

Fortunately, the rain eventually stopped and the shrill war cry never occurred. The next morning, they headed down the bank hoping to find some of their supplies that might have washed ashore. After walking less than a mile, they were delighted to discover the raft lodged against a gravel bar – with everything still intact. The river was also shallower at that point, and they were able to ford it on horseback.

After wandering the mountains for nearly nine years, Osborne Russell left in September of 1842 to settle in the Willamette Valley region. Shortly before he departed, he wrote that he scaled a nearby peak for a "farewell view of a country over which I had traveled so often, under such a variety of circumstances." The rugged beauty of that view was mingled with his memories – like those of the magnificent thermal wonders of the Yellowstone area and the majestic splendor of the Grant Tetons. Of course his mountain memory collection also included the "fire-flashing" eyes of a crazed grizzly, close-sailing fussee balls, and his well-timed savior – the blood-red sky.

# A Bargain Basement Song Sale

The fifty-dollar song deal that helped

jump-start Willie Nelson's career

Willie knew his song was worth more than fifty dollars. He didn't know it would one day become a country standard, but he still knew it was worth more than fifty dollars. He also knew, however, that his family couldn't eat song lyrics and his car didn't run on melodies. And he knew Houston just wasn't the place to get his career moving. So there really wasn't any other choice. He wasn't exactly a bundle of job skills, and he simply had to get to Nashville.

After bouncing around several small Texas towns, Willie wound up teaching guitar at a little music school in Houston. Paul Buskirk, the school's owner, agreed to buy the rights to his song "Family Bible" for fifty dollars. It wasn't exactly a record-breaking offer but it would get Willie where he needed to be...Nashville. So, with his first songwriter's "salary," Nelson gassed up his battered '41 Buick and pointed his family toward Music City.

As they left, "Family Bible" had already climbed to the Top Ten for Buskirk's singer-friend, Claude Gray. That was okay. Willie now had gas in his car, food in his family, and dreams of Music City in his head. And another thing –now he knew for sure his songs were commercial, and he knew there were plenty more where that one came from.

In fact, the songs had been coming for about as long as he could remember. There wasn't a lot going on in his little hometown of Abbott, Texas, so when the lively world of music beckoned, young Willie followed. His grandfather, "Daddy" Nelson, bought him a guitar when he was six and taught him a few chords. Within a year, Willie had not only learned to play, but began writing heartbreak songs.

He had always been surrounded by a wide variety of music, and he loved it all. He drank in the Polka music of the Germans who had settled in Texas, as well as the swinging southwestern sounds of Bob Wills and Ernest Tubb. His grandfather's radio surrounded him with a blend of popular tunes, big band music, jazz, and the earthy sounds of the Grand Ole Opry. Willie soaked up every note like a musical sponge.

During the years ahead, he would often shock his friends with the diversity of his musical interests. A friend would later tell about a jam session he attended with Willie backstage in a New Jersey theater. Willie suddenly started picking out a tune by a somewhat "less-than-mainstream country composer" named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

"I'm a pretty well-read feller," Willie would explain, with a grin.

As the young "legend to be" developed this musical mixture, his career didn't exactly take a straight-line path to stardom. Married, with a young daughter, Willie needed steady work. He had tried out a string of door-to-door salesman jobs, peddling everything from vacuum cleaners to encyclopedias, when he finally came across something more to his liking – disk jockeying. "This is your ole cotton pickin', snuff dippin', tobacco chewin', coffee pot dodgin', dumplin' eatin', frog giggin' hillbilly from Hill Country" he would spout as he signed on at Fort Worth's KCNC.

For the next seven years, he worked as a DJ at stations in Texas, California and Oregon, and played in local honky-tonks in his spare time. He wasn't exactly getting rich and famous, but at least he was closer to the love of his life – music. It was during these radio days that Willie added the guitar-teaching job to his schedule. Not only had he written "Family Bible," but among his creations was a number that Paul Buskirk and his friends felt was a little "too bluesy" for Claude Gray to perform –"Night Life."

When he reached Nashville, he quickly learned the Music City songwriter's favorite trick of the trade – just "hang around" Tootsie's Bar, drinking and pitching songs until someone shows some interest. At last Willie had found a vocation he was tailor-made for. One of the first Nashville insiders to notice his song-writing skills was Hank Cochran. After hearing Willie sing at Tootsie's, he helped him get a writing contract with Pamper Music. His selection couldn't have been better. Pamper was partially owned by Ray Price.

Price would not only hire Willie as a bass player in his band, but eventually turn the too bluesy "Night Life" into his theme song. Although there were still hills and valleys ahead in Willie's career, he could be fairly certain that the days of peddling encyclopedias and vacuum cleaners were now in the past.

During his Nashville years, he wrote a number of hit songs for other artists, including Patsy Cline's "Crazy," Faron Young's "Hello Walls," and Billy Walker's "Funny How Time Slips Away." He also had some success with his own singing career, turning out songs like "One in a Row," "The Party's Over," and "Yesterday's Wine."

His own singing career didn't truly take off, however, until he stepped out of the slick Nashville role. Moving back to Texas, he noticed something strange. At Austin's Armadillo World Headquarters where he was playing, he saw a whole new breed of country music fans. Rather than arriving in the traditional cowboy hats and boots, they usually slouched in with long hair, wearing ragged jeans and tennis shoes.

At last Willie had found his audience. He had never really fit the Nashville mold anyway. As his own hair grew longer and his jeans grew more ragged, Willie also let his musical hair down. Suddenly, the word began to spread that an outlaw musician in Austin had thrown the rulebook away. He was drawing in people of all descriptions with his music of all descriptions.

The mainstream music community would eventually legitimize that Austin outlaw with a shower of awards. These would include a collection of Grammys, CMA's 1979 "Entertainer of the Year," and induction into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. Apparently, that fifty-dollar song sale wasn't such a bad deal after all.

# "These Unknown Wilds"

The tale of William Marshall Anderson's

1834 trek "outside the United States"

(past the western border of Missouri)

The sun-bleached human skull slowly transformed into a living, breathing companion for Kentucky-born adventurer, William Marshall Anderson. The other members of his westbound group had simply passed it by. But the sensitive young Anderson picked it up and carried it with him for miles. "I could not help feeling saddened at the sight," he reflected in his journal. "I built it up as a living being...invested with flesh, vivified with spirit."

Anderson and his newfound friend rode steadily alongside the Platte River. As they did, an eerie communication transpired. "It told me," Anderson recalled, "that impelled by the love of adventure, he had, years gone by, bade adieu to his kin and country, and sought to behold the wonders of these unknown wilds." Anderson's youthful imagination continued in full-swing as he forged ahead. He decided that his body-less companion had once witnessed "the glorious uprising and down-going of the sun in these plains, animated by immense herds of deer and buffalo..." Surrounded by this beauty, he surmised, the skull's original owner must have "fallen the victim of an unseen foe."

Eventually young Anderson abandoned his traveling companion. "Adieu, kind friend," he mentally addressed the skull. "I have no more time to moralize. The sun is hot, and I must on and take my chances." Those chances would lead him on a journey filled with visions, delights, and fears he had previously only heard about. They would build the future-memories he would record in his "campfire notes" at the end of each day's journey and the journal he would later create from those notes. Those notes began in mid-March of 1834, several weeks before he came upon the skull. Following the advice of a family member, he left his Louisville, Kentucky home to sign up with the widely respected guide, William Sublette, for his Rocky Mountain expedition.

Pausing in Lexington to prepare for the journey, Sublette's group of thirty-seven men and ninety-five horses and mules, was ready to pull out on April 30th. In that evening's entry, Anderson philosophized. "We are finally up and off for the West, the Far West." "I had always believed I had been born in the West," he mused, "but no, here we go in search of it, farther on, farther on." "I am now outside of the U.S. for the first time," Anderson recorded five days later.

The party had already crossed the existing national border. That night they camped on the waters of a stream that emptied into the Kansas or Kaw River. The next evening marked Anderson's first surprise encounter with local wildlife – a wolf. The animal was just as startled as he was and tucked his tail between his legs and bolted off. "Had I been able," Anderson wrote, "I have no doubt I should have done the same thing, tail and all."

Despite a little wolf-scare, he enjoyed the area's other inhabitants – the Kansas Indians, or "Kawsies" as they called themselves. Anderson and William Sublette visited the Indians' nearby lodge. Although his notes described them as "dirty and lousy" in appearance, Anderson added they were kind and hospitable. He also liked the landscape. "I have thought that if our country should purchase it of the Indians, what a glorious state it would make."

In mid-May, William Marshall Anderson began to witness, firsthand, the roaming wildlife of the prairie. He was struck by the awkward gait of the elk. "I can liken it to nothing but a lame shuffle, but they can get over the ground, nevertheless." The antelope, he noted, displayed anything but a lame shuffle. "They are the fleetest of the fleet."

In the afternoon of May 16th, Anderson and the others sighted nearly a hundred Pawnee slowly approaching in full battle dress, armed with guns, spears and bows. "The uncertainty of their intentions," Anderson casually noted in that evening's entry, "produced an excitement by no means delightful." The Pawnees' intentions, fortunately, were simply to receive presents from Sublette's company. Four representatives approached for their expected gifts. Sublette stacked together a small pile of tobacco, paint, beads, gunpowder and other standard offerings. After nodding approval for the amount, the four Pawnees then split into two pairs and indicated they were from two separate villages. Sublette grudgingly duplicated the pile, muttering, "Damn the rascals."

As the group rode northwest into present-day Nebraska, they soon reached the Platte River. The Platte, Anderson complained, was a deceiving river. "In appearance, it is like the Mississippi, broad, boisterous and deep." But the Platte, in reality, was shallow and barely able to float a canoe. "This fussy, foaming, seething thing," Anderson continued, "is like some big bragging men I have seen, all blubber and belly."

It was on the next day that Anderson found the skull he carried as his temporary companion. Later that day, his party happened on another disturbing find – a large circle of blood-stained sticks, each topped with a lock of human hair. A local Indian explained through an interpreter, that there had recently been a battle in the area. The gruesome circle was the scene of a "scalp dance" celebrating the warriors' victories.

Throughout the next few days, Anderson witnessed magnificent displays of free-roaming wildlife. A herd of buffalo spread out over ten or twelve miles. A few days later, he saw bands of wild horses "fenced in by the horizon only, and with no rider but the wind." Stirred by these vivid images, which he had previously witnessed only in his imagination, he marveled, "I have them before me, hide and hair, flesh and bones."

Near the end of May, the party approached a landmark which would later inherit the name of "Courthouse Rock." The stark hill, in present-day western Nebraska, looked to Anderson, more like a castle than a courthouse. As Sublette's group rode further west, they sighted "The Chimney" which was already a well-known landmark. The towering structure would later gain the name of Chimney Rock. It impressed Anderson, but he preferred its castle-shaped neighbor. "It would seem," he had imagined as he approached it, "as if some wealthy Scotch lord had fixed his aristocratic stronghold in the wilds of the new world."

Approaching the Black Hills, they encountered a violent storm that delayed their progress. The raging winds coated their faces with dust-masks during the day and blew down their tents at night. When the storm finally subsided, Anderson turned his attention toward shooting his first buffalo – a task he had previously attempted without success. Basking in his glory, he placed his foot on his elusive trophy and looked around for witnesses to his crowning achievement. There was no one in sight, anywhere. Celebrating anyway, he wrote that he climbed on the beast and "danced upon his body, and made a fool of myself to my heart's content."

By the end of July, the party had completed its westward journey. "We are now moving east," Anderson wrote. "Eastward let us go!" By September 29th, Anderson arrived back in St. Louis. "I shall not stay to display my greasy carcass here," he decided. "Unwashed, uncombed I start for home." "Greasy carcass" or not, William Marshall Anderson could rest proudly. Using only his pen and pad, he had stopped time. He had cut away and saved forever, a rough-edged slice of the American frontier before highways, buildings and billboards sprawled across "these unknown wilds."

# A Fine Day for Fine Day

Cree war chief, Fine Day, convinces Canadian soldiers

they are encountering five hundred Indians. In reality,

the soldiers are "surrounded" by about fifty warriors

The old Cree man breathed in the crisp Canadian air and drove the last wisps of sleep from his mind. His traditional early-morning ride always heightened his senses and prepared him for the upcoming day. On this particular day, May 2nd, 1885, his pre-dawn excursion would not only enliven his senses, it would save the lives of his friends and family.

As he soaked in the sights and sounds of the morning, he suddenly noticed an unusual noise. Mixed in with the familiar rustling of the prairie grass and the chirping of his favorite birds, was a steady crunching sound. As the elderly Cree strained his eyes in the direction of the sound, his early-morning serenity was suddenly shattered. There, in the distance, he saw huge cannons being transported across the stones of the creek bed near the bottom of the hill. Accompanying the menacing weapons, marched hundreds of Canadian soldiers.

Galloping back to his camp, the elderly Cree quickly woke his family and neighbors. Within minutes, the field cannons of the soldiers began to fire on his camp. Almost simultaneously, a group of Cree and Stoney Sioux warriors charged the firing troops. As they did, the camp's newly chosen War Chief, Fine Day, ascended a nearby hill to supervise their counterattack.

Fine Day, or Kanriokisihkwew, had quickly realized the approaching forces far outnumbered the warriors he coordinated. But he also knew that his knowledge of the terrain gave him the upper hand. In anticipation of a potential attack, the Indians had moved from their usual campsite in the prairie, east of Cut Knife Creek, in what is now Saskatchewan. They had relocated to a spot atop nearby Cut Knife Hill. Fine Day, now positioned on a neighboring hilltop to view the entire battle scene, quickly snapped into action.

Fine Day scattered the warriors into small groups on all sides of the Canadian troops. He had instructed them to attack in little bands from behind trees; then to quickly move to new locations and strike again. As the startled soldiers witnessed the surprise attacks, first from one direction, then another – they thought warriors on all sides had surrounded them. Visions no doubt flashed through their minds of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought only nine years previously.

Lieutenant-Colonel William Otter, the leader of the Canadian troops, was baffled by Fine Day's plan. He would write in his official report that "the number of the enemy was fully five hundred fighting men. I therefore concluded to withdraw." In reality, his Canadian force of about three hundred-and-fifty soldiers was "surrounded" by about fifty warriors.

The warriors could easily have slaughtered dozens of the Canadian soldiers as they retreated through a gully and across the open creek bed. Several Cree mounted their horses to attack. But the camp's political leader, Chief Poundmaker, rode between the vengeful warriors and the troops. He told his men that defending their women and children had been honorable, but that attacking the retreating soldiers would not be. "They have come here to fight us, and we have fought them," he asserted, "Now let them go."

Fine Day and the warriors respected Poundmaker's judgment and let the Canadian troops withdraw unharmed. War Chief Fine Day's tactics, and Political Chief Poundmaker's humanity, impressed the Canadian forces. Several soldiers expressed a new respect for the character of the local Indians.

That character had been slowly forged during their early community life. "I follow the ways of the River People in all that I do," Fine Day would recall during interviews with anthropologist, David Mandelbaum. The River People, as the name implies, were a Cree band that preferred to live near a riverbank. As he reflected on his earlier days, Fine Day remembered that his people tried to instill honor and spiritual value from birth, and continued even after the death of a community member.

When someone died, he related, a braid of hair was saved. On the fourth night following the death, a Worthy Man, noted for his bravery and achievements in battle, would beg the Great Spirit, Mamtou, to let the braid become a spirit. The Worthy Man, surrounded by others in a tipi, would smoke a pipe and offer a bowl of food to Mamtou. Then they would all join in a feast.

After the feast, a server purified a pipe with sweet-grass smoke and handed it to the Worthy Man who offered it up to Mamtou. As he did, he asked that the dead person's spirit be passed into the braid. After further ceremony, the braid was wrapped in a bundle along with some tobacco. It was then tied with a long leather strap so a surviving family member could carry it. "I have several of these bundles in my keeping," Fine Day noted.

He remembered that during ceremonial dances, the spirits of all the braids would begin to whistle. "When it is over and the drums stop," he added, "you can still hear them whistling." He said that everyone heard them, but only one or two men were able to understand what the spirits were saying. They interpreted the spirits' messages for the others. Then, beginning with the host, each participant who had brought a braid bundle, danced with their bundle. As they dance, Fine Day noted, "they feel someone dancing behind them – it is the spirit of the bundle."

Spirituality played an important part in building Fine Day's character. He said that the Great Spirit Mamtou never comes in a dream, but instead sends his servants, the atayohkau or spirit powers. There were many of these spirit powers, he explained, who called themselves by names like Snake, Thunder, and Wind. "I thought I saw the one called Thunder with my own eyes, " he reflected. "It was white and it flew around." He said he saw where it landed and followed it.

This happened during a hunting trip, Fine Day recalled. The lightning had started ahead of it, and when the spirit lit on the ground, the earth shook. "I could not say for sure that it was the atayohkau, Thunder," he said, "but I am sure that the lightning came somewhere out of its head." He said that telling the story about the Thunder Spirit usually brought him good luck. "I told it twice when we were out raiding for horses and we brought back white and spotted horses."

Another thing Fine Day believed brought him good luck and power was the Sun Dance. In fact, he was the leader of the Sun Dance ceremony among his people. The ritual was usually called the Thirsting Dance by the Cree, since the dancers abstained from both food and water throughout the three or four days of dancing. The Sun Dance involved praying, singing and dancing within a lodge built around a center pole, constructed for the ceremony.

The dancers were to concentrate on the center pole, which represented the center of the world connecting the heavens to the earth. The Sun Dances, the braid bundles, the Thunder Spirit and all the rest, were vital pieces of Fine Day's long and fulfilling life. Together, they serve as a backdrop for the Battle of Cut Knife Hill, where he perfectly planned and executed one of the most brilliant maneuvers in military history.

# Wild Western Royalty

The birth of the "King of the Cowboys"

and the "Queen of the West."

"You know Roy, you're a cowboy," his wife reminded him. "You have this 'Smiles Are Made Out of the Sunshine' song, which is great, but you need a real trail song." Then, flashing her own sunshine smile, she continued, "and I'm going to write one." With this pledge, she sat down and began writing on the back of an old envelope. Within about a half hour, young Dale Evans showed her new creation to Roy Rogers and the members of his western-harmony group, The Sons of the Pioneers. As they read the lyrics scrawled on the wrinkled envelope, the slightly amused looks on their faces transformed into approving smiles and nods. They already knew Dale was a good singer and actress. Now, they learned she was also a terrific songwriter.

Her famous husband usually signed his autographs with "Many happy trails, Roy Rogers and Trigger." Happy Trails, Dale decided, would make the ideal title for his new theme song. Roy and the others not only liked the lyric, they loved the simple but poignant melody Dale had composed. In fact, they decided to sing it during a radio variety show where they were appearing that very evening. With less than an hour before airtime, Dale taught them the tune, and Roy and the others added their signature western-harmony vocals. That evening, in 1950, as they gathered around the microphone and sang the words from the envelope, they treated the radio audience to the first public performance of "Happy Trails."

Nowadays, the playing of that timeless song, much like the mentioning of Roy and Dale's names, brings nostalgic smiles to millions of fans of the King of the Cowboys and the Queen of the West. Many younger people likely snicker at Roy and Dale's hyper-wholesomeness when they watch them on classic television reruns. They were, however, the perfect combination for the 1940's and '50's western-film era. Movie after movie, they rode the dusty trails into the hearts of wide-eyed popcorn-munching cowboy movie lovers. Later, they would do the same for millions of their avid television fans.

Although Roy and Dale took separate paths to that golden future, it was almost as if they were each preparing for their own future royal role in Hollywood's Wild West. Roy's journey began as Leonard Slye, in Cincinnati, Ohio, in a tenement on 2nd street. His interest in music was set in motion by his father, Andy Slye. He was an amateur musician who played guitar and mandolin when he wasn't working at the local shoe factory.

Several years later, the family purchased a farm in Duck Run, north of Portsmouth. It was there that young Leonard's love of horses developed. His dad worked weekdays in Cincinnati to supplement the farm's limited revenue. One payday, he bought his son a horse and taught him the basics of riding and caring for the animal. Roy's equestrian love affair would one day lead to partnering with the amazing Trigger, who eventually learned over 100 tricks.

Another skill that would help mold Leonard's future, also sprang from their rural lifestyle. They often invited neighbors over on Saturday nights for square dances. Teaming up with his father, Leonard played the mandolin, sang, and called the dances. He and his mother had been using various yodels to communicate across the vast distances on the farm. Soon, he blended the yodels into his western songs.

The family's later move to California set the stage for the founding of the Sons of the Pioneers. The Slyes packed up their old Dodge and headed west in the spring of 1930 to escape the dust-bowl poverty sweeping across the Midwest. Unfortunately, their new state didn't offer much more than they had back home. Leonard and his father drove gravel trucks for a brief time, but the depression-era economy soon devastated the construction business. They then signed up with migrant fruit pickers who labored in the peach orchards. As he and his dad relaxed in the evening with their fellow peach pickers, Leonard sometimes brought out his guitar and sang a few western songs. To his delight, everyone seemed to truly enjoy them.

Deciding that playing and singing music might beat picking fruit in the blazing sun, he began to consider it as a profession. At his sister's urging, Leonard auditioned for Inglewood's KMCS's Midnight Frolic radio program. Sporting a new cowboy shirt his sister made for him, he found that the migrant fruit pickers weren't the only ones who enjoyed his music. A few days later, he accepted an offer to join a local group named the Rocky Mountaineers.

In September of 1931, the group ran an ad in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, for a "yodeler for old-time act." A young Canadian-born itinerant singer and songwriter named Bob Nolan, answered the ad and joined them. He sang with the group for only a few months, then headed for greener musical pastures. Nolan was replaced by Missourian, Tim Spencer who at the time was working in a Safeway store warehouse.

During 1932, Slye, Nolan, and Spencer moved through several groups before teaming up in the spring of the next year. They decided to call themselves the Pioneers Trio. That name, however, would be modified by a Los Angeles radio announcer. He introduced them as the "Sons of the Pioneers." He had made the impromptu on-air change, he later explained to a reporter, because as he looked over the trio of nineteen and twenty-year-olds, they looked "too young to have been pioneers."

Of course another name change was in Leonard's future. Since he was a good-looking fellow with a pleasing voice, he was a natural choice for the newest mid-thirties' cinematic fad – the western movie's singing cowboy. He was still billed as Leonard Slye when he premiered in 1935. Three years later, though, when Gene Autry walked away from Republic Pictures over a contract dispute, Leonard stepped into a leading role. The studio executives decided their new star needed a catchier name. Starting with the surname of the recently deceased Will Rogers, they concocted his new name – Roy Rogers. In 1942, he would legally adopt it.

Hollywood's first uniting of Roy and Dale came in the 1944 film, The Cowboy and the Seňorita. Beginning in Texas as Francis Octavia Smith, she had been working her way up the musical ladder, singing with big bands and on various radio stations. At a Louisville, Kentucky station, the manager informed her she needed a new name. Like Roy, she wasn't involved in the choice of that name. When the manager told her she would be billed as Dale Evans, she blurted out, "Dale is a boy's name." That was the first name of his favorite silent-movie actress, Dale Winter, he explained. Her new name had been designed especially for radio announcers, he added. It should roll easily off the tongue, and was difficult to mispronounce or misspell.

Dale had settled in Chicago in the early 1940's, and sang in several nightclubs and big bands. Talent scouts for Paramount Studios discovered her and arranged a Hollywood screen test for their upcoming movie, Holiday Inn, with Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby. Although she didn't land the role, the Paramount people shared the screen test with 20th Century Fox. There, she signed a one-year contract, which resulted in several movies, including one with John Wayne. The next link in the chain that would soon power her inimitable future, would be Republic Studios. They had been following Dale's movie career and decided to cast her with their popular cowboy star, Roy Rogers, in the 1944 production of The Cowboy and the Seňorita. There, on the dusty lot of another run-of-the-mill B-Western movie, their happy trail began.

# Our Favorite "Post Painter"

"America's illustrator," Norman Rockwell

As the anxious young artist tentatively opened the office door of the Saturday Evening Post building, he hoped he might also open a door to his dream. That dream, of one day seeing one of his paintings on the weekly magazine's cover, could either be realized or crushed in the next few minutes. The uncertainty worked at his nerves as he desperately summoned every ounce of courage. After all, not only was he unsure if his work would be accepted, he didn't even know if anyone would see him. Having veered from his usual fastidious planning, he hadn't made an appointment.

Yet, there he stood in Philadelphia, in March of 1916, holding the doorknob to his possible future. Years later, the world-renowned Norman Rockwell, remembered he almost turned around and headed back to New York, when he reached the Post's office building. Somehow, he managed to work up his courage and enter. The magazine's editor, George Horace Lorimer, wasn't able to see him, but the art editor came out front. As he studied the paintings, time nearly stopped for the twenty-two-year-old Rockwell. Anxiously searching the editor's face for a clue, he finally saw the smile he was hoping for.

Although it had been a nerve-wracking experience, it wasn't as if Rockwell had walked into the studio alone. He was accompanied by a pouting young boy in a dapper little derby, begrudgingly pushing a baby stroller as two boys in baseball uniforms smirked at him. A backyard-circus barker in a top hat, had also joined the apprehensive artist. The youthful promoter excitedly exhibited a young strongman, cloaked in a fresh set of long johns with liberally padded bulging biceps. The two paintings these characters inhabited, were both accepted for future covers. Not only that, the editor tentatively accepted the three other planning sketches Norman displayed. Despite the lack of an appointment, the door to his dream had swung wide open.

The birth of his dream reached back to his New York City childhood, where he had learned the basics of sketching, from his father. The two of them would often spend evenings copying scenes from weekly magazines. His father had no ambitions in art, but simply enjoyed drawing. Like Norman, his skills apparently came from his father. Norman's grandfather had immigrated to America from England, and was once described as a "painter of portraits and landscapes by preference; occasionally a house painter by necessity." Young Norman was captivated by several of his paintings and especially loved his attention to detail.

Rockwell's artistic skills were a saving grace in his school and neighborhood social circles. Unlike his handsome, athletic older brother, the skinny, less-than-impressive-looking Norman, managed to supplement his limited social skills by drawing pictures for other children. Still, he was basically introverted and spent a lot of his time quietly drawing. Fortunately, his family often spent several summer weeks in the country. Those lazy summer days in nature, he later reflected, "all together formed an image of sheer blissfulness." Many of his later paintings would reflect this peaceful setting.

The first major step in the career that would produce those peaceful and blissful paintings, came at the age of fourteen, when he began taking some classes at New York City's Chase School of Art. Halfway through his sophomore year, he quit high school and signed up fulltime at Chase. Later, he studied at the National Academy of Design, and finally at the Art Students League. Incidentally, during his first class using a nude model, the class was crowded and he could only see her feet and rear end, so...that's all he painted. One of his biographers later noted Rockwell literally, "started his career in figure drawing from the bottom up."

His first professional breakthrough came at eighteen in the Art Students League. One of his teachers, Tom Fogarty, sent him to a publisher, where Norman was commissioned to illustrate a children's nature book. The next year, he was hired as a staff artist for Boy's Life magazine and later served as their art director. His link to the Saturday Evening Post materialized when he shared a studio with a cartoonist named Clyde Forsythe. Norman's new studio-mate had previously sold cartoons to the Post, and encouraged him to try his luck there as a cover illustrator. That suggestion would lead to an eventual collection of over 320 Saturday Evening Post covers.

Although the first two covers were accepted as is, his third, Gramps at the Plate, didn't quite suit the editor. Mr. Lorimer told Norman the old man looked too rough and "tramp like." After a repaint of the old fellow, Rockwell headed back to the office. This time, Lorimer said the man looked too old. Once again, Rockwell dutifully repainted the character. Upon his return, he was told the boy looked too small. This continued for two more edits, as Norman smiled through his growing disappointment and frustration. Later, Lorimer disclosed this had actually been a test he gave his artists, to determine their ability to work with criticism.

Once Rockwell had passed the test, his steady stream of cover illustrations graced the magazine with common people the country could identify with. His story-pictures generated millions of smiles and helped the Post become the magazine America read. Subscriptions zoomed as his salt-of-the-earth characters acted out his colorful imagination. Neighbors transformed into nationally recognized characters. Like a movie director, Norman would carefully pose his models in scenes, take pictures, grab a brush and begin to work his magic.

Several of his models showed up throughout the years in various scenes. One of these was James K. Van Brunt. With his ponderous nose and, as one writer observed, "a face only a mother and Norman Rockwell could love," he was becoming recognizable. "I think you're using that man too much," George Lorimer told Rockwell. In addition to his less-than-gorgeous mug, Van Brunt's huge bushy mustache was also easy to identify. Norman told Van Brunt he would have to shave off his mustache in order to continue as his model. Van Brunt declined and dejectedly left the studio. Two-weeks later, he reappeared and said he would do it for an additional ten dollars. Norman paid him and later noted, "I guess the notoriety he'd gained from posing for me, had overcome his pride in his mustache."

As the decades passed, Rockwell's genius would give birth to a string of iconic illustrations that captured not only the whimsical nature of the country, but often touched deeper shared emotions. His depiction of the four essential freedoms that President Franklin Roosevelt had set out in his 1941 address to congress, would tour the nation and help the government sell over $130-million dollars of War Bonds. A 1964 Look magazine cover illustrated a young black girl walking behind two federal marshals. As they walked past a wall defaced with racial graffiti, the illustration stirred our collective conscience. And his 1969 illustration of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface, roused our national pride.

These serious topics helped to stifle some art critic's complaints that he was not an artist, but an illustrator. Although they intended their critique to deflate Rockwell's self-image, the truth was, he always considered himself to be an illustrator. Addressing the lighthearted nature of most of his work, he simply explained, "I paint life as I would like it to be." As his legend blossomed, it became apparent – that was also the way his millions of fans would like it to be.

