Get your dog a sombrero

"Paint Me Red" by Bette Wolf Duncan

Lured by Molly's famous face,
the painter stopped at Molly's place;
and there he tarried for awhile,
enjoying more than Molly's smile.

But when the tender night was gone,
chased away by jealous dawn,
the painter wanted something more.
He yearned to paint the pretty whore.

Miss Molly wore her working clothes
and struck a smiling artful pose.
The painter saw beyond the guile
that he saw painted on her smile.

He vowed to paint the grief inside;
and all the tears she couldn't hide.
To be precise, he said his goal...
it was to paint Miss Molly's soul.

"Paint me bawdy. Paint me red!
But paint me with a smile", she said.
sometimes it's better just to hide
the heartaches carried deep inside.

"I'll pose the way you ask of me...
but leave my soul and sorrows be.
I don't explain to any man.
I play my cards the best I can.

"Paint me bawdy. Paint me red.
Paint me on a crimson bed.
It beats the view and hue I knew....
tarpaper shack, bone-chilling blue."

"Old West Saloons Served Up More Than Just Drinks" by Sean Derfield

Are you curious about the beginnings of those Old West saloons?

Many people certainly are, and they are fascinated by saloons because these are the "stuff of legends," tall tales and some real "Cowboy" moments. Our ideas concerning Old West saloons have been cemented firmly in our minds due to a magical blend of real historical accounts and some great Hollywood fantasy.

The American West surely contained thousands of these iconic landmarks over the years, and almost everyone has a very similar picture of a saloon dancing in their heads.

Swinging café doors are perhaps one of the most defining features of any cowboy saloon shown in movies. It is usual for movies and television shows to show saloons with long polished bars, round tables with an assortment of poker playing card sharks, and saloon hall ladies with sass and attitude to spare. These are based on real saloons that existed in the western cities and territories during the 1800s.

Mexican cantinas were even earlier incarnations of the more popular saloons found in the rough and rugged frontiers of the American west.

Where there are soldiers there are places to drink vast quantities of alcoholic beverages and this was true during the latter part of the 1800s when Bent's Fort Colorado became home to another early and popular libations parlor. Most people have heard of Dodge City, Kansas which is one of the legendary cowboy hot spots, and the cowboys had reason to frequent the city when early saloons moved into town.

The popularity of Old West saloons can be plainly seen by following the growth they experienced in Santa Barbara during the height of the "Gold Rush." At the beginning of the gold fever years there was one saloon, or cantina, in all of Santa Barbara, but within a couple of years, there were over 30 known saloons in existence within the city limits.

Even distant Livingston, Montana, with a booming town population of 3000, managed to support over 30 saloons in 1883.

In stark contrast to our ideas of how a saloon should look, these first early social centers were often shacks, tents or simply a hastily constructed, unsteady lean-to. Shopkeepers and entrepreneurs knew that there was no shortage of lonely men who would visit a welcoming space that offered drink, food and warm companionship and conversation. As the years passed the saloons did begin to change and actually did take on the look and atmosphere that is now indelibly associated with them.

Customers had to be pretty desperate and fairly adventurous to visit these early Old West saloons. The whiskey was as rough, or rougher, than the desert hills and prices could be high. Many of the choice whiskeys were combination of pure alcohol and cooked sugar, with a little hot pepper sauce or chewing tobacco added for an extra kick.

Some barkeeps would cut their cheap drinks with turpentine, ammonia, gunpowder or other choice additives; some even tossed in a small amount of rat poison.

You can't say that there was no truth in advertising during these early saloon days because the names of the whiskey pretty much said it all. Some of the names were Dead Dan, 6 Feet Under, Tarantula Juice and Coffin Varnish. Some drinks contained peyote and tequila, and the cheap "House Special" was often known as Rotgut.

