MARSHAL LAW and SOILED DOVES

I have often not been asked who my favorite Old West marshal is. Just as often, I have not replied: “I have not often given it any thought.” I suppose that if, for some desperate reason (such as drawing a blank for something to write about for this post) I had given it any thought, I would’ve come up with Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok or Bat Masterson. Don’t ask me to name other famous marshals. Were there any other famous marshals?

Today is the 228th anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Marshal Service, so I decided to marshal my resources, round up a posse, and pursue my query. Unfortunately, it wasn’t posse-ble to corral volunteers for such a questionable undertaking; I will have to go it alone. If I don’t come out of this post alive, please pray that I have gone to a better place. Philadelphia will do.

As you may have noticed in the above clip, Mae West was mighty handy with a six-shooter….but in yesteryear’s wild and wooly West, female marshals were scarcer than beer and whiskey drinkers on the wagon in a one-horse town with two saloons — a sobering thought, indeed. Thus, it mae be necessary to put up wanted posters in order to uncover additional famous marshals (preferably female).

Well, that didn’t take long; there WERE female marshals in the Old West. Here they be:

https://glitternight.com/tag/female-marshals/

That appears to be the extent of their ranks — out of hundreds of marshals/deputy marshals, only four were of the fair sex. But that seems only fair. After all, 99% of the ‘bad guys’ were just that — ‘guys’ — so why should women be charged with maintaining law and order in the Wild West when almost all of the lawbreakers were men….though it’s no stretch to assume that certain upstanding citizens weren’t above regarding certain ladies as ‘hardened’ offenders:

As Jesus and mistermuse not often say (therefore it bares repeating):  Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stein.

Needless to say, I’ll drink to that!

 

MORE OF THE SAME

What with an absolutely perfect autumn weather weekend and much outdoor work to be done before old man winter turns old man muse into a house potato, there was hardly enough time to watch a few football games and think about what to write for my next post (this one). Therefore, I’m going to take up where my last post (October 23) left off, and go with more of the same. It just happens to be three days later, so only the date (and title) will be changed to protect the historic events of Oct. 26 from whatever difference it makes.

1881 – The most famous gunfight in the history of the American West, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, takes place on Oct. 26 in Tombstone, AZ, between the Earp brothers/Doc Holliday and outlaws Ike & Billy Clanton/Tom & Frank McLaury/Billy Claiborne. Though it lasts but 30 seconds, it was the stuff legends (and numerous books and movies) are made of.

1901 – The first use of a “getaway car” follows the holdup of a shop in Paris, France. It was the stuff legends (and numerous books and movies) are made of (think Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, etc.).

1916 – Margaret Sanger arrested for obscenity (distributing information on contraception), thereby elevating birth control from a sin to a crime. Almost a century later, it is still a sin to the Catholic Church….which is a “crime.”

1947 – Hillary Rodham Clinton is born. Who?

1949 – President Harry Truman raises minimum wage from 40 cents to 75 cents. Fast forward 65 years: Republicans see no reason why the average person couldn’t still live on that, as evidenced by the wages paid in foreign countries to which they favor outsourcing jobs.

So what else is new?