# Lindy's Spirit

Charles Lindbergh's historic trans-Atlantic flight

"It's a pity," One of the shivering French bystanders whispered into the darkness, "because he was such a brave boy." Another onlooker agreed with her dismal prognosis and proclaimed, "He can't do it without navigation instruments." As ten o-clock p. m. ticked by, the hopes of many of the thousands of bystanders were overshadowed by foreboding clouds of doubt. After all, prior to young Charles Lindbergh's attempt, several other pilots had tried to cross the Atlantic ocean in a nonstop solo flight. Sadly, their attempts had ended in either failure or tragedy.

The ruminations about Lindbergh's probable demise switched off when the airfield lights suddenly switched on. Accompanied by the roar of an airplane engine, the glaring flood lights illuminated a solitary airplane slicing through the darkness. Following a momentary hush, cheers ricocheted across the field. The previous clouds of doubt dissipated, replaced with a billowing optimism. Then, just as the swell of relief swept across the crowd, the lights flashed off. The plane, they were sadly informed, was not Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis. Their previous gloom returned with increased intensity.

Despite their deep disappointment, the onlookers continued to scrutinize the cold windy night canopy. Desperately, they searched for the tiny gray-and-white plane that was pictured in their morning newspapers. Finally, at 10:16 p.m., both their doubts and disappointment vanished. After a gripping 33 ½ hour flight, the young aviator set his Spirit of St. Louis down on the runway across from the crowd. One observer recalled, "It seemed to stop almost as it hit the ground; so gently did it land."

As with the previous false alarm, a moment of silent vigilance initially settled over the viewers. But this time, the lights didn't turn off. One by one, the observers realized they had just witnessed history. Amidst screams of victory, thousands surged forward, past the solders and police stationed to keep them back. Soon, the guards too, abandoned their hopeless task and joined the mad rush toward the plane. Responding to a cry from the oncoming masses, of "Cette fois, ca va!," French for 'This time it's done,'" an exhausted, frazzle-haired Lindbergh, grinned and said simply, "Well, I made it."

Not sharing his calm demeanor, the bystanders were swept into a frenzy and tossed him up on their shoulders to celebrate the record-breaking moment. Two French aviators noted the onrushing mass of humanity and quickly hustled him into a car to drive to the safety of the airport commandant's office. As they sped across the field, fervent souvenir hunters actually began cutting strips of linen from the Spirit's wings. Fortunately, a squad of soldiers soon guarded the plane, as mechanics rolled it into a shed. At about midnight, Lindbergh was furtively driven from the field for a well-earned rest.

That rest was especially necessary since he had not slept the night before the flight. Lindbergh's nerves had kept sleep at bay, assisted by several newspaper reporters who staged a noisy all-night poker game in an adjacent hotel room. Despite his lack of sleep, as the morning of May 20th, 1927 dawned, the stage was set for a history-making success...or a legendary tragedy. The momentous flight was spurred by a $25,000 offer by French hotel magnate, Raymond Orteig, for the first nonstop flight from either New York to Paris or the reverse.

Never one to turn down a challenge, Detroit-born Charles Lindbergh had eagerly signed up for the contest. For the previous year, he had been flying an airmail route from St. Louis to Chicago. Prior to that, he spent years touring the country as a barnstorming stunt flyer, using a surplus Curtis "Jenny" biplane. In addition to learning flying skills, Lindbergh had become a bit of a wheeler-dealer and managed to drum up the funding for the New York to Paris project from nine St. Louis businessmen.

Once he had obtained the money, Lindbergh ordered a custom-built plane from Ryan Aeronautical Company of San Diego. He had always loved tinkering with machinery, and helped the engineers design his new home in the sky. After intricately calculating the requirements for the 3,600-mile passage, they modified a basic Ryan NYP high-wing monoplane, with an increased wing-span and a larger than normal gas tank, placed in front of the cockpit.

Although sitting behind a huge gas tank doesn't seem particularly rational, they felt the tank would be less likely to explode in a crash, than if it was positioned lower in the fuselage. Since the 450-gallon tank blocked forward vision, they installed a periscope. In order to lighten the overall plane load, they designed a light-weight wicker seat and left off everything they decided wasn't absolutely necessary. This excess equipment, included not only a gas gauge, radio and night-flying lights, but even navigational equipment and a parachute. Clearly Lindbergh was planning a make it or break it flight.

That flight commenced at 7:52 a.m. May 20th, 1927, as the Spirit nosed into the clear sky over Long Island's Roosevelt Field. Due to the heavy fuel load, it barely cleared the telephone wires at the end of the runway. Once aloft, Lindbergh headed northeast, up the coast to Newfoundland. Finally, he left the comfort of land behind to begin his excursion across the Atlantic. As darkness fell, the droning of the engine and sameness of the ocean surface, threatened to lull him into a trance.

His previous lack of sleep began to catch up with him as his eyelids transformed into cumbersome weights. Knowing if he closed his eyes, he would crash, he made the gutsy decision to fly close to the ocean surface. His strategy worked. The ocean spray helped keep him alert, as did the ever-present knowledge that if he lost his concentration, death awaited him just ten-feet below.

Soon his initial overwhelming tiredness transformed into a numbing fatigue that included hallucinations of, as he later described them, "transparent forms that moved freely about." "I saw them plain as day," Lindbergh would later reveal, saying the spirits, as he named them, spoke in friendly voices and even reassured him of his safety. Eventually, those spirits in the Spirit, took their leave as Lindbergh seemed to catch his second wind.

Soon, a blinding fog likely made him question his wisdom of leaving behind the navigational equipment. For several hours he intermittently lost sight of the stars he was using to plot his route. Fortunately, the brief glimpses of stars were sufficient. After twenty-four hours in the air, he spotted several fishing boats. By about 3:00 p.m. local time, he recognized the coast of Ireland. Not only was he only three-miles off course, but was actually two hours ahead of schedule.

The changes in terrain as he continued, not only boosted his morale, but helped subdue the mind-numbing effects of the endless seascape. By about 8:00 p.m., as night was falling, he reached France's border and headed toward Paris. His landing there was actually delayed a few minutes, since the Le Bourget Airport was not on his map. He knew it was about seven-miles northeast of the city, but was confused when he first saw it. Observing bright lights spread out in all directions, he initially took it for a huge industrial complex. The dazzling lights, actually resulted from the rows of headlights from thousands of French motorists driving in to see him land. When he realized the source, he happily pointed the Spirit of St. Louis toward the airport and the legend of "Lucky Lindy" toward immortality.

# America's Songwriter

The inimitable Irving Berlin

"Geez, another one?" Harry Ruby asked as his friend handed him a patriotic song he'd just written. "There were so many patriotic songs coming out at the same time," Ruby later explained. "Every songwriter was pouring them out." His friend, Irving, had intended to use it as a finale for a military review he was creating. Irving knew, though, that Harry was a good music critic, and after taking another look at his song, he agreed that its overt sentimentality might make it "just a little sticky." So with this assessment, Irving Berlin tossed the sheet in his song-trunk and started writing a substitute number.

The discarded sheet would remain there for twenty years until his friend, Kate Smith, asked him if he would write a patriotic song for her 1938 radio program on the twentieth anniversary of Armistice Day. Rather than writing a new one, Berlin decided to use the song he had written for the 1918 Army review. In fact, he had recently unearthed the yellowed song sheet and made a couple slight revisions. So at Kate's request, Irving Berlin handed her his new-old song – God Bless America.

By that time, Berlin had established his place as one of America's up-and-coming songwriters. This song, however, would help elevate him to a status not only of an American songwriter, but an American icon. Despite some grumbling about a Jewish songwriter writing an American patriotic song, even the grumblers got a hearty case of goose bumps when Kate Smith belted it out. Those same grumblers would renew their criticism when the Jewish Berlin wrote two celebrated Christian holiday songs, "Easter Parade" and "White Christmas." Just as with Berlin's patriotic anthem, though, even his dissenters couldn't control the warm feelings that swept over them as his inimitable songs accompanied timeless holiday movies. He had a unique ability to trigger universal emotions in individuals from divergent cultures.

That skill was likely honed during his hardscrabble years in the immigrant neighborhoods of New York's Lower East Side. Thrown into the great melting pot at a young age, he learned to get along with people of all backgrounds. His family had escaped the growing menace of Russia's brutal persecution of the Jewish people. Irving later recalled that his mother would often tell her friends about their journey from Eastern Russia to the safety of America. When she did, she usually ended her story with "and God Bless America." This later found its way into the song that would linger in his song-trunk for two decades.

Irving's family had found freedom in their new environment, but not much in the way of employment. At different points in time, each of his family members would sell papers on the street corner. Irving began his paper-selling duties at the age of eight, to help the family budget. Then named Israel Berline, he took an after-school job hawking copies of The Evening Journal on the street corner. His family had taught him the value of money, and his frugality would soon be demonstrated. One day in 1901, as he was peddling papers, a crane accidentally swung its load into his path, knocking him into the river. He was fished out unconscious, and revived with artificial respiration. Then he was rushed to Gouverneur Hospital, near the East River. As the recovering, but exhausted boy slept in the hospital's hallway, one of the nurses noticed his tightly clenched fist. Opening his hand, she discovered the five copper pennies he had made from his day's newspaper sales.

When he was just fourteen, following his father's death, Irving dropped out of school to work full time. He took to the Bowery and Lower East Side as a street singer, crooning for tips. Before long, he found a regular gig as a singing waiter at a raucous club in China Town, named the Pelham Café. This would spur his first songwriting efforts as he wrote and sang parodies of popular hits – often with bawdy lyrics...which the rowdy crowd loved. To young Isreal's delight, their love transformed into pennies and nickels thrown onto the stage.

In addition to making money, the club owner let him play the piano after hours to add melodies to his lyrics. Isreal's piano skill, incidentally, was of the one-finger variety. Nevertheless, this was all he needed to concoct melodies to support his lyrics. One of his lyrics was spawned by a popular song that was making the rounds of the saloons and clubs, called "My Mariucci Takes a Steamboat." The novelty song was sung with a strong Italian dialect.

Concocting a similar lyric with the title of "Marie from Sunny Italy," Isreal also tasted success. He didn't yet trust his composer skills, and teamed up with Pelham's piano player, Nick Nicholson. The sheet music, published in 1907, bore the name of both Nicholson and a misspelled "I. Berlin." In response to the mistake, he just changed his last name from Berline to Berlin. Since he was changing his last name, he decided to also convert his first name, Isreal into a more Americanized "Irving." As his eyes took in the newly printed sheet music, they opened to a possible new future – professional songwriting. After all, "Marie from Sunny Italy" had netted him royalties – a whopping thirty-seven cents.

Although piano playing was never his strong suit, Irving was now able to match the melodies bubbling in his head, to his lyrics. His impoverished childhood hadn't enabled him to take any formal music lessons, but he had friends who could read music. As Irving plunked out his one-finger tunes, they would transcribe them onto music sheets. During the next few years, he diligently worked his way up New York's music ladder, eventually snagging a position as a staff lyric writer with the Ted Snyder Company. He had made it to the city's Tin Pan Alley, a section of West 28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway. It had received that nickname because of all the singing piano players plugging their company's latest sheet-music offerings to potential customers. As the cacophony of songs, played and sung in various keys, poured through their open windows, some felt it sounded like a chorus of banging tin pans.

Within two years, the mild-mannered Tin Pan Alley writer would score a national hit with "Alexander's Ragtime Band." The song renewed the Ragtime fervor Scott Joplin had ignited a decade earlier. Suddenly, it seemed like all of America was tapping their collective toes to the bouncy tune. Irving was booked to perform that song as well as other recently written tunes, at Oscar Hammerstein's vaudeville house. The New York Telegraph reported that two hundred of his street friends came to see "their boy" on stage. "All the little writer could do," they noted, "was to finger the buttons on his coat while tears ran down his cheeks."

Although a lot of his songs were lighthearted tunes, such as those he wrote for dance crazes like the "Grizzly Bear" and the "Chicken Walk," some came from a much more serious place. In 1912, he married Dorothy Goetz, the sister of a songwriter friend. Sadly, she contracted Typhoid Fever during their honeymoon in Havana and died within six months. His million-selling "When I Lost You" expressed his agonizing grief. Thirteen years later, as a wedding present for his future wife, Ellin Mackay, he penned the classic love song, "Always." Later, he celebrated the joy of both his marriage and the birth of his first daughter with "Blue Skies." Soon, his song catalogue bulged with more timeless jewels like "Puttin' On the Ritz," "Cheek to Cheek," and "There' No Business Like Show Business." It was easy to understand why his songwriter friend, Jerome Kerns, once said, "Irving Berlin has no place in American music, he _is_ American Music."

# "Better Times Coming"

Wisconsin farmer-turned-soldier, John Brobst,

writes about Civil War sieges and vows to his

special penpal that there are better times coming

"We have got large-size guns that the balls weigh sixty-four pounds, shelling the city," the Union soldier wrote in his August 1864 letter. As the young Wisconsin farmer-turned-soldier described the battering of Atlanta, he added, "The city is nothing but a mass of ruins. It was a splendid place before we commenced shelling it."

"We had two visitors, day before yesterday," John Brobst continued. "They were Johnny Rebs. They came over and took dinner with us..." The two rebels, he explained, had joined them for a peaceful meal, then headed back to their lines. To show their southern hospitality, they brought cornbread and tobacco to the little social event. In return, the Union soldiers gave them coffee beans. "They stayed about two hours and then went back," John wrote. "They were real smart fellows, both of them."

Knowing that Mary Englesby, the recipient of his letter; would need an explanation, John Brobst continued. "You must not think up there that we fight down here because we are mad. We pick blackberries together, and off the same bush at the same time..." The reason for their fighting once the berry-picking had finished, he explained, was simply "because we can't help ourselves." "If they would let the soldiers settle this thing," he continued, "it would not be long before we would be on terms of peace..." "But a few old heads," he wrote, "that have got it in their hands and do not have to go into danger, will not settle it."

John Brobst's entry into this unconventional conflict had transpired two years previously in August of 1862. His home state of Wisconsin had reacted vigorously to the prior spring's news of the attack on Fort Sumter. Patriotic banners and flags flew across the state. Men who had already enlisted, encouraged their friends and neighbors to join. Newspapers whipped up their reader's emotions. "Let us hear no more of peace," asserted the Milwaukee Sentinel editor, "'till it comes in appeal from the trembling lips of conquered traitors."

By August of 1862, the recruiting frenzy had spread to the western frontier sections of Wisconsin. John Brobst was in his early twenties when he answered the call. When the state recruited men from Buffalo County, he enlisted along with five others from his hometown of Gilmanton. He felt it was his duty to join, and besides, the stint in the Army sounded like quite an adventure to him. Like most around him, he thought it would only take a few more months to quell the insurrection.

In mid-December, John and several friends were called to Camp Randall in Madison for training. Before the training began, John and the others received a few days furlough. During that time, he attended a dance in his hometown. He made sure to dance with Elsie Hammond, his favorite local girl. Elsie was cordial to him, but seemed to give equal attention to the other soldier boys. Following the dance, John stayed overnight with Elsie's family before leaving for training. His ties to his own family were weak. John's mother died when he was young, and he left his home state of Ohio with friends of the family, bound for Wisconsin.

Before John left the next morning, he chatted for a while with Elsie's thirteen-year-old niece, Mary Englesby. The perky teenager asked him to write her during the war, and promised letters in return. John wanted someone to write to, and young Mary seemed like a more dependable correspondent than Elsie. Besides, judging from Elsie's lack of enthusiasm at the dance, she didn't seem to share John's affections. He agreed to trade letters with Mary.

It was in Columbus, Kentucky, where he drilled and awaited a buildup of other regiments, that John Brobst first wrote to young Mary Englesby. One spring day, he put his pen to paper and began "Dear friend Mary." Later, on June 18, his letter came from Reeds Bluff, just three miles from Vicksburg. "While I have been writing you," John revealed, "there were thirteen rebels came in and gave themselves up. They are right here in front of my tent. They say they will not fight any longer and have all their property destroyed, and get whipped in the end."

"We had the unspeakable pleasure," John Brobst wrote in a letter on July 5, 1863, "of planting our glorious old flag in Vicksburg at four in the morning of the Fourth." Several rebel soldiers later told their Union captors about the hardships they had endured before the battle. "They had no medicines for their sick," John revealed, "and nothing but mule beef to eat for nine days." He said the rebels were nearly as glad as the Union soldiers that the siege of Vicksburg had concluded.

In early 1864, John and his regiment were summoned to join General William Tecumseh Sherman for a raid through Mississippi. "You have undoubtedly heard of General Sherman's great ride," he wrote Mary in early March of that year. "We were in it. We left every town that we passed through, in ashes." In Canton, Mississippi, John wrote that they had captured twenty-eight railroad engines. He said he and some of his fellow soldiers took one of the engines for a ride. "We got it all steamed up," he noted, "blew the whistle and started up the road." Eventually, they grew tired of their fun and destroyed the engine along with the others.

Once the Mississippi raid concluded, John and the rest commenced a long march up the Mississippi River to Cairo, Illinois. Once there, he wrote that he was beginning to envision an eventual end to the struggle. "Sixteen months more and we expect to see sweet home..." Then, acknowledging the myriad of dangers ahead, he added, "if the Rebs don't object to our going north, and give us a land warrant for a farm down here about six-feet long and three-feet wide."

As the war ground on, John and his friends often spent days trudging through muddy ground, wearing the same clothes day after day. "You can well imagine how we look in such cases," he noted, "and then to top it off, perhaps we will have to lay in rifle pits for a week at a time..." "But Mary," he vowed, "there are better times coming."

On May 27, John wrote from a camp near Dallas, Georgia. "I have had your picture out and looking at it," he told Mary, "but you look as calm and collected, as though there were no prospects of a battle." The picture's calmness was of course, deceiving. The next day, John wrote, "The Rebs made a desperate charge this afternoon about half past six o'clock. They came up in a mass three or four columns deep." Before the sun set, he told her, hundreds of soldiers lay scattered on the ground.

When he was finally mustered out of the Union Army on June 7, 1865, John knew exactly where to head –back to Gilmanton and young Mary Englesby. Within six months, she was Mary Brobst. As they looked back from their golden wedding anniversary in 1915, they likely recalled the warmth of the letters they traded, as opposed to the long cold years of the brutal war. John Brobst, fortunately, had been right. There were better times coming.

# The Briton on the Butterfield

When English Quaker, William Tallack, signed up

for a 22-day round-the-clock trip on the Butterfield

Stage, he bought a window to the Wild West

The passengers aboard the Butterfield mail stage were more than a little cramped as they completed the first half of their 1860 trek. During the first twelve days of their twenty-two-day round-the-clock ride, they had assumed almost every feasible combination of positions. They had wedged themselves over, around and in between the huge mailbags – as well as each other. British passenger, William Tallack, said this included, "slinging our feet by loops from the top of the wagon, or letting them hang over the sides between the wheels..." As they contorted into the various poses, he added, they often dozed off together for hours at a time, "in attitudes grotesque and diverse."

Despite the usual geniality of the four passengers, day thirteen of the stage's journey ignited sparks. A rough-cut character who went only by the nickname of "Texas," had pushed a couple mail bags out of his way and into his seat-mate's area. His neighbor shoved them right back and – referring to his pistol, promised "trouble" unless they stayed there. Texas reached for his own six-shooter and stated he would "as leave have trouble as anything else." His forceful response settled the argument. Tallack said Texas pushed the bags back and the other rider exercised "prudence as the better part of valor."

Just a few weeks earlier, William Tallack, a staid English Quaker, could hardly have imagined himself witnessing such a Wild West confrontation. He had arrived in San Francisco on an eastbound around-the-world tour to visit his fellow Quakers. At that time, the customary mode of travel from California to the eastern states was a steamship through Panama to New York City. But Tallack heard the ship's fare had recently doubled, so he set out to find an alternate form of transportation.

The two-year-old Butterfield mail-stage circuit, he learned, accepted four through passengers on its route. To avoid the Rocky mountains, the stage took a circuitous path from San Francisco down into New Mexico Territory, across Texas, and up through Indian Territory to St. Louis. From there, he decided, he would take the train to New York City. Not only did the savings of the overland-stage interest him, but Tallack said he wanted to see a "thorough variety of American scenery."

There was however, one slight drawback – the passengers would have to put up with the huge mail sacks that also inhabited the stagecoach. Despite the inconvenience, William Tallack plunked down $150 for a seat. That fare would purchase not only a means of transportation but, as he had anticipated, a fascinating panorama of the American frontier.

In addition to the nuisance of the mailbags, potential danger lurked on the path. Some of the Indians along the way had robbed and murdered travelers throughout the years. Although they had not yet turned their aggression toward the Butterfield stage-line, that remained a looming possibility. The stage would travel day and night during its twenty-three-day trek, covering about 120-miles in each 24-hour period. It stopped at little stations along the way for fresh horses or mules. The stations were spaced from twelve to thirty-some miles apart and were manned by well-armed station-keepers.

As the stage left San Francisco on June 15, 1860, it rolled southeast through San Jose, heading toward Gorden's Ferry – now known as Bakersfield. Three of the four through-passengers were aboard, and the Butterfield picked up numerous short-distance way-passengers along the path. The stage they set out in was a large roomy coach. It had seats for three in front, three in back, and three on a movable seat in the middle with a swinging leather strap for a back. Despite its roominess, the vehicle was soon packed with, in Tallack's words, "an indefinite number of passengers." Somehow, he observed, they all managed to fit in by means of "close sitting and tightly dovetailed knees."

Before Tallack completed the journey, he would witness several fascinating pieces of the real-life Old West. As the Butterfield traversed the sagebrush plains of the San Joaquin Valley, dense clouds of fine dust relentlessly coated them from head to toe. Tallack said they would jump out and shake off as much as possible when they reached the stations. "In a few minutes after each start," he lamented, "we were as brown as ever."

As they rolled along through the valley, herds of antelope bounded past them. When the Butterfield forded the numerous rocky streams along the way, it sometimes bounded along as well. "We often were unpleasantly and abruptly jerked down into streams," Tallack wrote, "with much splashing and narrow escapes from oversets." Since the passengers and mailbags were all crammed together, he said there was little room for each person to jerk around individually – only for the whole group to shake "in one piece."

Bumping along, day after day, they reached the forty-mile desert running through present-day Arizona. Along the way, they arrived at the village of Tucson, which Tallack described as a "small wretched town of adobe hovels." From there, they continued east to the San Pedro River and on to a little mountain stagecoach station for a somewhat less-than-relaxing meal. Throughout their dinner-break, ten Apaches loitered around the station. Several of them sported painted daubs of vermilion and white, and appeared to be, in Tallack's opinion, "of a most vicious aspect, as if they would as willingly murder a stranger as look at him." Fortunately, he added, the station-keepers were "armed to the teeth" with revolvers, Bowie knives, and a stand of rifles. "Themselves and the Indians," Tallack observed, "were alike, a rough set."

Again the Butterfield rolled on, crossing the prairies of what would become eastern Arizona. The level ground made for quick travel. "Four mules," Tallack reported, "brought us from Cook's Springs to Goodside (fourteen miles) in sixty-one minutes." Although the travel was easy, life was apparently not. A German store-keeper joined them for a short distance and talked about the lawlessness of the area. "No one's life is safe here for two hours," he disclosed. "Everyone goes about with arms, and seven out of every eight men have at some time killed one or more persons."

As they trekked through New Mexico Territory, the stage paused at the Pecos River for one of the few stops for a quick bath. Being a proper Englishman, Tallack was ready for these rare opportunities. He had packed away a sponge, a towel and several changes of linen. He said the linens were "separated and tightly wrapped up, so as to be reached without trouble, at a minute's notice." "Many passengers," he commented, "go through the entire route without once changing their linen, and sometimes with the barest apology for washing."

After crossing the Pecos, they continued northeast to Fort Chadbourne, heading toward the Concho River. At the Fort Chadbourne station, Tallack noted, they encountered "clustering flies" during a short breakfast break. Their food, in fact, was black with flies. The little pests, Tallack noted, even crowded into the tea and had to be "spooned out by wholesale."

After twenty-two days, they entered Missouri. In Springfield, they transferred to a faster coach and headed toward the Syracuse railroad station. There, an iron-horse carried Tallack on to St. Louis in a cushioned seat with ample legroom. The Pacific Railroad train he caught there similarly afforded greater luxury than the stuffed interior of the stagecoaches. He would no longer need to wedge himself between huge mail sacks or sling his feet from hanging loops. But those trains could never match the colorful American panorama that the dusty, bumpy Butterfield stagecoaches had vividly painted in the memory of the Briton on the Butterfield.

# A Two Million-pound Miracle

The Towering "Ferris Wheel" That Saved

Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition

Chicago had tossed back its proud shoulders, dusted off its stately features, and opened its doors to the world. The world, unfortunately, was simply not impressed. The disappointed Mid-westerners felt the bitter sting of shame as their huge Columbian Exposition opened with many of the buildings unfinished and most of the exhibits not even in place. They had swallowed hard as they read the biting headlines of an Eastern newspaper, which read, "Fair Not Ready and No Use Finishing It." It looked as if their great exposition might go down in the history books as a multi-million dollar fiasco.

Apparently the critics from the Northeastern states had been right. They had predicted Chicago wouldn't be able to pull off a world's fair. After all, Midwesterners simply weren't as sophisticated and experienced as their eastern neighbors. It seemed clear that congress had made a major mistake in approving Chicago as the site for such an important world-class celebration. Yet when the eastern critics wrote off the Columbian Exposition of 1893 as a monumental failure, they had forgotten one important fact. This was the same city that had nearly burned to the ground just twenty-two years before and had somehow dusted off the ashes and stood up again – tall, proud, and even stronger.

Despite the bitter headlines and the resulting small attendance, the fair's organizers fought back their disappointment, rolled up their sleeves and kept going. They knew they wouldn't be able to save the exposition by merely hoping. It would take a lot of hard work, just as it had when they had raised the city from the ashes. As they glumly looked around the unfinished project and read the hostile reviews, they also realized it would take something else...a miracle.

That miracle, fortunately, was growing steadily under the watchful eye of a dreamer with wheels in his head. The exposition organizers had originally intended to erect a huge tower to overlook their fair. They wanted a structure that would rival the Eiffel Tower, which had become enormously famous during the exposition in Paris. In fact, they had even signed a contract for a five-hundred-and-sixty-foot tower. The builder, however, couldn't raise the capital for the project.

The disappointed fair officials then fell back on another offer. An engineer named George Washington Gale Ferris had submitted a plan to build, rather than a tower, a huge amusement wheel. His scheme had sounded a little crazy – a massive structure that would carry hundreds of people in a huge circle, reaching over two hundred feet in the air. But, maybe it would take a little craziness to solve a problem this tough. Because the contract was signed belatedly, it would be impossible for Ferris to complete the project by the opening date. In fact, when the agreement was signed, on December 29, 1882, the more than two million pounds of steel the massive project would require, was still in raw pig iron form.

By the first of May the next year, when the fair opened, Ferris still had at least three-month's work left. But by pushing ahead and working long hours alongside his crew, he had the massive wheel ready for action in less than six weeks. Ferris was out of town when it was first tested, but he had complete trust in his workers. He had given them the order to "turn it or tear 'er off the towers." As they peered up at the huge wheel, which could carry thirteen hundred and sixty-eight passengers, they likely said a silent prayer that it wouldn't "tear off the towers."

The giant structure had already attracted a lot of attention, as visitors surveyed the thirty-six cars attached around the rim. Each one was as large as a streetcar, and could accommodate thirty-eight riders. Steam power was pumped in through ten-inch steel pipes from a boiler house located seven hundred feet outside the fair grounds. Could the steam actually turn the massive thirteen-hundred ton wheel? In an instant, the question was answered. On command, the mighty engine puffed, the flywheels slowly turned, and the great wheel began to rotate! As the shining structure was set in motion, thousands of visitors and employees focused their gazes skyward to follow the steady turning of the gleaming steel marvel.

For months, the motionless giant had merely been a subject of curiosity. "Would it work?" "How could it move?" "Just what was it, anyway?" Now, as it continued its massive orbit, it became obvious what the huge "Ferris Wheel" was...the miracle Chicago had been waiting for. On June 11th, John Ferris blew a golden whistle and officially started the rotation of the great wheel. It would continue to thrill hundreds of thousands of riders until the end of the fair that October. As news of the huge wheel lured visitors from all directions, they swarmed among the now-completed exhibitions and attractions.

The steady revolutions of the giant wheel, combined with the frenzied gyrations of the fair's other star attraction, Little Egypt, would eventually transform the event into a colossal success. In fact, the World's Columbian Exposition, which had gotten off to such a shaky start, is considered by many to have been the most successful exposition in history. It not only showed the world that Chicago was triumphant; it also set the stage for another type of entertainment scene. During the building of the exposition, independent showmen came to the city to set up their acts and exhibits on vacant lots near the fairgrounds.

They set up, not to join the fair, but to entertain the thousands of construction workers who milled around the area after their workday was over. When the fair opened, many of the entertainers remained, setting up just outside the entrance. This was the first time a group of independent show people had played on the same lot for so long a time. Inside the fair was another innovation – the "midway plaisance." It was a long pathway running between forty-some booths and performance platforms. As the visitors entered the area, they strolled through an Egyptian temple, a model of the Eiffel Tower, a street in Cairo, Persian art glass spinners, and a host of other attractions.

The gathering of the independent performers outside the gate, and the midway Plaisance, or midway inside, would mark the beginning of the concept of collective amusement. They would serve as the blueprints for the great amusement parks and carnivals that would one day cover the country with raucous thrills and blazing lights. As excited young couples and contented families stroll through today's amusement parks and carnivals, they should take a quick break from the streaming roller coasters, the dancing chickens, the balloon-popping target games, and all the rest. Together, they should turn their eyes skyward to the ever-present Ferris Wheel and give a heart-felt thank you to a nineteenth-century dreamer with wheels in his head.

