October 28, 2009
Got a sneak preview (from Alan Huffines) of a new film on the Donner Party. Check it out.

I Can't Believe I Drew It
Another page from my quest to do 10,000 bad drawings:

I'm doing research on a Classic Gunfight that took place in Tubac, Arizona in 1859. One of the fighters was a newspaper editor, of the Weekly Arizonian. As I researched today I found the description of a printer tradesman styled as an "itinerant typo." Ha. That's too funny (typo is short for typographical error). A print shop helper was called a "printer's devil." I love stuff like this!

We are having quite a debate here at True West about this fight. Two guys with military training (one graduated from West Point) faced off with Burnside rifles at forty paces and missed, not once, but twice. An eye-witness at the fight claimed that the day before the duel, one of them was picking leaves off the top of cactus on the top of the Tubac church while the other guy was destroying a small cottonwood.

My B.S. Flag Is Flying
Newspaper editor, Edward Cross ridiculed Sylvester Mowry in print for claiming in a speech given back east, that all of Arizona’s rivers teemed with fish good for eating. Cross countered, in print, that the fish in Arizona were no bigger than fingernail-size and these should be called Mowry trout.

Using dueling rules, Mowry’s second (the person who will take over if the first cannot continue) is George Mercer, while Capt. J.W. Donaldson is acting for Cross. The coin toss is won by Cross and Mowry is positioned with the sun shining in his face.

A large crowd of almost 1,000 bystanders has gathered for the affair, with one of the assembled men bringing a 42 gallon barrel of whiskey.

Both men miss on the first fire. After the second fire, Cross misses and “Mowry’s rifle failed to explode.”

Mercer demands another shot for Mowry. Cross and most of the crowd become, well, quite cross.

Mowry reprimes his weapon and raising it to his shoulder aims at his opponent for about thirty seconds. Cross folds his arms, awaiting inevitable death.

Finally, unable to shoot an unarmed man (and also, no doubt, aware that the well armed crowd is itching to take him down), Mowry raises the muzzle of his rifle and fires into the air.

Of all the gunfights we have done, this is one of the most suspicious to me. Marshall Trimble believes they were actually trying to kill each other, but I just find it a little too precious. Thirteen days later Mowry bought the newspaper.

Anything seem slightly suspicious to you? First of all anytime you have an itinerant typo in the story, my B.S. flag starts flying. Lookout, hip boot territory ahead!

"My mother told me if you can't say anything nice about anyone, become a journalist."
—Bob Boze Bell