SHOOT RESULTS MARCH 2007

Page 1

Volume 5, Issue No. 3                                 March, 2007

Who Could Have Asked For A Better Day?

On March 24th, the sun rose in the east and moved across the range to the west – sometimes. It’s true. The big, round target that moves across one of the ranges on the cable was painted yellow and moved across the range as shooters shot their rifle targets.  The trick was to miss the sun: if you hit it, it was a miss.  But sometimes, the sun would get stuck and either moved slowly, or stayed in the east.  Maybe that’s what happens in Alaska when they have them long days and nights. In any event, 68 shooters participated in a terrific shoot.  The weather couldn’t have been better.  The Rev. Adam Jones even commented that if it didn’t rain before long, we might have to pray for rain on shoot day. Ouch! And it was an eventful day:  Outrider showed up wearing a new hat, Coffee Joe – make that Ah Ah Choo – showed up to shoot in a Chinese bathrobe and funny blue hat with a pigtail, and Donsie Darlin’ and Fiddleback announced that they are gonna be parents. 

No.  It ain’t Hey Boy shootin’ at Paladin or Hop Sing shootin’ at Hoss & Little Joe. It’s Coffee Joe shootin’ as Ah Ah Choo.

Awful Close shoots his ’73 Winchester as Ocoee Red times. Awful Close shot a clean – no misses – match.

S.A. Pondwater was the Top Gun of the day and won the pre-shoot side match. His pop, Tabasco JOT, won the Senior competition and shot a no-miss match in doing so. Last Kiss was the top shootin’ cowgirl.  Interestingly, Fast Harley and Last Kiss placed 16th and 17th overall. We haven’t had that happen with a shootin’ couple before. In the Buffalo Shoot, Marshal Too Tall won the Long Range Single Shot Rifle shoot and the 25 Yards .22 Cal. competition, and somebody named Dave won the Long Range Pistol competition. The Top 10 Shooters were (1) S.A. Pondwater (2) Ocoee Red (3) Widowmaker (4) Polecat Carl (5) Tabasco JOT (6) Unpleasant (7) Fiddleback (8) Slater (9) Cherokee Maddog and (10) Pleasant.  8 cowboys shot No-Miss matches: Polecat Carl, Tabasco JOT, Lightning McCoy, Moonshine Roberts, Awful Close, Deadman, Tellico, and Bad Eye Tom.

Pop and Mom to be – Fiddleback and Donsie Darlin

SHOOT RESULTS

TOP GUN – S.A. Pondwater … BUFFALO SHOOT – Long Range Pistol – David … .22 Cal – Marshal Too Tall … Long Range Single Shot Rifle … Marshal Too Tall

Outlaw

1. Badlands Beck

2. Rawhide Rex

3. Curly Bill

Tellico shot his 1st no-miss match at the Cleveland Range TO DATE, WE HAVE RECEIVED $168.10 IN CONTRIBUTIONS TO BUY PRIZES TO BE AWARDED AT OUR ANNUAL CHRISTMAS SHOOT AND FAMILY EVENT.

Page 2

Page 2

The Ocoee Ranger page 2                          March 2007

THE REEL WEST, REAL WEST AND THE WEST

OF OUR IMAGINATION

THE REEL WEST – Harry Woods   1889 – 1968

You’ve probably never heard the name Harry Woods.  But in the heyday of B – Westerns, ol’ Harry was a very familiar face. And he even appeared in some A – movies. Born Harry Woods, imagine that, in the Old West town of Cleveland, Ohio, he began his working life as a millinery salesman.  That’s funny when you consider that a lady’s garment peddler became, for many years, 1 of the most recognizable cowboy villain faces in the movies.

Harry Woods

Around1920, Harry and his clan moved to Hollywood, CA, and Harry found himself a non-acting job working for a movie company. Somewhere along the way, he got a movie part portraying a villain.  He played that part convincingly. He was a natural. Shucks, if you remember Harry, and folks like Owlhoot and Big might, he looked every bit the menacing bad-guy.  His movie career trotted off down the trail and lasted for 35 years. Harry later said that he appeared in about 500 movies, mostly Westerns, and bit the dust in about 300 of them.  Joel McCrea disposed of Harry in Cecil B. Demille’s UNION PACIFIC.  Harry played a low-down-polecat in that movie. (No offense intended, Polecat Carl.) But that movie’s not shown much.  The next time you watch John Wayne in TALL IN THE SADDLE, look for Harry.  He’s a villain in that one.  Ol’ Duke beats the tar out of Harry in the middle of the street, when Harry’s trying to make Duke go for his pistol. Harry also appeared with John Wayne in John Ford’s SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON. The Indians shot him full of arrows in that flick.