# The "Glorious Warpath"

For over a decade on the warpath, White

Bull can't get enough of the warrior life.

Eventually that life will thrust him into

history at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

The lifeless body of General George Armstrong Custer stared blindly at the two veteran Lakota warriors standing above it. As they solemnly surveyed the lifeless soldiers on the Montana Territory hilltop, one of them focused on Custer. "Long Hair thought he was the greatest man in the world," he asserted, "now he lies there." The warrior he was addressing, White Bull, knew only that "Long Hair," their name for Custer, was one of the two men he had slain that morning. "Well," he replied, almost nonchalantly, "If that is Long Hair, I am the man who killed him."

This alleged conversation was described by historian Stanley Vestal, in an issue of American Heritage, ten years after White Bull's death. Vestal claimed that White Bull had asked him not to reveal his role in killing Custer, during his lifetime, to avoid potential retaliation. With the magazine's publication, Miniconjou Chief White Bull joined the small list of possible candidates for the warrior who actually killed Custer. As the years advance, the details of Custer's death blur through the lens of time. One fact remains clear however; White Bull was a dynamic participant in the Battle of the Little Big Horn, or as the Lakota called it, the Battle of the Greasy Grass.

Although his actual role in Custer's death may be forever obscured, White Bull's bravery during his eleven years on the warpath is well documented. The events of his life, unlike those of most of his contemporaries, were preserved in his own words. In his old age, White Bull poured out the story of his life to Stanley Vestal. For countless hours, Vestal sat cross-legged on the dirt as White Bull relayed his colorful life history.

Vestal learned that when the future White Bull entered the world in April of 1849 in the Black Hills of what would become Dakota Territory, he was primed for greatness. Called by his childhood name of Bull-Standing-with-Cow until the summer of his sixteenth year, he had been born into a strong lineage of noted Sioux warriors. His father, Makes Room, was a chief of the Miniconjou or "planters beside the water." Makes Room married Good Feather Woman of the Hunkpapa or "campers at the horn of the camp circle." Good Feather Woman was the favorite sister of the legendary Sitting Bull.

The games that filled Bull-Standing-With-Cow's youth often centered around imitations of battle. As he and the other boys played, they formed "warrior societies." While they practiced various forms of conflict, they also learned about the mysteries of warfare. They found that it was considered a feat of great bravery to "count coup" on an enemy, by striking him with their hands or something held in their hands.

They learned that this action was even more respected than killing or scalping. Four warriors were allowed to count coup on one enemy – the most honored being the one who counted first coup. The boys learned that these feats were recorded in the language of feathers. The man striking first coup was allowed to wear an eagle feather upright in the back of his hair. Second coup was identified by a feather angled up, third by a horizontal feather, and fourth by one sloped downward – all facing to the right.

In their battle games, the young boys would count coup on each other, sticking little feathers in their hair after they did. They also imitated the dances of the older warriors and learned the meanings behind their regalia and body painting. They discovered that a warrior in a dance, carrying a scarlet tipped wooden knife with horsehair attached, had taken a scalp. A spear with a scarlet tip signified victory in a battle of lances. If a dancer's face was decorated with white spots, he had distinguished himself in a snowstorm, or at least during the wintertime.

As childhood turned into adolescence, Bull-Standing-with-Cow's determination to become known as a courageous warrior was burning red hot. Since he was a member of both the Miniconjou and Hunkpapa Sioux, for more than a decade he fought in nearly every battle either one waged. As he had hoped, his entry into full-fledged warfare was glorious. In July of 1865, one of the noted warriors of the Miniconjou camp, High Hump, was recruiting volunteers for a horse-gathering raid. White soldiers had been violating a recent treaty, and High Hump decided it was time to steal some of their horses as retribution.

Bull-Standing-with-Cow, now sixteen and fully primed for warfare, did not need to be asked twice. His father presented him with a fast dapple-gray pony. He also arranged for his half-brother, a medicine man named Horse Tail, to create a protective war-charm. Horse Tail put the appropriate medicine in a decorated leather pouch and hung it around the horse's neck. Next, he painted red wavy lines on the horse's legs, and encircled its jaws with a similar marking. After fastening a soft eagle plume in Bull-Standing-with-Cow's hair, he placed an eagle-bone whistle around his neck. "Nephew," he finally declared, admiring his handiwork, "this medicine will make your horse strong and long-winded."

Following a night of singing and dancing, the warriors left camp early the next morning. After traveling for several days, they reached an enemy camp in the middle of the night and anxiously waited for daybreak. When the sun finally broke over the horizon, Bull-Standing-with-Cow was the first to charge into the horse herd. Rounding up eight horses, he blew his eagle-bone whistle to scare them into a run. Unfortunately, the whistle also roused the enemy – who mounted their horses and bolted after him.

Within seconds, the neophyte warrior found himself immersed in full-fledged warfare. Eight horses charged ahead of him while ten mounted enemies pursued him. As he lashed his pony's flanks while bullets whizzed past him, he likely prayed that his uncle's medicine would indeed make his horse "strong and long-winded." Whether it was Horse Tail's medicine or beginner's luck, by the time his pony began to tire and the soldiers started catching up with him, he had made it back to his own war party. His ten pursuers abruptly turned and retreated when they encountered the large group of warriors.

White Bull's daredevil spirit and the eight fine horses he had captured made quite an impression on his friends. High Hump organized two more raids before they returned. During the second, near the headwaters of the Powder River, Bull-Standing-with-Cow raised his lance and galloped toward a soldier. Before he reached the soldier, though, the blue-coated scout whirled around and fired at nearly point-black range. Amazingly the bullet completely missed him. Within seconds, Bull-Standing-with-Cow stabbed the soldier in the shoulder, counting his first coup. By the end of the third raid, he had counted three coups, two of them firsts, and had stolen ten horses. After the proud teenager returned to camp, his father arranged for a victory dance to celebrate the occasion.

Makes Room painted his son's face for the event and sat him on a fine horse. When they reached the black pole in the center of the dancing area, his uncle, Black Moon, proclaimed to those gathered, "From this day, Bull-Standing-with-Cow will lay down his boy name. From this time, he shall be called by the name of his grandfather, 'White Bull.' " As the years passed and White Bull racked up a long string of victories, the dreams he had as he ran around with his young friends sticking tiny feathers in his hair, were fully realized. For over a decade, he had ridden proud and victorious down the glorious warpath.

# The Toughest Little Town

# That Never Was

When Palisade, Nevada staged over a thousand

fake shootouts, bank robberies, and massacres

"There ya're, ya low down polecat," the red-haired gunslinger bellowed, as he leapt into the street with his eyes scrunched up in his best cowboy squint. "Ah bin a waitin' fer ya." An audience of train passengers from the East, jumped for cover, but nonetheless kept their bulging eyes focused on the Nevada gunman. Then those eyes scanned, almost in unison, to the man he was addressing. Suddenly, they saw a villainous-looking character sauntering toward the local saloon, and unfortunately for him – directly toward the gunman. Since the red-haired pistol-packer already pulled his gun, the petrified audience of train passengers stood helplessly waiting for the inevitable flash of gunfire.

Before the gunman delivered his hot-lead justice, he made sure his victim knew why he was in his sights. "Ah'm goin' to kill ya," he roared in a back-country western drawl, "because of what ya did to mah sister!" After an emotion-packed second, a melodramatic gloom distorted his features. "Mah pore, pore little sister." Once he finished his justification – he finished the cowboy. With a fiery burst from the gun barrel, his prey fell to the ground. After kicking and rolling around a bit, he emitted a loud sigh and went limp.

The proper eastern dudes and finely dressed ladies stood in awe...at least those who hadn't fainted or jumped behind shelter. They could hardly believe it. They had just witnessed a real-life western scene that could have been torn from one of the dramatic dime novels they routinely read. When the blood began to return to their ashen faces, they marveled that they had actually been on the site of a high-tension confrontation. What were the odds of happening upon such a slice of western action? And what were the odds that it would take place right in front of them. Well...actually the odds were pretty good since, like the dime novel action it emulated, the scene wasn't exactly real. It had instead, been staged for their benefit.

This was only the first of over a thousand similar hair-raising incidents that eventually caused many newspapers to dub the little town of Palisade, Nevada, the "Toughest Little Town in the West." The origin of their three-year stint of far-fetched street theater, according to several accounts, was a conversation between a train conductor and some local citizens. Several of the travelers from the eastern states, he told them, had expressed disappointment about their stopovers along the Central Pacific Railroad. They complained they had seen nothing like what they had read about back East. "As long as so many eastern dandies are traveling west, hoping to see the Wild West," he reportedly said, likely with a wink, "Well, why not give it to them?"

As they took his suggestion to heart, a shared gleam flickered in the eyes of the town's future acting troupe. Life could get pretty quiet in their little town of close to three hundred law-abiding citizens. They agreed that a little tomfoolery might spice up their day-to-day existence. In fact, so little happened there, they didn't even need a sheriff. The only law enforcer they had, a Eureka County deputy sheriff, likely wouldn't have known what to do with a criminal if he caught him. For one thing, Palisade had no jail. But the gullible visitors from the eastern states would not be aware they were stopping in a peace-loving little community. So with several winks and nods, and very likely a hearty round of laughter, they decided to turn their town's reputation around a hundred and eighty degrees.

Just a week later, after tossing the idea around their little community, the townsfolk selected a cast of characters for performance number one. Every Old-West shoot-up needs a good guy and a bad guy, they agreed. Frank West, a handsome cowhand from a nearby ranch, was selected as the good guy. His earnest expression and youthful-looking red hair seemed to perfectly fit the part. Searching their neighbors for a villainous-looking face, several chose local cattle-buyer, Alvin Kittleby. Despite sporting a face that could fit the scoundrel role, Alvin was actually a popular church-going family man who always dressed like a spruced-up city-slicker. In fact, everybody in town called him "Dandy."

The premier performance of their little open-air melodrama transpired in the early 1870s. As soon as the passengers from the noon train disembarked, the action began. Dandy rounded the corner of the depot and sauntered down the dusty street toward the saloon. Suddenly, Frank leapt into the middle of the street and delivered his lines about the low-down polecat and his "pore pore little sister." As one witness later noted, he "yelled loud enough to be heard for five miles, let alone the sixty-feet separating him from Dandy." His high-volume soliloquy was followed by deadly action. He coldly drew his gun, cocked it and fired. None of the awe-struck witnesses seemed to notice he actually shot well over Dandy's head.

When the engineer's whistle clued the passengers it was time to re-board the train after their brief stop for water and wood, nobody hesitated. As they scurried aboard, they peered tentatively out the bottom of the windows. Their still-bulging eyes saw several townsfolk lugging Dandy's "lifeless" body toward the nearest saloon, as if it was a common everyday chore. Once a cloudy hiss of steam arose from the engine and the train pulled out of sight, Palisade's little theater troupe whooped with laughter, as did all the town's onlookers.

Their little production had indeed perked up an otherwise routine day. No sooner had their laughter faded, than ideas began to spring from their industrious little heads. The faces of those heads soon sported conniving grins and renewed eye-twinkles. There might be something more fun than bamboozling big-city dandies, they reasoned, but they simply couldn't think of what that might be.

That fun would continue for the next three years. Soon, the whole town became involved, as wives and children hosted get-togethers to pack blank cartridges for the upcoming performances. Before long, variations on the gunfight added diversity to their hoaxes. Various combinations of gunslingers strolled down the street to wage deadly battle, and steely eyed honor-seeking gentlemen engaged in fatal duels. Little by little, the events grew in complexity. A noisy shootout never failed to leave the train passengers open-mouthed as a fake sheriff and his posse mowed down a rowdy bunch of bank robbers.

Eventually, even the local Shoshone Indians and nearby U. S. Cavalry members wanted in on the fun. As the noon train emptied another fresh batch of city-slickers, a band of war-painted Indians swarmed down the street. Then, they suddenly began to enthusiastically stab and scalp everyone in sight – until the Cavalry arrived and chased them out. A liberal supply of beef blood, supplied by the town butcher, added pizzazz to the scene.

One group of passengers was connected with a newspaper affiliate that had papers in several large cities. Suddenly, Palisade's pranks evoked sizzling articles across the country. As blazing headlines exposed the horrendous shootings and massacres in the evil little Nevada town, raging editorials demanded to know why state legislators and county law enforcers hadn't stepped in to quell the violence. The answer was simple. As the months rolled by, the word had spread across Nevada about their little "show town." Those legislators and law enforcers didn't do anything about the evil doings in the toughest little town in the West, because they were too busy laughing.

# The Legends of Legerdemain

The golden age of magic

The cringing audience knew it was just a magic act. But what if something had actually gone wrong? After all, there had been so many quick changes that their heads were spinning. First the magician had jumped from his horse to save the endangered bride from being thrown into the lion's cage. Suddenly, when the bride flipped her veil back, the crowd saw, not the beautiful bride they had witnessed seconds before, but the magician himself.

Once inside the cage, another mysterious transformation occurred. There had definitely been a real lion in the cage – everyone had seen, heard, and sensed it. Yet, when the fierce beast snarled and prepared to lunge at the terrified bride, its head suddenly fell back. There, just inches away from the endangered bride, was the magician himself, The Great Lafayette, in a lion suit.

No, a beautiful bride wouldn't be eaten by a fierce lion that evening. By the end of the night, though, something else had been hungrily consumed by the 3,000 fully satiated audience members – the mystifying art of illusion. Throughout most of the 1800s and into the early 1900s, majestic magic theaters around the world treated hundreds of thousands of wide-eyed onlookers to a host of enchanting performances. As silk-clad princesses hovered in midair; whirling buzz saws inched toward squirming victims; and mysterious wizards vanished into thin air; those delighted theater-goers screamed and applauded.

During the heyday of the huge magic shows, ornate theaters with gilded stages hosted thousands of delighted fans for their two and three-hour performances. The sparkling apparatus for the performances filled the stages with a wondrous array of gold and silver-plated marvels. In fact, the largest of them all, Howard Thurston's traveling show, required eight train cars just to transport the equipment.

The extravaganzas left behind memories of some of the highest moments in magic history, and sadly some of the lowest. One of those low moments occurred in the spring of 1911 at Edinburgh, Scotland's Empire Theater. The Great Lafayette's Lion's Bride grand finale had been routinely bringing the house down. Despite his success, Lafayette, the stage name of German-born magician, Sigmund Nueberger, was inconsolably depressed. His "best friend," a lovable little terrier named Beauty, had died unexpectedly. Lafeyette's love for the little dog, a gift from Harry Houdini, was boundless. He had adorned her in a diamond-studded collar and booked a separate suite for her as he traveled. Grief-stricken, he predicted that his own demise was surely close at hand.

Only eight days later, following his last act, an oriental lantern burst into flames and ignited the stage setting. The Great Lafayette escaped but returned to save the horse he used in the Lion's Bride illusion. Sadly, they both perished, along with several members of his troupe. Ironically, rescue workers thought they had identified his remains shortly after the fire. They realized two days later, when they actually found him, that the first victim was his body double for the Lion's Bride illusion. Houdini would later note, "He fooled them in life and he fooled them in death." Fittingly, The Great Lafayette was cremated and placed between the loving paws of his beloved dog, Beauty, who had been mounted by a taxidermist in preparation for her burial.

Another one of magic's early luminaries, Alexander Herrmann, was more fun-loving and playful than many of his contemporaries. During an 1870 engagement at London's Egyptian Hall, he decided to have some fun and stir up a little media attention. He set out walking down Regent Street toward a small crowd. Noticing two nearby policemen, he walked up to one gentleman and clumsily picked a handkerchief from his pocket. Simultaneously, he adroitly purloined a pocket watch from his companion.

Predictably, the Bobbies grabbed Herrmann and accused him of stealing the first man's handkerchief. Suddenly, the second man noticed the absence of his watch and insisted Herrmann had stolen it as well. Herrmann calmly invited the Bobbies to search him. When they came up empty-handed, he instructed them to search themselves. Sure enough, one found the handkerchief in his pocket, and the other discovered the pocket watch in his.

To top off the confusion, one of the policemen realized his badge was missing. It was soon discovered in one of the other gentlemen's pocket. "It seems," Herrmann observed with a sly smile, "that I am the only honest person here." The Bobbies, unfortunately, didn't share Alexander's impish sense of humor and hauled him off to the police station. Once there, however, he was immediately recognized and set free. When the papers printed stories about his practical joke on London's finest, they ignited a sharp increase in ticket sales for his upcoming shows.

One of the characteristics of many of our country's early magicians was a restless inquisitive spirit. In fact, Pennsylvania's prominent magician, Harry Keller's curious nature nearly cost him his life. At ten, he had acquired a part-time job as a druggist's assistant, and began to wonder what would happen if he mixed together some of the ingredients in his boss's intriguing red, blue, and green bottles. "The spirit of the experimenter," he reflected, "had wormed its insidious way into my system." One experiment involved pouring a goodly quantity from a bottle labeled "soda," into a nearby pan. Next, he added a hearty helping of the contents of a neighboring bottle labeled "sulphuric acid."

Not only did the resulting explosion blow a hole in the pharmacy floor, but knocked both Harry and his boss, who had been occupied in an adjoining room, unconscious. Once young Harry came to, he decided that hopping the first outbound train might be his best option. His resulting vagabond life would one day lead him toward a colorful career in magic, where he would gain the moniker of "The Dean of American Magicians."

The renowned Houdini, named after Robert-Houdin, often called the "Father of Modern Magic," was filled with a similar spirit of the experimenter. He only required a challenge to set him in high gear. The most bizarre challenge of his renowned career as a magician and escape-artist, came in Boston, where he was currently performing. A huge sea creature had washed ashore on Long Wharf of Boston Harbor. The newspapers covered the 1,600-pound oddity with glee, debating what type of animal it was. Many nowadays, feel it was likely a giant leatherback turtle. Regardless, several local businessmen knew exactly what it was – the makings of a great publicity stunt. They challenged Houdini to escape from the "belly of the beast."

Houdini, himself a legendary master of publicity, promptly took the challenge. On September 26, 1911, in front of a packed house, he crawled into the carcass, spraying a strong perfume where his head would lie. Once he was handcuffed, shackled, and chained inside the beast, the orchestra burst into a lively melody. Houdini wriggled and struggled to escape from what he had previously described as "the most original challenge I have ever accepted." Fifteen minutes later, he stood on the stage, pallid and perspiring, dripping with grease and sporting a shaky grin. As he accepted the applause, he also made a solemn vow to himself that he would never ever do anything like that again. He had nearly passed out from the arsenic solution a taxidermist had used to preserve the rotting monster.

As Houdini, Carl and Alexander Herrmann, The Great Lafayette, Harry Keller, Howard Thurston, Robert-Houdin, Harry Blackstone, Dante, and all the other legends of legerdemain acknowledge the roaring crowds, they had no idea their beloved magic theaters would vanish like the beautiful ladies in their mystical cabinets. Fortunately, some theaters would reappear decades later to remind us of the golden age of magic when wizards in top hats and tails, made gasps and smiles appear like colorful silks and graceful doves.

# Breaking Black Highwayman

The wild ride that helped prepare Nat Love for his

role as the most famous black cowboy in the West

The heaving stallion cleared every obstacle in his path as he strained to dislodge his unwanted teenage cargo. A swirling dust cloud veiled much of the impromptu performance as their wills collided in a wild mid-air dance. "I simply held on and let him go," Nat Love would later tell us in his autobiography. "It was a question of breaking the horse or breaking my neck." The horse in question, Black Highwayman, was not as concerned about breaking his rider's neck as he was about trying to hurl him over his neck. During the fierce war of wills, however, it became increasingly apparent that the teenage Nat Love was slightly more determined to stay on, than Black Highwayman was to throw him off. "As the horse did not evince any disposition to stop and let me off," Nat would later explain, "I concluded to remain where I was."

Although that decision was most likely not made with the calmness portrayed in Nat's memoir, it nonetheless led to victory for the young bronco-buster. After nearly collapsing with exhaustion, Black Highwayman eventually conceded defeat. Through previously fiery eyes, he gazed listlessly at the ground he had just stomped into a dustbowl – conquered and broken. Had he known more about the young victor, he might not have felt quite so badly. They were actually cut from nearly the same cloth. Like him, young Nat Love was black, was driven by unbridled energy, and previously had to accept the control of a master.

Breaking that horse helped convince Nat there would be little in his future he could not accomplish. As the exhausted boy slid off Black Highwayman, his two neighborhood friends saluted him with a respectful nod. In addition, one of them paid him a very hard-earned quarter. Recently freed from slavery, Nat began visiting a nearby horse ranch owned by a Mr. Williams. One day, Mr. Williams' two sons, aware that Nat had a way with wild horses, worked out a plan for him to break some of theirs. Unsure if their father would approve of the idea, they told Nat to see them on Sunday mornings when their father was at church.

According to their strategy, the boys would pay Nat ten cents for each horse he broke. Worried their dad might return early and catch them in the act, they didn't use a bridle since it would take time to remove it. Week by week, Nat worked his way through the untamed animals. Mounting a horse in its stall, he grasped the animal by its mane while the Williams boys opened the stall door.

"That's when the fun would commence," Nat later wrote. He said that even though the horse would immediately begin to buck, "he might as well have tried to jump out of his skin, because I held on to his mane and stuck to him like a leech." Black Highwayman, larger and stronger than the others, called for a little more bargaining. After skillful negotiation, Nat managed to increase the fee to twenty-five cents. The scene of the two white boys paying both respect and money to the black teenager foreshadowed his future.

As a slave in Tennessee, respect and money from white folks were not currency he was familiar with. The winds of change, however, began to blow as the Civil War broke out in 1861 when Nat was seven. The topic filled the conversations of both slaves and their owners. "There was little else talked about," he recalled in his 1907 memoir.

The slaves, in fact, would not need to wait for the end of the war to obtain their freedom. Lincoln's 1863 signing of the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in states belonging to the Union. Most slave masters, though, didn't tell their slaves they were actually free until they somehow found out on their own. Nat said that his master, Robert Love, although "kind in every other way," joined the others in not informing Nat's family of their freedom. The news, however, could not be stifled forever. "It was not long before all the slaves in the surrounding country were celebrating their freedom," Nat recalled.

Nat's father rented a section of farmland from his former master. He successfully farmed during the season, then taught Nat how to read and write in the winter months. When he passed away, the teenaged Nat quickly pitched in to help support the family. This was the stretch of time when he tamed Black Highwayman. Despite strong ties to his family and Tennessee homeland, Nat had heard too many stories about the glorious West to stay put. After giving much of his money to his mother, the fifteen-year-old headed west to chase his cowboy dreams.

He spent the first few years in Dodge City, Kansas where he honed his skills in roping cattle and wild horses as well as shooting both a pistol and rifle. In addition, he learned how to speak Spanish and read all the different cattle brands. As he breathed in the freedom and excitement of the western plains, Nat knew he had found his place in life. He had indeed become a cowboy.

Following Dodge City, Nat headed for the newly developed gold mining town of Deadwood, South Dakota. His legendary career would be launched there in style on the Fourth of July, 1876. The Deadwood citizens decided to celebrate the centennial event with a cowboy competition. They lined up contests for roping and riding a wild horse as well as both pistol and rifle shooting.

Nat had apparently paid close attention to his Dodge City cowboy lessons. Even though he had only arrived in Deadwood the day before, he entered all three events, and won all three. In fact, in the rifle-shooting contest, he placed all fourteen shots in the bull's-eye. The news of his success soon spread throughout the West, where, over the next couple decades, he would continue to carve his place into frontier history. As the twenty-two-year-old proudly accepted the money and respect, he likely gave a silent thank you to the horse who had steered him down his legendary path – Black Highwayman.

# From Rabbits to

# Roller Coaster Riders

Those fabulous old Coney Island parks

The thousands of native rabbits were perfectly happy without the glaring neon lights and screeching thrill-riders. Fallen logs to hop over and high grass to run in, furnished all the excitement they needed. And they should definitely have some say in the future of their habitat. After all, due to their thriving population when Dutch immigrants settled the island, it had even been named for them – Konijn, the Dutch word for "rabbit." Later, it was Americanized to Coney.

Their authority over the island, however, seemed of little interest to New Yorker, George C. Tilyou. He had visited the World's Columbian Exposition on his honeymoon and had been so impressed with the Ferris Wheel, that he offered to buy it when the fair closed. Although he never obtained it, Tilyou ordered a smaller version built on some Coney Island property he owned.

The island was already known as a getaway retreat for the city-dwellers. During the mid-eighteen hundreds, horse-drawn streetcars began to bring visitors there from Brooklyn. By 1875, Andrew Culver's Prospect Park & Coney Island Railroad brought in tourists by the thousands. Paul Boyton opened Sea Lion Park, a small amusement attraction on the island, in 1895. As Tilyou observed the park's success, he realized sightseers were willing to pay for a good time.

Sea Lion Park was an enclosed area with an admission fee. This concept helped exclude the unsavory collection of con-artists and rowdies who often roamed the beach. Tilyou understood the visitors' need for relaxation and fun. "We Americans," he once said, "want either to be thrilled or amused, and we are ready to pay well for either sensation." With this belief in mind, he built Steeplechase Park in 1897. Charging twenty-five cents to enter the fifteen-acre attraction, he provided a getaway where guests could leave everyday pressures behind and become children again.

As the visitors entered the park, they passed by a huge emblem of a devilish-looking jester with a massive thirty-three tooth grin. The entrance was a ten-by-thirty-foot revolving wooden drum that often knocked the guests off their feet. Once inside, they found the main attraction, which gave the park its name. Eight wooden horses raced along a curving track to the finish line. The double-saddled horses presented an ideal way for a young couple to get cozy on a cool evening.

As the guests explored the park, they found such attractions as the Human Roulette Wheel, the Whirlpool, and the Human Pool Table – all designed to toss them around in dizzying circles. Distortion mirrors evoked chuckles, while unexpected puffs of wind lifted skirts in the air and produced blushing giggles. Tilyou later added a cyclorama show, based on a attraction he had experienced at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. The Trip to the Moon took visitors on a fantasy ride to the moon. As they disembarked among the caverns and craters, they encountered giants and midgets, as well as moon maidens who handed out green cheese.

Steeplechase Park, with its moon maidens, wild rides, and all the rest, was a roaring success. Tilyou had shown the country that Americans would indeed pay to be thrilled and amused. His firm belief in the project was demonstrated in 1907, when the park burned to the ground. The next day he posted a sign promising a "bigger, better Steeplechase Park." Always the entrepreneur, he added, "Admission to the Burning Ruins – ten-cents.

In 1903 another huge park added to Coney Island's fame. The glittering, bustling "Luna Park" was an architectural marvel. Its turrets, spires, crescents, and whirling pinwheels were illuminated by a quarter-of-a-million lights. Luna's creators, Frederic Thompson and Skip Dundy, added another ingredient to America's amusement-park recipe. They included live entertainment shows. Aware that their visitor's attention spans wouldn't tolerate long performances, they developed brief sensational acts. A herd of show elephants gave a short performance which climaxed with their slide down the shoot-the-chutes. A four-story apartment building regularly burst into flames as firemen rushed to save the victims from the blazing inferno. Mt. Vesuvius erupted routinely, sending its molten lava pouring down on the poor citizens of Pompeii.

Set amidst the bright lights and glitter was also one of the most unusual attractions any amusement park has ever offered. From 1904 until 1943, the park exhibited a miniature hospital of premature babies in incubators. Dr. Martin Couney had developed the first mechanical baby incubator in the 1890s. Despite his faith that the invention was a lifesaver, he had little success in obtaining either interest or funding from his medical colleagues. In response to the universal apathy toward his creation, he began to exhibit the new device at international exhibitions. Although he still couldn't interest the medical world, he caught the attention of Thompson and Dundy, who offered to pay him to bring his exhibit into Luna Park.

Rather than simply displaying the incubators, Dr. Couney set up a miniature hospital in the park. It was soon occupied by premature babies, brought to him by desperate mothers who had heard of his invention. As visitors purchased a 20-cent ticket and entered the display, a lecturer would educate them about the technical details of the machines. A system of hot-water pipes regulated by a thermostat, kept the temperature constant. Air was pulled in through a pipe rising high above the building to capture pure air, which was then run through a triple filter system to remove impurities.

Despite a community uproar over the idea of a "premature baby sideshow" at Coney Island, the medical profession soon realized his techniques and standards of care were sound. In fact, the American Medical Association eventually sanctioned the little hospital. During the decades that the little sideshow hospital inhabited Luna Park, over 6,500 babies were saved. For years to come, many of Dr. Couney's graduates would hold reunions at Coney Island. Despite the continued interest in the babies, attendance at the park began to drop. After Dundy and Thompson died, a group of investors took over operations but refused to spend the money needed for upkeep. In 1946 the crumbling park was destroyed by fire.

A third large park was built on Coney Island in 1904. Built a year after Luna, the park, Dreamland, was designed to outshine both Steeplechase and Luna. Built at a cost of 3.5 million dollars, its 375-foot beacon tower rose high above Luna's spires. Rather than Luna's quarter of a million lights, Dreamland sported a million. Competing with Luna's four-story apartment fire, Dreamland's spectacular "Fighting the Flames" show employed four thousand characters. Three hundred midgets inhabited its Lilliputian Village.

In addition to making the buildings and exhibits larger and showier, Dreamland's developers decided to create an atmosphere of culture in the park. All of its columns and statuary were painted a pure white. The first chapter of Genesis was recreated inside the park, five times a day. Youngsters wearing white college gowns and mortarboards operated the ticket booths and many of the concessions. Unfortunately, as many others have discovered throughout the years, the public is usually not as interested in culture as in fun and excitement. The gate receipts dwindled and visitors turned back to Luna and Steeplechase for their Coney Island getaways. Like Luna, Dreamland went up in flames, leaving only a memory of the cultural fantasy park that had once lit the Coney Island nights with a million lights.

