The Celebration of the Pre-Bicentennial

The rockets red glare, bombs bursting in mid-air, showers of sparks falling from heaven through the thick sulphurous smoke – below it was carnage. The fallen lay strewn in every direction as far as the eye could see. As the smoke cleared, a single figure becomes visible downfield. She’s clothed in red, a rifle in her hand, and she’s running for the end zone for all she’s worth. Behind her a large bearded man yells, “Die already!”

My Pop never did anything half way – he was all-in or he was out. When we started going to black powder gun shoots at the local range, it wasn’t long before he was getting Mom to make him some “leathers” so that he could play the part of a real mountain man. Almost immediately we were neck-deep in a local club called the Nevada Frontloaders – I know, it sounds like a group of bulldozer enthusiasts, but in reality it was a group who loved shooting muzzle-loading weapons – we were called “frontloaders” because the guns we fired were reloaded from the front of the barrel – the muzzle.

The sterling silver pendant worn by the members of the Nevada Frontloaders – designed by me when I was 12.

The Frontloaders put on a rendezvous several times a year – basically a rendezvous is a weekend shoot at a remote location with primitive camping. Initially we all loaded into the GMC camper for these weekends, but after an enlightening trip to a huge rendezvous in Fort Bridger, Wyoming, he moved us out of the camper and into a lodge – a large canvas teepee. Now camping in a teepee is not for the faint of heart – you have to carry log poles with you – very long lodgepole pine poles, I think it took about 30 of them to set up a lodge. It took the whole family and Pop’s pal Tiny to set the lodge up.

Not your typical tent-camping set-up, a teepee requires lots of friends in leather clothes to assemble.

An aside about Tiny – Tiny’s given name is something like Donald and I have no idea what his last name is. I’ve known him for 40 years and he is married to my mom’s cousin. The subject of his actual name just never came up. He is a very large man – I think he’s something like 6 foot 8, and he always told me that he weighed more than they could read on the scale in his doctor’s office. He used to tell us he was 5 foot 20 or 4 foot 32. He is a mountain of a man. My pop met him at a shoot and immediately started calling him Tiny. To this day he drives a car with a vanity plate with that moniker. He was the guy Pop would call if he ever needed anything. Tiny was there to help fix a car or the AC, he was there to participate in Pop’s crazy projects, he was there when my mom passed. Until the last few years he would always pick me up off the ground in a bear hug when he greeted me, and I can assure you that that’s no simple feat. He has shown up on my doorstep in the woods in a 30 foot RV with no warning and he would be welcome to do so at any time – he is a prince of a man.

This is Tiny – the tiny man next to him is not Tiny and also is not tiny. He is average, although that is not his name. Tiny is really not tiny at all.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, the Pre-Bicentennial – anyway…

Once we got involved, Pops drug us to almost any kind of event where he could put on his leathers and pretend that it wasn’t the 1970s in Las Vegas. We went to a historical reenactment at the Old Mormon Fort – the first settlement in what is now Las Vegas. Pops had set up a blacksmith forge in our back yard (No store-bought knives or tomahawks for us!), so he was giving a blacksmith demo at the fort. He caught the eye of a reporter for the Sunday magazine in one of the local papers, and he became the go-to guy whenever they wanted stories about a family pretending they were pioneers. Over the years Pops was in articles about primitive fire starting, blacksmithing, shooting, gun building, and even a feature that talked about the practice of trading with the natives. For this article, my mom – who was always a good sport – agreed to be photographed in a scene where my Pop was trading a local Indian two horses for her. Most of the time he just made up “facts” for the reporters and they ate it up. He was in the Sunday magazines a couple of times a year and was the resident “expert” on all things “frontier” in Las Vegas.

One of Pop’s first Sunday magazine features. Notice my brother Max in the foreground pumping the foot bellows with his period appropriate sneakers. BTW – that’s my dead-shot Mama in the upper right – more on her later.

