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Joe Budney was a happy-go-lucky student at Northwestern during the 1960’s, and generous to a fault. He always paid more than his share of school expenses despite having to live a very Spartan existence to make ends meet. At the end of each school year in the spring, he gave most of his belongings away to lighten the load on his aging Chevrolet Malibu convertible while making the trip back home to South Bend, Indiana. It was not at all unusual for Budney to drop by a group at the student union and pick up the tab for everyone’s coffee. In the...
Joe Budney’s social life was something of a mystery to me during the later ‘60s. He was a dependable regular at mixed university functions, but I rarely saw him on a date with any particular girl. His popular humor had an earthy flavor that bordered on the outrageous, but never became objectionable. The late 1960s at Northwestern were quite a bit different from the norms of the 2000s. For one thing, on cold days, single girls living in the dorms had to get permission from the dean of women to wear pants instead of dresses. This campus rule bec...
Joe Budney’s social life was something of a mystery to me during the later ‘60s. He was a dependable regular at mixed university functions, but I rarely saw him on a date with any particular girl. His popular humor had an earthy flavor that bordered on the outrageous, but never became objectionable. The late 1960s at Northwestern were quite a bit different from the norms of the 2000s. For one thing, on cold days, single girls living in the dorms had to get permission from the dean of women to wear pants instead of dresses. This campus rule bec...
In the fall semester of 1966 while driving to Alva’s town square in Joe Budney’s well used Malibu convertible, I mentioned that some of the local employers of students might be turned off by Joe’s heavy midwestern U.S. accent, which readily identified him as a “Yank” in 1966. He merely smiled, and said, “Do you think I ought to sprinkle some ‘you alls’ throughout our conversations?” I merely nodded doubtfully in response. At the time Alva had both Penney’s and Anthony’s stores located on the southwest corner of the town square, and Joe said,...
About 50 years ago, Readers’ Digest used to run a continuing column about “My Most Unforgettable Character,” written by a person who knew the unique individual. After teaching at NWOSU for roughly 40 years, I’ve gotten to know a number of people who would qualify for inclusion in the unforgettable category, but one in particular comes to mind. As a first-time teacher at the university, I met Joseph Duane Budney in the fall semester of 1966. (He preferred “Joe” or “Budney”). At the time, he had finished his enlistment in the Air Force, and enro...
Before his attack on the large village at Little Bighorn, Custer divided his force of less than 700 men into three groups that were roughly of the same size. Captain Frederick Benteen was in command of the first group assigned to scout several miles to the south, and later cut off any Indians escaping to the south of the battlefield. Major Marcus Reno was ordered to make a vigorous frontal attack on the village, beginning his attack from southeast of the village And Custer was then going to skirt around on bluffs located to the east of the...
In the 19th century, jamming of cartridges in gun breeches of military weapons happened relatively infrequently. But to a harried combatant engaged with an enemy, having a gun jam once in action would be once too often. Some weapons tended to jam more frequently during periods of continuous firing. And if the cartridge being used contained black powder, jamming was all the more likely to occur. (In the battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, cleaner burning smokeless powder was not yet available to the U.S. Cavalry. But by the time of the...
After decades had passed, Indian accounts of the Little Bighorn battle began to be accepted when they added to or confirmed specific events that had been previously described by reputable sources. However early eastern newspaper reports of the Little Bighorn massacre had been written in considerable haste before many hard facts had been established. Custer was a graduate of West Point, and had been a rock star of Union cavalry forces during the Civil War. His boldness and timely actions had been key to numerous Union victories. In fact, the cla...
While on auto trips to the west coast, Patti and I have twice visited the Little Bighorn site where General George Armstrong Custer made his famous last stand along with other members of the Seventh Cavalry. For many persons, after sundown this becomes one eerie place – to put it mildly. If tourists approach the Little Bighorn battlefield and the northern border of Wyoming from the north on Interstate 90, there are plenty of signs to alert a car’s occupants that a major landmark is nearing. Upon reaching the turnoff from the Interstate, the...
A couple of times, Aunt Blanche and Uncle Ott traveled from Wichita, Kansas, to visit our family in Hugoton, and once during school holidays we kids got to ride back to Wichita with them on a weekday. The plan was for Mother to come get us on the following Saturday. We kids knew the route to Wichita by heart, which basically followed Kansas Highway 54. But Aunt Blanche, as was ever the case, felt duty bound to take a shortcut that only she knew. And thus began her combination history and geography narrative on the subject of navigating the...
During the day, Aunt Blanche pretty well ran all selection of TV shows at her house in Wichita, Kansas. But at night she turned control of the set over to us youngsters, and we soon found that there were some great spook shows, such as “Frankenstein,” “Count Dracula,” and “The Wolfman” on Friday nights after the 10 o'clock news when our adults had retired for the night. The Friday night spook shows were shown mainly on KAKE TV of Wichita. The station had a marvelous Frankenstein-like monster host of their own, named Rodney, who would typic...
Otto Spradling, as Aunt Blanche’s husband, was living proof that opposites attract. Uncle Ott was a very quiet demure man who rarely said anything in the presence of others. Each day at 7 a.m. he would quietly disappear to make his bus commute to work as a salesman for the (now non-existent) Brick’s Men’s Wear store in downtown Wichita, Kansas. Then just as mysteriously in the evenings, he would reappear after work, eat his supper in silence by himself, and retire early for the night. And for the record, the one time I ever heard him speak...
While growing up, just about everyone needs an older person who makes them feel special. For me that person was an elderly relative named Aunt Blanche who loved to talk about, fuss over, and do numerous things for her relatives. Aunt Blanche must have been in her late 70s before I was a teenager, and now that I’m approaching that age myself, I enjoy recalling why she was one of my all-time favorite persons. One very important reason (at least for a young guy) was that she owned a classic late ‘40s vintage Packard touring car, and would rea...
