“Roy Rogers and Dale Evans came riding (in a jet) out of the sunset to Tampa yesterday to oversee a weekend shooting contest at River Ranch Acres,...
Trigger Happy
read more
Articles
My Christmas Wish List
I asked for a pony one Christmas. A palomino, if memory serves, but I would have settled for a sorrel. I didn’t get it. I didn’t get that Fort...
“Everyone Stayed Home to Watch Gus Die”
The triumph of the TV miniseries Lonesome Dove is such that to once again name the awards and repeat the ratings and draw quotes from the universal...
Gary Ernest Smith
I grew up on a ranch in northeastern Oregon. Each season brought with it its designated work responsibilities. The work seemed endless. As a boy, it...
Heading for the Hills
Riding along peaceful West Verde Creek on Comanche Bluff Trail, I could see in my mind’s eye the natives stalking a transplanted settler from Poland...
Famed Forty-Fours Shoot Again
Until 1900, one out of every four Colt’s Single Action Army (SAA) revolvers was produced in .44-40 caliber. The .44 WCF (.44 Winchester Central...
Following Charlie Russell’s Paintbrush
It’s a quiet day in Utica. No practical joker has tied tin cans to a dog’s tail and sent that dog running across the street in front of the General...
River Rock Oasis
Fifteen years ago Tom and Linda Whitaker organized the Heber City Cowboy Poetry Gathering and Buckaroo Fair, but they had been collecting Western...
Chinese Food Anyone?
“I’ve known of Chinese cooks, out on the big ranches in Eastern Oregon, that, when full of hop or bad whiskey, would chase everybody with a big...
Preservation: An Artistic Renovation
An Artistic Renovation In 1940 Olaf Wieghorst found his calling as a Western artist. Born in Denmark in 1899, he emigrated to the U.S. in his...
The Apache Cupid
It sounds so romantic: An Apache violin is meant to lure a young woman to the young man playing it. This courtship tool, most effective in the...
The Boot Seen Round The World
In the song “London Homesick Blues,” a broke cowboy is stuck in the cold, damp, far-from-Texas streets of England. He yearns to “go home with the...