"Wild Bill Hickok (1837-1876)" by Rosemary McKittrick

“Wild Bill” Hickok just borrowed $50 to keep himself in a four-way poker game. With his back seated to the saloon’s bar in Deadwood, South Dakota, he stared sadly at his hand. A man approached from behind and fired just one shot with an old .45 Colt revolver. The bullet crashed through Hickok’s skull and lodged in the forearm of another player.

Without a twinge or whisper, Hickok died instantly on Aug. 2, 1876. He was 39. In his hand Hickok held an ace of spades, ace of clubs, two black eights-clubs and spades-and the jack of diamonds, what became known as aces and eights-the dead man’s hand.

Violence and poker were Hickok’s strong suit. His assassin, Jack McCall, had killed a celebrity and would hang for it in 1877, taking with him the genuine rhyme and reason to it all. Hickok’s widow found out about her husband’s murder in a Cincinnati newspaper.

A Union scout, spy, lawman, famous gunfighter, gambler, Hickok lived and died by the law of the gun. A kind of social order where a revolver stood for everything that was sane and superior. An era when people were warned the only real defense against wicked men and evil deeds was a powerful weapon.

Among the ruffles of his spotless white shirt and flowered waistcoat, Hickok was a mythic character in an age of emerging myths. It was as though he was living out his story fully aware of his future adulation.

“I thought John Wilkes Booth was the handsomest man I had ever known, but Wild Bill Hickok was handsomer,” said Col. George Ward Nichols, a publicist for Harper’s. Gen. George Custer’s wife Libby described Hickok as a delight to look at. Tall and agile. To her, he walked and rode as if every muscle in his physique was perfection, a happy-go-lucky power about him that seemed in time with the man, the country and era in which he lived.

"Texas Longhorns" by Paul

The Texas Longhorn is a breed of cattle known for its characteristic horns, which can extend to 4 feet (1.2 m) tip to tip for steers and exceptional cows and bulls in the 70 to 80 inch tip to tip range. Horns can have a slight upward turn at their tips or even triple twist. Texas Longhorns are known for their extreme diversified coloring.

Texas Longhorns and the long drives northward to market made such an imprint on the 19th-century Western landscape that for many Americans today nothing else better defines the Old West.

In his classic 1941 book The Longhorns, J. Frank Dobie wrote that the Chisholm Trail, from Texas to Kansas, initiated the most fantastic and fabulous migration of animals controlled by man that the world has ever known or can ever know’ Between 1866 and 1890, some 10 million cattle were driven on the Chisholm and other trails out of Texas. ‘Without the Longhorns and the long drives,’ writes Don Worcester in The Texas Longhorn, ‘it is unlikely that the cowboy would have become such a universal folk hero.’

The roots of the Texas Longhorn go back to the late 1400s. Cattle were not indigenous to North America, but were introduced by gold-seeking Spanish conquistadors. The first Spanish explorers turned their dark, thin-legged, wiry Moorish-Andalusian cattle loose on the Caribbean Islands. These Andalusians, known as ‘black cattle,’ also produced Spanish fighting bulls. Left on their owner, the cattle strayed, grew larger and soon turned wild.

In the wild they thrived, growing heavy-boned, skinny and swift. Their long legs and long horns provided offensive weapons and defensive protection. They also developed a fiery temper and a malicious cleverness.

In 1521, Spanish sea captain Gregorio de Villalobos, defying a law prohibiting cattle trading in Mexico, left Santo Domingo with six cows and a bull and set sail to Veracruz, Mexico. The explorer Hernando Cortes also set sail with Criollo, or Spanish, cattle to have beef while on his expeditions. He branded his herds with three crosses-the first brand recorded in North America.

As more Spanish explorers headed north, their crippled and exhausted cows were left behind, loose on the trail, to fend for themselves. These Spanish explorers held to the Castilian tradition that grass was a gift of nature. Spanish cattlemen did not fence in their fields or their herds, and cattle easily wandered off to join the wild population. In the 1820s, settlers in Texas, then part of Mexico, primarily raised European breeds of cattle.