By 1975, things were in full swing leading up to the Bicentennial, and the annual 4th of July celebration would kick off a year of events recounting our nation’s glorious struggle for independence. This was about the time when the idea of historical re-enactors first become popular. People were wanting to see history replayed in a public way. Naturally, since Pop was the go-to guy concerning all things historically inaccurate in Las Vegas, he was approached to put on a reenactment at the Pre-Bicentennial fireworks display at the Las Vegas Silver Bowl. When asked, “Can you pull off a reenactment of the Battles of Lexington and Concord on the Football field?” Pops answered and emphatic “Yes!”

The men-folk put on a show at the old Mormon Fort. My Pop is holding a rifle owned by my Great Grandpa Goodson and my mother inheriting it is probably the reason we got into this crazy lifestyle. As an aside – someone forgot to tell Ronnie that only tourists wear dark sox with a breech cloth.

This was his plan – all the men and boys in the Nevada Frontloaders would dress in their “leathers”. They could pass themselves off as “colonials” or “patriots” with the simple addition of brown tri-corner felt hats to their ensembles. Now “leathers” were not tied to a specific historical style – the idea was that you hand sewed some skins together to make shirts, loin cloths, leggings, or pants. You made something that someone with no sewing machine could have made out on the frontier, never mind that Lexington had been settled for over 120 years by the time of the American Revolution, Concord had been around even longer – they were no more the frontier than Las Vegas was 200 years later. Now of course these “patriots” needed someone to fight – Pops had a solution for that too. My mom was a seamstress and pattern cutter so all she had to do was make British red-coat costumes for all the women and girls in the Frontloaders. After all, there were no squaws at the battle of Lexington and Concord.

This is a shot I took of my Pop while he was getting ready for a photo shoot with the paper – these are the horses he was going to trade for my mother. I rode those horses growing up and he definitely got the better end of the deal.

As a 13-year-old girl, I can’t say that this idea excited me. I was given a pair of white men’s trousers that had been cut off at mid calf, an old pair of tall black equestrian boots, a tri-corner hat, and an exquisitely tailored red-coat – that and my 1841 reproduction Mississippi Rifle competed my costume. Me, my mom, and about 8 other women-folk from the Frontloaders made up the terrifying British forces. One girl was actually someone’s cousin, visiting for the summer who had been convinced to come along and relive history with us at the Silver Bowl.

Another publicity shot of the Nevada Frontloaders – this was taken about 30 minutes before my Pop decided to grow a beard. He would not be seen clean-shaven again until the 90’s.

Now July in Vegas is hot – that’s pretty common knowledge. What you may not know is that July and August are the “monsoon” season in the Nevada desert. The name has always cracked me up – locals say it with such sincerity. Most of the local annual rainfall of four inches falls during the 27 days of the “monsoon”. Living in a place where the annual rainfall is measured in feet has probably added to my less than earnest thoughts about the “monsoon” – even so, rain in the desert, any rain is a big deal. The rains start in the mountains west of town and by the time it hits the valley floor the water is already rushing down from the mountains. The ground doesn’t absorb it and it races across the valley and it can be deadly. People who don’t see rain regularly often don’t take moving water seriously.

July of 1975 was a very bad monsoon. The 3rd and the 4th of July saw three inches of rain race across the valley. This happened at a time when the valley infrastructure had no means in place to direct water. It sounds crazy today, but they would build an underpass below grade and just close it if the rains came. City planners thought nothing of leveling big tracts of city owned desert for development without giving a thought to drainage – after all it doesn’t rain very often. On the afternoon of the third, wall of water raced across the strip – it relocated over 300 cars from the parking lot at Caesar’s Palace to multiple locations east of the strip. It all happened really fast – and by late afternoon all the water was gone – that’s why they call it a “flash flood”.

This is an image of the Strip right after the flooding on the third of July 1975 – can you say “Monsoon”? Hey, I thought Andy Williams was busy inventing Branson in the 70’s – what gives?