When I was growing up, I always thought Walt Disney’s cartoon villain Black Pete/Peg Pete was patterned after Harry Woods.  Pete had the same gruff manner and dark, mean, sneering look.  Not long ago, I saw Morgan Woodward, another frequent Western movie villain, in an interview on the Western Channel.  Ol’ Morgan said that a really good villain made movies more interesting and made the hero look really good.  Harry was excellent in his portrayals.  He joined the Posse In The Sky in 1968. And here’s a question for Big and Owlhoot:  if Harry always played a villain in his movies, is he riding with the Posse, or are they chasing him?

THE WEST OF OUR IMAGINATION – Big

100 years ago when I was a young feller in Knoxville, the most well-known and popular disc jockey on the radio was “Big” Johnny Pirkle. He went on to become a concert promoter and radio station owner. And he’s still Big and he’s still a celebrity of sorts; he’s a cowboy shooter – and a classy one at that. And did you know that Big shares a common background with Chris, the character that Yul Brenner played in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN? No, he doesn’t wear all black.  And he has hair, something Chris was missing. The answer, according to Lightning McCoy:  Big, as a young feller, drove a hearse for a local funeral home. Chris drove 1 in the beginning of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. How about that?

Big

When Cowboy Action Shooting came to Knoxville, Big was 1of the early members of the Smoky Mountain Shootists Society, the Knoxville Cowboys. How’d he get his alias?  Here’s how Lightning McCoy explains it. “ If you ask him where the alias “BIG” came from, he’ll tell you ‘cause when he asked SASS for the name “Slim”, they said that it was already taken. (It really came from a real old west character, “Big Foot Wallace”.)  That’s how his humor works, at 6’3″ and weighing in near the high end of the 200 lb. range. It’s really funny to hear him explain it.”

If you’ve shot with Big, you’ve probably discovered the following: (1) he knows guns (2) he enjoys shooting and (3) he doesn’t shoot butterfly loads.  Nope. The sound of his guns is louder than the clang when his bullets hit the targets, and the hit-sound is “clang”, not “dink”. Ol’ Big is a fine feller to shoot with.

THE REAL WEST – Henry Newton Brown  1857 – 1884

Henry Brown was born in Rolla, Missouri in 1857.  Orphaned early in life, he was raised by relatives. Then when he was 17, he headed west.  Henry became a cowboy in several places.  And along the way, he became a pistolero.  Eventually, he drifted to Lincoln, New Mexico and became 1 of Billy the Kid’s compadres in the Lincoln County War.

Henry Brown

It’s said that Henry was 1 of Billy’s pals who helped him shoot Sheriff William Brady, after Brady participated in or allowed the murder of John Tunstall. And Henry was among the group of Regulators when Billy and his pals shot and killed Buckshot Roberts. When Billy and the Tunstall-McSween supporters were cornered in the McSween home, surrounded by shooting opponents and the house was set fire, Henry covered Billy and his friends from the coal shed and escaped with them. With McSween’s death in that shootout, the Lincoln Co. war effectively ended. But Henry and Billy continued to ride together, rustling horses and cows for a living.

Eventually, Henry left Billy and went to Texas, became a cowboy and later a deputy lawman.  But that didn’t last long.  He drifted north, working a number of jobs, and in 1882, the town council in Caldwell, KS appointed him Assistant Marshal.  Caldwell had experienced several killings, and Henry was hired to enforce the law, with his gun if necessary.  And he did. 6 months later, Henry was promoted to Marshal.  He hired 1 of his gunslick buddies as his deputy, and together they cleaned up Caldwell.  He married a local gal, bought a house and became respectable.  In appreciation, the town council gave him a fancy, elaborately engraved Winchester rifle. But Henry spent more money than he made.  So, he planned a solution to the hole in his pocketbook:  he, his deputy, and 2 other fellers went to Medicine Lodge, KS, a neighboring town, and tried to rob the bank.  Henry shot and killed the banker.  His deputy shot and mortally wounded a cashier, and they hit the trail without any money.  Soon captured, they were returned to jail.  That night, vigilantes came calling and invited Henry and his friends to come out and play a game of stretch the rope. Henry declined and tried to run away to play hide and go seek, but several disappointed playmates shot him full of holes.  Henry’s 3 pals accompanied their new friends to the edge of town, where they were strung up to an elm tree. So ended the colorful career of Henry Brown.

Shoot Results – Feb 2007

* Applesauce is a petite Jr. cowgirl shooter who hasn’t started shooting the shotgun.  Rifle and pistols times & results shown.

