"I'm Your Huckleberry" -- Doc Holliday to Johnny Ringo, "Tombstone"

I left Truth or Consequences early, so excited to be near Tombstone and the fulfillment of the promise I made myself long ago. Tombstone, Boot Hill, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Ike Clanton...they were real people during the time when Tombstone was the largest city in the United States between St. Louis and San Francisco. Boasting a population of 20,000 at it's zenith, Tombstone was a silver mining boom town that had originally been named: Goose Flats... hmmm... Goose Flats doesn't exactly strike fear in your heart, eh? One thing's for sure, you won't go there unless you really want to. It's a pretty good little jaunt off the beaten path. Did you see the 1993 movie "Tombstone"? In my humble opinion, the best western movie ever made. Bar none. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen it. Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday was ROBBED that year at the Academy Awards... Watch his performance and tell me you've ever seen better! (And I'm not even a Val Kilmer fan.) Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott, Dana Delaney. Great cast. Great movie. Not exactly historically accurate according to the storytellers in Tombstone, but artistic license is OK with me if the finished product is that good! Right! So back to a windy Friday in Arizona and a little girl's dream.. this little girl, the biggest child I know!

As I drove in I saw a sign for Boot Hill on my left... THE Boot Hill! Wow! I roamed around the cemetery for almost an hour, reading the epitaphs. One man by the name of Frank Bowles had a great one: "As You Pass By, Remember, That As You Are, I Once Was, And As I Am, You Soon Will Be, Remember Me". Another man, Glen Will, sent his ashes C.O.D. in 1953! The guides were quick to tell me how Boot Hill got it's name, the cowboys were buried in their boots.. fine, I knew that. Everybody knows that. BUT, ah-hah! They couldn't answer MY question. What does the O.K. in the OK Corral stand for? Was it the intials of the owner of the stable? The guide scratched his head. "Ya' know...I been here for 16 years and nobody ever asked me that one!" In the window outside the entry to the cemetery, I photographed the poster about children being sold as slaves.. I cut off the top word accidentally.. That first word is "Unruly". Not ALL children are being threatened with slavery, just the ones whose parents can't control them... although... I got back in the van and headed toward town. I especially wanted to see the reinactment of the Gunfight At The OK Corral! There on my left, just a short distance from Boot Hill was a little cottage... Wyatt Earp's home! Turns out that the right side of the house is an addition added long after Earp left town.. not sure why they did that, but the left side of the cottage is the original! It was only two rooms when Wyatt and Matty lived there. AND, the hardwood floors are the original floors from Earp's home. Walking on those floors! Me! (Photo above) The guide for the home was knowledgable enough. So I asked her the same question about the the initials O.K. She had no idea, really, but she was pretty sure that they only mean what they now mean..."it's all good, it's all O.K." This is where I wish I knew someone proficient in the idiomatic phrases of the 1880's. I am having trouble believing that anyone, particularly a cowboy/gunslinger/sheriff used the phrase "OK" at the time. (Anyone reading this is welcome to send a comment at the bottom of the posting if you know the answer.) Back to the day I'll never forget! The ceilings in Wyatt's home were common at the time: "balloon ceilings" ie, they were made of linen fabric and draped over the rafters. None of the furniture is the original. Wyatt rode out of Tombstone, leaving everything behind. Matty's drug addiction was real enough. She likely took the furnishings to a little town nearby where she overdosed and died, but everything in there now is true to the era if not actually his. I asked her when the next gunfight was scheduled. 2PM! I had fifteen minutes to drive over and park. I doesn't take fifteen minutes, but standing in line for a ticket did. I was marveling at the recreation of the streets of Tombstone when a woman approached me to buy a ticket for a tour of the town, including Boot Hill, by stagecoach. I didn't want to spend time doing that, and, besides... have you ever seen a recreated stagecoach?? They are soooo narrow. No glass on the windows, naturally, and the dust movie cowboys are always beating off their pants is very, very real. I looked down at my boots at one point and laughed out loud. I couldn't even tell what color they really were! I spent a little time talking to the stagecoach lady. Her dad owns the business and is getting a little long in the tooth. She was born and brought up there but married and left. Recently divorced, she's back where she says she belongs. The streets, incidentally, are alive with tourists AND hired actors. The actors act in the reinactments but they also hawk tickets and chat up everyone who walks past them. While I was chatting away, the tickets for the authentic, one-and-only "Gunfight At The O.K. Corral" sold out! Noooo!! "Stay in line", they urged, "we'll add a show at 330". All well and good but I wasn't staying the night in Tombstone and wasn't too keen on driving back after dark. When I lamented this turn of events to "Doc" Holliday, he quickly pointed out that the show I missed out on seeing wasn't so great... HIS show was the best in town! "Which show are you in?" "The 5PM show, the best show!" His eyes were a little crazy, like Johnny Ringo's, and he kept whining about not being paid "scale" (actor's union), but he did a reasonable imitation of Val Kilmer's "Doc". I took his picture. "Well, thank you for your time and courtesy, Doc." (We tend to be a bit too formal in the East sometimes.) "Time... and... courtesy...was that all it was?" You know, he's right, they don't pay those actors enough!

Over on Allen St., Wyatt Earp suggested I see the show at Six Gun City. By now, it was 230PM and the wind was whipping up dust and chill bumps. I thought about leaving but then the show started and I was glad I stayed. How 'bout this for education? Do you know how the phrase "a shot of" _____ (fill in your favorite poison) came about? According to Sheriff Bob at Six Gun City, if a drover or gunslinger, farmer, whoever... if a man wanted a drink and didn't have the money, he could trade a bullet for a drink. Bullets at the time were worth about 12 cents apiece. That was more then than now and bartenders were agreeable to obliging a thirsty customer. When they moved beyond history into recreated gunfights they took note of all the children (real ones, not the rest of us) in the audience and demonstrated the damage a blank can do when fired at close range, using a soda can filled with water. The "blank" blew a sizeable hole in the can, which is 3 times thicker than human skin. Meanwhile they continued serving $2 Margarita's. I'm pretty sure they must get a cut of the hotel profits and I'm also pretty sure the hotels were full that night. Three small things I wanted you to know: two of the residents of Boot Hill died of leprosy; the large building in my photos is the Cochise County Courthouse in Tombstone; and if you read the sign that welcomes you to Boot Hill Cemetery, you will see that it is also a Jewish memorial. I left an hour before sundown, having had a wonderful, fun-filled day and with a deep windburn on my face. It was FR-EEZ-ING up there in that quirky little town that I am so very glad to have seen at last. I was still smiling when I picked up the interstate into Tucson. The city makes a good impression on it's visitors and as I was heading in, I saw something else I'd never seen.. the desert on the north side of I-10 was awash in what appeared to be bouquets of white flowers. The bouquets were rounded and clumped at the ends of the branches and I thought I had seen few things so lovely. I couldn't tell if the flowers were growing from small trees or bushes. I looked for a place to pull off and take a closer look, but wasn't able to. There was a peace and calm over the city at that time of evening and I took the abundance of those ghostly bouquets as a sign and a promise of welcome. I was not disappointed.