The Texas Longhorn is the result of the accidental crossbreeding of escaped descendants of the Criollo cattle and the cows of early American settlers, including English Longhorns.

"Doc Holliday (1852-1887)" Compiled by Urilla

"His mother, near death when Doc was 14, was deeply anxious about the faith of her only child." -- Unnamed contemporary

"(On New Year's Eve, Holliday and an angry saloon-keeper) relieved the monotony of the noise of firecrackers by taking a couple of shots at each other. -- Dallas Weekly Herald, 1875

"John H. Holliday, Dentist, very respectfully offers his professional services to the citizens of Dodge City and surrounding county during the Summer. Office at Room No. 24 Dodge House. Where satisfaction is not given, money will be refunded." -- Doc's 1878 Dodge City 'shingle' at his boardinghouse

"The young fellow who came into the office was so slim as to give a mistaken impression of his height, and was unusually pallid for the plains country. He was about five foot ten inches tall, but couldn't have weighed more than one hundred and thirty pounds. If his face had not been emaciated, he might have been handsome; he looked to be a man of intelligence and good breeding.

"From the moment I laid eyes on him, Doc Holliday's appearance haunted me -- it does to this day -- with his large blue eyes set deep in a haggard face, his heavy head of wavy ash-blond hair, and his neatly trimmed moustache, his really fine nose and his very expressive mouth." -- Wyatt Earp

"He was a slender, sickly fellow, but whenever a train was robbed or a row started, Doc was one of the first to saddle his horse and report for duty." -- Virgil Earp, Tombstone marshal & Wyatt's brother

"He was always expecting to die and really wanted to be killed." -- George Earp, Wyatt's cousin

"Shed your hardware." -- Doc to a mob of Texas cowboys about to shoot at Wyatt Earp in Dodge City

"As far as I can recall, Doc had but three redeeming traits. One was his courage; he was afraid of nothing on earth. The second was the one commendable principle in his code of life, sterling loyalty to his friends. The third was his affection for Wyatt Earp. The depth of this sentiment was shown not only by Doc's demonstrated willingness to stake his life for Wyatt without second thought; it was even more clearly established by the fact that, despite his almost ungovernable temper and his maniacal love of a fight, Doc Holliday could avoid trouble when there was a possibility that such an encounter might prove embarrassing to Wyatt." -- Bat Masterson

"He was not a constructive citizen." -- John Clum, Tombstone mayor

"His hands are small and soft like a woman's, but the work they have done is anything but womanly. The slender forefinger which has dealt the cards has dealt death to many a rustler with equal skill and quickness, and the slender wrist proved its muscles of steel ... Holliday was dressed neatly in black, with a coloured linen shirt. The first thing noticeable about him in opening the conversation was his soft voice and modest manners." -- Denver Republican, 1882

"Holliday is the most thoroughly equipped liar and smoothest scoundrel in the United States." -- Charles Reppy, Tombstone Daily Epitaph editor

"Holliday is a killer and professional cutthroat." -- Contemporary Las Vegas Optic

"I'd have shot a horse and got the bullion." -- Doc, dismissing rumors of his being a stagecoach robber

"Doc was the only person who ever helped me at all." -- Lee John White, a destitute Denver newsboy Doc put through school and later college after a chance meeting

"If God will let me live long enough, he will see me." -- Doc, hearing that Ike Clanton was looking for him the day before the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

"That's a hell of a thing for you to say to me." -- Doc, upon being told by Wyatt the upcoming showdown was not 'his fight'

"I've got you now!" -- Frank McLaury to Doc just prior to grazing Doc's hip at the O.K. Corral shootout

"Blaze away!" -- Doc to Frank McLaury

"That son of a bitch shot me, and I mean to kill him." -- Doc after being hit by McLaury (who 'cashed in his chips' that day)

"It's just awful ... No, I am not hurt." -- Doc, to Big Nose Kate immediately after the gunfight, probably referring to the more seriously wounded (except for Wyatt) Earp brothers

"Good-bye old friend. It will be a long time before we meet again." -- Doc's final words to Wyatt a few years later

"Well, I'll be damned. This is funny." -- Doc's last words

"Few men have been better known to a certain class of sporting people, and few men of his character had more friends or stronger champions." -- From Doc's obituary in the Denver Republican

"It used to worry me ... to think that I must die, and I mixed up with everything that came along so as to forget myself. It occupied me and took my mind off my troubles." -- Doc Holliday

"With all of Doc's shortcomings and his undeniably poor disposition, I found him a loyal friend and good company. At the time of his death, I tried to set down the qualities about him which had impressed me.