Page 1

Volume 5, Issue No. 2                              February, 2007

DAGNABIT DEB IS A SERIOUSLY ILL COWGIRL PLEASE REMEMBER HER IN YOUR PRAYERS

Dagnabit Deb is a very sick cowgirl and will be in Park West Hospital, in Knoxville, for an undetermined time.  If you want to send her a card, note or posies, her address is : Deborah Brenneman – Park West Hospital – Room 516, Knoxville, Tennessee 37923.  Or you can send her a message at – carepages.com Dagnabit Debs Adventure.    Shootin’ just ain’t the same when Dagnabit Deb’s not with us.

FEBRUARY IS GOOD SHOOTIN’ WEATHER – SAY 70 SHOOTERS

Owlhoot Hardin – Shooting Black Powder, Duelist Style

As Josey Buckhorn puts it, “A bad day of Cowboy Shootin’ is better than a good day at work.” And he’s right.  But the February Shoot was a good one. At least it managed to attract 70 shooters to come out and defend frontier justice in the wilds of East Tennessee.

The day started with a bang, down at the Buffalo Shoot.  At the end of regular shootin’, Last Kiss had tied Marshal Too Tall in the Long Range Lever Action competition.  He managed to squeak by in the shoot-off. Yukon Hootch won the 22 Caliber shoot, and Pole Cat Carl managed to out shoot Caliber .45 in the Long Range Pistol competition.  Marshal Too Tall won the Long Range Single Shot category.

In the Main Match, Unpleasant was the Top Gun and placed 1st in the Traditional Class. Last Kiss was the Top Cowgirl Shooter.  The Top 10 Shooters were: (1) Unpleasant (2) Buck Dodgers (3) Will Reilly (4) Rusty Spur Slim (5) Pleasant (6) Festus D. Deputy (7) Marshal Too Tall (8) Ocoee Red (9) Polecat Carl (10) Double Eagle. 7 cowboys shot perfect matches with no misses: Unpleasant, Pleasant, Judge’m All Duncan, Lightning McCoy, Ruckus Roy, Undertaker John and Tenn Smoke.

Applesauce, daughter of Cool Waters, accompanied her paw to the shoot and shot her 1st Ocoee Rangers match as a Junior Cowgirl. Like her paw, she shoots very well.  She’s been shootin’ cowgirl for about a year, but not many matches. And although she’s not taken up the shotgun yet, she hits real well with her pistols and rifle.  How well? She missed only 5 shots in the match.

Applesauce is 11 years old, and she’s already tuned in on firearms safety.  She couldn’t believe Deadman wanted her to point her pistol at him for this photo, even though Horse-shoe John and Cool Waters had already checked the gun and verified that it was safely unloaded.

And speaking of Cool Waters, he had a Pleasant experience during the shoot.  Remember the knock down bonus targets?  Well, Cool Waters grabbed his pistol, shot the pistol targets very fast, then shot the pistol knockdown target. When the bullet hit the target, it made a quiet little “dink” sound, verifying that he’d hit the critter. But it didn’t move. If there’d been a butterfly sitting on that target, it wouldn’t have been disturbed at all.  But he’s accurate, and quick, and a good feller to shoot with.

            Applesauce                               Applesauce and Cool Waters

SHOOT RESULTS

TOP GUN – Unpleasant … TOP GUN – COWGIRL – Last Kiss … BUFFALO SHOOT – Long Range Pistol – Polecat Carl … Long Range Lever Action Rife – Marshall Too Tall … .22 Cal – Yukon Hootch … Long Range Single Shot Rifle … Marshal Too Tall

Outlaw

1. TN Tombstone

2. Tucson Tuco

3. Cactus Red

WE’LL HAVE A SENIOR DUELIST CATEGORY AT THE MARCH SHOOT

Page 2

Page 2

The Ocoee Ranger Page 2                   February, 2007

The Reel West, The Real West and the West of Our Imagination

THE REEL WEST – Clint Walker

Clint Walker in YUMA

Have you ever heard of Norman Eugene Walker? Didn’t think so.  Ol’ Norm was born in Hartford, Illinois, in 1927. And if he’d stayed there and been Norm, you wouldn’t have heard of him at all.  Shucks, if you’re only in your ‘30’s you may never have heard of him in any event.  But Norm left Hartford, and entered military service in the later days of WWII, the Big One. And when he was released from active duty, he didn’t go back to Illinois. He scrambled around with various jobs, and then decided to try acting.

