Not On Playboy Cover

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Sam Elliot made Cowboy & Indian magazine’s front cover Nov/Dec for the third time. This one is not too flattering. Gee's we are all getting old. The first two were awesome. 

 

Did you receive your copy yet?

Who the hell is Sam Pack Elliot? The first time I ever saw him was in a movie called Lifeguard 1976. 

 

 In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he had a very small part. You can find him sitting with the card players at the beginning of the movie. Someone says "When I said you were cheating, I didn't know that you were the Sundance Kid." Sam is at that table.

"Little too much dynamite there Butch?"

"Hell, the fall will probably kill us."   

"Who are those guys?" 

Sam married Etta Place, I mean Katherine Ross, who played Robert Redford's school teacher girlfriend. She was a niece of Katherine Hepburn. 

They actually did not meet on the set. The Cowboy & Indian article says that they live in Oregon and Malibu.

In the movie Tombstone, he played Virgil Earp to Kurt Russell's Wyatt. 

The movie won zero awards but Val Kilmer's portrayal of Doc Holiday is still talked about today. Doc died at the Rapid City Prairie Edge store while on a shopping spree.

The article doesn't mention it, but he is also the voice on the Coors beer commercials. Coors being the most refreshing beer IN THE WORLD.

He also was in Prancer and Road House and one of my favorites, Gettysburg.

He plays John Buford who with his Union calvary was the first unit to arrive at Gettysburg. He was greatly outnumbered by the Rebel infantry but was smart enough to hold the high ground in the first of three days of fierce fighting. One of the reasons he was chosen for the part was because he looked like Buford. Martin Sheen certainly looked like Bobby Lee. Longstreet was Tom Berenger. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a ringer with Jeff Daniels. Pickett was played by Prince Fielder. Joseph Fuqua played Jeb Stuart. Ted Turner was LT. Colonel Waller Tazeweil Patton. World War II's George Patton's grandfather. Four of the Lt. Colonels’ brothers fought with the South. Waller died from his wounds several weeks after Pickett's Charge. One of the brothers was killed at the wall of Pickett’s Charge. Turner bankrolled the three-hour epic based on the 1974 book The Killer Angels. "If they are angels they surely must be killer angels." Ken Burns, from the great Civil War television series, had the part of General Hancock's aide. Tom Egan and I did not get a part.

In earlier lives Tom Egan and I believe that we fought at Gettysburg.

Could you lend me one of your FICTION books?

Elizabeth Bacon Custer

Carlos & Cactus Cathy,

Muchas Gracias for the fine photo of Libbie Custer. I had not seen this one before.

I always knew that George Armstrong Custer married a Bacon, and probably for that reason I became very interested in Custer.

But that all changed when I found out that our Bacon name was originally Bachan. My not so great grandfather changed it when he entered the United States from Saint Hyacinthe, Canada, around 1877. Bacon in French sounds like Bachan. Did he change it on purpose? Did he change it in honor of him coming to America? Or was he hiding out?  I don't know.

I eventually traced the family back to Saint Cloud, just outside of Paris, to the year 1644. Nicholas Bachan served in the French army and sailed down the Saint Lawrence to Canada. He married in Canada at age twenty nine. His wife was fourteen. Nicholas had to wait six months until his wife turned fourteen. They had children. Now there are around three thousand of us.

Libbie Custer lived to be ninety one years old. She supported herself with speaking engagements and she wrote three popular books. Boots & Saddles, Following the Gideon and Tenting on the Plains. She also had an inheritance and her husband's pension. She never heard of Edward Curtis's collection of Indian stories from Little Big Horn. Teddy Roosevelt didn't want them published either. They are available now. When Nathaniel Philbrick wrote The Last Stand he agreed with most of what Curtis had found out directly from the Sioux who fought that day.

By the age of thirteen Libbie had already lost three siblings and her mother. Judge Bacon probably spoiled Libbie from there on out. They came from money. The Custers did not. Judge Bacon did not want them to marry. Just before Gettysburg Custer was promoted to Brigadier General. He shined during a calvary charge at Gettysburg. The judge gave in.

She never visited Little Big Horn Valley in the Montana Territory. She did, interestingly enough, see Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show at Madison Square Garden, which had a Little Big Horn reenactment in it with actual Indians who had fought at Greasy Grass. She remarked how handsome Gaul was. ycmts  up  Why read fiction?

She lived the next fifty nine years alone in Florida and New York City. She passed away in New York City in 1933. She is buried next to George at West Point, New York. We saw the graves and almost everything I said here is true.

Robert Francois Bachan

Brief Thoughts on Two Heroes

Response from a woman in Cambridge to the Boston Sunday Globe article about Bobby Orr ....

After the roar of the rink, a life of quiet good works

I was quite moved by Bob Hohler's article about Bobby Orr ("No. 4 to history, No. 1 to many in need," Page A1 , September 29 , 2013).

I am of a generation that remembers how great he was as our Number 4 on the Boston Bruins. Orr could have done many things with his life after his playing days were over. To read how he had taken his fame down this altruistic path of helping others, in such a quiet and humble manner, really touched me.

As a social worker, I know how much need is out there. I'm not religious, but I would say Orr is a saint.

SCORE !!  #4 Bobby Orr . . .
Where were you when all the Orr stuff was happening? We were in our apartment in Rockland, Massachusetts 1967 - 1972.  Every Tuesday and Thursday we would watch channel 38 at 7:30pm. The following morning at Reliable Fence Company we would talk hockey. Girls and guys included. Everyone loved the Bruins.

---

The latest book on Edward Sherriff Curtis was wonderful, "Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher,"  winner of the National Book Award.

When the Indians who fought at Greasy Grass were interviewed by Curtis, they said Custer watched Reno get creamed and did nothing about it. No one had asked the Indians about what they saw that day until Curtis did in 1904. Gaul, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were all there.

At the end of each chapter, after the story behind each famous photograph, there is THE PHOTO. Acoma, Geronimo, Custer's Crow scouts at Little Big Horn, Canyon DeChelly, the Alaska Indians, Chief Joseph, the Mojave girl, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Hopi maidens, to name only a few.

Wow!

Six pages to go in the casita tonight. I am sorry to see it end. Curtis only died in 1952 at age eighty four. I started collecting Indian post cards years ago, not realizing that most of the images were his. Kathleen Gregory from Albuquerque was the first person to ever bring his name up. I wasn't really paying attention until then. Just more reasons to love and visit the southwest.

You too will become a fan after reading this book.

Carlos Benito Gregory: great book gift! Muchas Gracias!

Hasta  pronto  (see you soon),

Tocino

Bobmail . . .

It feeds both mind and body.

Sleeps On His Breath

Hairy Moccasin, White Man Runs Him, Crazy Horse, Tall Bull, Sitting Bull and Rain In The Face.

Edward Sherriff Curtis got his Indian name because when he traveled to the 80 Indian tribes to photograph them he would sleep on his blow-up mattress.

In 1904 & 05 he photographed and interviewed the Indians who fought at Little Big Horn. No one had asked the Indians about the Greasy Grass Fight.

No white person wanted to believe their side of the story. Especially Libbey Custer.

ycmtsup        

In our neighbor hood alone their are at least 20 people with the same name:

Walks With Dog Shit