As I stood in my bedroom watching the water race across our neighbor’s lawns across the street on the “low side” one thought cheered me – perhaps the fake revolution would have to be cancelled. No such luck – Pops got off work at around 4 and we headed out to the Silver Bowl for a rehearsal. Pops laid out the plan to the thirty or so male colonials and the ten girlie red-coats. The red-coats would set up in a classic kneeling and standing formation on the western 20 yard line. The patriots would rush towards us as we took aim and fired one volley. Now we were not shooting actual bullets – we had loaded our muskets with about 10-15 grains of black powder and packed it down with a wad of toilet paper. When you fired, the thought was that the toilet paper would be vaporized before it exited the barrel – but I can attest to the fact that it can survive the inferno. After our volley the whole end of the stadium filled with white smoke from the gunpowder making it impossible for anyone to see the brave patriots charging our meager ranks. As the smoke cleared we regrouped as tiny tp snowflakes fell from the sky. The British were penalized 15 yards for excessive smokiness and we started play again from the 35 yard line.

This is the kind of smoke that comes from firing black powder and toilet paper – inside the Silver Bowl the smoke just hung there.

In our street clothes we worked out the spacing for the show the next day. The Astroturf was wet and it was almost walking on top of a blister. After a quick walk through we met on the sidelines where Pop told us the plan. The British would take that first volley and then make a hasty retreat as the patriots charged forward. Our job was to fire, retreat, and fall down dead on the Astroturf as toilet paper shots rang out behind us. It was going to be a rout – there would be no survivors.

As Pops went over the details I looked down at the plastic turf at my feet – I was standing right near the edge of the fake grass behind the visitors bench. As I pressed my feet into the turf I saw water spill out at the edge – the Silver Bowl is built in the flood plain known as the Vegas Wash and all that water had passed around and under the stadium. As I looked closer, I saw something move, and then I saw more somethings move. I locked onto the movements and saw dozens of smallish light-colored baby tarantulas squirming in the wet Astroturf! Apparently they lived under the plastic fake grass and all that water had forced them above ground. Needless to say, I freaked out and tried to stomp on them before they could crawl on me. I pushed the toe of my shoe into the turf over one and I watched in amazement as it just crawled right out from under my shoe – the rigidity of the astro turf seemed to give it enough wiggle room to get free. This was my worst nightmare – the place was crawling with them. As we drove home that evening all I could think about was the next evening when we would march out on that field – I was going to have to play dead on plastic grass with creepy fuzzy alien-looking spiders everywhere! My skin crawled every time I thought about it.

There were dozens of these delightful creatures everywhere – I considered wearing a has-mat suit under my red-coat.

The next evening we would reenact that famous heroic battle there under the lights of the Silver Bowl. As we got dressed in the locker rooms I mused that we British had about as much chance tonight as the UNLV Rebels football team would have in that very stadium playing just about any opponent that fall. Yes, it would be a rout, but would I have the courage to be a brave little soldier and drop dead in that spider infested turf to celebrate my nation’s birthday?

The British lined up on the Patriots 35 yard line. They fired their volley and the Patriots charged from the end zone. My mother played the part of the general – let’s just say for complete historical inaccuracy that she was General Cornwallis, anyway, she was the head red-coat in charge. I watched her as we turned to run up field towards the 50 yard line. The patriots fired, but instead of dropping dead my mother reloaded – right there at midfield. She raised her rifle and fired. Boom! Immediately 4 patriots dropped dead! My father growled, this wasn’t in his very carefully crafted fake history plan – but once you’re dead, you’re dead. You can’t get up – you have to stay dead.

My mom could sew up a storm – she made her dress, these drapes and even helped upholster that couch – a real renaissance woman. She could also kill 4 rebels with a single load of toilet paper.

This break from the plan gave me hope so I reloaded and fired into the crowd of Patriots – but alas, no one fell. Shots rang out from about the 45 yard line and I saw my mother fall. Rifle at the ready, I scanned the field and saw that I was the last red-coat standing. More shots rang out and I just couldn’t make myself fall. (Everyone knows that muskets in that time were notoriously inaccurate.) The fear of spiders proved to be more potent than the fear of my Pops. I turned down field, rifle in hand, and made a run for it. As I crossed into the end zone and ran under the uprights the fireworks show started overhead. As all eyes in the stadium left me and looked skyward, I could still hear my father yelling in the distance, “Die already!” I chose not to die that day and didn’t stop running until I hit the locker room.

