I'm off for Kingman and the funeral of my uncle Choc Hamilton tomorrow. Going via Prescott tonight and then on to my hometown in the morning.
Meanwhile, had a bunch of fun yesterday at the Cave Creek Wild West Days parade where I was the grand marshal. Here is the wagon I rode in:
We had new banners made for the event. Pretty sweet images and layout, no? Designed by Rebecca and Dan The Man. Ken Humpherys is the wagon boss. The mayor of Cave Creek, two of the town council members, Ms. Cave Creek and Johnny Ringo (the Man who puts on the event) also rode on the wagon. We also had two outriders: Ken Amorosano on Chato and Lee Anderson (below) on Concho:
Lee is such a treasure. He hand crafted the Spanish saddle from studying old Joe Mora drawings and researching Spanish saddles in musuems. The war horse skirt in back was popular until about the early 1900s. We are going to do a breakdown of all this equipment in an upcoming issue of True West. Lee really knows his vaquero history.
There were riding events all day in Cave Creek. We had a big dinner and concert at four at the Tap House. Singing Cowboy Gary Sprague rode his horse Dusty right into the saloon and gave a mini-concert on horseback. Notice all the bar patrons whipping out their cell phones:
The headliner was Dave Stamey who did a hilarious and wonderful set. I had the privilege of introducing him to the packed house and here we are afterwards:
Several have commented that we look like brothers and I suppose the matching shirts don't help to dissuade anyone. Actually, I consider Dave one of my Zane Brothers. This buckaroo is very funny. About horseback riding he quipped: "There are two kinds of riders. Those who have been bucked off and those who will be bucked off."
He did a funny bit about everyone in the room dressing like cowboys. He wondered why that is, and quipped that nobody goes out dressed like a doctor, adding dressing like a cowboy is pretty unique where even guys who make $800,000 a year go to great pains to dress like a guy who makes $800 a month. Pretty profound, no?
And as for his dance floor abilities:
"My Indian name is Dances With Difficulty."
—Dave Stamey