"The newspapers dressed up my ideas considerably and had me calling Doc Holliday 'a mad, merry scamp with heart of gold and nerves of steel.' Those were not my words, nor did they convey my meaning. Doc was mad, well enough, but he was seldom merry. His humour ran in a sardonic vein, and as far as the world in general was concerned, there was nothing in his soul but iron. Under ordinary circumstances he might be irritable to the point of shakiness; only in a game or when a fight was impending was there anything steely about his nerves.

"To sum up Doc Holliday's character as I did at the time of his death: he was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long lean ash-blond fellow nearly dead with consumption and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew." -- Wyatt Earp

"The Reality of the Old West" by Chris Robertson

I have no idea why the mere words "Wild West" and "Old West" conjure up such images of adventure, but they do. When I was a young boy we played "cowboys and Indians" and fought who got to be sheriff. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were practically household names to us.

I read German author Karl May's books about the Wild West and relished the adventures of Old Shatterhand and his friend, the noble Indian chief Winnetou. Although May, who had written his cowboy and western adventures in the late 1800s, never ventured farther West than Buffalo, his books felt real and we loved them.

Later, I watched the television series "Bonanza" and many others like it, fascinated by all those stories of the old west and how people lived in those pioneering days.

As a young adult I still loved Westerns and was a big fan of Sergio Leone's "spaghetti Western" films like the "Man with No Name" trilogy, "Once Upon a Time in the West" with Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson and Jason Robards, and, of course, movies with the incomparable John Wayne. I enjoyed the hilarious humor and drama in Westerns with Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill.

Later I fell in love with movies like "Tombstone" with Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer and, especially, Sam Elliott. All of them showed the old West in the same way. Cowboys, Indians, the Cavalry, old West clothes, old West outlaws, old West lawmen, old West guns, and the towns it all took place in.

When I moved to California and drove through the country I passed through Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming and those two places, together with several other Western towns, personified the Wild West to me, like Dodge, Santa Fe, and so on. It was almost magical. I saw the Cartwright family's recreated Ponderosa ranch near Incline Village on Lake Tahoe and that brought back memories of "Bonanza," and then Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, close to where the California Gold Rush began in 1848, another part of Wild West lore.

There is only one problem with all this. Much of what I had seen in all those movies was a romanticized, glorified and rather one-sided Hollywood version of the Old West. There were, of course, cowboys and Indians and tents and guns and the cavalry. But it wasn't all gun-toting cowboys and tomahawk-throwing Indians.

The real Old West was quite different and much more down-to-earth. It was an exceptionally turbulent period of time when the Western part of the United States was settled between the Civil War and the end of the century. Much has been written about the Old West, but it was mostly by writers who did not actually have first-hand experience. Those who actually partook of the Old West experience were usually too busy to write about it.

I still love Westerns, but these days I am much more interested in reading how the Old West really was. I have a small library of books describing life back then, including all the adventure and hardship - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Many of those books are painstakingly compiled from various newspaper and eyewitness accounts. Some are a bit dry.

But occasionally you come across a real memoir, the story of a real lawman of the Old West, one of those rugged characters who was chasing outlaws and trying to keep the peace. This is when it all becomes more than just history, when the Old West comes alive with cattlemen's associations, hired guns, horseback cowboys, cowboy action shootouts, gunfighters, stampedes.

It all took place, and it's terrific reading about it in the words of someone who was actually there.