When this man chases you across a football field, you had better haul ass if you don’t want to die with the spiders.

We had done the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord proud and tarantulas still give me the creeps, even today.

Belated Happy Birthday America!

George Birthington’s Wash Day

“It’s George Birthington’s Wash Day!” I can still hear Grandma saying that on her birthday – “I’m a day older than George Washington, you know.” She would have been 98 years old today. Just looking at this quarter today makes me smile.

A quarter from the year that Minnie became Nana.

I’ve written a lot about how inspiring my Grandmother was to me and how empowering it was to have someone who never saw a challenge too big in my corner, but Grandma also confused me sometimes – she had a slew of Grandma-isms – some of them I understood, and some have meanings that still elude me today.

“Bring the whole fam-damily” – This meant everyone was coming to dinner. I have heard other people use this, but as a teen I thought this was her best sidestep to swearing about company she wasn’t so thrilled about entertaining. Grandma always said she didn’t have company, if you were at her house you were family so you could get your own coffee. Make yourself at home and clean up your own mess. Effortless hospitality.

Cox’s Army – circa 1942. If this crew showed up for dinner it took more than a bucket from the Colonel to feed them all.

“If you don’t stop that I’m gonna give you back to the Indians!” – I would hear this if I pestered her for candy in the grocery checkout or if I interrupted her on the phone.  I sometimes wonder if this had to do with her Grandpa Pyeatte. He was a Cherokee Indian. He chose to live as a white man instead of claiming head rights and land in Oklahoma. I guess being a Cherokee in the 1880s wasn’t nearly as cool and hip as it is today.

This is my Great-great Grandpa Pyeatte – So was Grandma going to give me back to this Indian?

Other than that – I’m clueless. In my imagination she was dropping me off at those tepees on Route 66 in the middle of Arizona. I recently discovered an old hillbilly song that used the line – may be it was a song she liked. Grandma liked cowboy music. More and more I think it was the song. It’s one of those questions I never thought to ask. Maybe her grandpa said it to her and she never thought to ask. I think I should say it to my great-niece and just not explain it to her – that’s what family is about after all, passing on tradition.

Maybe these were the Indians Grandma was going to take me back to – that doesn’t look so bad…

“Well Happy Cigar Butts to You!” I think this was Grandma’s way of calling someone an asshole in front of the grandkids. I have no solid evidence except the tone and context of the many times I heard her use it in traffic. I heard her say it to a co-worker who she talked smack to, to her sister Muriel who she had a blunt and somewhat cynical rapport with, and to a jerk who cut her off in the parking lot at the grocery store. I left her a note on her car one time using the phrase – pretending to be someone ticked off about her parking crooked – she laughed and laughed about it, I was kinda clueless. Another enduring mystery.

“I’m on a break – go cigar butt yourself!”

My Grandma collected things – lots of different things. Most of them fell into the category of something she called “What-nots” She collected purple glass. I remember driving though Cedar City in Utah with her and Grandpa on the way to Panguich to go fishing. We stopped for breakfast and walked into a junk store because Grandma saw glass in the windows. She could pick up a piece of old glass and check out the seams and weight and tell you with absolute certainty that it would turn purple in the sun over time. Her windows were filled with this kind of glass.

This is some of Grandma’s purple glass. I have collected it my whole life as well. Her pieces are the most special though.

She told me it was the iron in the glass, and that it was only used in glass production until 1905. In the desert people would buy old glass and put it on their roofs to make the purple come out more. Today there are dealers who expose these bottles to ultra violet light to increase the depth of the purple and it’s almost garish. I think it makes an actual antique look fake. Seeing the violet in old glass takes years and that’s part of the magic.

Grandma collected plates, not collector plates, just plates that belonged to people she knew. I remember her getting a package on her birthday in the mail, it was some dinner plates her cousin sent from a set of china that had belonged to their grandmother. She had them hung just below the ceiling though the kitchen and her living room. There were probably over a hundred of them. She gave them to me when I bought my first home and they survived an earthquake hanging on the wall – it sounded like I was inside a giant wind chime.

