June 12, 2003
The Digging Up Billy media phenom keeps snowballing. Got a call from the Albuquerque daily newspaper yesterday. Interviewed by Ollie Reed, their history correspondent, and they are going to run our Billy cover as art for the story (the wonders of E-mail, we just Jpg’d it to them).

Our trip to Turkey Creek Canyon tomorrow got interesting yesterday. The History Channel has expressed interest in the fight because of the smokeless powder issue and wondered if I could shoot some video while I’m there. We may do an entire re-enactment of the fight, thanks to some Hollywood friends. Need to get clearance from the Boy Scouts. Got to do that this morning. Could be tricky. We’ll see.

Dan Buck sent me an interesting take on oldtimer’s memories as it applies to the Brushy Bill as Billy the Kid controversy. Here it is:

“The wrap-up piece on 60 Minutes II last night was Steve Hartman attending the 1983 class reunion of a high school he never attended. He's from Ohio and the high school was in Arizona. He came armed with a mini-camera in his glasses to record the reactions of his "former classmates." Every grad save one remembered Hartman; some more than others. Obviously the recollections of a few were of the polite variety --’Hey, good to see you again.’ But others swore they had been in classes together. One woman said she had flirted with him, and mentioned how cute he was. A reminder of how easy it is to deceive, especially when the deceiver takes the initiative, setting the stage with a good story. This helps explain how easily people are gulled by the Brushy Bills and William T. Phillips [a Butch Cassidy claimant] of the world.”
—Dan Buck

"Those are my principals. If you don't like them, I have others."
—Groucho Marx