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Thursday, June 28

In my dreams she still doth haunt me


I'm still dreaming about my darling Clementine. I'm so excited about her that I shall give her this outfit off my back if and when she arrives.

But you ask, why the name Clementine?

In John Ford's 1946 classic My Darling Clementine, the Earp brothers are driving cattle to California when they are told of a nearby town, Tombstone.

The older brothers ride in, leaving the youngest brother James to watch over the cattle. The Earps quickly find Tombstone a lawless town. When they return to their camp, they find the cattle rustled and James dead.

Seeking vengeance, Wyatt Earp returns to Tombstone and takes the job of town marshall to find out who was responsible.

In the meantime, a young woman from Boston named Clementine Carter arrives in town....

(Loosely based on the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the film's plot deviates significantly from history.)

The title derives from the American western folk ballad Oh My Darling, Clementine, which is the theme song of the movie.

The song Oh My Darling, Clementine was written in 1883 or 1884 about a bereaved lover mourning the daughter of an 1849 California Gold Rush miner. He loses her in a drowning accident, although he consoles himself at the end of the song with Clementine's "little sister."

(The verse about the little sister was often left out of song books intended for children because it was morally, um, questionable.)


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