These are not my grandma’s plates, but there were some of these in her vast collection.

This is another thing I so wish I had taken the time to ask Grandma about so that I would have some clue about where they all came from. When I graduated from High School my grandparents sent me to spend a few weeks with my other Granddad in Virginia. It was a precious gift – letting me get to know my mom’s family. Grandma sent my mother’s step-mother Pearl a crocheted afghan as a gift. Pearl asked me about what my Grandma liked and I told her about the plates. She gave me a dinner plate that had belonged to my great-grandmother’s family. My mom was surprised to see it on her mother-in-laws wall after that trip.

My grandma was a knitting fool. Sometime in her 40s she went through a time when she had a lot of nervous energy. It was about the time her hands began to shake. Her doctor suggested that she find something she could do with her hands to calm her down. She decided that she wanted to learn to knit. She didn’t start with a sweater or scarf. She dived headlong into knitting argyle socks. When she went for her next check up her doctor was stunned to see the myriad of spools of yarn – but the knitting was working – her nerves were settling.

Never one to sidestep a challenge – argyle it was!

When I was born she decided to make me a Christmas stocking – not just a red sock with a white heel and toe. A stocking that had my name and birthday knitted right into it, a stocking with a Santa with an Angora beard, a stocking with a decorated Christmas tree on one side.

I have this always up in my hallway, so I can see it when I get up every morning all year long.

When my mom became a grandma, I found the pattern – it was something she made up from a really basic stocking. All of her notes and marks made perfect sense, she should have been designing these things. Each of my brothers had one too. I wish I had learned to knit so that I could carry on the tradition for her. I love my stocking so much that it cannot be stored away eleven months of the year – I need it to be out where I can see it. It makes me smile. My grandma was a freaking genius!

Not everything she made was quite so special. My grandma crocheted all the time. She made the classic granny square and put together diagonal patterns. She like to use variegated colors in the centers. I have several of these gems around the house, mostly made of wool. They remind me of Grandma’s house so ugly or not I love them.

This is not my sweater, but my sweater was this bad. I never photographed it, hoping that it’s hideousness would depart from my memory.

To celebrate the Bicentennial she decided to crochet me a granny square sweater out of red, white, and blue yarn. It was heinous. The only place I ever wore it was to her house. I always told her I loved it. I always lied. She loved to see me in it so I pulled that thing out a couple of times a month. A part of me wondered if she was messing with me. You know, I’m pretty sure she was messing with me.

Happy George Birthington’s Wash day to you and yours, and if you don’t like  it you can kiss my Cigar Butts!

Blood Brothers

The Carters of Isabelle Avenue – ready to rendezvous!

Over a Labor Day weekend in the mid 1970s we went to the Fort Bridger Rendezvous as a family. Pop’s best friend Steve, aka. “Poore Boy” joined us on this adventure. We didn’t have a lodge (teepee) yet. We had been going to rendezvous and shoots and camping in an old cab over camper. We pulled up to the Fort at about 10:00 at night and were politely directed away from the majestic circle of lodges in the parade grounds. Instead we were sent to the other side of the highway. Through a gate, across a cattle guard, and down a rough road – we were told to pull in and find a place. No assigned spaces, no campfire ring, no fires allowed – just any place you could find to pull in and get out-of-the-way without being too far out-of-the-way.

Our first mountain-man abode looked something like this.

In the morning we learned that we had been directed to the infamous “Alcoa Village” – a place between the centuries where those not committed enough to the 1830’s could lay their down heads inside their Mini Winnies or Six-Packs. To get the action we had to climb a step-ladder up and over a barbed wire fence and cross the highway, then it was only about a hundred yards to the lodge circle.

We were aspirational mountain men – we wanted to move out of “Alcoa Village”

The only lights at night were those at the fort. There were no lights to guide you back to Alcoa Village, nothing to light the path the port-a-podies, nothing to mark the location of the step-over along that barbed wire fence except the light of the moon in the Wyoming sky. None of these modern-day mountain men would dream of carrying a period inappropriate flashlight to make the trek – a real frontiersman would be able to backtrack their own moccasin prints in the dark to find his way back to the camper, right?

