The wildest, wickedest night spot

Raven with some cigar store statues. Photo by Super Inky.

My buddy Inky was back in Arizona for a recent visit but we weren't able to get together ... again.

As Inky would say, "Argh!"

While she was here she and my other friend Raven visited Clementine's old home: Tombstone, Ariz.

Without us.

Clementine and I both had a good laugh when Inky wrote:

Here's Raven with some cigar store statues. We definitely learned that Tombstone, in its heyday, was not a good place for kids. It was full of saloons, cowboys, and dancing ladies. There were even gunfights. Yikes! 

Gee, you think? 

Tombstone was founded in 1879 by Ed Schieffelin in what was then Pima County, Arizona Territory. It was one of the last wide-open frontier boomtowns in the American Old West. Its population grew from 100 to around 14,000 in less than seven years. In 1881, it became the county seat of the new Cochise County.

Far distant from any other metropolitan city, by mid-1881 Tombstone boasted a bowling alley, four churches, an ice house, a school, two banks, three newspapers, and an ice cream parlor, as well as 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, and numerous dance halls and brothels. All of these were situated among and on top of a large number of dirty, hardscrabble mines.

The gentlemen and ladies of Tombstone attended operas presented by visiting acting troupes at the Schieffelin Hall opera house, while the miners and cowboys saw shows at the Bird Cage Theatre, "the wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast" according to The New York Times in 1882.

Clementine certainly had her hands full keeping peace in the streets of Tombstone.

Ever hear of the Gunfight at O.K. Corral? That's how we met.

The future is worth fighting for

Clementine and I have been having a lot of fun getting to know one another and share our stories.
 
As you know, Clementine is from 1881 Tombstone, Ariz., but she's also an avid time and space traveler.

Specifically, she's a proud member of the Firefly-class spaceship, Serenity.

Five hundred years in the future there's a whole new frontier, and the crew of the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity is eager to stake a claim on the action. They'll take any job, legal or illegal, to keep fuel in the tanks and food on the table. But things get a bit more complicated after they take on a passenger wanted by the new totalitarian Alliance regime. Now they find themselves on the run, desperate to steer clear of Alliance ships and the flesh-eating Reavers who live on the fringes of space.

Firefly premiered in the United States on Sept. 20, 2002, but was canceled after 11 episodes. Despite the series' relatively short life span, it received strong sales when it was released on DVD and has large fan support campaigns.

The post-airing success of the show led to a 2005 film, Serenity, based on the series. The Firefly franchise expanded from the series and film to other media including comics and a role-playing game.

Personally, I think Clementine looks like a young Zoe Alleyne Washburne—second-in-command of the Serenity.

Howdy pardner!

Today was quite the exciting day for me.

Momma told me that my darling Clementine was finally coming to live with us after she did some fancy horse trading.

As you might recall, I started dreaming of her in June. But Momma said times were tough and I'd just have to be patient.

I hate being patient.

I mean, I've had Clementine's Welcome Home outfit ready for months!

But today that patience finally paid off.

Isn't she gorgeous?!

We've already promised to be life long best friends.

Oh, the places we'll go.... 
 

To boldly wait

outfit by Sew Fun Doll Clothes

Well, My Darling Clementine's outfit is here ... but who knows when Clementine herself will arrive.

I feel like I'm stuck waiting in the original 1968 Star Trek episode, Spectre of the Gun.

As punishment for trespassing on their planet, the inhabitants condemn Captain Kirk and his landing party as the losing side of a surreal recreation of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone.

The setting for Tombstone is drawn from Kirk's memory, but the illusion has a surreal incompleteness to it – buildings are obvious facades, windows and pictures appear to float in mid-air, a floating clock, doors open to nowhere, etc.

The landing party also sees their equipment is changed; phasers turned into six-shooters, communicators and tricorders are missing, and there is no longer a way to make contact with the Enterprise.

And time is ticking away for Kirk ... and Me.

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.)

Gunfight near the O.K. Corral

The most (in)famous gunfight in Western history occurred today on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 1881 at about 3 p.m.

The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a roughly 30-second gunfight that took place in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. Three outlaw Cowboys (it was an insult to call a legitimate cattleman a Cowboy in Cochise County) were killed and Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday were wounded and survived. (Of all of his brothers, Wyatt was the only one who was never wounded nor killed.)

Despite its name, the gunfight actually occurred six doors west of the rear entrance to the O.K. Corral in a narrow lot on Fremont Street. The Earps and Doc Holliday were eventually exonerated.

The battle was over but not won. Two months later Virgil was shot and injured again on Dec. 28, 1881, and Morgan was murdered on March 19, 1882. 

All I can say is crime doesn't pay.

So you wanna be a cowboy

While I am excited to see tomorrow's release of Cowboys & Aliens, I thought I'd let you in on a Southwestern secret - make sure you know the local vernacular before you call yourself a cowboy.

I learned this the hard way while visiting Arizona. 

In the 1880s, it was an insult in the Tombstone, Ariz. area to call someone a "cowboy," as it implied he was a horse thief, robber, or outlaw. Cattlemen were generally called herders, ranchers or punchers.

One loosely organized band was dubbed "The Cowboys," and profited from smuggling cattle, alcohol, and tobacco across the U.S./Mexico border. The Cowboys' activities ultimately ended with the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on Oct. 26, 1881.

The San Francisco Examiner wrote in an editorial, "Cowboys [are] the most reckless class of outlaws in that wild country...infinitely worse than the ordinary robber."

On the other hand, there is little doubt that women, particularly those on small ranches that could not afford to hire herders, worked with men and needed to ride horses and related tasks.

The largely undocumented contributions of women to the west were acknowledged in law; the western states led the United States in granting women the right to vote, beginning with Wyoming in 1869.

I highly recommend the books by Nancy E. Turner, starting with These is My Words. They're a fictionalized account of the author's great-grandmother Sarah Prine, who lived in southern Arizona at the time.

Now, what to wear to the theatre....