# A Disastrous Success

When Doctor Marcus Whitman saved the mission

that became the setting for a legendary tragedy

Most of our early immigrants struggled westward to pursue their goals. Marcus Whitman, however, had already reached his westward destination of Oregon Territory. Now he was retracing his journey east to Boston, where he hoped to convince a group of church elders to reverse their decision to close his mission. As he resolutely trekked past Chimney Rock, Courthouse Rock and the rest, he prayed he could reason with the board to save his mission. After all, it was the product of years of work by Marcus and his missionary wife, Narcissa. Together they had pursued their dreams to minister to the Indians in the West. The recipients of their ministry were the Cayuse Indians near the present-day city of Walla Walla, Washington.

Unfortunately the leaders of the Methodist organization that supported the mission had decided in 1842 to shut off funding. There simply had not been enough Cayuse converted to Christianity, they reasoned, to justify its continued existence. It wasn't as if the Whitmans hadn't originally been enthusiastic about converting the Cayuse. In a letter home, written soon after they arrived in Oregon Territory, Narcissa wrote, "We never had greater encouragement about the Indians than at the present time." During the months ahead, however, that initial zeal steadily dissolved. It soon became quite clear that most of the Cayuse were perfectly happy with their own religion and not particularly concerned about being saved.

Narcissa's disappointment was preserved in letters to her friends back East. She complained of their inability to "Christianize" the Cayuse and elevate them from what she considered to be heathen beliefs. Through their spiritual practices, she maintained, they had been "serving the devil faithfully." This judgmental attitude about their lifestyle, according to several contemporaries, began to color her actions. The deteriorating relationship between the Whitmans and their Indian neighbors – combined with other factors, would eventually culminate in one of the saddest and most violent incidents in Western history.

Years before fate would cruelly turn on them, Marcus and Narcissa were each swept up in separate waves of evangelistic fervor in upstate New York. Emotionally charged revivals during the early 1800's stormed though New England in what has been called the Second Great Awakening. These events included fiery sermons, public confessions, and group conversions. At an 1819 revival, seventeen-year-old Marcus Whitman made the decision to become a minister and spread his faith as a missionary.

Unfortunately, when Marcus told his mother and stepfather of his decision, they told him to find a career with a less expensive training period. The ministerial requirements at the time involved four years of college plus three years in a theological seminary. His second choice, which curiously required considerably less time and effort, was that of a doctor – requiring only a sixteen-week course and a two-year apprenticeship. During the 1820's, Marcus would eventually obtain both his goals of becoming a physician and a minister. Little by little, he was garnering qualifications to follow his dream of providing medical care and spreading his faith to those in need.

As Marcus prepared for his missionary life, a sixteen-year-old Narcissa Prentiss would also be swept away by the Second Great Awakening in the upstate New York area. While the sermons, confessions and conversions filled the air, young Narcissa felt her own conversion welling up from deep within. "The first Monday of January, 1824," she would later write, "I felt to consecrate myself without reserve to the Missionary work awaiting the leadings of Providence concerning me."

Despite their enthusiasm, both Marcus and Narcissa eventually ran up against similar obstacles. The missionary board members made it clear they considered neither single women nor unmarried men to be stable missionary material. Realizing his dilemma, Marcus wrote to the board in June of 1834 saying "I am not married and I have no present arrangement on that subject." Then displaying his marital flexibility, he added, "Yet I think I should wish to take a wife if the service of the Board would admit." The board members offered a surprisingly simply solution to his dilemma – marry another nearby prospective missionary, Narcissa Prentice.

Marriages of convenience were not highly unusual among potential missionaries. Despite never having met before, when the businesslike Marcus unveiled his proposal to Narcissa, she immediately understood the mutual benefits and accepted his offer. What began as a mutually beneficial arrangement, though, soon turned to love and respect for each other. Sadly, in spite of their love and their shared passion of serving humanity, fate perversely decided to deal the couple several sinister cards.

One of the immigrant wagons stopping over at the mission brought with it a virulent strain of the measles. Marcus pitched in to help treat both white settlers and Indians. Since the disease was unknown in the area, many Cayuse, especially the children, succumbed to it. The majority of white children, though, had previously built up some tolerance, and pulled through. Unfortunately, in the Cayuse culture, if a medicine man failed to save a patient, that person's family had the right to kill him.

To make matters worse, a rumor swirled through the camp that Marcus was poisoning the Cayuse to make more room for white immigrants. When the rumor mingled with their vengeful beliefs about medicine men, and the deteriorating relationship between the Whitmans and the Cayuse, it boiled into a dark fervor that sparked a horrendous massacre. On November 29, 1847, a small group of Cayuse attacked the Whitman Mission and brutally took the lives of Marcus, Narcissa and twelve settlers. Ironically, that mission would have been closed five years before that tragic date, had Marcus not struggled eastward to bring about a disastrous success.

# Sliding into History

When Jackie Robinson shattered

baseball's race-barrier

The young ballplayer's mind likely raced as fast as he did during one of his famous home-base steals. His pokerfaced demeanor, however, didn't betray this inner turmoil. He sat motionless as Dodgers' general manager, Branch Rickey, bombarded him with a string of racial slurs. As Rickey role-played a motley variety of bigoted spectators, players, sportswriters, and hotel managers, he employed every racist term he could think of. The victim of this verbal barrage, Jackie Robinson, knew Rickey was simply testing his resolve. Finally, though, Jackie felt he had taken enough abuse. "Mr. Rickey," he challenged, do you want a baseball player who is afraid to fight back?" "No," Rickey famously countered, "I want a baseball player with guts enough not to fight back."

Robinson knew his potential boss was right. If Jackie were to react to the abuse that would surely come if he took Rickey's job proposal, he would be playing right into the racists' hands. He also knew if he accepted the offer, he would be walking straight into a lion's den. Baseball hadn't seen a black player in a major league uniform since 1884, and Jackie knew millions of fans were perfectly satisfied with that situation. Branch Rickey, though, felt it was time to integrate the sport. He boldly laid out his plan to Robinson. He would start him on the Dodgers' primary farm team, the Montreal Royals. If he could make the grade there, Rickey told him, he would call him up to play for the Dodgers. The opportunity to play on a major league team was too enticing for Robinson to dismiss it without serious consideration. Finally, after Rickey had laid out his strategy, it was time for Jackie's decision.

Jackie was acutely aware his choice could change history. "I knew I was kind of an experiment," he later noted. "The whole thing was bigger than me." Factored into his decision, would be months or even years of bellowing bigots, hate-mail, and probably even death threats. But on the other side of the equation, stood millions of black baseball fans longing for someone to embody their long-stifled hopes and dreams. Rickey had been following Robinson's career and was impressed with both his talent and professional conduct. "I want to win the pennant, and we need ball players," he informed him, "do you think you can do it?" Dodgers' scout, Clyde Sukeforth, was in the room during the fateful interview. Jackie "waited and waited and waited before answering," Clyde recalled. "We were all just looking at him." Finally, Jackie uttered the decision that would echo through baseball history – "Yes."

His route to this historical landmark began in the small rural town of Cairo, Georgia. Jackie was the youngest of five children, and unfortunately his father abandoned the family when Jackie was just a child. Jackie's mother moved them to Pasadena, California where they moved in with family. Although his athletic skills emerged early, he and his black friends were excluded from the community sports programs. As a substitute, he joined a neighborhood gang. Fortunately, for Jackie...and for sports history, a friend soon convinced him to leave it and join his buddies in their home-grown games with homemade equipment.

Despite the lack of quality sports gear and playing fields, Jackie's athletic prowess began to flourish. While at John Muir High School in 1935, he found he could excel in just about any sport he tried. His brothers, Frank and Mack, were both athletic, and encouraged his interests. In fact, the next year, Mack would win the silver medal in the legendary Berlin Olympics, coming in just behind Jesse Owens in the 200-meter dash. In high school, Jackie lettered in four sports – football, basketball, track, and baseball. He later continued to play the same mixture of sports at UCLA. There, as in high school, he won varsity letters in all four.

Ironically, his worst sport at UCLA was baseball, which he played for only one season. Jackie scored a low batting average but did reveal a glimmer of his future greatness. His remarkable base-running skill surfaced and he stole home base several times throughout the season. While a senior at UCLA, he met his future bride, Rachel Isum. Even though both Rachel and his mother tried to talk him out of it, Jackie decided he needed a fulltime job and left college only a few credits short of graduating. He felt he needed to contribute more to the family income, and took a position as an assistant athletic director with a government youth program.

Baseball was still not his game of choice, and when government funding for the youth program shut down, he turned his sites toward football. Following a brief season with the semi-professional Honolulu Bears in Hawaii, he returned to California to sign up with the Los Angeles Bulldogs. Playing football, he resolved, was how he would make his mark on sports history. But in 1942, fate put the brakes on his football career with the advent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was drafted by the Army into a segregated unit based in Fort Riley, Kansas.

Jackie learned that his college experience qualified him for Officer Candidate School. When he graduated as a second lieutenant, he was assigned to Fort Hood, Texas. While there, he once boarded an Army bus and was ordered to move to the back. Jackie refused and the driver eventually backed down. When they reached the end of the line, though, the driver summoned the military police, who took Robinson into custody. This incident resulted in two counts of insubordination. Although he was later acquitted of both, the incident remained on his military record – which prompted Rickey to test Jackie's ability to withstand abuse.

Not only did Jackie keep his temper in check, he let his athletic skills speak for him. As Rickey had planned, he was called up to the Dodgers for the 1947 season. By the end of that season, he was honored as the National League's Rookie of the Year, for his astounding record of 29 steals and 12 home runs. As expected, however, that year had also been tainted by long-smoldering racial hatred. The word had surfaced that several fellow Dodgers were planning to sit out games rather than play with Robinson. Manager Leo Durocher squelched this potential mutiny, "I don't care if the guy is yellow or black, or has stripes like a zebra," he bellowed to his assembled players. "I'm the manager of this team and I say he plays." Then, appealing to their love of money, he pointed out that they were sure to draw larger crowds at the games, which would mean higher salaries for everyone. "If any of you cannot use the money," he added, "I will see that you are all traded."

As Jackie's career blossomed, his tremendous ability and team-player attitude slowly turned most people around. The eventual solidarity and support of his team members was symbolized when several boisterous spectators at a game started shouting racial slurs at Jackie. Team captain, Pee Wee Reese, in a legendary gesture, walked over to him and put his arm around him – resulting in silencing the hecklers and eliciting applause.

By the time Jackie's career statistics were entered into baseball history, he had been selected as an All-Star for six consecutive seasons. He also won the National League's Most Valuable Player award and played in six World Series championships, helping the Dodgers finally trounce the Yankees in 1955. Actually, Jackie Robinson's meteoric career was foretold years before his arrival. Once, during an interview with a Dodgers' radio announcer, Branch Rickey said he was looking for the right man to break baseball's color line. "I don't know who he is, or where he is," Rickey confided, "but he _is_ coming."

# The Man of a Thousand Voices

The colorful "lives" of Mel Blanc, Bugs Bunny,

Woody Woodpecker, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird,

Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, etc.

"How are you today, Bugs Bunny?" inquired the neurosurgeon. His tactic seemed like a thousand-to-one chance, but the discouraged physician had tried nearly everything else. As he surveyed the comatose patient in the full-body cast, like the others in the room, he simply wasn't interested in giving up. He had chuckled and guffawed too many times at voice actor Mel Blanc's wacky cast of audio characters, to let them simply fade into silence. Unfortunately, that appeared to be their fate. The horrific 1961 car accident, which had landed Mel Blanc in the hospital, seemed to signal their demise. The other driver had sustained minor injuries, but Blanc was driving a little sports car, and had broken both legs, his pelvis, and suffered three skull fractures. Sadly, he had also been comatose for about two weeks.

Mel's wife and son had tried everything they could think of to rouse him. The doctors and nurses had also exhausted their methods. Finally, one of the doctors told those in the room, he was going to try to reach Mel, not directly, but through his many voice roles. Like most of the country, the doctor was a big fan of Mel Blanc's characters – especially Bugs Bunny. Working up as much optimism as possible, he asked Bugs how he was doing. Following a discouraging pause, a weak voice emanated from Blanc's previously soundless mouth. It wasn't Mel's voice that responded to the question. Instead, Bugs Bunny, himself, seemed to answer with a faint "Ehhh, just fine Doc, How are you?"

Exhilarated by his success, the surgeon asked Tweety Bird if he was also there. His question was soon greeted with Tweety's signature phrase, "I tawt I taw a puddy tat." As a roomful of wide-eyed witnesses took in the miraculous event, it was becoming evident that Mel's lovable cast of characters would emerge from the coma before he did. One of the other doctors in the room later observed, "It seemed as though Bugs Bunny was trying to save his life." As Mel slowly arose from the coma, one character at a time, he was unaware that Bugs, Tweety, Porky Pig, and the rest of his captivating inner personalities, were answering their curtain calls while he slept. When he was later informed of what had transpired, he wasn't quite as amazed as his family members and the doctors. "You see," he explained, "I actually live these characters."

The precursors of those lovable personas emerged early in Mel's life. In grade school, he was already playing around with different voices to amuse his classmates. Not exactly a social wallflower, he continued to give birth to a variety of creations, and by high school had added a peculiar high-pitched laugh. "I used to laugh down the hall and hear the echo coming back," he recalled. A few years later, that laugh would find its way into Woody Woodpecker's beak.

His first jobs were not in voice acting, but the musical field. When Mel was six, his family relocated from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon. That's, where Mel would later begin his inimitable career. At fifteen, he started singing on radio station KGW's weekday children's program: "Stories by Aunt Nell." Four years later, he was hired for the station's popular Hoot Owls program. He wrote and performed on the late-night variety show, sometimes playing musical instruments or singing. Before long, his love of creating voices pushed him to include humorous stories, which he narrated in various dialects.

In 1932, Mel moved to Los Angeles to find more radio work, but other than a spot on a syndicated show called Merrymakers, radio gigs seemed scarce. Although L. A, didn't provide him with a living, it lined him up with something even better – a beautiful young lady named Estelle Rosenbaum. The next year, Mel returned to Portland with Estelle as his new bride. There, he produced a radio show, which he co-hosted with Estelle, titled the Cobwebs and Nuts show. "They wouldn't allow me to hire anybody else," he later told an interviewer, "because they were too damn cheap." The lack of other actors prompted him to develop a stable of sound characters, each using distinctive voices. The downside was that rapidly switching back and forth among the voices was exhausting. Estelle convinced him to leave the show after a couple years, predicting that if he didn't, a nervous breakdown was squarely in his future.

She suggested they return to Los Angeles, where many of the syndicated radio shows originated. Her intuition was perfect. This time, Lady Luck seemed to be walking by his side as he knocked on the studio doors. Mel began voicing characters for performers like Johnny Murray, Joe Penner, and eventually Jack Benny. Mel's role on Jack Benny's show was originally limited to the voice of a bear named Carmichael, who guarded Benny's vault. "Well, I did the bear growl for six months," Mel reflected. "Finally I said to him, 'You know, Mr. Benny, I can also talk.' "

His not-so-subtle hint worked. Before long, Mel had assembled a memorable group of madcap characters for the show. Among these were a slow-talking train-station announcer; a parrot who always called Benny a cheapskate; a stressed-out store salesman; Jack's exasperated violin teacher, Professor LeBlanc; and Cy from Tijuana. Benny would later express his amazement and delight with Blanc's huge character repertoire. "There are only five real people in Hollywood," he once quipped, "everyone else is Mel Blanc."

Blanc was enjoying the radio work, but also wanted his characters to materialize somewhere other than in the listener's mind. Warner Brothers' popular cartoon shorts seemed to furnish the ideal setting. He repeatedly tried to audition with the production supervisor for both Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, but never managed to arrange an interview. After a year of constant rebukes, Mel learned that he had passed away, and a man named Leon Schlesinger had taken his position. Fortunately for Mel, Schlesinger agreed to his request for an audition, and hired him on the spot.

Mel's first major role came about when Schlesinger inquired, "Can you do a pig?" The studio had created a lovable creature named Porky Pig, but weren't satisfied with the voice actor who played him. The problem was, Schlesinger told Mel, the fellow had a noticeable stutter, and caused the studio to use up a lot of film working around his speech problem. Ironically, the former pig-player actually gave Mel the idea to include a rhythmic stutter into Porky's speech pattern.

A year later, in 1938, another favorite – Bugs Bunny, was born. The studio originally wanted to call him the Happy Hare. Mel remembered that Bugs' creator, nicknamed Bugs Hardaway, had a snappy way about him, always saying things like "Hey, what's cookin?" Mel suggested they merge the writer's glib attitude with the character's, turning "Hey, what's cookin?" into "What's up Doc?" The writer's nickname was also a natural for the new creation. Blanc instantly recognized Bugs as a winner. "Bugs was a tough little stinker," he reflected, "that's why I came up with a Brooklyn accent."

As Mel would later vividly demonstrate when his "friends" emerged during his ongoing coma, he definitely lived his characters. When he brought them to life, he would take on their physical mannerisms. Onlookers could usually figure out which character he was playing when they looked through the glass sound booth. Those characters, incidentally, have returned the favor of the birth of their voices, by keeping their creator alive – on televisions and movie screens across the world. The humanity and wacky sense of humor of Mel Blanc is also forever preserved, at his request, on his headstone: "That's all folks."

# Bare Hands and a Bowie Knife

How Wild Bill Hickok spoiled two bear cubs' playtime

As the mother black bear and her two cubs wandered through the woods, it seemed they had indeed come upon the toy aisle. Yes, the sleeping buckskin-clad stagecoach driver should make the perfect chew toy. As Mamma set about preparing the new toy with a few swats of her mighty paws, several stagecoach passengers were torn from their sleep by the fracas. They witnessed the frenzied scene by the light of a flickering kerosene lantern. As the swirling mass of dust, bear, and stagecoach driver flashed before their eyes, the sounds of ripping claws and agonizing groans filled their ears.

The stagecoach had broken down near Wetmore, Colorado on a trip from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico. As the passengers leaned back to sleep, the driver had taken off his guns, set them aside, and curled up for the night underneath some creosote bushes. As the bear attacked, the witnesses stared in horror, unaware they were watching the soon-to-be legendary Wild Bill Hickok. Even as the bear's claws delivered vicious slashes, Hickok managed to free the six-inch Bowie knife from his belt and slice the raging beast's throat. When the dust cloud settled, the glimmering lantern light showed not only a severely wounded stagecoach driver, but a severely dead bear.

Much of Hickok's spirit came from his parents. In the years before the Civil War, they joined the Underground Railroad movement, concealing escaping slaves in the hidden cellar of their rural Illinois home. As their son, James, witnessed their humanitarian deeds in the face of danger, their courage and grit seeped into his fibers.

As a young boy, he showed that grit while swimming in a stream with friends. A bully had picked on one of his buddies, so he picked up the aggressor and tossed him in the water. This technique would again serve him well a few years later. Following his father's death, he left his quiet farm town for a job as a freight-wagon driver in Utica, Illinois. The position, however, didn't result in long-term employment. Upset over his boss's mistreatment of his horse team, Hickok tossed him into the canal.

How James became "Wild Bill" is a matter of never-ending speculation, but however it happened, by the early 1860s, James Butler Hickok had transformed into Wild Bill Hickok. During that period, he also developed his legendary look – buckskins, a drooping moustache, long hair to his shoulders and a pair of ivory-handled pistols at his hips. The combination of his trademark appearance, colorful name, and daring escapades made him a natural as a larger-than-life dime novel hero.

Despite the fanciful journalism about the fictional Wild Bill Hickok, the real life version was quite a colorful character as well. One of his escapades is often viewed as the first western-style gunfight. In Springfield, Missouri in July of 1865, Hickok was playing poker with a ruffian named Dave Tutt. Dave was upset because Wild Bill was winning, and demanded that Hickok pay him for a previous debt. They were disputing the amount when Tutt grabbed Hickok's pocket watch off the table for collateral. Wild Bill snarled and told Tutt he better not catch him wearing it.

With much more bluster than brains, Tutt later bragged to friends about taking the watch and said he planned to parade down the town square wearing it, in front of Hickok. Before long, Tutt saw Hickok on the square and strutted forward with the watch conspicuously displayed. Wild Bill told him several times to stop, to no avail. While the two faced off, with their hands hovering over their holstered guns, they set the scene for countless future western movies. According to reports, Tutt fired first, but Hickok fired best. Tutt fell to the ground dead.

Another dime-novel type of scene occurred in the winter of 1871 during his tenure as Marshall of Abilene, Kansas. Phil Coe, co-owner of the Alamo Saloon, had worked up a good whiskey drunk with several of his rowdy friends. The scene flashed to life when Coe fired his gun in the air. Hearing the shot, Hickok told his friend and deputy, Mike Williams, to stay put while he headed toward the saloon.

When Wild Bill arrived, he informed Coe and the rest that they had to give up their guns or leave town. Newspaper reports said Coe fired his pistol at Hickok and missed him. Hickok then returned fire and didn't miss. As Coe fell, someone came flying around the corner with his gun drawn. Thinking the mystery gunslinger was backing up his opponent, Hickok shot him dead. Then in a flash of horror, he realized he had not killed one of Coe's men, but Mike Williams, the deputy he had told to stay put. Hearing the shots, Williams had run to assist Hickok.

During the ensuing minutes, the citizens of Abilene witnessed, as one writer put it, "a sleeping tiger suddenly awakened." Seeing their marshal's eyes narrow with the look of impending death, the previously rowdy drunks sobered in an instant and backed away. Wild Bill then strode through the streets of Abilene, stopping at each saloon to burst through the door and shut the establishment down for the day. Those who complied fared well; those who didn't, were sent flying out the doors, like those Hickok previously sent sailing into creeks or canals.

As Wild Bill Hickok marched across the unwritten pages of Western history, he left behind a string of vivid stories. During his years behind a star in the untamed Kansas towns, he built a reputation, as the Junction City Union paper put it, of being a "terror to evildoers." Not only would his life turn to legend, but his death as well. As he fell to the deadly bullet of Jack "Crooked Nose" McCall in Deadwood, South Dakota's # 10 Saloon, the card hand he held has been immortalized. Two black aces and two black eights will be forever known as The Dead Man's Hand. Yes, nearly everything about his life transformed into legend. That life and legend, though, might have only ended up as a black bear cubs' chew toy had it not been for Hickok's bare hands and a Bowie knife.

# "The Best Within Us"

Jesse Owens' incredible Olympic journey

"I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible," the Buckeye Bullet once confided. "From the air – fast down and from the ground – fast up." As Jesse Owens flew down the 100-meter track at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, he was obviously following this dictum, appearing to almost hover above the ground. When he began to pull ahead of the other runners, millions of people around the world cheered him on. Not only were they Olympic fans, but were aware that if Jesse Owens could win a medal in his first Olympic race, Adolph Hitler's eyes would glaze over as his mustache scrunched up in distain. Owens, after all, did not exactly fit Hitler's Olympic plan for a showcase of Aryan superiority. Yet, there he was, the Alabama-born son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves, soaring ahead of Germany's finest blond-haired blue-eyed athletes.

Despite the world's attention to the history-making aspect of the race, Jesse's concentration stayed focused on his technique and the track in front of him. Since his days of running barefoot in the fields of Alabama, it was not the lure of fame that sent him flying, it was the running itself. "I always loved running," he would reflect. "It was something you could do all by yourself...just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs." As the straining athletes sprinted across the finish line, Hitler's mustache indeed scrunched above his gritted teeth. Before the Olympic flame would be extinguished, that mustache would scrunch three more times – once for each of Owens' four gold medals.

Jesse's second gold medal came the next day, August 4th, in the long jump. His first two qualifying jumps had failed because he had stepped over the takeoff board before jumping. He was particularly flustered since he had actually thought the first one was a practice jump. With only one try remaining, Owens was surprised when an athlete named Luz Long, walked over and introduced himself. The stately blue-eyed blond German suggested Jesse place a mark an inch or two before the board, to make sure he didn't default. Taking his advice, Jesse laid a towel in front of the board. Long's method worked perfectly and Owens easily qualified for the event, and later won the gold medal. Showing the true Olympic spirit, Long warmly congratulated him.

"It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler," Owens later asserted. "You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment." That friendship would last for years, ending only with Long's death in World War II. Even after that, Jesse maintained a close relationship with Long's family. Then, as today, the bitter hatred and anger between people of feuding nations usually stops at the boundary of the Olympic stadiums.

As Owens tore across the finish lines of both the 200-meter sprint and later the 4 X 100 sprint relay, he nearly set the newspaper presses on fire. He had won gold in every contest he entered. Suddenly the papers' headlines and the radio's speakers informed the world a new hero had burst onto the Olympic scene. "I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere," Jesse would reflect, "one that only a handful of people in every generation are lucky enough to know."

Owens, however, was well aware that the rare stratosphere was destined to dissipate. That, ironically, was not to happen in Germany, but back in the states. Despite continuing rumors that Hitler snubbed him and refused to shake his hand after Jesse won, that was actually not the situation. On the first day, Hitler only shook hands with the German victors following their races. The head of the Olympics committee told him he should either shake the hand of every winner, or none. He chose to shake nobody's hand and privately congratulated the German athletes later. In fact, Owens reported, "I was on my way to a broadcast and passed near his box. He waved at me and I waved back."

Once Owens returned home, though, he neither received a traditional congratulatory telegram from President Roosevelt nor was he invited to the White House for a customary meeting. Following a New York City ticker-tape parade given in his honor, Jesse was told he couldn't enter the front door of the Waldorf Astoria to attend a reception for him but instead had to take the freight elevator. Despite his world-renowned status, product endorsements didn't come pouring in as they did for several of his white teammates. As before, job offers were scarce. Determined to keep his family fed and clothed, he worked as a gas station attendant, a playground janitor, and later opened a dry cleaning shop.

His self-sufficiency was born during his years in Cleveland, Ohio, where his family had moved from their rural west-central Alabama farm. Not only was his determination and grit developed there, but his name as well. A teacher didn't understand eight-year-old Jesse's strong southern accent when she took the role on his first day. "J. C.", short for James Cleveland, sounded like "Jesse" to her, and the name stuck.

Jesse's athletic career took off during his high school days as he won all the major track events and began setting high school world records. Despite being offered track scholarships from a number of colleges, he chose Ohio State, to stay local even though they couldn't offer a scholarship. That's where he earned the name, "The Buckeye Bullet." He worked a variety of jobs to cover his college tuition expenses. During his sophomore year, he would give the world a glimpse of things to come at the Big Ten Championships. Despite going into the competition with a painful back injury, he set one world's record after another.

Eventually, his Olympic fame provided some opportunities for personal gain. Several baseball teams hired him for special appearances at their games. He would challenge their fastest runners, giving them a ten or twenty-yard start and then beat them in a 100-yard dash. In addition, he would often against race motorcycles, dogs, and even racehorses. Using a little strategy in his competitions against the racehorses, he had the starter shoot his starting gun close to the animal. This would inevitably startle him into a bad jump at the beginning of the race, guaranteeing Jesse's success. During this time, some sportswriters complained that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against horses in exhibition events. "What was I supposed to do?" he would respond. "I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals."

Eventually, due to his personable easy-going manner, Jesse was offered positions that better fit his experience and skills, traveling around the world as a U.S. goodwill ambassador and Olympic representative. As he talked to various groups, he inspired people of all races and social standings to strive for individual excellence. Citing the value of the time-honored attributes of hard work, honesty, and perseverance, he would emphasize the struggles and eventual triumphs of his own legendary journey. "The road to the Olympics," he once avowed, "leads to no city; no country." Instead, he told them, "It goes far beyond New York, Moscow, ancient Greece, or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads, in the end," he stressed, "to the best within us."

# The "Bloomer Girl"

Julia Archibald Holmes, the free spirit of the 1850's

who became the first woman to climb Pikes Peak

"She clambered on her little woman's feet over rock, through snows up into the rare, cold atmosphere," Noble Prentis recalled, "up higher than the bird's wings beat the air; up to the very crest." There, Prentis continued, his twenty-year-old climbing companion saw, "what no woman's eyes ever saw before. " His lyrical description portrayed the 1858 history-making climb of Julia Archibald Holmes. Prentis and another male climber had joined Julia and her husband, Henry, to scale the foreboding mountain. Eventually, despite snow squalls along the way, Julia's "little woman's feet" stood beside the others at the peak. History would forever preserve the courage and grit of the attractive and determined young lady, who would be lovingly remembered by Coloradoans as the "Bloomer Girl."

The nickname was derived from her outfit, which Julia later described as her American costume. "I wore a calico dress, reaching a little below the knee, pants of the same, Indian moccasins on my feet and on my head, a hat," she would note in a letter home. Aware this getup was not exactly condoned by the cultured elite of the day, she added, "However much it lacked in taste, I found it to be beyond value in comfort and convenience."

The long billowing pantaloons and mid-calf skirt combination took their name from the free-thinking activist, Amelia Bloomer, who had devised the look seven years before Julia's climb. Amelia developed the controversial outfit for casual wear, to counter the traditional floor-length skirts with their pounds of petticoats. "This shackle," she had declared, "should no longer be endured." As Julia firmly planted her feet on the snow-coated boulders of Pikes Peak, she could not have agreed with Amelia more.

Although Julia's accomplishment impressed her fellow climbers as well as most of the members of the emigration party she had traveled with, there were dissenters among them. Mr. William B. Parsons, for example, later wrote to a newspaper to voice his irritation over Julia's manner. He raved about the "weak-minded men and strong-minded women" who were behind the feminist movement. Their radical views and the progressive modes of women's dress, he complained, "only serve to disgust even men who are not easily disgusted..." Despite occasional criticism, Julia felt pride in her lifestyle and her accomplishments. Likely, she held the view that historian Laurel Ulrich would voice more than a century later, that "well behaved women seldom make history."