This is Pop’s pal Meathead (Rick). He is not in this story but this is the only shot I have of Fort Bridger. Rick had such a reverence for history.

After supper we all headed over to the lodge circle. It was stunning. The lodges all were lit like lanterns on the parade grounds. Their campfires glowing from inside. About a half hour after dark Mom sent my brothers and I back to the camper. Wwe complained just a bit, but to no avail – back to the camper while there was still some light left. We went back and went to bed. We were all dressed in our earliest versions of leathers and it seemed odd to leave that circle dressed as we were only to climb into a camper to sleep. We all had red woolen long-handled underwear to sleep in – not so practical in combination with a port-a-pody in the dark, but warm and toasty for sleeping inside the unheated camper.

Toasty warm woolen underwear

Mom had made the trip back to the camper and I had finally fallen asleep in my sleeping bag when I heard a loud thump and a growl. I looked out the window and saw my pop had not quite hit the top rung on the step-over and had his foot tangled in the top wire of the fence. He had fallen face first over the fence with an open bottle of wine in one hand, and he had somehow managed to keep the bottle upright – not spilling a single drop. He was nearly incoherent and probably could not have crossed that fence in the daylight in that state – even then he had his priorities – even if you’re upside-down, make sure you keep the booze right-side-up!

Never spill a drop!

Poore Boy was right behind him – Steve was only about 150 pounds, but he managed to get Pop untangled and upright. Pop did his part – smoothly rotating that open bottle while Steve rotated him back into an upright position. The two men moved to the tail gate of the pickup and decided that rules or no rules, even an Alcoa Camp deserved a real campfire. They scrambled around in the dark in between the other campers looking for firewood and rocks to build a ring, waking up half the camp. By now my brothers and I were up and sitting on the tailgate watching the action.

Pop’s and Poore Boy make fire for the paparazzi

They drank, they foraged, they made fire – even if they were condemned to Alcoa Village, there was no disputing they were powerful mountain men, part of a tribe, even brothers – that’s it! They hit upon the idea that they should become blood brothers. Not tomorrow after they sobered up and bathed, right now at the illegal camp fire in Alcoa Village with no disinfectant save that precious open bottle of wine.

Pops and his big knife

Pops was a big guy and he always carried a big knife when he was playing the part of a mountain man. He pulled his bowie-knife from the sheath on his belt and handed it to Poore Boy. He extended his wrist and Steve sliced it open. Steve handed the knife back to Pops and he did the same to Steve’s wrist. Poore Boy said, “Damn it Harold, that’s not gonna be deep enough, it’s hardly bleeding.” Pops took another swipe at it, and at Steve’s urging a he took third pass. Now it was gushing. I remember seeing the white tendons visible through the open wound on Steve’s wrist. Mom was freaking out looking for the first aid kit that we left on the kitchen counter back in Vegas. Steve and Pops were perfectly calm as they pressed their wrists together over the campfire. Once they were officially blood brothers Pops began to panic Steve was bleeding all over his shirt. He was feeling no pain, but pain wasn’t the immediate problem.

Someone in a neighboring camp made a suggestion – Steve’s wound could be effectively wrapped in something we were bound to find available from one of our neighbors – all we needed was some duct tape and…a maxi pad. Pops took charge and went from camper to camper asking if anyone had a maxi pad – Imagine a 250 pound guy in fringed leathers covered with blood pounding on your door at 3:00 am looking for feminine hygiene products – would you open the door? Finally he found a neighbor willing to open the door who had a pad to spare. They poured some whiskey over the open wound and mom wrapped his wrist with the pad and secured it with duct tape.

Everyone should have this and some maxi-pads in their “Blood Brother” emergency kit!

The next morning we tried to get Poore Boy to go into town and get stitches, but he was having none of it. Instead they sent me and Mom, the women folk, into town to get more pads. Steve spent the rest of the rendezvous wearing his “period appropriate” dressing –  and a blood stained shirt.