Of course Norm sort’a stood out in a crowd.  He was a big feller, standing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighing 200 + pounds, all proportioned to make him photogenic.  Somewhere along the way, Norm became Clint Walker. He got a few parts, once even playing Tarzan in a comic movie.  Then in 1955, Warner Brothers cast Clint to play Cheyenne Bodie, in the TV show CHEYENNE. And he became a Western star.  He was Cheyenne until 1962, when the show ended.  During and after his CHEYENNE days, Clint made a few theatrical westerns and a few made-for-TV Westerns, and appeared in some other movies, like the DIRTY DOZEN.  In his other Western roles, he was Killer Kane and Yellowstone Kelly, and other characters.  And his movies were good.  So was his CHEYENNE  TV series.

However sometimes the premise in some shows overlooks a little detail that looks real screwy.  For example, in 1 of Clint’s CHEYENNE adventures, he was hit on the head from behind and knocked out (almost all TV western heroes were hit on the head and knocked out  ….. frequently) by a little feller who was running from someone.  So, the little feller changed clothes with Clint.  And when he came around, Clint put on the little feller’s clothes.  And guess what? Clint’s big clothes perfectly fit the little feller. And the little feller’s clothes perfectly fit Clint. How about that? Sounds like a scenario that T-Bone would write, doesn’t it?

Clint’s retired now.  Look in the Cowboy Chronicle, Shoot Magazine, True West and others and you’ll see that these days Clint’s appearing at western festivals with other former stars of the golden days of TV Westerns. He and his compadres are gathering to reminisce with each other and with old folks like many of us, who remember them as they were, and still think that for at least 1 Saturday a month, we’re like we were in those long ago days.

THE WEST OF OUR IMAGINATION – Irish Jake

Irish Jake

If Cowboy Action Shooting has a lasting future, it’ll depend on young shooters like Irish Jake. Irish Jake started Cowboy Shooting with the Smoky Mountain Shootists Society, or as we know them, the Knoxville Cowboys, in March 2006, and he attends monthly shoots with his father and trail pardner, Boondock Saint.

How’d Irish Jake get his alias?  Here’s how he describes it: “I have Irish heritage, and I just put Jake in front of it.”  Out on the range, he shoots .357 pistols, and a Rossi ’92 Winchester Rifle.  His shotgun choice varies from a double barrel coach gun to a ‘97 Winchester pump.

Here’s what Jake has to say about Cowboy Shooting: “It’s the best shooting sport. The people are friendly, and you get to play cowboy for a day.”  Who’s his favorite cowboy? “John Wayne.” Irish Jake is a fine feller.  He likes Cowboy Shooting, is safe with his guns, spends time with his paw, and he likes John Wayne.  He’s a real red blooded American boy.  Make that cowboy.

THE REAL WEST – Joseph F. Glidden  1813 – 1906

Joseph Glidden

Joseph Glidden was a man who got around.  Look for information about him and you’ll see that he was born and grew up in New York.  You’ll also see that he was born in New Hampshire and moved to New York.  But it can be safely said that he was born, and he was born somewhere in 1813, and he eventually arrived in Dekalb, Illinois, where he became a farmer. Joe had worked as a thrasher on Midwestern farms, bought his own equipment, earned a bit of money, saved his money and when he arrived in Dekalb, he bought farmland.  And later he bought more and developed other business interests. At one time, he was even the county sheriff in the Dekalb area.  But that’s not what made his name known to historians. Joe Glidden was the man who killed the cowboy.  It’s true.

When Joe became an Illinois farmer, wood was not in plentiful supply, and keeping cows in where they were wanted and out of where they were not wanted was hard and expensive to do.  So folks with lots of cows hired lots of cowboys to manage them. Then in 1874 when he was 64 years old, Joe got a patent for the first commercially marketable barbwire.  And when the smoke cleared from court fights about the rights to barbwire, Joe became the Barbwire King of the US, and became a very rich man from doing so.  His invention consisted of a single wire, which intermittently had twisted sharp wire wrapped around the single wire, and then another wire was twisted around both to keep everything in place and make it stronger.

The Killer of the Open Range and the Roving Cowboy

Joe started a manufacturing business. Then he took a partner and expanded his business.  Later he sold his interest for $60,000 plus royalties. But Joe’s business days weren’t over. He eventually owned a large farm in the Midwest, a 250,000 acre ranch in Texas, a hotel, a bank and a newspaper. Joe died in 1909. He probably wasn’t asked to join the posse in the sky.  After all, Joe was the man who killed the open range and the big round-ups and the era of the mounted cowboy. Simply stated, Joe was 1 of the most significant contributors to the modernizing of the American West.