The Number One Museum In The Country and How Not To Take All of This Seriously

 September 29, 2023

   Had an excellent evening last night down in Scottsdale at the number one museum in the country.

Opening night of the Werner Segarra

Vaqueros of Sonora Show. 

   The executive director of the Scottsdale Museum of the West gave his opening remarks and praised their ranking in True West magazine.

Todd Bankofier: "We're No. 1!"

   The museum set up tequila and bacanora stations on the patio and that was a giant hit with me and Kathy Sue, proving, at least to me, that the ranking was correct.

Where Exactly Are We Going?

   Let's take a good look at the back trail.

"The Sentinel"

1905, by Carpenter

A Voice to Our Past

   Our publisher, Ken Amorosano, asked me the other day if True West had a voice and I thought about it and I think this pretty much nails it for me: 

   For the past seven decades we have been having a very lively conversation with our readers about the American frontier and we come to the debate armed with three things: authenticity, honesty and levity. Our writers are passionate about our history and they have the scholarship and authenticity to back it up. We are honest when we make mistakes, or get it wrong. And, besides the search for true history, the only other thing we take seriously, is to not take ourselves too seriously. We believe if we're not laughing at ourselves a bit, we are not being authentic or honest.

   End of vision quest sermon.

The Government's Anti-Possessive Quest

   I stumbled into the Fool's Hollow Lake vs. Fools Hollow Lake controversy last week on our return from Greer. Apparently, the State (both the federal government and the actual State of Arizona) are hell bent on removing possessives from all pertinent signs. And, as it turns out this is a wider controversy than I thought, because here is a revision on next month's Classic Gunfight on Isom Dart (whose real name was not Isom, but Isam, among other corrections, see vision statement above):

Brown's Park or Browns Park?

   "The government powers dropped the apostrophe some time ago. We Brown's Park historians keep the original spelling as Elizabeth Bassett used when she named the park."

—Linda Womack

An Early Warning Sign

"I'm a bit of a history buff, which by the way is early onset Republican. That's a very serious warning sign. If you're a white dude in your early twenties and thirties and you're like 'I can't stop reading about World War II' it's coming, bro. You might not be a Republican right now. You might be young, cool and liberal. You probably think you're safe, dude, you're not. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. Do you think your dad wanted to be a Republican? Do you think he got out of high school and was like, 'All right, now it's time to be a prick about everything! No, it takes time." 

—Shane Gillis