Her comfort in the midst of controversy was ingrained early. Born in Nova Scotia, Julia moved with her family to Worchester County, Massachusetts when she was ten. Both of her parents were soon swept up in the fast-growing abolitionist movement. The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act left the decision of entering the union as either a slave or a free state, to the citizens of each territory. Kansas, the next territory in line for statehood, transformed into a swirling mass of bloody conflict.

To counteract the surge of proslavery immigrants from neighboring states like Missouri, abolitionist societies sponsored a migration of their supporters from northern states. Julia and her family joined an early wave of abolitionists who journeyed to Kansas and helped found the anti-slavery town of Lawrence. In the spring of 1856, the town was ransacked by pro-slavery activists. Fortunately, Julia's family was not injured and their abolitionist stance remained firm. Their house, in fact, became a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Julia would eventually meet her future husband, James Henry Holmes, in Lawrence. He was not only a fellow abolitionist, but a member of John Brown's Free State Rangers. They married in the fall of 1857 and settled into married life. The next year, however, that life was diverted by the news of gold in Colorado, near Pike's Peak. Like thousands of others, they followed its siren call and joined the "Pike's Peak or Bust" adventurers. Although gold was her husband's main objective, Julia wrote that hers was more of "a desire to cross the plains and behold the great mountain chain of North America."

In June of 1858, they joined the Lawrence Party. Julia, one of only two women in the group, insisted on walking beside the men even though her counterpart sat in a wagon. She learned that some of the men disapproved of the bloomer outfit she termed her freedom dress. Writing a letter home, Julia said she could not afford to dress to please their tastes. "I could not positively enjoy a moment's happiness with a long skirt to confine me to the wagon." In the evenings, after tromping across the prairie during the day, she set her experiences down in letters home. Julia had adopted a little buffalo calf along the way, she noted. Later, though, she quickly unadopted it when it charged her. "It gave me such a blow," she recalled, "as to destroy the center of gravity."

She noted another incident along the way when several Cheyenne men informed them that one of their party, who had previously wandered off, was safe in a nearby trading post. In appreciation for the messengers, Julia and the others threw a big dinner in their honor. She noted that the Cheyenne were "fine and noble looking." Her admiration, however, diminished rapidly when she observed the fine and noble men picking lice out of each other's hair and eating them "with seeming eagerness and gusto."

Once the group arrived in the Pike's Peak area, they spent weeks unsuccessfully searching for gold. Julia later wrote that she became bored with the "disgusting inactivity and monotony of camp life." The best remedy for this boredom, she informed her husband and friends, would be to climb the lofty mountain next to their camp.

Not unexpectedly, her suggestion was greeted with wrinkled brows and raised eyebrows. "Nearly everyone tried to discourage me from attempting it," she reflected, "but I believed that I should succeed." Eventually, her fervent belief began to break down the resistance of her husband and two other daring souls. As they struck out and gradually ascended the massive peak, boulder by boulder, Julia kept pace with the others. They took their time, exploring rock formations and various trees along the way.

The lofty peak in the front range of the Rocky Mountain chain was named for Lieutenant Zebulon Pike who led an expedition in 1806 to explore the southwestern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase. Pike and a small party had tried to ascend the mountain in November of that year, but were prevented by winter weather conditions. "No human being," he recorded, "could have ascended to its pinnacle." In the years following, several men did ascend to its pinnacle – but no woman...that is until the Bloomer Girl came along.

With their seventeen-pound packs on their backs, Julia and the others continued to climb higher. Along the way, they camped among snow-covered rocks and waterfalls as they absorbed the sights and sounds of the great mountain. When they finally reached the summit, they wrote their names on a stone, and Julia stretched out on a flat rock to write letters to her family and friends. Although she would go on to make strides in the women's suffrage movement, Julia Archibald Holmes' conquest of Pike's Peak would literally and figuratively be the high point of her life. "I feel," she enthused as she peered down from the towering peak, "that I would not have missed this glorious sight for anything at all."

# Music, Mud-people

# and the Lobster

Personal reflections of

Woodstock's 25th anniversary

The huge spotlight's blue haze transformed the swarming tent city into a surreal vision of future overpopulation. Before the surging mass would disperse, Woodstock '94, like its historic predecessor in 1969, would combine raw life ingredients into a mixture far greater than the sum of its parts. The rough-cut chunks of music, mud, and laughter would dissolve into a unique blend, bubbling with the flavors of both the sixties and the nineties.

"Oh no," blurted a teenage boy perched on a post towering above the swirling multitude. His exclamation caught the attention of several people around him. "You've all got to leave now," he continued, barely stifling a smile, "my mom just came home!"

Needless to say, they didn't. But impromptu spurts of humor like this likely helped maintain a relative sanity in the potentially combustible gathering estimated at between three hundred thousand and a half-million participants. Woodstock '94 was held in mid-August in Saugerties, New York, a few miles from the original event. Now a part of history, the happening serves as a target for both nostalgic praise and pointed criticism. Likely, no two descriptions will ever match. Like a psychological inkblot test, everyone there saw it a little differently.

Friday night, thousands toted their tents and backpacks into the midst of the music and chaos. Like pioneers staking claims in a land rush, they hurriedly selected their little pieces of Woodstock. Before the night was over, the canvas maze would stretch across the fields and out of the range of night vision.

Excited youngsters and curious families walked alongside the ghosts of Woodstock past. Aging flower children, now sporting gray-streaked beards or faded peasant dresses, meandered among the crowd. They appeared to have finally returned to their natural environment. It was almost as if they had spent the last twenty-five years merely waiting for Woodstock to return. Walking calmly among the rest, a man wearing nothing other than a contented expression, strolled along with his long hair waving and his bearded chin held high.

One by one, land-claimers set up their tents and tucked away their belongings. Beyond the blue lights and the tent-coated fields, music poured out from both the north and south stages. As the observers began to soak in the sensations of the pulsing music and the blurring horde of humanity, expressions turned serious. Whispers spoken to nobody in particular, murmured through the night air...

"Awesome."

"Unbelievable!"

"So this is Woodstock!"

The next day, the Saturday morning sunshine painted the scene with life-colors. Startled by the early morning intruders in her field, a deer suddenly leapt over people and tents to disappear into the surrounding woods. Then, amidst pockets of child-like laughter, a large rubber lobster was flung high into the air in the south field. As it sailed from one campsite to another, the toy began to unite the separate parties. Yells of "Lobsterl" echoed across the field as new players urged the last recipient to throw it their way.

Neighbors began to greet each other and trade stories of the previous evening's harrowing adventures in finding a tent site. Outside our small blue tent, a recycled flower child patted down her gray-blond curls and related memories of the original Woodstock to her attentive neighbors.

"The music," she reflected, "wasn't really the thing. Most of them weren't even well known then." As our story-teller's eyes sparkled, she reminded us that the people and the atmosphere made the event famous. She said she had returned on the twenty-fifth anniversary, "to feel that same atmosphere."

A new version of that ambiance soon settled over the odd conglomeration of Woodstock '94 celebrants. Joe Cocker opened the Saturday morning festivities on the north stage. As he contorted with his inimitable spasmodic grace, the memories of long drives to the concert and difficulties in finding camping spaces began to fade away. A touch of the Woodstock magic appeared to have traveled through time. Invisible, but solid links were beginning to bind the motley mixture together.

Several people apparently decided to recreate nearly every aspect of the original 1969 happening. Despite warnings in the promotional material about "no drugs" and "high security," there was actually very little monitoring. One college-aged girl stopped by our tent Saturday morning to borrow a pencil. She scrawled the words "ACID PLEASE" on a piece of cardboard. After returning the pencil with a perky "thank you" as if she had borrowed a cup of sugar for her mother, she set out in search of LSD.

Later, a frazzled young man stared blankly at his feet as he stood alone in a wooded path. In a strained voice, he asked a passerby how he could get them off his feet.

"What are you trying to get off?" she quizzed.

"The animals!" he shrieked. "How do I get them off my feet?!"

"I'm glad I'm not where he is right now," a passing man poignantly observed.

Most of the participants, however, were exactly where they wanted to be. The music was right, the company was good and the weather was beautiful. During an intermission before the Saturday afternoon appearance of The Band, the south stage announcer invited members of the audience to the microphone. Most respondents shouted their name and hometown. Then one teenage boy echoed the sentiments of thousands – "I'm at Woodstock!"

As The Band checked their microphones, storm clouds gathered. "Don't worry about it," the announcer declared, "After all, it was the rain that made the first Woodstock so famous." The crowd quickly concurred and joined his chant of "More rain! More rain!" The apparent effects of that chant continued intermittently throughout the weekend.

Hundreds of thousands of tramping feet slowly transformed sections of once-grassy fields into oozing mud pits. Before long, mud people began slithering down the hill like playful otters. Soon, soap bubbles floated overhead as mud dancers whirled in a frenzied rhythm. Their caked hair flew in wild circles to the heavy beat of the music. The scene seemed simultaneously old and new. The dancers were connected to the past, but very much in the present.

As the Sunday afternoon crowd awaited Bob Dylan's arrival, an announcer gazed at the ocean of humanity and observed, "Grandparents, parents, and children are all here. There is no more generation gap." Impromptu celebrations later sprang up, also uniting the age groups. Sunday night, a steel-drum player transformed into a Pied Piper as he led a hand-clapping line of marchers in the north field. Nearby, an oriental dragon guided a small but spirited procession winding through the campsites.

The child-like spirit permeated even the normally serious rock musicians. Metallica, after finishing their first number, turned and walked off the stage shouting "Thank you! Thank you very much!" Then they quickly returned to let the flustered audience know they were only joking. The Red Hot Chili Peppers first appeared as giant light bulbs. Then they ended the set by returning for an encore, each dressed as Jimi Hendrix.

When the energy and the spirit of the event finally flickered out late Sunday night, another page of history fluttered to the ground. Everyone knew it would never be read as a vital commentary on cultural change like its 1969 predecessor. They also knew, however, that somehow they had helped write more on that page than anyone had predicted.

As the tired celebrants faced Monday morning's light, they sedately packed away the muddy clothes, their souvenirs and the rest. When they scanned the once vibrant landscape, some noticed mysterious remnants not everyone could see. Weaving in and around the muddy tents, were segments of chains with invisible links. Those links had connected tattooed street teens with dressed-up mechanics, and dressed-down executives. They had also bound together the music, mud-people, and the lobster.

# For the Setting Sun

James McCauley lives out the cowboy life

he had dreamed about since he rode stick

horses around his East Texas home

In the summer of 1895, Young James McCauley found himself in a very real version of what would decades later become a classic Western movie scene. He was searching for two runaway horses in Skeleton Canyon near the border of New Mexico and Arizona. "I rode very nearly halfway," he wrote, "when suddenly I saw a bunch of Apaches." These renegade Indians, he explained, were always on the warpath when they strayed off the reservation.

As soon as McCauley saw them, he tried to turn his horse around and escape. Before he could, one of the Apaches shot it out from under him. He grabbed his 30-30 rifle as he fell. After gaining his footing, he fired twice at his assailants. Both bullets hit their marks, dislodging two of the Apaches from their mounts. McCauley wasted no time in scrambling back through a winding section of the canyon where he managed to scale a small pinnacle. Knowing he was cut off on all sides with no escape route, he spent the day hiding flat on the sun-baked rocks. "I thought I would starve for water," he wrote, "but I love my life better than water."

When night finally came, McCauley said he pulled off his boots so he would not "make a fuss going over the rocks." He then eased himself off the pinnacle and crept northward through a gap in the canyon. Eventually he put his boots back on and picked up speed. About midnight, he wandered into another canyon that ran east. There he found fresh water and a trail leading through the foothills and into a valley.

Once in the valley, he followed a cow trail toward a windmill. Quenching his thirst again, he lay down to rest and soon fell asleep. "When I woke up," he wrote, "'twas sun-up. My feet was blistered from toe to heel!" Despite the pain, he marched on toward the ranch he had left several days earlier in search of the horses. He reached the main house by mid-morning and fixed himself a meal. "I done justice to everything I could get on the outside of," he asserted. Then he said he went to sleep "dreaming of Indians, of fine springs of water, and of tables loaded with good things to eat."

Years before this adventure, McCauley's childhood dreams were filled with different visions – those of becoming a wild and woolly cowboy. He said his first memory was that of riding a stick horse around his family's East Texas home near Palestine. As he tended his imaginary herd, he watched the real cowboys driving cattle west toward prairie country. Unfortunately, his early dreams were just that – dreams. After all, his father was a farmer, not a rancher. "To follow a scooter plow in stumps, barefooted all day," McCauley reflected, "didn't suit a would-be cowboy." Despite his dreams of cow-punching, he acknowledged, "I was reared up to be a plowboy instead of a cowboy."

Eventually though, like the crops he helped plant, his dormant dreams began to grow and ripen. His entry into the cowboy life, however, was not the result of deliberate planning. When he was about fifteen, he got into a fight with a much larger boy over a girl they both liked. While the other boy was on top of him, pummeling him with his fists, a pocketknife slipped out of the bully's pocket. The blade was loose at the rivet, so McCauley easily opened it. Then he drove the knife into the boy's hip. "I want you to know," he later wrote, "I did not have to beg him to get off."

The bloody youngster shrieked that he had been knifed. The girl they had fought over was afraid McCauley had murdered him. Although the other boy had actually started the fight, young McCauley instinctively knew he was in big trouble. "So I bid my first love good-bye," he wrote, "and started for home, which I was not long in reaching." He explained the incident to his mother and told her he was afraid the boy's father would try to have him imprisoned. "After kissing her a fond farewell," he noted, "I started for the setting sun."

That setting sun finally lit the way for McCauley's cowboy dreams. Heading west on foot, he eventually ran across a cattle drive bound for the nearby Figure Eight Ranch. The cowboys took him in and put him to work wrangling horses. That job, he explained in his journal, consisted of herding horses the other cowboys rode. Each rider had from six to ten horses and while they were out on the roundup, the wrangler would drive their loose horses from camp to camp. "I thought it was pretty good," McCauley reasoned, "It beat being in jail or being hung."

When the fall work was finished, McCauley stayed around the ranch performing odd jobs. He earned enough to buy a pony and saddle and in April, set out to fulfill his cowboy ambitions. "I was determined to go up the trail to Montana," he declared. He made his way to the three-million-acre X I T ranch in Channing, Texas. There, he found that five trail outfits were preparing to leave for Montana. "After looking the bosses over," McCauley noted, "I tackled one called Scanlous John." The choice of that boss, John McCanless, would propel McCauley closer to his life-long cowboy goal.

The two hit it off from the start and Scanlous John learned early on that McCauley had the potential of becoming a good cowboy. One night as they stood first watch together, a thunderstorm rolled in from the north. When the thunder roared and the sky lit up, the cattle spooked. "In less time than it takes to tell," McCauley noted, "they was gone."

The only light in the stormy sky came from the lightning itself. With each clap of thunder, the animals changed direction. The herd soon divided and McCauley's well-trained horse followed a bunch of about three hundred cattle. "After some two hours of storm," McCauley recorded, "the rain quit and soon it cleared off..." When the moon reappeared, he could see the cattle but had no idea where John and the rest of the outfit were. "I thought I'd shoot my six-shooter," he reasoned, "and see if anybody would come or answer me." Unfortunately, he hadn't considered the effect the gun blast might have on his little herd. With the first shot, the cattle stampeded again. After an hour or so he managed to round them back up. "I didn't shoot anymore," he wryly reflected.

He watched the herd all night and by about ten o'clock the next morning, one of the men found him and directed him back to the camp. McCauley was ravenous when he rode in. "If beans and bacon ever tasted good," he wrote, "it was then." He learned that the others had originally joked to the boss that he had lost his tenderfoot. "But when they found out I had held a bunch all night," he said, "they didn't say 'tenderfoot' anymore."

John McCauley would continue to live the cowboy life for several more years. Then shortly after the turn of the century, having fulfilled his childhood aspirations, he returned home for a more stable farm life. He paid a fine for his early fight when he had stabbed the boy, married the girl he had taken to the dance, and raised a family. In addition to once again picking up his scooter plow, he picked up a pencil to record his visions of the days when he kissed his mother goodbye and headed for the setting sun.

# "The Star of Happiness"

Helen Keller's curious venture into vaudeville

New York's famous Palace Theater always hosted some pretty madcap acts when the Orpheum vaudeville circuit was in town. Baggy-pants comedians, unicycle-riding jugglers, and performing dogs had all taken the stage to entertain the rowdy crowds. When the audience entered the theater, they didn't expect to be enlightened by insightful oratories – after all, it was vaudeville. The sedate educators and scientific lecturers usually stuck to the Chautauqua or lyceum circuit. Yet the playbill of this early 1920s vaudeville show, listed a unique cultural twenty-minute act billed as "The Star of Happiness," which featured the renowned Helen Keller.

As the curtain rose to the sound of Mendelssohn's "Spring Song," the audience viewed Anne Sullivan silently sitting in a drawing room. After acknowledging the audience, she began a narration of her experiences while working with Helen. She recounted her initial meeting with the unruly young Alabama girl who could neither see nor hear her. The story, which decades later would be documented in the popular movie, The Miracle Worker, left the crowd enthralled.

Following this, she walked to the side curtains and led Helen onstage. In and amongst more stories by Anne, Helen demonstrated her communication abilities. She showed how she could "hear" a voice. She placed her first finger on Anne's mouth, laid her second finger beside the bridge of her nose, and rested her thumb on her throat. As Helen felt the vibrations created by Anne's voice, she could understand her words. Helen had also learned to talk, although not as clearly as she would have liked to. She recited the Lord's Prayer, which Anne would also help to translate for the onlookers. One audience member later said of the poignant display, "Her voice was the loneliest sound in the world."

The most popular part for the audiences came near the end, when Helen took questions. In typical vaudeville fashion, her responses weren't completely impromptu. Anne and Helen had previously anticipated potential questions, which gave them time to prepare witty answers. When an audience member would ask how old she was, Helen would respond, "Between sixteen and sixty." Since this was during the prohibition era, Helen would answer queries like, "What's the most important question before the country today?" by joking "How to get a drink." And if asked whether talking ever tired her, Helen would smile and ask, "Did you ever hear of a woman who tired of talking?"

As Anne finger-spelled each question to Helen, and Helen smiled and responded similarly, the theater audience bubbled with laughter. Together, Helen and Anne were making the point they set out to prove. They taught people across the country that an impairment like blindness or deafness, or even both of them together, didn't prevent an individual from being intelligent, vital, and informed.

Despite her dual impairments, Helen was actually more of a people person than Anne. "My teacher was not happy in vaudeville," Helen would later note. "She could never get used to the rush, glare, and noise of the theater..." Obviously, the noise and the glare were not issues for Helen, and she somehow seemed to thrive on the rush. "I found the world of vaudeville much more amusing than the world I had always lived in," Helen recalled, "I like to feel the warm pulse of human life pulsing 'round and 'round me."

Vaudeville promoters knew the American public held a fascination for Helen's miraculous journey from the silent darkness to her celebrity status. Against family advice, Anne and Helen signed up to tour because of the opportunity to educate the public, as well as, quite simply, the need to sustain themselves. There was considerably more money in vaudeville than on the Chautauqua or Lyceum circuits.

Fortunately for Anne, they left the circuit after a lucrative four-year run. During that stretch, they reached hundreds of thousands of spectators with their message of hope for disabled individuals. Everywhere they went, "The Star of Happiness" played to enthusiastic audiences and rave reviews. "Keller has conquered again," wrote a New York Times critic. "The Monday afternoon audience at the Palace," he continued, "one of the most critical and cynical in the world, was hers."

"At first it seemed strange," Keller reflected, "to find ourselves on a program with dancers, acrobats, and trained animals." She theorized, though, that the vivid distinction between their performance and the other acts, gave novelty and interest to their work. The years of Helen and Anne's vaudeville period have faded from prominence as her world-renowned career of organizing and advocating for the disabled, took center stage. Helen would eventually become such a celebrated personality that she would be the White House guest of every president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson. During her global journeys, she visited 35 countries on five continents. And her autobiography, "The Story of My Life," which would furnish the basis for The Miracle Worker, was published in 50 languages.

The vivid scenes of Anne Sullivan's early meetings with Helen, which were documented in both the book and the movie, depict the inimitable spirit of both women. The unruly Helen not only pitched world-class fits, but knocked out one of Anne's front teeth. Despite this, Anne sensed a tender core beneath Helen's raging exterior. Six-year-old Helen had already developed about 60 signs to express her needs to the family. But when she had previously felt the moving lips of her family members, Helen realized they were communicating to each other with their mouths.

Her youthful response to her inability to share her thoughts and feelings as they did was to fly into a rage. "The need for some means of communication became so urgent," Helen later wrote, "that these outbursts occurred daily; sometimes hourly." Her anger, at times, went further than screaming and kicking. Once, after learning the purpose of a key, she locked her mother in a closet. Even more frightening, she once purposefully tipped over her baby sister in her cradle. Clearly, something had to be done.

Some of the relatives tried to convince her parents that Helen should be institutionalized. Although her mother understood their concern, she knew there was a sad, frustrated little girl trapped inside the wild creature. She believed Helen desperately wanted to reach out to her family. Her mother vividly recalled the bright healthy little girl who had started talking at six months, and brought so much sunshine into the family. But she also remembered her distress when the nineteen-month-old fell desperately ill – and the soul-wrenching terror that followed.

She had been so pleased when Helen's illness subsided and her high fever dissipated. Concern, though, soon overshadowed her relief. Something seemed to have transformed the previously happy and inquisitive child. When her mother rang the dinner bell to gather her family, Helen showed no response. And the bright eyes that had always danced around to take in all of her surroundings, stared blankly into the distance. An examination soon confirmed her worst fears. The unidentified illness, which many now feel was Scarlet Fever, had robbed Helen of both her vision and hearing.

Fortunately, the years between this incident and the moment her loving tutor...and miracle worker, Anne Sullivan, pumped well-water over one of Helen's hands, have been overshadowed by Helen's rich and fulfilling life. As Anne repeatedly finger-spelled "water" into Helen's other hand, she ignited her spirit. "Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness," Helen later wrote, "a thrill of returning thought. I knew then that 'w-a-t-e-r' meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy – set it free!" That freedom and joy would continue to light the darkness for one of America's greatest achievers...and most unusual vaudeville performers – Helen Keller, the "Star of Happiness."

# Roast Beef and Rotten Eggs

The birth of theater in early America

Our forefathers were too busy carving out a new nation to sit down with quill in hand and write a play. Still, the country yearned for the theater they had enjoyed back in England. Since most of the colonists had grown up watching Shakespearean drama, it was a natural choice for the early American stages. It wasn't long, however, before Americans began to add their own special touch to the great Bard.

Everyone agreed that Shakespeare was a great dramatist. But their new country had been founded on some pretty strict religious morals, and his stories were often a little on the wild side. That didn't present a big problem though – they simply rewrote him. It just wasn't fitting, for example, for Juliet to allow Romeo to steal a kiss on their first meeting. So in the American version, she waited a few more dates. In fact, the American play re-writers decided that thirteen was much too young to be having a fling, so her age was increased to a more respectable eighteen. They also felt King Lear needed a little modification. It didn't send a moral message to have him killed for no reason. So, on the American stage, he lived happily ever after.

Needless to say, not everyone was delighted with this butchering of the Bard. So, since America obviously wanted its own style of play, it wasn't long before native writers began to create American plays. Theater groups were springing up in nearly every town and they were hungry for new play scripts. Most of these new playwrights cranked out their stories between the cracks of their full-time jobs. Across the young country, schoolteachers, lawyers, and mechanics suddenly turned into authors.

In some cases, they even took the opportunity to advertise their trade in their plays. John Minshull, a New York butcher, had one of his heroes inform his fellow actors that the "color of the complexion depends upon the food we eat." He further enlightened them that "to feed constantly on salt pork, accounts for the sallow complexion." Just in case the audiences hadn't completely learned this lesson, Minshull wrote a song in another play that ended with the lines, "Oh the roast beef of Columbia! Oh Columbian roast beef!"

Not everyone was thrilled about our early country's interest in the theater. One storeowner wrote a warning about the theater's addictive quality. Possibly stretching the truth just a touch, he said he had recently discovered the "dramatic disease" right in his own family. Fortunately, he had spotted it just in time to prevent his family members from cutting a hole in the living-room ceiling to let in the ghost of Hamlet's father. In fact, the clerks in his store, he claimed, had begun to write their business memos in blank verse.

Despite these dire warnings, Americans loved their early theater. They sometimes loved it so much they forgot the plays weren't real. During the 1812 performance of a play in Philadelphia, the hero asked his fellow actors if they felt they should entrust their rights to English justice. An old man in the audience didn't wait for their response. He stood waving his cane and called out, "No sir, no! We'll nail them to the mast and sink with the stars and stripes before we'll yield." The audience gave the impromptu actor a prolonged ovation.

At the conclusion of a play in New York City, a group of Cherokee Indians had enjoyed the performance so much, they felt mere applause wasn't adequate. So they climbed right up on the stage and presented the leading lady with ornaments and headdresses. Sometimes however, this audience participation wasn't exactly welcomed by the theater troupe. It wasn't at all rare in earlier times, for example, for the audience members to shout song requests to the musicians in the orchestra during the play.

In Boston, a newspaper correspondent wrote about the audience's control over the events of the plays they watched. "We (the sovereigns) determine to have the worth of our money when we go to the theatre," he claimed. He explained that through their insistent applause and loud demands, the audience would make the actors repeat certain songs and dances. That evening, he continued, he was planning to attend a play called The Gamester. During the play, one of the characters, Mrs. Kean, poisons her husband. "Perhaps," he predicted, "we'll flatter Mr. Kean by making him take poison twice."

This audience intervention often went far beyond good-natured requests for musical numbers or repeated scenes. If these requests were denied, apples and walnuts were often hurled at the musicians or actors. In fact, early in America's history, an incident in a theater actually ended in bloodshed. It evolved from the still-simmering bad blood between the United States and England. The foremost tragic actors of the 1840's, were Edwin Forrest, an American, and an English actor named William Charles Macready. Each actor had visited the other's country to perform. During these visits, everything went smoothly until the second time Forrest played London. He was hissed during the play, and later received several hostile reviews. A man who was known to be a friend of Macready, wrote the most severe one.

Under the assumption that Macready had arranged for this unpleasant reception, Forrest decided to get revenge. He attended Macready's performance of Hamlet, in Edinburgh, and personally hissed at his performance. With this childish rivalry, the stage was set for an inevitable confrontation. Friends and fans of each actor began to take sides as the quarrel escalated into a burning issue between the two nations. Newspapers in both countries reported flurries of rotten eggs and insults.

By the spring of 1849, the feud had become so intense the irate audiences felt the eggs and insults weren't enough. Macready was booked to perform Macbeth in New York's prestigious Astor House Place opera house. During the performance, four chairs were thrown onto the stage, one of them almost hitting an actress. Macready decided the insanity had gone on long enough. After the show, he announced that he would cancel his tour. His supporters however, urged him to stay on and keep the show running. Unfortunately he took their advice.

During a performance two days later, several arrests were made inside the theater due to minor disturbances. Outside, a growing crowd became inflamed when they heard there had been police action in the opera house. They began to throw stones at the building. As the situation worsened, the militia was ordered to intervene and prevent further disruption. The word had spread to the unruly crowd, however, that the militia's rifles only contained blank cartridges. So when Macready exited the theater with a police escort, the crowd – unconcerned about the militia and their bogus bullets, pushed forward.

The militia members were hesitant to fire directly at their fellow townsmen, and instead shot slightly over their heads. Suddenly, shock waves surged through the crowd. As observers and innocent bystanders screamed and fell to the ground injured, a horrible realization set in. The rumor had not been true. The militia was indeed using live ammunition. It was a terrible lesson to learn, but the Astor Place Riot finally brought the American audiences to their senses. That, fortunately, would be the last incident of its kind, as modern theater spread across the nation, far removed from its early days of roast beef and rotten eggs.

# The Courageous Conductor

Harriet Tubman, the legendary

champion of the Underground Railroad

Through the years, hundreds of elixirs and tonics have been whipped up to cure fatigue and bring back lost vim and vigor. Early on, medicine showmen hawked bottles of exotic spring tonics – often mixed up the night before in the hotel bathtub. Medicine companies promised to "restore the bloom of health" to even the most pale and puny among us. Today, the quest for instant energy continues as columns of tiny bottles beckon weary customers at supermarket checkout lines. The containers' labels often list rows of ingredients, all carefully blended to promote maximum vitality.

A much simpler recipe, though, was actually discovered as far back as the 1850's. It worked flawlessly even though it contained only one ingredient. Back then, Underground Railroad conductor, Harriet Tubman, discovered she could induce a rush of pure vibrant energy in even the most weak-kneed and faint-hearted individual. The solitary ingredient in her remedy was lead – in the form of a single bullet placed in her trusty percussion pistol. Despite the effectiveness of her simple formula, she increased its efficiency with a couple of additives – a menacing stare and an ominous, "You'll be free, or die!"

Her energy-enhancing treatment was occasionally called for when one of the escaping slaves she was leading to safety, decided he wanted to turn back because of the danger. She knew he would surely be caught and forced to reveal the whereabouts of the remaining fugitives. "A live runaway can do great harm by going back," she clarified, "but a dead one can tell no secrets." Predictably, the combination of this explanation and the lead cartridge in her 6-inch-barrel pistol, worked instantaneous wonders.

The power of her personal force can be sensed in the few photographs ever taken of Harriet Tubman. In those images, her determined face stares out as though she was searching the darkened Maryland countryside for slave-hunters. The pictures portray the grit and purpose of the powerful five-footer. There is one thing, however, they don't display – a smile. Although her friends and supporters likely saw it from time to time, it was not her best-known feature. No, joviality was not a job requirement for a serious venture like leading fugitive slaves through the hazardous darkness. And since that became her ten-year mission, Harriet Tubman had a lot to be serious about.