The women gamblers discussed in this series were initially discovered when Patti and I made a day trip from Angel Fire, New Mexico, to Trinidad, Colorado, and surrounding towns. Being somewhat frugal and opportunistic, I happened to spot a free publication (a price after my own heart) with the title of “New Legends Magazine” in a Trinidad restaurant. The magazine contained an article titled “Gamblers and Gun-Toting Ladies” by Bob Silva. The article covered a number of lady poker players of the late 1800s with a short paragraph or two about e...
In the late 1950s, my family particularly enjoyed watching the TV show “Maverick,” starring James Garner (a native Oklahoman) on Sunday evenings. In the show, Garner played a light-hearted professional poker player who had several antagonists, one of whom was a mischievous woman gambler by the name of Samantha Crawford. “Sam” always managed to get the best of “Bret” (Garner’s character), but in each case it would be by “slickering” him into the most ingenious “get rich” schemes imaginable – which of course, he could never resist. The stori...
Two powder puff poker players of the late 1800s were anything but delicate in both countenance and deed. The women were not particularly attractive, but were strong physically, they liked to win at cards, and they did not like to be cheated. One of them was Minnie Smith, also known as Lou Eaton or Dirty Alice. Not much is known about Minnie’s early years, but by the time she had passed her 30th birthday she had established an impressive reputation for: (1) dealing cards, (2) being a capable poker player and (3) having a fiery temper when r...
Perhaps now would be a good time to paint a general picture of the Powder Puff Poker Players with a broad brush. Scores of women in the mid-1800s chose to try gambling at cards as a way of making a living other than becoming a traditional “school marm” or store clerk. But if they were going to have a go at playing poker for a living, they were going to have to be anything but a powder puff to be successful. First of all, it was a dangerous, risk-filled way for a woman to make money that offered both high stakes reward and financial ruin dea...
After the American Civil War, John Shirley sold his war ravaged business in Carthage, Missouri, and purchased an 800-acre ranch southeast of Dallas, Texas. In Missouri before the war, he had been a true southern gentleman, refined and well educated. But after moving his family to Texas, it wasn’t long before former southern friends and associates who had been soldiers and guerrillas for the South started showing up on the Shirley ranch seeking a place to stay. Several of the drifters stayed indefinitely at the Shirley ranch, and the added expen...
Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr, more familiarly known as Belle Starr, was born into the John Shirley family on Feb. 5, 1848. By the time Belle was in her early teens, the American Civil War (1861–1865) had begun, and she had to deal with some of the worst of the guerrilla warfare that took place on the border between Kansas and Missouri. Before the war, her family members had been residents of Carthage, Missouri, and her father owned several businesses that displaced a whole city block. During the war, Belle Starr kept a pistol within easy re...
After falsely implicating Doc Holliday in the Benson stagecoach robbery in 1881, Big Nose Kate Elder and Doc separated for good. She later claimed she was with Doc when he died in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, but there is scant evidence that her story is true. Nevertheless, some of the strongest circumstantial evidence of her being present at Doc’s death was that he was probably destitute at the time, and some credible stories have her supporting him during his final 57 days he spent there. It is very hard to pin the facts down, because at t...
In Doc Holliday’s day, most women chose to live out their lives as wife and homemaker, with a spouse and children. In the west after the Civil War, this type of life was generally regarded as rewarding, but highly labor intensive. In such times, a woman’s possible sources of income for an expected 40-year lifetime were quite limited. And if she were to lose her husband to illness, accident, a conflict with other people, or the limited availability of medical services, she would be faced with even fewer options to support herself and any chi...
Lottie Deno was an extremely cool customer at the poker or faro tables in the American West during the 1870s and 1880s. Even if things were getting out of hand around her, she concentrated solely on winning a pot. One time in a saloon in Fort Griffith, Texas, a sheriff killed two combative players at the table next to Deno’s, causing everyone in the room to flee except the three combatants and Deno. Afterwards the officer remarked at how calm she had been during the altercation. She merely responded by saying, “You’ve never been a despe...
In December of 1878, Doc Holliday and “Big Nose” Kate Elder managed to complete their winter trip over Raton Pass in northern New Mexico, and headed further south to the luxurious quarters of the St. James Hotel in Cimarron. The St. James Hotel had been built by Henry Lambert, who once had been the personal chef of President Abraham Lincoln. The hotel was situated near the end of the Santa Fe Trail between Raton and Las Vegas, New Mexico. The hotel’s location offered fine 19th century accommodations to travelers of both the “Mountain Route...
In the fall of 1878, Doc Holliday and “Big Nose” Kate Elder decided to leave Dodge City, and take the train to New Mexico. Doc and Kate had previously been in Dodge for several months, plying their trade of gambling during the peak times when the large cattle drives from the south arrived. After arriving in Dodge, the cattle would then be sold and shipped by rail to the packing houses in the east. When the trail cowboys were paid off in Dodge, they had lots of money in their pockets, and a strong desire to “loosen up” after a hot, hard and haz...
Since Dub Garnett and Steve Waldshmidt are no longer available to spin their tales at McDonalds, some of the relatively new blood among veteran storytellers have been trying to fill the void. (And believe me, the newest blood is still pretty seasoned.) Some of the better “fill-ins” are represented by dependable Dempsey Roten, Mallory Seevers, and the ever-willing tale spinner Kenny Clark. The other day, Messier Clark had just finished regaling the group with his mostly believable stories about his glory days as a barber and Golden Glove boxer w...