Her no-nonsense demeanor was forged in eastern Maryland where her family toiled in slavery. Born as Araminta, she soon inherited the nickname of "Minty." Her mother, Harriet, and her father, Ben, were owned by two different families. Later in life, Ariminta would change her name to Harriet in honor of her mother. Minty's childhood was severed when her owner felt that, at the age of five she was ready to begin her life of servitude. She was hired out to take care of a neighbor's infant daughter. Minty's job was to watch over the baby at night and make sure she didn't cry. When the baby got fussy, Minty would constantly rock the cradle or hold her in her arms. Every time a cry was heard, her mistress, "Miss Susan," would whip Minty around the neck. Those scars, as well as the emotional ones from those and future incidents, remained with her for the rest of her life.

Sadly, that experience was a prelude to a string of arduous positions, often with similarly violent masters. These nightmarish jobs led to disaster when she was twelve. She had been sent to a dry goods store for supplies, when she encountered a young slave owned by a neighboring family. Harriet soon realized that he had left the field where he worked, without permission. His owner had followed him to the store and demanded he return. Instead, the young man darted away. The overseer instructed Harriet to help him restrain the boy but she refused. In an attempt to stop the runaway, he grabbed a two-pound anvil off a shelf and hurled it through the air. The treacherous missile missed its mark, but slammed into Harriet's head.

She fell to the ground, unconscious and bleeding and was carried to her master's house. There, rather than being put to bed to mend, she was simply placed on the seat of a loom where she remained untreated, for two days. She was then promptly returned to the field, as she would later recall, "with blood and sweat rolling down my face until I couldn't see." Like her previous scars, the consequences of this abuse would linger forever. For the rest of her life, Harriet suffered severe headaches as well as periods when she would seemingly fall asleep, yet was later able to recall everything that happened around her. Modern researchers feel her severe head trauma likely caused a chronic narcoleptic form of epilepsy.

That condition, however, would not prevent her from eventually striding into history as the most famous conductor of the Underground Railroad. She escaped from slavery in 1849. On September 17th, she and her two brothers, Ben and Harry, crept off in the dark of night toward the free state of Pennsylvania. Her brothers were soon overcome with fear and turned back to the plantation. After unsuccessfully trying to change their minds, Harriet followed them back to assure their safety. Once she did, she immediately turned her sights back toward freedom. "I had reasoned this out in my mind," she later explained. "There was one of two things I had a right to – liberty or death." "If I couldn't have one," she decided, "I would have the other."

A sympathetic white neighbor lady had given Harriet the directions to a nearby safe house. There, she was hidden in a wagon and transported to her next destination. At one of her early stops, the lady of the house asked Harriet to sweep the front porch so any suspicious neighbors would think she was working for the family. Later that night, the family hid her in a cart and traveled to the next welcoming house. As Harriet continued northeast through Delaware, and north into Pennsylvania, she learned about a clandestine corridor to freedom. It had been named years before when a Kentucky slave named Tice Davids swam across the Ohio River to freedom. His master followed in a boat and saw him wade ashore. Suddenly, there was no sign of him. The furious owner raged that Davids "must have gone off on an underground road." Several historians feel this led to the name Underground Railroad.

When Harriet finally reached the free state of Pennsylvania, she could hardly believe her fate. She said she looked at her hands to see if she was still the same person. "The sun came like gold over the trees and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven." Unlike most people who would simply bask in the warmth of their good fortune, she vowed to rescue the rest of her family as well as anyone else she could assist. "I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears," she later declared, "and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them."

Over the next decade, she put that vow into action. Years of laboring had given her a strength and stamina that, when added to her ingrained shrewdness, perfectly suited her for the clandestine mission. She sometimes disguised herself as an old woman and even as a man. Using the Underground Railroad and traveling only under the cloak of night, she led family members and other grateful souls to freedom. Some historians trace as many as nineteen trips. Looking back on her perilous feat, a justifiably proud Harriet Tubman reflected, in the train jargon of the Underground Railroad, "I never lost a passenger."

# Through the Eyes of the Nine

A 1957 civil-rights milestone, from the viewpoint

of the courageous Little Rock Nine, who lived it

Countless articles, documentaries and photographs have told the story of the brave "Little Rock Nine" and their stirring journey into the annals of Civil Rights history. Their uneasy wait to enroll, culminated with President Eisenhower's federalizing of the Arkansas National Guard and activation of the 101st Airborne Division. Then, on the morning of September 25th, 1957 the nine black students finally walked through the front door of the previously segregated Central High. The descriptions and visions of the traumatic events, especially the poignant photograph of young Elizabeth Eckford, previously trying to walk away from a snarling crowd, seem to tell the whole story. The most gripping story, however, comes from the still-vivid memories of those who walked through that door.

In an attempt to keep them as segregated as possible inside the school, none of the Little Rock Nine were allowed to participate in any extracurricular activities or to even take classes with each other. As the holiday season approached, a Nine volunteer, Minnijean Brown, hoped the spirit of the season might have loosened this rule, and asked to be in the Christmas program. Not only did the school officials stand firm against the idea, they branded her as a trouble-maker for even asking. Needless to say, her Christmas spirit quickly dissipated.

As time transformed the flash-point heat of the present into simmering fragments of the past, those nine courageous "trouble-makers" have shared their memories many times. "The nine of us were not especially political," Minnijean once explained. "We thought – we can walk to Central; it's a huge, beautiful school. This is going to be great!" Jefferson Thomas, another Nine member, echoed her expectations. After explaining that he actually thought the white kids would be friendly and understanding, he sadly added, "It was very discouraging." Another Nine "survivor," the delicate and fastidiously dressed Gloria Ray, vividly felt that discouragement as well. "People really hated me," she observed, "and my world changed."

During the years to follow, a number of the other students have expressed sympathy and regret over the situation. Most knew, though, that to voice that opinion at the time would have brought down a racist wrath on them or their families. Jefferson Thomas noted that the majority of the students were not involved in the abuse. "There were about 150 to 175 raising all the hell, out of two thousand, he estimated. Obviously, though, that was more than enough to make for an extremely miserable school year. Nine comrade, Carlotta Walls, added, "I didn't find anyone to stand up and defend any of us."

Another Nine member, Thelma Mothershed, best friends with Minnijean and Melba, didn't suffer as much of the hateful abuse as the other eight, simply because of an obvious physical condition. The diminutive girl with thick glasses, had a heart condition that at times, changed her shade to a purplish blue and often forced her to stoop down to catch her breath. Apparently even the abusers felt their peers wouldn't approve of their bullying a sickly little girl.

The other eight, though, were in for an open season of cruelty and violence. Nine partner, Ernest Green, reflected that each of them originally felt the friction over their attending Central, would produce only "a minor blip on the screen." Sadly, the expected blip, soon exploded into a nonstop bombardment of terrorism designed to break their morale and derail the integration of the school. "People didn't realize the extent of which we were tortured daily," Melba observed. Their persecutors would actually hold evening meetings to devise new methods to torment them.

Taking matters far beyond any logical form of innocent mischief, the hundred-plus hell-raisers seemed to have no boundaries. Girls would throw broken glass on the floors as the female members of the Nine stepped into the shower after gym class. Some oppressors had been trained to stomp on their heels as they walked through the halls. Elizabeth Eckford was once assailed with a hurled handful of sharpened pencils. Melba had acid thrown in her eyes and was only saved from blindness by the quick actions of a guardsman who rushed her to a sink.

Amazingly, the targeted victims didn't simply walk away from the abuse and resume their comfortable lives. Gloria Ray summarized their shared fortitude. She said the soldier standing in front of her with his rifle, was basically saying, "No, you can't have that good education that they're offering inside that school." I'll get that education, had been her mental response, or I'll die trying!

Her friend, Minnijean, felt the same resolve, but after she was turned down for the Christmas program and targeted as a trouble-maker, she said she felt like she was "just lost in abuse." Several times, students threw hot soup on her in the lunchroom. The first time it happened, she recalled "students got up from the lunch table and gave fifteen rahs for the boy who did it." None of the abusers were ever punished, but Minnijean later received a six-day suspension for dumping a bowl of chili on a couple boys who had been taunting and knocking into her in the cafeteria.

In February, her days at Central ended. A group of girls had been stepping on her heels and calling her names, when finally, one of them threw a purse toward Minnijean's head. To give it extra weight, the girls had stuffed six combination locks inside. Fortunately, Minnijean ducked and avoided it. As she retrieved the purse, she discovered the locks. Then dropping it to the floor, she muttered, "Leave me alone, white trash!" She was immediately expelled. She later earned her degree at another school. Following her expulsion, she remembered, "someone sent around a card that read, 'One down; eight to go.' "

As history is aware, the remaining eight didn't go. Forging through the cruelty, they somehow made it to the end of the year. Ernest Green, the only senior-class member among them, graduated. Strongly advised by the school's principal to have his diploma mailed to him, Ernest insisted on attending the graduation ceremony to receive it. Surrounded by about 600 white graduates, Ernest proudly stood when his name was called, and strode across the stage. As he did, the silence was deafening – other than the enthusiastic applause of his family and their guest, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Although the lens of time has softened some of the hateful faces, it can't erase the indelible images in the minds of the Little Rock Nine. "I actually try not to look at those old pictures," Gloria Ray confirmed. "because it's a lost childhood to me." "We were in the trenches," Ernest Green reflected, "hand-to-hand combat, practically." "At a certain point," Minnijean Brown added, "I didn't know if I would be alive to graduate from high school, or be stark raving insane."

Somehow, despite the hand-to-hand combat and brushes with near-insanity, the daring teenagers trudged forward. Today, the same city that spurned them, now displays their nine statues on the state capitol grounds. Those stately bronze figures will forever memorialize the stone-cold nerve of a fateful group of teenagers. They were suddenly thrown into a world of haters and hated – torn apart by bursts of broken glass, blinding acid and vicious attacks. Those metal statues will forever march into the future, just like the brave souls they represent – the courageous Little Rock Nine.

# Heroes of the Airwaves

Those great old radio crime-fighters

Every avid radio listener was aware that when the knob was turned, more than lighthearted singers and comedians might emerge. Some of the most frightening creatures of the underworld also lurked within that polished wooden box. Who knew what bizarre characters were waiting to manifest themselves in the shadowy corners of the living room? Who knew what dastardly villains might leap out of the speakers? Who knew...what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Only The Shadow knew.

The Shadow was an ideal character for an entertainment medium that could only use sound to paint its pictures – a man nobody could see anyway. At first, in the early 30's, the character, The Shadow, merely introduced a program called the Street and Smith's Detective Story Magazine Hour. He would ask his soon-to-be-famous question, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Then he would answer this by reading one of the latest tales from the sponsor's crime magazine. Before long, he became so popular he was transformed into the story's hero.

Lamont Cranston, as The Shadow, had developed the power to "cloud men's minds so that they could not see him." Cranston, a debonair man-about-town, had learned this valuable skill in the Orient. Not only had he perfected this ability, but he had picked up some other nifty talents as well – like projecting his voice for long distances. This skill came in handy once when he wanted to convince a mad scientist that The Shadow was standing beside him at the top of a huge volcanic mountain. Cranston, actually at the base of the mountain, threw his voice to the top. As the crazed scientist set off an explosion to destroy The Shadow, he instead merely destroyed the mountain...and of course, himself. He wasn't too big a loss, however, since he had transformed the mountain into a huge magnet in order to pull ships and planes to their destruction.

The Shadow's world wasn't the only radio hangout for dastardly villains and creepy characters. There would be plenty more when the radio blared out police sirens and sub-machine-gun fire topped off with marching convicts. Every avid crime-fighter fan knew this signaled the opening of Gangbusters. The program was based on true stories and began with an interview from some city's police official describing a real crime. Although the audience could almost see the rugged face of the veteran police officer, he was actually played by an actor. Phillips H. Lord, the show's creator, was afraid the real officers wouldn't be able to hit their cues right on time.

As the interview neared its end, the volume dropped, and with crashes and thuds and usually the rat-a-tat-tat-tat of machinegun fire, the story was dramatized. Some of the true stories, however, were touched up with a bit of fiction. During a raid on the hangout of the Licavoli gang, for instance, the police captured their pet parrot. Throughout the episode, he turned out to be as much of a stool pigeon as a parrot. Bit by bit, he relayed names and facts he had heard throughout the years, to the prosecuting attorney, By the time the bird proudly rested back on his perch, he had given enough information to send Licavoli and his band of thugs to the slammer for years.

Fortunately, the radio world was filled with more than The Shadow's dark universe and Gangbuster's hoodlums and street creatures. One radio hero in particular, was as pure and honest as the hoodlums were evil and conniving. Jack Armstrong was aptly named the All-American Boy. Not only did he fight villains, he was an excellent student as well as the captain of Hudson High School's football team. His tremendous energy was explained on a broadcast during the second World War. "Follow Jack Armstrong's rules for physical fitness" the announcer advised young listeners. "Get plenty of fresh air, sleep and exercise, and use lots of soap and water every day." Then he clued them in on the most important secret of all – eating "the kind of breakfast America needs in times like these – milk, fruit and Wheaties, Breakfast of Champions!"

Even with his daily dose of Wheaties, Jack couldn't take care of all the villains on radio. Fortunately, there were more than enough heroes to go around. Radio had found a new source to tap for program ideas – the comics. It was a short flight for Superman and Batman, from the newspaper to the radio waves. In 1945 in fact, they shared the airwaves during their first meeting.

"It was the most serious thing that ever happened!" Robin the Boy Wonder told Superman. "Batman has disappeared!"

As the announcer explained, Clark Kent had received a letter at the Daily Planet office, telling him to go to a pier on North Bay for an urgent mission. Near the pier, he found a boy lying unconscious in a drifting rowboat. As he helped him to safety, Clark noticed a cape bearing the letter "R," tucked beneath the boy's coat. Clark, of course, was familiar with his super-peer, Batman and his Boy Wonder, Robin. He quickly changed into his Superman identify before Robin regained consciousness.

When Robin came to, he informed Superman that Batman had been taken captive by a gang of crooks. As Robin relayed the information, he remembered that one of them had mentioned the name "Zoltan." Both Superman and Robin changed back into their everyday disguises and visited a wax museum owned by a man named Zoltan. Locating it hadn't exactly been super-challenging since, as Clark Kent observed, he was "the only Zoltan in the telephone book." Passing by the museum, they noticed a wax figure of...who else but Batman! It didn't take long for Superman to realize it was actually the real Batman in a state of suspended animation, and to free him from his wax prison. Batman had previously discovered that Zoltan had been shipping famous scientists in wax statues, to enemy countries.

Another radio super hero wanted to make sure the villains knew he was a force to be reckoned with. Since hornets are mean, green, and always ready to sting, he felt the name The Green Hornet would get his "point" across. With his gas pistol loaded with puffs of instant sleep, he would hop into his super-car, Black Beauty, hit his buzzing-hornet horn, and set out on a busy day's crime-fighting adventures. Unlike Superman and Batman, the Green Hornet wasn't born in the comic strips. The comic, in fact, was developed after he had already become a famous radio hero. During one episode, the listeners learned that he was actually the Lone Ranger's great nephew. Upon learning the news himself, he proudly proclaimed, "Then I'm...I'm carrying on in his tradition; bringing to justice those he would fight if he were here today."

As millions of avid radio fans turned the dial from the Green Hornet to Gangbusters and all the rest, hundreds of characters jumped out of that little wooden box and took shape in front of them. For three lively decades, that box was home for some of the most fascinating personalities America has ever known. From the Lone Ranger and his trusty scout Tonto, to Sherlock Holmes and his equally trusty assistant, Dr. Watson, they led the listeners on journeys filled with danger and intrigue. Then they deposited them, exhausted but thoroughly entertained, back in the comfort of their living rooms.

# Storm Clouds Beyond the Rainbow

The towering highs and cavernous lows

of Judy Garland's inimitable career

The New Grand Theater featured something both new and grand during a Gumm Family Christmas special in 1924. The little Grand Rapids, Minnesota theater audience had previously seen movies with cute children like Shirley Temple, singing and dancing their way into their hearts. But this was something different. This diminutive two-and-a-half-year-old cutie wasn't simply projected onto the movie screen. She was right there in front of them, charming everybody with her spirited rendition of "Jingle Bells."

Everyone there agreed the act was enchanting. And obviously the little soloist, Frances Ethel Gumm, was thoroughly enjoying her premier performance. In fact, one rendition of the chorus was simply not enough for her. She quickly followed it with a second repetition...and a third...and a fourth. By the time she had completed her seventh, her father carried her offstage, amidst hearty applause and howling laughter.

That applause, despite the accompanying laughter, hooked little Frances Gumm like a narcotic. As she chased its siren call over the next few decades, she would have a chance to view life from both the top and the bottom. With the slightly more marketable name of Judy Garland, she would bask in the footlights of Carnegie Hall and the Palace Theater, as screaming crowds massaged her soul with billowing applause. She would also, however, feel the gripping bonds of drug addiction and alcoholism. And she would experience the stifling pressures of both an overbearing stage mother and a cruel Hollywood producer who often referred to her as "my little hunchback."

After Frances's little Christmas performance, her mother, Ethel, decided to usher her into the family act. She sang and danced with her two older sisters, Mary Jane and Virginia, as the Gumm Sisters – sometimes billed as "The Gumdrops." Ethel, according to most accounts, was bitter and frustrated at her own lack of national success, and saw little Frances as a way to live out her show-business dreams. Realizing Frances had more potential for theatrical triumph than her older sisters, her mother began to also bill her as the solo act of "Baby Gumm." Over the next few years, her song-and-dance routines graced the stages of nightclubs, theaters and cabarets across the country.

Although the applause fed the youngster's growing need for emotional comfort, the grueling vaudeville circuit soon exhausted her. Rather than cutting down the number of shows, her mother, according to numerous reports, began giving her "pep" pills to boost her energy and stamina. Little by little, the glorious applause that had warmed her with joy was steadily being overshadowed by a chilling despair. The grueling schedule and her mother's redirected manic ambition, started to chip away at her childhood. "I was always lonesome," Frances would later recall. "I guess the stage was my only friend."

Her mother decided the best chance of success, especially in the movie industry, lay in the West. The family moved to Lancaster, California in the summer of 1926, where France's father found another job as a theater manager. Over the next few years, Ethel continued to promote both the Gumm Sisters and Baby Gumm. A glimmer of Hollywood's potential spotlight flickered in 1929, when the sisters debuted in a short-subject film called The Big Review. In the little film, they appeared in a popular song-and-dance number titled, "That's the Good Old Sunny South."

During the next few years, they continued to tour the vaudeville circuit and netted a few more short film projects with Vitaphone and GM Technicolor. When their vaudeville act played the Oriental Theater in Chicago during a 1934 tour, fellow vaudevillian, George Jessel, made a career-changing suggestion. The audience had responded with laughter when he introduced them as the Gumm Sisters. He recommended they find a more appealing last name.

Several stories still float around about the origin of the last name. Carol Lumbard's character in a film playing the Oriental at the time, had the name of Lillie Garland. Some say the name came from the then-famous drama critic, Robert Garland. Others point to Jessel's observation during his introduction, that the trio "looked prettier than a garland of flowers." Whatever the case, they changed their billing to the Garland Sisters. In addition, all three selected new first names. Frances's new name came from the currently popular Hoagy Carmichael song, "Judy."

Their reputation reached movie mogul, Louis B. Mayer in September of 1935. He asked songwriter Burton Lane to catch their act at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles and report back to him. Several days later, Mayer called Judy into MGM's Culver City studios for an impromptu audition. As the excited thirteen-year-old belted out "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart," she nailed down a prized MGM movie contract without even passing a screen test. Her future, it appeared, would shine as clear and bright as the sky that would feature the rainbow she soon longed to fly over.

Unfortunately, appearances, as often is the case, were deceiving. Although Mayer liked her voice, he was concerned over her appearance. Judy was less than five foot tall with a slight curvature of the spine. This led to his distasteful nickname for her of "my little hunchback." In addition, she was somewhat overweight, which prompted Mayer to unleash a network of informants who kept an eye on her eating habits. Regardless of what meals Judy ordered in the studio commissary, she would receive only chicken broth and cottage cheese. To diminish her appetite, the studio physician prescribed amphetamine-based diet pills. "There was a constant struggle between MGM and me," she reflected. "I remember this more vividly than anything else about my childhood."

When a Hollywood tycoon signed an actress in the 1930's, he felt he owned every aspect of her life. Judy's cute girl-next-door appearance didn't fit into Hollywood's glamour-girl parade of stars, which included Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor and Lana Turner. At Mayer's insistence, Judy's waist was brutally corseted, her teeth were capped and her nose was reshaped by inserting rubberized discs. The studio's unconcealed opinion that Judy was their "ugly duckling" actress, bombarded her already shaky self image. After watching her first feature film, the 1936 Pigskin Parade, she remembered thinking, "I was frightful – a fat little pig in pigtails."

Three years later, though, those pigtails...along with her ruby slippers, would charm the nation as she skipped along the yellow brick road in MGM's Wizard of Oz. Sadly, even though her character, Dorothy Gale, would eventually wake up to a loving Kansas family, Judy's theatrical family wasn't so warm and caring. According to reports, all four of her costars, Bert Lahr, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Frank Morgan, shunned her during filming, concerned the teenager might overshadow their performances. Ironically, Judy's only lasting friend from the movie, was Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West.

Like MGM's other child stars, Mickey Rooney and Deanna Durbin, Judy sometimes worked on two movies simultaneously, often laboring until well after midnight. Mayer's remedy was simple – pump the teenagers full of barbiturates so they could sleep, then greet them the next morning with a dose of amphetamines to carry them through another grueling day's shooting. Tragically, the perky little girl who would bring so much happiness to the world, would sink into a morass of depression, marital strife, and addiction. "I tried my damnedest to believe in that rainbow that I tried to get over," she would one day reveal, "and I couldn't! I just couldn't."

# The Orphans of the Overland Trail

The fateful 1844 Overland Trail

journey of the Sager children

Fate began the gradual process of softening the intense sorrow from the loss of the Sager children's beloved father and mother. Fate was, of course, the same thief that had stolen away their parents in the first place, so it would have been much better if it had simply reversed itself. Perhaps it could have erased the tragic events that had plagued their heartbreaking journey. That, unfortunately, is not Fate's method of filling the pages of history.

Instead, it led them toward a couple who would welcome them into a new and loving family – western missionaries, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. As Narcissa surveyed the youngsters who had just pulled up in a dusty cart, she may have seen a more pitiful sight before, but surely she couldn't remember when. Their trek had begun with a loving family of two parents, six children and a baby on the way. Sadly, it would end with seven orphaned children adopted by the members of their wagon train. Their story was documented thirteen years after the fateful trip, by the oldest daughter, Catherine. It remains a poignant reminder of the potential tragedy that too often lurked along the trail.

As Mrs. Whitman observed the pitiful children, Catherine wrote, she would witness, "a scene for an artist to describe." In the front of the cart, John, the oldest child, at thirteen, sat crying bitterly. Francis, the other Sager boy, was also weeping aloud as he stood outside the cart with his hand on the wheel. The remainder of the Sager children, five girls ranging from nine-year-old Catherine down to the baby, huddled together in the cart. They gazed first at their brothers, then at the Whitman's house, not knowing what their future might hold. As Mrs. Whitman approached them, the girls scampered off the cart. "Like frightened things," Catherine recalled, "we ran behind the cart, peeping shyly around at her." Eventually the boys' tears would diminish and, like their sisters, they would slowly grow close to the lady standing before them.

The Sager's ill-fated journey had begun in April of 1844 in St. Joseph, Missouri. About three hundred settlers-to-be set out on the two-thousand-mile trip along the Overland Trail. Naming their group, the Independent Colony, they excitedly gathered to head toward the fabled land of the Pacific Northwest. Naomi liked the idea of the rich soil and free land of the Northwest's Willamette Valley. Due to her late stage of pregnancy, however, she had argued against beginning the journey that year.

Naomi had become accustomed to her husband's traveling ways. They had already bounced from Virginia to Ohio, then on to Indiana, and later Missouri, to satisfy his restless spirit. But now, when she was so far along with the baby? She dreaded the hot, dusty, jolting trek ahead of her but her husband and the boys seemed to have their heads set firmly on their traveling dreams. Eventually, she relented and tried to work up some enthusiasm for the journey.

Their trip commenced on a bright spring day, and despite early problems with motion sickness from a bouncing wagon, the Sagers began to enjoy the novel frontier scenery. The nights were pleasant, since a number of the emigrants had brought along musical instruments. "These sounded clearly on the evening air when camp was made," Catherine would note, "and merry talk and laughter resounded from almost every campfire." Sadly, that brief stretch of merry talk and laughter would soon dissolve.

Five weeks into the trip, Naomi gave birth to a little girl she named Rosanna. The delivery robbed her strength as the train plodded ahead. Then, after she finally regained some of her vitality, fate targeted her for tragedy. Shortly after crossing the South Platte River in early July, the oxen ran up on a river bank and overturned the wagon. Naomi suffered a severe head injury and her already-weakened condition inhibited her recovery. She drifted into a delirious state and, as Catherine would later write, "lay long insensible."

Although it was past time for good fortune to visit the Sager family, that visit would occur only after their travels ended and the children met the Whitmans. By the time the wagon train reached the South Pass, the gateway through the Rocky Mountains, Henry Sager had fallen seriously ill with camp fever as typhus was often called. The fever was common due to the stagnant ponds that provided much of the drinking water along the dry barren prairie.

As his fever raged, Henry joined his wife to recuperate in the wagon. Sadly, his condition worsened and by the time the wagon train reached the Green River, Henry feared his life was nearly over. He begged the wagon train's leader, Captain William Shaw, to look after his children. With no relatives near and his wife gravely ill, Henry tearfully informed the captain, he had no idea what would happen to his children. Captain Shaw resolutely promised to watch after them – a promise he would keep to the letter. Only hours later, Henry Sager closed his eyes as his westward journey quietly ended.

Following a brief burial service, the train lumbered forward. Families quickly stepped up to assist Naomi Sager with the care of her children. Despite her brave struggle, the combination of weakness, grief, inclement weather, and her own case of camp fever, was steadily pulling the hope of recovery beyond her grasp. She again sank into delirium and became, as her daughter Catherine sadly recorded, "at times perfectly insane." Fortunately, before the end, she would experience a totally lucid period during which she fully realized the severity of her deteriorating condition.

After saying an affectionate farewell to her beloved children, she asked Captain Shaw and a German doctor they had befriended, to take her children to the well-known Whitman mission. She had originally planned to over-winter there and was familiar with the Whitman's friendliness to travelers. Then, twenty-six days after her husband died, Naomi Sager's journey also came to an end.

The following morning, after a brief burial and service – the train moved on. Thankfully, everyone on the train immediately came together to help the orphaned children. Several women took turns nursing the baby, while the other children were adopted by the entire wagon train. "No one there," Catherine fondly remembered, "but was ready to do us any possible favor." Captain Shaw and his wife also pitched in to protect and comfort the children.

Finally, in mid-October, the journey ended in the Willamette Valley, which had originally beckoned Henry Sager and his family toward the trek's heartbreaking conclusion. Captain Shaw rode ahead to meet with Marcus and Narcissa Whitman to see if they could temporarily watch over the orphans. After learning that they agreed to help, the German doctor hitched up the oxen to the little cart and he and the children headed for the Mission. Mrs. Shaw would later tell Catherine that she "never saw a more pitiful sight than that cartful of orphans, going to find a home among strangers."

Fortunately, they would not be strangers for long. After Narcissa Whitman had surveyed the cheerless faces of the children in front of her, she quickly ushered them inside the house. As she sat in an armchair, Narcissa placed the youngest girl on her lap and gathered the others around her. She asked their names and slowly began to inquire about their tragic experience. While she listened intently to their painful story, Catherine would recall, Narcissa would often exclaim, "Poor children!" Her decision to "temporarily" watch over them, instantly transformed into a permanent bond. As she talked with them, her husband, Marcus, came to the door. "Come in, doctor," she told him with a smile, "and see your children."

# An Odd "Stroke" of Luck

The nearly fatal case of sunstroke that

traded Roy Acuff a fiddle for a baseball bat

The wiry little 130-pounder had a good chance at a professional baseball career. Not only was young Roy Acuff a good pitcher, but he was what every coach looks for – an excellent all-around athlete. Despite his size, he had racked up thirteen letters in high school sports. In fact, he was so quick and agile that his friends nicknamed him "Rabbit."

He had built up a respectable record at semi-professional baseball and was now being seriously considered by the New York Yankees. As he pitched with his team, the Knoxville Smokies, in the city's Caswell Park, he didn't want to stop. It may not have been the World Series, but like all the other games, it would carry him one step closer to his field of dreams – the major leagues. No, he definitely didn't want to stop pitching.

Something, however, was wrong – very wrong. His pitches weren't working at all. Frustrated, he reached down to pick up some dust to rub on the ball. As he did, he couldn't believe his eyes. While he stared at the dust, it suddenly turned to mud. His heart raced as he watched a steady stream of perspiration pouring onto the dust from the palm of his hand.

After the inning was over, he told the manager he thought he should be taken out. But the manager knew Roy was a tough character and felt certain he could deal with whatever was wrong, and get his pitches back in shape. Tough or not, a few innings later, Roy came to him again. This time he said he wanted to take the outfield because he simply couldn't pitch anymore.

As he stood in the outfield, Roy once again had an ominous feeling that something was seriously wrong. In a few moments, everyone in the stadium would share his fear. After Roy came in from the field, he collapsed in the dugout. As he did, his arms and legs cramped toward his body so severely that several teammates had to join together to pull them straight again.

This was to be only the first of several attacks caused by an incredibly severe case of sunstroke. He had been burned very badly during a fishing trip in Florida shortly before the game. Roy knew the sunburn was serious, since it had actually burned through several layers of skin. He had no idea though, how severe it would soon become. He was rushed to the hospital.

The next day he was released and sent home to recuperate. After a week of bed-rest, Roy was ready to get up and at it...at least he thought he was ready. The minute he started to move around a little, he collapsed again. Although Roy still wasn't aware of the severity of his condition, his doctor was.

"Roy," he informed him, "if this happens again, you're apt to pass away on us."

This matter-of-fact statement definitely caught Roy's attention. He primarily stayed in bed for the next three months. Even after this prolonged recuperation period, Roy continued to sometimes collapse when he attempted to walk around. It would be several more months before he would even be able to sit around outside the house in the shade.

During his boring convalescence, Roy needed something to take his mind off his shattered baseball dream. Before long, he began to look around the room for something to do. His eyes soon fell on a familiar wooden object in the corner. His father, Simon, was a Baptist preacher and an accomplished fiddler. His fiddle was destined to hurl Roy's dreams farther than his pitching arm could have ever sent them.

"I guess the Good Man up above said, 'Roy, you're not gonna play baseball – you're gonna do something else,' " Roy reflected years later. As his eyes took in the soft gleam of the polished fiddle, he wasn't yet aware of it, but he had just discovered that something else. Roy had always enjoyed the music that had filled his childhood home. The soothing sounds of his father's old-time fiddle music joined by his mother's singing, guitar picking and piano playing, left him with warm childhood memories. Now it would be his turn to add music to the home. His father was delighted with the rekindling of Roy's musical interest. Together, they listened to Victrola records of Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, and Fiddlin' John Carson. As he attempted to play along with them, his father patiently taught him how to fiddle.

Not only was Roy's musical ability taking root during his rehabilitation, but he also began to learn another tool of his future trade. Once he began to feel a little better, he yearned to throw the baseball again. The doctor had told him, however, that would never be possible, so Roy substituted the ball with something that also required a type of throwing skill – the yo-yo. Many years later, the yo-yo would become an integral part of his act. In fact, years down the road, he would try to teach then-President Richard Nixon the art of the yo-yo during the opening ceremonies of the newest Grand Ole Opry building. "I'll stay here and learn the yo-yo," the Watergate-burdened president would quip, "and you go to Washington and be President."

The Acuff home soon became a neighborhood gathering spot. Roy had always enjoyed attention and would often entertain visitors by balancing farm tools on his chin. In high school, Roy later reflected, he sang in the school chapel's choir and performed in "every play they had." During his extensive recovery period, Roy developed another performing ability. His sister, Sue, was taking operatic voice lessons. Being a typical brother, he felt he simply had to tease her, so he would mimic the odd-sounding voice exercises she repeatedly practiced. As he did, he began to realize that the exercises actually seemed to help him sing with greater strength. This ability to sing deeply from the diaphragm would later set him apart from many of the other country singers of the time.

Little-by-little, the pieces of his unique future began to fall into place. In 1932, he joined Dr. Hauer's traveling medicine show. As the show toured the southern Appalachian area, he used the trick he had learned from his sister's singing lessons. Since the show had no microphones, he utilized the method to increase his volume and be easily heard over the crowd. Once he began to sing on the radio, his fans would often note how clearly his voice came through on their speakers.

After a couple years with the medicine show, Roy played shows with several local musicians. Beginning as the Tennessee Crackerjacks, they changed their name to the Smoky Mountain Boys. During the next few years, Roy became one of the Grand Ole Opry's biggest draws. His friend Hank Williams once commented on Acuff's immense popularity. "He's the biggest singer this music ever knew," Hank enthused. "For drawing power in the South, it was Roy Acuff, then God."

Although his tragic sunstroke closed the door on a promising baseball career, like so many other quirks of fate, it also opened another door. As Roy walked through that door, he would eventually become the first living artist to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. "The Great Speckled Bird," the "Wabash Cannonball," "Fireball Mail," "Night Train to Memphis," and his other classic hits would engrave his name deeply into the roster of country music legends. As he looked back on the freak incident that opened this unique door, he eventually remembered less of the months of boring confinement, and more of the years of joy that came from his unique "stroke" of luck.

# A "Grease-house Gamble"

An old building behind a service station

where Bill Monroe launched his Blue Grass Boys

As the cluster of young musicians cleaned out the unused grease house behind the little Greenville, South Carolina service station, their hopes were high. They dreamed that, like the rough-running cars that had been adjusted there, they would emerge fine-tuned and ready to go. Their leader, twenty-seven-year-old Bill Monroe, planned to tinker, tune and tighten just like the mechanics that had preceded him.

Unlike those mechanics, however, Monroe didn't want to merely turn out another well-tuned vehicle. He was after something that would stand out from the rest. He had already heard the smooth-running sound of success, with his brother, Charlie. From 1934 until 1938, the Monroe Brothers left warm musical memories for the fans of their old-style duet harmony. Their gospel songs like "This World is Not My Home" and "What Would You Give in Exchange for Your Soul" had become regional favorites.

After they had separated, Bill tried another duo act but found that each radio station he approached already had a successful duet on its staff. Since he couldn't break through with a carbon copy of the Monroe Brothers, he decided to whip up a whole new concoction. As he surveyed the inhabitants of the newly cleaned little building, the ingredients for that potential recipe seemed a little thin.

Nineteen-year-old Cleo Davis had no professional experience. He had joined Bill several months previously in Atlanta, after answering his advertisement in the Atlanta Journal for a singer and guitar player. And neither of the other two recruits were exactly seasoned veterans. Art Wooten had played the fiddle around his North Carolina neighborhood and had developed a one-man-band contraption. Amos Garen, a string-bass player, had just joined the little group.

Undaunted, young Bill Monroe rolled up his sleeves and set to work. This odd-lot mixture of green recruits, he resolved...along with a good dose of his tinkering and fine-tuning, would become his new musical vehicle. Since he planned to drive that vehicle into country music history, he felt it needed a catchy name. Being from Kentucky, the Blue Grass State, he christened it "Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys."

Throughout the months of tinkering, Monroe added several twists to the style of the little grease-house gang. He taught them to play nearly every song faster than usual. Since his mandolin was tuned the same as Art Wooten's fiddle, Monroe could demonstrate the sound he wanted him to play. Wooten soon developed a driving fiddle style that pushed the music along. In addition, Monroe began to throw in his own high-speed mandolin breaks.

The increased speed wasn't the only unique aspect of the new music. Monroe also experimented with unconventional keys like B-flat, B-natural and E. Before that, most country songs were primarily played in the basic keys of C, D or G. This variation tended to create a haunting quality that would later typify the "high lonesome" sound of bluegrass.

Prior to Monroe's innovations, the tenor usually sang back-up harmony to a lead singer's melody. Bill often turned that around, pushing his piercing tenor to the front of the song. To go along with their novel sound, Monroe gave the boys a new look. Rather than assuming the "hillbilly" appearance of most other contemporary groups, he dressed them in matching suits and Stetson hats. Month-by-month and song-by-song, the unusual ingredients melted together. The result, just as Monroe had hoped, sounded and looked like nothing that had come before it.

That sound, and their appearance, began to catch on around the Greenville area. Before long, they were playing a steady stream of small gigs, taking in twenty-five or thirty dollars a night. Bill paid his band members what he could and took care of their extra expenses like haircuts and laundry. As they played on Greenville's WFBC, and made the rounds of schoolhouses and courthouses, Monroe beamed with pride. The driving fiddle and mandolin, the unconventional keys, his high-lonesome tenor solos, and all the rest were coming together and setting feet to tapping and hands to clapping. It was time, he decided in the fall of 1939, to shoot for the top of country music programs – WSM and the Grand Ole Opry.

In October, they auditioned for George D. Hay and David Stone. Although Monroe's and Cleo Davis's memories differed as to exactly what songs they played, both remembered playing their high-speed version of Jimmy Rodgers' "Mule Skinner Blues." "I think that's what really sewed it up," Davis recalled. Hay and Stone hired them on the spot. In fact, they told Monroe that if he ever left the Opry, it would be because he had "fired himself."

Their initial performance on the Opry confirmed Hay & Stone's judgment. Cleo Davis recalled their first show. Roy Acuff, Pee Wee King, Uncle Dave Macon, and Sam and Kirk McGee were standing in the wings when they began. Davis said they "could not believe when we took off so fast and furious." The audience shared their surprise – and their delight. Their version of the "Mule Skinner Blues" reportedly received the first encore in Opry history.

That entry to the Grand Ole Opry was the path to country music history Monroe had been seeking. Through the years ahead, Bill Monroe and the changing personnel of his Blue Grass Boys would give the world such timeless classics as "Footprints in the Snow," "Uncle Pen," "Blue Moon of Kentucky," and "The Kentucky Waltz."

"It's got a hard drive to it," Monroe once said about his innovation. "It's Scotch bagpipes and old-time fiddlin'. It's Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high-lonesome sound. It's plain music that tells a story. It's played from my heart to your heart, and it will touch you." That's quite a sophisticated mixture, especially for something concocted in a grease house.

# Every Step by Stealth

Prison-camp escapee, John Collins Welch, faces

intense hunger, a torch-wielding mob, and a rebel

guerrilla band as he takes "every step by stealth"

"We knew there was no escaping for any of us," the fleeing Union prisoner wrote in his 1864 journal, "without giving some satisfaction to the insatiate ferocity of the dogs and men." Lieutenant John Collins Welch was accompanied by three other escaping officers near Cokesbury, South Carolina. They had vainly tried to elude a band of a half dozen neighborhood dogs. The other ones they passed along the way had simply emitted a few warning barks, then gone about their business. Not this pack, however. They kept up a running chorus of snarls and yelps.

Welch wasn't too worried about being bitten since, like his fellow escapees, he carried a heavy club. But he knew it wouldn't be long before the dogs alerted their owner. Welch's fears soon materialized. "In a moment," he noted, "a man came out of the house and commenced giving a peculiar yelp that they have for setting the dogs on." Ten days after the four Union officers had escaped from the confederate prison in Columbia, South Carolina, it seemed their prospects for freedom were doomed.

"Before this, we had agreed if anything of this kind occurred, we would separate by twos," Welch wrote, "preferring that two should be lost, than all should be lost." With the dogs at their feet, and the owner close behind, they implemented their plan. Welch teamed up with Lieutenant Adrian Appelgate of the Second New Jersey Cavalry. Welch and Appelgate turned left while the other two headed right. When the dogs came to the fork in the trail, they veered toward their right.

Welch knew that fate had dealt him only a momentary win. Quickly, he and Appelgate attempted to cover their path. "We rubbed our feet with needles of evergreen trees," Welch noted, "to destroy the scent of our feet." In addition, they turned off their path at a right angle and walked for a while. They then doubled back toward the original route. Partway there, they leapt off the trail as far as they could. The dogs, they hoped, would follow the side trail to its end, not discovering the spot where they left to continue their forward journey. Their scheme apparently worked, since the dogs never approached them again.

The next night, they ran across two black children who told them their companions had been captured and taken to the railroad for a trip back to Columbia. Saddened, but not surprised by the news, they were acutely aware they could have just as easily been the losers. Solemnly, Welch, and Appelgate resumed their clandestine journey, traveling only at night. Welch said the coming of darkness brought about a full realization of their plight. They were, he observed, "fugitives seeking the avoidance of daylight...each breath suppressed and every step by stealth."

The chain of events that led to those watchful steps began on April 20th, 1864. Lieutenant John Collins Welch was captured, along with a number of other Union soldiers, at Plymouth, North Carolina. After being transferred from one camp to another, he eventually ended up in Columbia, South Carolina's "Camp Sorghum," named for the liberal quantity of sorghum in the prisoners' diet. Despite the repetitive diet, Welch soon discovered a golden opportunity. The camp officials often let the prisoners go into the adjoining woods to cut boughs to build their shelters.

On November 3, 1864, he and nearly a hundred others went out on parole into the adjoining woods. "The sentinels were mostly boys," Welch observed, "with a sprinkling of old men who had little love for the Confederacy, and frequently did not hesitate to tell us so." Once in the woodland, he teamed up with three others for the hastily planned escape. "We went deep into the woods," Welch noted, "cutting for ourselves cudgels to serve both as walking sticks and weapons, and awaited the darkness."

Their freedom, although exhilarating, was soon fraught with peril. They set out on a treacherous northwestern passage through South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and eventually up to their northeastern homes. They had been told that black residents along the way would be happy to feed them. "Our first venture at what we supposed to be a Negro cabin," Welch noted, "was unfortunate."

He and Appelgate teamed up with several other Union escapees, who they had recently encountered. One member of the little group went to the cabin door while the rest hid in the nearby woods. Amidst the loud barking of dogs, a white woman appeared at the door. "You're runaways," she yelled. After swearing he was not, Welch said the man then "clearly demonstrated that he was" by taking off through the forest as fast as possible, with the others at his side.

"Our wisdom and shrewdness daily increased with our time out of prison," Welch noted. The original four left the others and sought out the Negro cabins in the evenings. That way, in case someone did betray them, they would have the night to distance themselves. Despite their increased vigilance, the next problem they would encounter, would be a fateful one – the barking dogs that eventually cornered two of the foursome near Cokesbury, South Carolina. After Welch and Appelgate covered their trail and eluded the dogs, they continued along their northwest trek.

They had been told that the little town of Walhalla, in northwestern South Carolina, was populated primarily by Germans, who were strong Union supporters. As they approached Walhalla, Welch and Appelgate hunted up a local black man who was known to be very helpful to fugitive Union soldiers. "We aroused Uncle Ed, which was his name," Welch stated, "at two or three in the morning..." Despite the late hour, Welch said they received a "vigorous and heartfelt welcome." Uncle Ed was fearful about cooking at night, since the fire might arouse suspicion among the locals. Instead, he offered bread and raw fresh beef to his late-night visitors. Welch and Appelgate dug into the meal with vigor. The meat, Welch reported, "I am not aware of having tasted any the worse for being raw."

Once they had finally reached Eastern Tennessee, they traveled one hundred-and-eighty miles by horse to the nearest railroad boarding point, at Nicholasville, Kentucky. From Nicholasville, they caught the train northward. In New Jersey, Welch parted with Appelgate, then continued toward his Angelica, New York home.

On the morning of Christmas Eve day, 1864, John Collins Welch completed his arduous journey. "I was, as one raised from the dead, in the midst of relations and friends. Mother – my stepmother," he added, "had an assurance and premonition of my coming." Welch said she had been telling everyone that he would be back before Christmas, "without any particle of information having been received that I was anywhere else than in my southern prison..."

In the midst of his loving homecoming, John Welch reflected on the lives of the slaves who had fed and sheltered him and his companion along the way. He especially remembered "Uncle Ed" providing a hearty welcome and clandestine meal in the middle of the night. "I could not help but think of the liberty, the joys, the civilization we were going towards," Welch observed, "and the slavery, the narrowness, the restraint that was his; and yet he was pouring out the sympathies of a great heart toward us."

# The Voice From Within

A mystery speaker in a dream who helped

lead Ray Charles toward his musical identity

"Where is Ray Charles? Who knows your name?"

The startled sleeper tried to quickly blink his way from sleeping to waking, but the nameless speaker continued.

"Nobody ever calls you. They just say, 'Hey kid, you sound like Nat King Cole.' But they don't even know your name."

By the time he had climbed out of bed and splashed water on his face, Ray Charles Robinson realized the voice in his fading dream was right. For years he had idolized the legendary crooner. He had used Nat's smooth style as a model for nearly every word and every note of his songs.

Born in Albany, Georgia, Ray had been bouncing around the small-time dance halls in Florida since he was fifteen. He played piano and sang for several different bands, always singing in the Nat King Cole style. Even though his career was stalled, Ray knew that his future was definitely going to be in music. But he hoped he wouldn't always be playing it in the joints where he and the little bands usually found gigs.

"These were small places with one door," he would later recall. "If any trouble broke out, we would make sure there was a window to climb out." Throughout the day following the arrival of his dream voice, he considered the advice it had given him. He decided it wasn't merely sensible, it was the window that could eventually help him climb out of the small-time dance hall life. If he was going to make a name for himself, it would have to be as himself and not as a clone of his musical hero.

But Ray had grown comfortable wrapping his talents in the cloak of Nat King Cole. It wasn't going to be easy finding his own voice and facing the world with it. But that was okay. Not much about his life up to that point had been easy. His childhood had been steeped in poverty. In addition, Ray's early years were shattered by losses. He faced the death of his brother and father in his early childhood, and his mother during his teens. And then, of course, there was the darkness. Very early, either a severe virus or acute glaucoma began to slowly rob him of his sight. By the age of seven, he was totally blind. No, "easy" was not exactly a familiar concept for Ray Charles Robinson.

In addition to finding his new voice, Ray also decided he wanted to find a new setting. On impulse, one day in 1947, he handed a map to his friend, Gosady McGee, and asked him what city was the farthest from Florida. When McGee told him he thought that would be Seattle, Washington, Ray immediately decided to save enough money to travel there.

On the day he arrived in Seattle, Ray's luck was hot. He found his way to a club hosting a talent show. After convincing the owner to let him tryout, he was noticed by a member of the Elk's Club. The club's representative told Ray that if he could piece together a trio by the weekend, he could have a job. He called on Gosady McGee, and hunted up another musician, Milt Jarret. Ray not only put the trio together by the weekend, but they were signed up as the Club's regular band.

Ray's move to Seattle had definitely jump-started his stalled musical career. After a few weekend gigs at the Elk's Club, he was recruited by the owner of a classier nightclub, called The Rocking Chair. Before long, more good luck followed when Jack Lauderdale of Swingtime Records heard the trio playing at The Rocking Chair. He walked over to them, saying simply, "I'd like to sign you guys up to a contract. What would you think about that?" The excited expression on the trio's faces answered his question. He had a deal.

That deal would set the stage for the emergence of a legend the music world would eventually crown the "Father of Soul Music." To avoid being confused with the then-popular boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson, Ray dropped "Robinson" from his name. During the next couple years, Swingtime Records released several of his songs. In each, he sounded a little less like Nat King Cole and a little more like Ray Charles.

The success of his records followed his metamorphosis into his new musical style. In 1951, he hit the Rhythm & Blues charts with several numbers,and began a national tour with blues singer, Lowell Fulson. Things were definitely looking up. But he still hadn't cast off all of his Cole-like subdued style to expose the soul music that boiled inside.

The final shedding of that skin would take place in New Orleans. Ray joined up with a lively character named Eddie Jones, who played under the show name of Guitar Slim. Jones sang blues with an uninhibited gospel style that inspired Ray to turn loose and pour his raw emotions into a song. During a recording session the following year, Ray would finally open all the stops and let it rip.

With "I Got A Woman," he backed his raucous Rhythm & Blues vocal with a pounding Gospel piano style. The result was pure Ray Charles. Suddenly the music world was rocked by a whole new sound. During the next few years, that sound would form a cornerstone in the foundation of the emerging Rock & Roll movement. One day, like its singer, the song itself would be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Once Ray had opened the door to his unique musical genius, one hit song followed another. In 1959, he added a touch of the Latin sound to a blues-gospel mix for "What'd I Say. " The tune became his first million-seller, and hit the number-one spot on the pop charts. A couple years later, "Hit The Road Jack" also smashed into the top position. Ray further showed he could unleash his new high-emotion style on a slower song. He decided to revive an old Hoagy Carmichael standard his chauffeur constantly sang as he drove Ray across the country – "Georgia On My Mind." Ray's moving version eventually boosted it into the position of Georgia's official state song. Soon "I Can't Stop Loving You," "Take These Chains From My Heart," "Born to Lose," and "Crying Time" joined the list of his slower-paced classics.

Before the golden dust had settled around his career, Ray Charles had racked up twelve Grammy awards and was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues, the Jazz, and the Rock & Roll Halls of Fame. If someday the mystery voice returned, he wouldn't ask Ray, "Who knows your name?" But he might wonder "who doesn't?"

# From Spears to Cheers

The switch from javelin throwing to music that

hurled Garth Brooks' career into orbit

The graceful spear split the air like a silent rocket. As the gleaming javelin eventually reached its peak and began to descend, the anxious thrower held his breath. He tried vainly to add precious inches to its flight with a series of grimaces and contortions. It was vital that the projectile outdistance its competitors. The future of its master, Troyal Garth Brooks, was resting on its flight.

The Oklahoma State University track star was counting on his javelin-throwing skill to inscribe his name in the athletic history books. Despite his prowess in football, baseball and basketball, it was this unique ability that had won him the partial scholarship to the Stillwater, Oklahoma university. As soon as he was selected for the Big Eight finals, he felt the door to his shining sports future would surely swing wide open.

The swinging of that door, like the record-breaking javelin-throws and Big Eight acceptance, never occurred. As the waves of disappointment slammed against the college senior's dreams, he glumly fell back on a "second choice" for success. That choice – his music, would one day launch him on a flight pattern that would make his soaring javelin appear stationary. Once Garth reluctantly switched his focus from sports to music, he began to refuel his efforts. He already had some performing experience. While he was in high school, he had formed a band called The Nyle. By the time he received a marketing degree from the university in 1984, he was performing regularly in area clubs.

Garth's musical influences bridged an unusual gap. He enjoyed the heart-felt country sounds of legendary Honky Tonkers like George Jones and Merle Haggard. But he also liked the softer Folk-Pop styles of artists like James Taylor and Dan Fogleberg. Having developed his tastes during the seventies and eighties, he even admired the on-stage energy of Kiss, Styx and the other arena-rock acts.

This unlikely sounding musical mixture didn't exactly fit the mold of the typical country singer. That was no problem for Garth. He would simply create a "new mold." Through his superb songwriting and entertaining skills, he would eventually take the lead in bringing country music to an entirely new audience. Although more than one country purist would wince at his on-stage antics, Garth would manage the nearly impossible. Even though he would package his act in more of a slick "pop" format, he would manage to keep the country music relatively pure.

The year after his graduation, Garth decided it was time to take a shot at the big time – Nashville. His "shot" lasted only twenty-three hours. Not only did he find that Nashville wasn't ready for him, he realized he was not yet ready for Nashville. Disillusioned, he returned to Oklahoma to hone his talents for another attempt.

During the next two years, he married his college sweetheart, Sandy Mahl, and put together a pop-country band called Santa Fe. Month by month, the band expanded their show dates, playing the club circuit through Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. By 1987, Garth decided the time was right for another assault on Music City, and moved the band to Nashville.

Although his band broke up soon after the move, Garth decided this was not going to be another failed attempt. While he and Sandy worked in a boot store, Garth began to find gigs singing demos and doing voice-overs for advertisements. Like the thousands who came before him, he paid his dues and listened closely for the knock of opportunity.

That knock would come from songwriter, Bob Doyle. Doyle befriended Garth and soon realized he was bursting with talent. Doyle formed a management company with Pam Lewis and soon set a primary goal of promoting Garth. That goal was realized with a Capitol Record deal just seven months after Garth and Sandy had moved to Nashville.

The result of that deal was released on April 12, 1989. The album was simply titled "Garth Brooks." One-by-one, singles released from the album hit the top ranks of the country charts. "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)" introduced the country music world to its future hero. "If Tomorrow Never Comes" and "Not Counting You" also scored direct hits. His fourth release, "The Dance," and its corresponding video, firmly cemented the new talent's star on the country music horizon.

The album's success was a confirmation not only of Garth's singing skills, but also of his songwriting ability, since he wrote or co-wrote all four of the hit singles. Then another affirmation came, which would forecast his unique future. By 1990, the album had crossed-over into the Top Twenty of the Pop Charts.

Through the next few years, he broke one record after another. His second album, "No Fences," rose to the Number One position on the country charts and remained glued there for weeks on end. This time, four Number-one singles emerged, including the rollicking "Friends in Low Places" and the emotionally charged song, "The Thunder Rolls."

Garth's third album, released in 1991, not only spawned more Number-one hits, but made music history on its first day out. Because of over four million advance orders, the album, "Ropin' The Wind," debuted on both the county and pop charts in the Number-one spot. The highly anticipated album didn't disappoint his growing legion of fans. Songs like "Rodeo," "Shameless," and "What's She Doing Now" helped push its sales over five million copies by the end of the year, and nine million at the finish of 1992.

And still the albums and the hits kept coming. By early 1994, only five years after his entry onto the music scene, Garth had sold over thirty-three million albums. His concerts were selling out in minutes. And he had received honors from nearly every music organization, including both the CMA and ACM's "Entertainer of the Year" award. All of Garth Brook's fans...and likely now even Garth, can be glad he wasn't able to add a few more inches to his javelin throwing. The records he set would never have matched the golden million-selling records that skillfully soared into the realm of "Garthmania."

# The "Witch of Wall Street"

Hetty Green, the ragged, miserly multi-billionaire

Dark nods and wrinkled brows greeted John Pierpont Morgan as he launched the secret meeting of Wall Street's sharpest financiers. As the participants nervously fingered their watch fobs and stroked their recently waxed mustaches, they prepared to tackle the daunting task of rescuing New York City. The financial panic of that year, 1907, had been ignited by an illicit scheme to corner the copper market. The conspiracy failed, but set off a panic that eventually closed banks and devastated cities across the nation. Their own beloved New York City, the highly respected J. P. Morgan informed the elite gathering, was virtually bankrupt.

Morgan's private library, with its paintings by Flemish masters adorning the crimson damask walls, provided an ideal setting for the renowned assembly. It fairly reeked with power and wealth. The New York City bank presidents and investors, sporting tailored three-piece suits and diamond stickpins, projected the same impression. Yes, they all fit the prestigious setting perfectly – all that is, except one. Seated among them was a woman with a tight bun of stringy gray hair, dirty fingernails and a ragged black dress. Despite her contrasting appearance, she did indeed have something in common with the others. Unlike their prestigious demeanor and spotless attire, she was actually quite filthy. Like them, however, she was also filthy rich. In fact, she could have bought and sold nearly everyone in the room.

Often derisively called the "Witch of Wall Street," Hetty Green had accumulated a fortune that, in today's currency, would brand her a multi-billionaire. She did her part in bailing out New York City as she had also done in 1898 and 1901, by trading cash in return for bonds, stock shares and real estate. Her motivation was by no means purely altruistic. The investments paid her well since she enjoyed deep discounts in buying them and substantial payments as they matured. Unlike many other investors, Hetty wisely kept a large part of her fortune in a cash reserve – usually over forty million dollars. "When the crash came," she later pointed out, "I had the cash and they had to come to me in droves."

Hetty's less-than-flattering nickname, The Witch of Wall Street, came partially from her hardnosed, sometimes downright ruthless business attitude and partially from her appearance. She prowled the streets of New York's most prominent financial district, wearing a long faded black dress and a steely gaze. The ragged hem of that dress, incidentally, was the only section she would let her laundry clean, since it was the only part that touched the ground. She then demanded a lower rate than those who had their entire dresses cleaned.

This obsession with money began early for Henrietta Robinson, nicknamed "Hetty" in childhood. Her family was well established in the New Bedford, Massachusetts' whaling trade. Hetty's only sibling died young, leaving her as the sole heir to the family business. The preparation for that role commenced when she was only 6-years-old, at the beginning of the 1840s. Her mother was often ill, which left most of her upbringing to her father and grandfather. They read stock market reports to her like other parents read bedtime stories. Year by year, the budding young financier gained a clear understanding of money matters. "By the time I was fifteen," she would later tell a reporter, "I knew more about these things than many a man who makes a living out of them."

In addition to her father and grandfather's financial training, Hetty was taught frugality at her Quaker girls' school. Anything the students didn't eat at one meal would reappear at the next. Despite her family's comfortable economic situation, she was told she needed to always practice frugality. If the privileged girls didn't learn how to scrimp and save, the teachers stressed, there would be no money left to educate the less fortunate girls.

In order to learn social graces, she later attended a finishing school in Boston. While she was there, her father bought her a wardrobe filled with the finest dresses of the season. According to a contemporary reporter, her father's intent for giving her the dresses was to help her "attract a wealthy suitor." Hetty was apparently not as interested in attracting a wealthy suitor as she was in simply attracting wealth in general. She sold the dresses and put the profits into government bonds.

In fact, she soon dropped out of the finishing school and rejoined the family business. For the next few years, she worked side by side with her father, honing her financial skills to near perfection. That ability would prove essential within a few years. Both of her parents passed away by the time she was thirty-one, leaving her approximately six million dollars to invest in the stocks, bonds, and real estate she had been studying for years. She bought into railways, real estate, and even cemeteries. She often purchased land on the outskirts of boom towns and patiently watched the cities come to her. As her razor-sharp mind cavorted through the stock and bond markets, Hetty developed an almost encyclopedic knowledge of when she should buy and sell each investment.

Two years after she inherited the money, she married her financial advisor, Edward Green, 14 years her senior. Green had made a small fortune in the silk and tea trade, and seemed to have a good head for money management. Despite this, Hetty insisted on his signing a prenuptial contract that kept their money strictly separate. This proved fortunate since, as it turned out, Henry's version of money management seemed to include squandering his money on fine clothing, posh night clubs, and classy restaurants.

Hetty learned about this when the bank where she kept much of her money, suddenly told her she needed to cover her husband's increasing debt. Edward had led the bank executives to believe that his wife would be glad to cover his debts. As might be imagined, gladness was not visible on Hetty's face when she learned the news. Eventually, she covered his deficit, but took their son and daughter, and severed the relationship. They never divorced, and she even nursed him through an illness later in life, but her interest in marriage vanished.

Her interest in increasing her fortune, however, never did. As word spread about her ever-growing millions, so did the stories about her growing stinginess. According to several reports, she neither turned on the heat nor used hot water. She set up her office in New York's Seaboard National Bank, where she kept millions in savings. They offered her a free space in a storeroom, where she carried out her multi-million-dollar deals amidst trunks and suitcases crammed with her papers. Lunch usually consisted of oatmeal, which she bought in quantity and cooked on the radiator. Her miserly behavior reached its peak when she lost a two-cent stamp in her carriage and spent the rest of the afternoon looking for it.

Her son, though, was more than happy to make up for his mother's skinflint ways. When Hetty passed away in 1916 at the age of eighty one, she split her wealth between her son and daughter. Likely tired of living on scraps with his mother, her son, Edward, couldn't seem to spend his money fast enough. He purchased several mansions and filled them with young ladies he called his wards. In addition, he had a huge yacht built, which severe seasickness prevented him from enjoying. Upon his death in 1936, what money he had not squandered was left to his much more conservative sister, Sylvia. She kept about a million and gave the remainder of her fortune and her brother's residual savings to charities – a noble ending to the matchless legend of the Witch of Wall Street.

# Conniving Kentucky Cousins

The Great Diamond Hoax of 1872

"Gentlemen," Charles Tiffany proclaimed as he held a gemstone toward the light, "these are beyond question, precious stones of enormous value." His firm declaration was not questioned, since Tiffany, the first in the famous Tiffany Jeweler's line, was obviously an expert in the field of diamonds and other precious gems. And his declaration was definitely not biased, since he had no connection to the two Kentucky prospectors who had discovered the rough stones now scattered on the table in front of him. There was, however, another thing that his declaration was not. It was not true.

As it turned out, Mr. Tiffany and his lapidary specialist, who later confirmed his appraisal, were experts in cut gems, but not rough uncut stones. Oh, there were actual rough gems on the table, but not the type that would end up hanging around the necks of cultured ladies. The diamonds, in fact, were industrial-grade stones scheduled to be ground up for diamond-coated drill bits. As for the rubies and emeralds in the mix, they were inexpensive stones probably purchased from local Indians.

The story behind the bogus gemstones, commenced a couple years before, in the fall of 1870. One day, Phillip Arnold, an assistant bookkeeper at San Francisco's Diamond Drill Company, rested his pencil to gaze vacantly around the office. He noticed a sack of rough uncut diamonds the company planned to grind up for its drill bits. Suddenly, a diamond-like gleam flashed in his eyes as a fanciful scheme flickered through his brain. What if, he wondered, he could salt them in some isolated spot and convince people they were part of a valuable diamond field?

Most folks would have simply smiled and shaken their heads over the folly of their own imagination. The gleam in Phillip Arnold's eyes, though, continued to glow as he turned his attention back to his tedious accounting duties. As the hours and days drifted by, he began to flesh out the details of his original scheme. He remembered he had seen a secluded location in the northwest section of Colorado, that might make an ideal lost diamond field. Then, he simply needed to find some willing suckers who would cough up a small fortune for the chance of making a large fortune.

Rumors of mineral riches in the newly inhabited West had been igniting conversations about the next "big strike." This optimism was also stoked by tall tales of early guides like Kit Carson and Jim Bridger. They told of diamonds, rubies and other gems that could be "scooped right off the ground." The dubious legends and rumors soon mingled with the ever-present human desire to strike it rich. The stage had been set for Arnold and his older cousin to pull off a scam that would eventually be described in The San Francisco Chronicle as "the most gigantic and barefaced swindle of the age."

After recruiting his cousin, John Slack, Arnold filled a leather pouch with rough diamonds he had most likely liberated from the drill bit company. After mixing in a few ruby and emerald stones for good measure, the two dressed as weather-beaten prospectors and approached their first mark – San Francisco businessman, George D Roberts.

The conniving cousins played their roles in the sting with theatrical precision. They arrived in Roberts' office in the early evening, disheveled and exhausted. They had just returned from a prospecting expedition, they informed Roberts, with a bag filled with "something of great value." They told him they would have dropped it off at the nearby Bank of California, except for the lateness of the hour. Faking a reluctance to discuss the sack's contents, they asked if Roberts could possibly hold the bag in his safe overnight. Finally, they let slip an unintended hint by mumbling something about "rough diamonds."

That bait instantly hooked Roberts' interest. Once again, they feigned reluctance, but eventually showed their prey the rough gemstones in the sack. As predicted, Roberts' eyes bulged as his mind calculated the potential value of the prospector's find. "Roberts was very much elated by our discovery," Phillip Arnold would later tell a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Arnold then extracted a promise from Roberts to "keep it a profound secret." Predictably, the minute Arnold and Slack left his office, Roberts set to work informing his cronies about the remarkable discovery.

Roberts' first call was to the founder of the Bank of California, William C. Ralston. Like him, Ralston was known for investing in potential get-rich-quick schemes, without much concern over matters of legality. Roberts soon telegraphed another of his wheeling-and-dealing acquaintances, with the high-toned name of Ashbury Harpending. Ralston and Harpending, like Roberts, were enthralled over the potentially priceless discovery made by the two bumbling Kentucky hillbillies. Harpending had been in London when he and a partner received the news. As he would later recall, he and his friend made their way to San Francisco "as fast as steamships and railroads would carry us."

As Arnold and Slack continued to play their country bumpkin roles, the plan unfolded flawlessly. The little band of money-hungry investors recruited several more members, each fairly drooling with the anticipation of imminent riches. Meanwhile, the cousins said they were heading back to the diamond field to gather more samples. In reality, they headed to England to purchase a large quantity of uncut diamonds. Like the previous batch, they were low-quality industrial stones. Upon their return, Arnold and Slack stopped off at the phony field to plant more stones. They took the remainder back to dazzle their backers with several more pounds of priceless gems from their hidden treasure cove.

Although the greedy little band of investors were anxious to buy out the cousins for a budget price, they were not total fools. In addition to lining up Tiffany's evaluation, they hired a well-respected mining engineer, Henry Janin, to inspect the actual diamond field. In the summer of 1872, the cousins led Janin, Harpending, and two other investors on a four-day horseback journey. Along the way, they purposefully meandered around the countryside to thoroughly confuse their companions. The exhausted little group finally arrived at the salted site in the northwest corner of Colorado, in the late afternoon of June fourth.

Janin's investigative skills, like Tiffany's, were apparently influenced by what he wanted to see. After digging out diamond after diamond, he was, as Harpending would later describe, "wildly enthusiastic." A previous offer made to him to purchase 1,000 shares of the diamond venture's stock, also likely clouded his objective vision. With both a respected jeweler and mining engineer backing the authenticity of the find, the cousins eventually milked their marks for $550,000 or about $8 million in modern-day money.

Eventually, the scam was broken open by a government geologist named Clarence King. His report noted that diamonds had likely been stuck into the sides of anthills with sticks, and some rubies and diamonds lie scattered on top of flat rocks. The rare find, he discovered, was a fake. Arnold was later tracked down in Kentucky and forced to repay the majority of his take. A few investors, however, were too embarrassed to admit their foolish venture, leaving Arnold with some spending money from his sting. Slack took his share and faded into history, only sighted years later in Missouri and New Mexico. And a group of red-faced wheeler-dealers spent years trying to erase the vivid memories from their minds, of two conniving Kentucky cousins.

# The Timely Turn Down

When ten-year-old Brenda Lee turned down a radio

gig and detonated her future as "Little Miss Dynamite"

"I still get cold chills thinking about the first time I heard that voice," veteran singer, Red Foley, recalled. He said that when he watched the little ten-year-old Brenda Tarpley belting out her rockabilly version of Hank Williams' "Jambalaya," he stood in a trance with his mouth open "two-miles wide." Even though the rest of her body was perfectly still, Foley remembered, "one foot started patting rhythm as though she was stomping out a prairie fire."

Many of the audience members in Augusta, Georgia's Bell Auditorium sported similar wide-open mouths. The little girl who stood on a Coke crate to reach the microphone during that February 1955 performance, had no problem reaching their hearts. Before the last note of her song faded, they leapt up screaming as if they felt the flames of that prairie fire Brenda seemed to be stomping out.

That magical moment, however, would never have transpired if young Brenda hadn't turned down a thirty-dollar offer to sing. On that same evening, she was invited to appear on Swainsboro, Georgia's Peach Blossom Jamboree program. The money was certainly appealing but passing up a chance to see one of her favorite singers, Red Foley, was simply not an option. He and the cast of his Ozark Jubilee television show were performing in Augusta during a promotional tour. Not only could Brenda see Foley perform, but she even had a connection to her musical hero through a friend, Charles "Peanut" Faircloth, a D. J. on the Swainsboro station. Through Faircloth's wheeling and dealing skills, he managed to convince Foley and his promoter to let Brenda open his show with Hank Williams' "Jambalaya."

Before the astounded audience would let her leave the stage, Brenda was called back for three more songs. After the show, Red and his promoter invited her to come to Springfield, Missouri the next month to sing on the Ozark Jubilee. She took him up on the offer at the end of March. Just like the Georgia audience, the Missouri crowd roared their approval. Measuring in at just a tad over four-and-a-half feet, Brenda filled the auditorium with a melodic full-throated voice that would later earn her the nickname of "Little Miss Dynamite."

Despite her young age when she met Red Foley, Brenda had already been performing for years. Her unique talents, in fact, had emerged when she was a toddler. Both her mother and sister recalled that Brenda was fascinated with the family's battery-powered radio when she was only two. After hearing a song a couple times, she knew the entire tune. Before her third birthday, they began taking her down to a local candy store, where they would stand her on the counter to sing for sweets and spare change.

That change came in very handy since the family rarely had much money. Their father, Reuben, a hard-working itinerate carpenter and mill-worker, often had to uproot the family as he found jobs between Atlanta and Augusta. Despite their hardscrabble life, her parents kept food on the table and love in their family. Little Brenda's cheerful and loving personality, mixed with her musical skills, soon steered her beyond the candy-counter venue. One early show would move her a step closer to her legendary future. She won the grand prize at a local talent contest which included an appearance on an Atlanta radio station's Starmakers Review.

Like nearly everyone who heard Brenda's amazing voice, the radio station's management was blown away. They booked her for more shows and helped spread her voice across Atlanta. Soon her fans were also able to see her sing on the Atlanta-based TV Ranch program. Although little Brenda had to stand on a wooden crate to reach the microphone, her incredible voice, as always, mesmerized the delighted viewing audience. As the early 1950's rolled by, the radio and television exposure led to paying gigs which allowed her to contribute to the family budget. Sadly, that would become essential when her father died in a construction accident in 1953, leaving eight-year-old Brenda as the family's principal bread-winner.

Smiling through her grief, she continued to sing on various stages and programs, soon adding Swainsboro's Peach Blossom Jamboree program to her list. This would be the station with "Peanut" Fairchild, the D. J. who would line her up with Red Foley in the winter of 1955. His nickname sprang from his small stature caused by childhood polio. The four-foot eight-inch broadcasting powerhouse hosted several radio shows and, like Brenda, didn't let his diminutive size stunt his musical dreams...or his ability to help Brenda launch hers.

Following Brenda's first appearance on the Ozark Jubilee, the show's producers received three times the usual fan mail with nearly every letter asking to see Brenda again. Since it looked as if her name might soon be known across the country, Sammy Barton, producer of the Peach Blossom Jamboree, suggested she shorten Tarplee to "Lee" to make it easier to remember. Likely, though, her fans would have remembered her by any name as she veered from her country roots to rack up a solid-gold string of hits like "I'm Sorry," "Sweet Nothin's," and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree."

In the mid-sixties, the British Invasion began to push Brenda and many other American Rock & Roll singers off the top ranks of the charts. In her case, this was ironic since during a 1962 European tour, her warm-up opening act at Hamburg, Germany's Star Club, was a little-known Liverpool Beat group then known as the Silver Beetles. Instead of struggling against the English tide, Brenda simply returned to a welcoming group of country music fans who sent her songs like "Big Four-Poster Bed," "He's My Rock," and "Nobody Wins" racing up the country charts. Looking back on the sale of over one hundred million records and inductions into the Country, Rockabilly, and Rock & Roll Halls of Fame, it seems like turning down that $30 radio gig wasn't such a bad idea.

# The World's Favorite Tramp

The birth of Charlie Chaplin's beloved character

"I'm going to get out of this business," the young English actor informed one of his colleagues at Keystone Studios, "I figure the cinema is little more than a fad." The studio's head, Mack Sennett, likely wouldn't have been too upset if the young actor followed through with his plan. After all, his first venture with the studio hadn't exactly set the world on fire. The little one-reel comedy short, Making a Living, was immensely forgettable. In fact, it led Sennett to order the novice actor, Charles Spencer Chaplin, to come up with "a more workable screen image."

Swallowing his disappointment and unleashing his creativity, Chaplin began snooping through costumes in Keystone's wardrobe department. He decided that everything about his new character should be a contradiction. First, he put on a pair of baggy trousers, which had been worn by Keystone star, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Then he matched the oversized pants with a tight jacket, previously sported by a considerably smaller actor. The shoes, he determined, needed to be large floppy ones, which he would accentuate with a waddling walk. An old derby hat topped off the look.

Then turning his attention to his new creation's face, Chaplin pasted a small "postage stamp" mustache on his lip, reasoning, as he later explained, it would "add age, without hiding my expression." Grabbing a cane from the props department, he began to twirl it in front of himself. He would modify his new character through the next few years, giving him less of a slapstick quality and more of a wistful three-dimensional personality. The basic nature, though, of The Little Tramp, as he would come to be known by millions, emerged intact.

"The moment I was dressed," Chaplin later explained, "the clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was." As Chaplin sank into the persona that would one day become an American movie icon, the little-known British actor suddenly transformed. "By the time I walked on stage," he confirmed, "he was fully born."

One characteristic of The Little Tramp that particularly appealed to movie-goers, was his spunk and resilience. Despite his appearance as a vagabond misfit, he always seemed to bounce back from adversity and pull one over on the pompous elite who had shunned him. This fortitude likely sprang from Chaplin's own London childhood. His hardscrabble existence in the impoverished Kennington district, could easily have been crafted into a Dickens' character.

Both of Charlie's parents were music hall entertainers, which helped plant the show-business seed in him at an early age. His father, Charles senior, became popular as a music hall singer. Unfortunately, alcoholism began to pull him away from his craft and toward the bottle, destroying both his career and family life. Although they never divorced, Charles and Hannah split up and drifted into separate worlds. Not only did his drinking destroy his musical dreams, it soaked up any money Charles might have used to help support his wife and children – leaving them to fend for themselves.

Sadly, Hannah not only faced the challenge of living as a single mother, but would soon confront the ravages of a severe mental illness. Although once a relatively popular singer, billed as Lily Harley, she began to drift in and out of psychotic episodes. Hannah vainly tried to hold her family together by working as a dressmaker and nurse, between her periods of hospitalization.

Twice, however, she was forced to send Charlie and his older brother Sydney, to workhouses for destitute children. She managed to reacquire and briefly support them both times, but her disabling illness relentlessly progressed. Eventually, fourteen-year-old Charles was forced to admit her to London's Cane Hill Asylum. "There was nothing we could do," Chaplin reflected years later, "but accept poor mother's fate."

Like so many others facing merciless poverty and hardship, Charles developed an independent toughness of spirit. "I was hardly aware of a crisis," he wrote years later, "because we lived in a continual crisis." Then he added, "being a boy, I dismissed our troubles with gracious forgetfulness." During his early years, he had already seen a glint of success in the acting field, sometimes singing during his mother's shows. Using his father's connections, Charlie signed on with the successful Eight Lancashire Lads clog-dancing troupe. This taste of fame whetted his appetite for a more wide-ranging theatrical triumph.

The clog-dancing gig was not exactly at the top of the show-biz ladder, but young Charlie kept his eye on the rungs above. He added to his meager salary with side jobs as a paperboy, toy-maker and doctor's helper, while he kept his goal in focus. "Between jobs," he recalled, "I would polish my shoes, brush my clothes, put on a clean collar, and make periodic calls at a theatrical agency."

His perseverance paid off with a role as Billy the Pageboy in a production of Sherlock Holmes. After a successful two-and-a-half year run, he found work in vaudeville with a juvenile act known as Casey's Court Circus. There, he developed several popular burlesque pieces and was soon considered the star of the show.

Meanwhile, Sydney, had also caught the acting bug and was one of the key performers in Fred Karno's well-known comedy company. Sydney tried to arrange for his younger brother to join the cast, but his request was not greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm. Karno had met Charlie and considered him to be a "pale, puny, sullen-looking youngster." In addition, he told Sydney, "he looks much too shy to do any good in the theater." Undaunted, Sydney displayed the same grit as his younger brother, and arranged for a two-week trial for Charlie.

On his first night, Charlie proved his merit as a comedic actor and was soon offered a permanent contract. His years with Karno often included pantomime roles. These, of course, would provide a natural training ground for his future. Role by role and year by year, he developed the expressive gestures that would one day let the soundless Little Tramp tell his captivating stories on the silver screen. He created a popular character called The Drunk, in a sketch titled, "A Night in an English Music Hall."

The Karno company also supplied the vehicle that would bring Chaplin to America for the 1910 vaudeville circuit. The American audiences loved his portrayal of The Drunk, and asked Fred Karno to book a return tour in the fall of 1912. Although vaudeville was still fashionable, a new entertainment form was beginning to furnish a little competition. The flickering little characters on the screens of the newly opened movie theaters didn't yet speak, but were simply too fascinating to ignore. The early movie studios began to scout talent from the time-honored vaudeville and variety stages.

Six months into the tour, Chaplin was approached by a representative of the New York Motion Picture Company. He was impressed by Charlie's vaudeville performance and felt he might make a good replacement for Fred Mace, a star who was leaving their Keystone studios. Charlie was aware of Keystone's slapstick comedies and felt they were a "crude mélange of rough and tumble." He liked the idea of working in films, however, and decided "It would mean a new life." As he signed a contract with Mack Sennett in December of 1913, he likely had no inkling of the new life he was creating, both for himself and a lovable little vagabond who was destined to become the world's favorite tramp.

# The "Wright Stuff"

When two Ohio brothers shattered the bonds of gravity

"They done it, They done it," The teenager yelled as he ran down the beach. "Damned if they ain't flew!" Although his grammatical ability wasn't in high gear, his good luck was. The winds of fortune would soon blow young Johnny Moore into the history books for no other reason than being there. Just moments before, on the windy frigid 1903 December day, he had been simply strolling down the beach.

Suddenly, his mid-morning beach walk was interrupted by the sight of several men clustered around an odd mechanical apparatus. The device, the men informed him, was hopefully going to fly that morning. Always up for excitement, Johnny decided to join the others. Although he didn't expect the huge gadget to fly, since nothing before it had, the situation held the prospect of more excitement than aimlessly wandering the beach.

Two brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, he learned, had gathered four other fellows to assist with their trial flight. The Wrights had nailed a red blanket on the side of their shed to alert the locals that they would like their help. This served as their prearranged signal that they would be testing their "Flyer." The local folk felt the two brothers from Dayton, Ohio were a bit on the eccentric side.

They were, however, very industrious fellows and had always been polite and appreciative of any assistance. Three of the men who showed up to help that December 17th morning – John Daniels, Will Dough and Adam Etheridge, worked at the nearby Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station. The fourth, W. C. Brinkley, was an area businessman. Along with young Johnny, they would soon witness an event that would one day be commemorated by their bronze statues standing on the beach, forever gazing toward the rising miracle.

The five of them helped the brothers haul the 605-pound canvas, wire and wood Flyer two hundred feet across the frozen sand to its long wooden launching track. Knowing any one of their test flights had the potential to make history, they had tossed a coin to decide which one should fly first. Wilbur had actually won the coin toss three days previously but unfortunately, when the Flyer left the launching rail, he over-steered with the plane's elevator. The craft climbed too steeply, stalled, and then dove into the sand. It took the next three days to repair the plane and get it back into flying condition.

Orville positioned himself in the Flyer and tested his controls. The stick that controlled the horizontal elevator which controlled climb and descent seemed to work fine. Likewise, the cradle he swung with his hips, twisted the warp of the wings just as they had planned. In combination with the movable vertical tail fin, it should let him turn either way as he needed. When he was satisfied, Orville released the restraining wire that held back the straining plane as its 12-horse-power engine fought to push its load forward. At 10:35, the 40-foot wing-span Flyer moved down the launching rail as Wilbur steadied its wings.

Since Wilbur knew he'd be preoccupied, he had asked John Daniels if he would squeeze the rubber bulb of the camera he had preset to hopefully catch the first seconds of flight. Although Daniels later nervously told the brothers that in his excitement, he couldn't remember having squeezed the camera's bulb, he actually had. As the shutter of the box camera snapped open and shut, it forever preserved man's first success in leaving the earth under his own power. Wilbur had instructed the little group to "not look too sad" and to "laugh and holler and clap" as Orville came down the ramp. When the huge machine took to the air, his coaching was no longer necessary.

That moment lasted for only twelve seconds, but that was all it took to make history. Far from the smooth flight many people likely envision when they look at the historic picture, the Flyer bucked like a rodeo bull. Orville desperately struggled to avoid his brother's mistake of over steering. Despite his best efforts, the wind buffeted the machine. During the wild twelve-second ride that reached an altitude of about ten feet, the pioneering plane stayed aloft until it hit the sand with a thud about 120 feet from the end of the rail. Suddenly, the centuries of mankind's crazy dreams of leaving the ground like the birds they envied, were no longer wild dreams. The two mild-mannered Ohio brothers had actually cracked nature's code to temporarily release the bonds of gravity.

Before the day was over, the Wrights carried out three more test flights, each gaining increasingly more ground. The last one, with Wilbur at the controls, lasted nearly a minute and covered 852 feet. There were clearly many challenges left to overcome since, like its predecessors, it also slammed into the sand. The trial flights, though, let the Wright brothers and their little audience know that something very special had just transpired. Unlike young Johnny who ran off yelling to the wind, the typically composed brothers, following a sedate round of gratitude, congratulations and handshakes, simply headed off for a quiet meal.

Later, they trekked to the Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station to once more thank their volunteers and ask to use their telegraph. The telegram to their father simply stated they had "success" in their flights, and matter-of-factly documented the distances traveled and the seconds they stayed aloft. They followed this brief message with a request for their father to inform the press, and their promise to be home for Christmas.

As instructed, their proud father informed the press. Oddly, they were not particularly interested. In fact, their hometown paper, the Dayton Journal, refused to even publish a notice. The flights, in the editor's opinion, were "too short to be important." Meanwhile, against the brothers' instructions, the telegraph operator at the life saving station had leaked the story to a Virginia newspaper. That paper then concocted a highly inaccurate story that was reprinted in several other papers, including the Dayton Journal. The Wrights later issued their own factual press release, but there was actually very little written about the event. It was almost as if the fantastic incident had never even occurred, other than in the memories of the five observers and a handful of curious newspaper readers,

In fact, it would be some time before they would eventually step into their rightful place in the history of flight. Not only were they quiet and unassuming, but also quite secretive about their invention. Their research had been carried out, not in the glare of public scrutiny, but in the solitude of the back room of their Dayton bicycle shop. Some of their contemporaries had repeatedly summoned excited crowds around them to bear witness to their unfortunate abortive attempts at flight. Conversely, Wilbur and Orville built a wind tunnel in their shop and methodically tested wing angles, propeller slants, rudder control, and a myriad of vital details.

Although their experiments were meticulous and measured, the muse that first gave birth to their research, dipped, dived and darted with unrestricted abandoned. Before the brothers poured through volumes of aeronautic experimentation and pulled out their slide rules and calipers, they stared for hours at the miraculous flight of birds. They noted the curvature of the top of their wings and how they changed the angle of the ends of their wings to lean into their turns. Year by year, the blend of those early dreams, their years of patient testing, and their steel-nerved trials, led to an incredible December day. That day has been depicted with considerably more elegance, but never with more fervor than in young Johnny Moore's on-the-spot analysis, "Damned if they ain't flew!"

# The Thunder Dreamer

During a Thunder Dream, Black Elk

received a sacred bow from a spiritual

grandfather. Later, it seemingly protected him

from a flurry of gunfire at Wounded Knee

As the young Sioux medicine man, Black Elk, charged toward the soldiers near Wounded Knee Creek, his right arm reached forward defiantly. Cavalrymen who had been sent to quell the growing Ghost Dance movement, were shooting into the gulch, while helpless victims scurried desperately for shelter. The courageous Black Elk, clasped in his hand, a weapon he was convinced would protect him and empower his fellow warriors. His unwavering grasp held neither a gun nor a spear. It clutched instead, an unusable ceremonial sacred bow.

The bow was a representation of one he witnessed in an intense thunder dream during his childhood. Being favored with such a vision by Wakinyan, the thunder beings, set him apart from the other children of his reservation. His youthful prophetic vision foreshadowed the special powers he would develop later in life. Those powers would apparently let him ride unharmed through a barrage of bullets at Wounded Knee, shielded only by a symbolic sacred bow.

Born in December of 1863 on the Little Powder River, Black Elk entered the world with a strong tradition. Both his father and grandfather had been well-respected medicine men. The thunder dream that would later guide his life, came at the age of nine, when he was recovering from a severe illness. He gazed out the opening of his parents' tepee and saw an image of two men soaring down like arrows from the clouds. Each man carried a long spear with jagged sparks of lightning flashing from the points. As they landed on the ground a short distance from him, they spoke. "Hurry! Come!" they ordered. "Your Grandfathers are calling you!"

In his vision, Black Elk rose and strode toward the men, when a small cloud scooped them all up and carried them toward the sky. White clouds were piled ahead like mountains on a wide blue plain. "In them," he later recalled, "thunder beings lived and leaped and flashed." Suddenly the two men spoke in unison. "Behold him, the being with four legs!"

Suddenly a majestic bay horse began to speak. "Behold me," he said, "my life-history you shall see." Then, as he whirled toward the west, he spoke again. "Behold them. Their history you shall know." A row of twelve perfectly formed black horses stood proudly, wearing necklaces of bison hoofs. Their manes flashed with lightning, and thunder roared from their nostrils. The bay horse continued to circle and introduce, in turn, a dozen horses from each direction. In the north, stood twelve stately white horses with manes flowing like blizzards. The eastern horses were sorrel, adorned with necklaces of elks' teeth. Those in the south were buckskin with horns on their heads and living manes that grew like trees and grasses.

The bay horse then spoke again. "Your Grandfathers are having a council. These shall take you, so have courage." With that, all the horses went into formation, four abreast, and stood behind the bay. According to Black Elk's memories, when they arrived, the first Grandfather to speak was the Power of the West. "Behold them yonder where the sun goes down – the thunder beings," he proclaimed. "You shall see, and have from them, my power!"

Suddenly, a rainbow leapt and covered young Black Elk with multicolored flames. The old man then gave him a wooden cup filled with water. Within the water, he could see the sky. "Take this," the grandfather offered. "It is the power to make live, and it is yours." Next he handed Black Elk a sacred bow. "Take this," he continued. "It is the power to destroy, and it is yours." That was the bow Black Elk would later duplicate from the vision and carry into battle at Wounded Knee.

Each grandfather, in turn, gave the young boy gifts. From the second, he received an herb of power that would help him heal his nation. The third grandfather presented him with a peace pipe decorated with a spotted eagle stretched across the stem. The pipe, he explained, would make well whatever was sick. From the fourth grandfather, he received a bright red living stick. As Black Elk watched the stick, it sprouted and sent forth branches. "It shall stand in the center of the nation's circle," the grandfather revealed, "and by your powers, you shall make it blossom."

The fifth Grandfather, the Spirit of the Sky, was the oldest of them all. "He stretched his arms and was immediately transformed into a spotted eagle," Black Elk recalled. As the eagle hovered above him, it spoke. "Behold. All the wings of the air shall come to you. You shall go across the earth with my power." Finally, Black Elk turned his attention toward the last spiritual Grandfather. The old man's eyes glowed dimly in his deeply wrinkled face. "My boy," he spoke, "have courage, for my power shall be yours, and you shall need it." Then he issued a solemn prophesy. "Your nation on the earth will have great troubles."

As the great vision continued, young Black Elk saw that the sacred hoop of his nation was only one of many smaller rings, which made a large circle. In the center of the great circle, grew one mighty flowering holy tree. This was the part of the vision that made him feel that all nations, including both white and Indian cultures, would one day live together in peace.

Sadly, that peace would never come. As the Ghost Dance movement spread through his reservation, Black Elk was not immediately interested. Once he witnessed the event, however, he was overcome by the similarities of the Ghost Dance and his vision. In both, a hoop of his people circled a sacred tree. The dance, he decided, had been sent to him as a sign that he should bring his nation back into the sacred hoop of their traditional ways. Then, he believed, they could peacefully coexist with the hoops of other races. The Indian agents, however, feared the frenzied activity of the Ghost Dance, which often continued for days at a time. In addition, the false rumor had spread that the Sioux planned to destroy all the white people on earth.

The soldiers' savage slaughter of innocent women and children at Wounded Knee, proved to Black Elk that his peaceful vision would never be realized. Later in life, he recorded many of his people's traditions and united numerous younger Sioux with the beliefs and dreams of their forefathers. Overshadowing this accomplishment, however, was the constant awareness of an unfulfilled vision – a vision of the sacred hoops of the world's people peacefully existing around a great flowering tree. Through the years, the Grandfathers, the stately horses and all the others have melted into history and now exist only on the yellowed pages of tattered books. Even the bloody mud of Wounded Knee has long-since dried and drifted away on the winds of time.

Now and then, however, when a spotted eagle soars overhead or a bay horse gallops past, those winds shift. Once again they turn and blow back across the fields of the once-great Sioux nation. When they do, they howl with the chants of a brave band of Lakota Sioux horsemen charging proudly into the midst of battle. Among them, surrounded by a hailstorm of bullets, and gripping a sacred bow, still rides Black Elk – the Thunder Dreamer.
