...and a western outlaw, too!

In 1964, actor Lorne Greene recorded the song “Ringo” (from the album “Welcome To the Ponderosa”). The lyrics were spoken, and spoke of outlaws and gunfights – themes familiar in the TV westerns popular in the early 1960’s.

I didn’t know then if Ringo was a made up character or was based on a real outlaw from history.

And who would have thought that I was related to the guy?

It turns out that the storyline of the song lyrics is pure fiction. The real John “Johnny” Ringo was an enemy of Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp and his brothers, and he rode with the Clanton gang, “The Cowboys”. Cattle were rustled, stagecoaches were robbed, and there was drinking and gambling. Johnny was reported in the papers to have shot and wounded a man in a bar once, for not drinking whiskey with him. This was all in and around Tombstone, Arizona in the early 1880’s. For all that, there’s no record of his being involved in a stand up one on one shootout in the middle of the street, as is often shown in westerns.


Photo from the Wikipedia article (see below)

Johnny Ringo was found dead of a bullet wound to the head, and his death was officially ruled a suicide. There are also four murder conspiracy theories; some say Wyatt Earp shot him from a distance, others that Doc Holliday did it. Other theories involved either “Buckskin” Frank Leslie as the murderer, or a gambler known by the nickname “Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce”. For all of that, you can read the details here

...and you’ll also find more about his days in Tombstone, and his prior involvement in the “Hoodoo Wars” in Mason County, Texas (1875, I think), and his earlier life. Wikipedia also has this article.

Now for the genealogy angle. As I mentioned in my last post, the Ringo family has been thoroughly researched, and there are postings on genealogy boards online. I particularly like this comment by Jim Ringo, from Ancestry.com:

“…Was out to Tombstone, AZ in March 03 to interview with the local Newspaper, Tombstone Tumbleweed. The purpose of the visit and interview was to let people know what a nice family the Ringo's are. Not sure they bought it…”

There’s some disagreement between researchers about which is the best book on the subject. Some say, “John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was”, by Jack Burrows, others maintain that “John Ringo”, by David Johnson is more accurate. My library had neither one, but it had “The Life and Death Of Johnny Ringo”, by Ray Hogan, so I checked out and read that. Mr. Hogan admits up front there is some mystery about the life and death of John Ringo, but he took the facts he found and wrote his book “…narrated in a fictional form to make its presentation more appealing. It has been a matter of clothing a skeleton with flesh…it could have been the way he lived and died.”

Ray Hogan presents John Ringo as having more education than most around him; smart enough to stay away from some of the more extreme plans of the Clanton gang (he was apparently not at the famed gunfight at the O.K. Corral). At times Johnny would go off by himself, which was likely as much a result of his lonely, sometimes morose nature. He had few friends.

Also mentioned in the book was some years Johnny spent raising cattle. Even though he showed restraint at times, John Ringo was not what you’d call a good guy (but I suspect if you read much about Doc Holliday or the Earp brothers, you’d find they weren’t angels either). I gather that the citizens of Tombstone quickly learned who Ringo was, and knew it was wise to keep at a distance from him.

John Ringo was also a descendant of Philip Janszen Ringo (the Pirate – see my last post), but on an different branch of the family than I (I’m related to the Ringo’s through the Bird family, who married into the Yoakam family, who married into the Wingate’s). So if I’ve figured this right, Johnny Ringo was a fifth cousin three generations removed from me, on my Dad’s side.

Genealogists have told me before that it’s actually kind of fun to find a black sheep you didn’t know was in the family, a “skeleton in the closet” as the saying goes. They were right.

The Evening Rambler for November 23, 2008

Something new, well new to me anyway.

In looking through a bookshelf a few months ago, I came across my dad’s four paperback Zane Grey novels. Westerns aren’t my main interest when it comes to reading for pleasure, so I don’t plan to keep all four; there’s just so many books in this house as it is. It’s time to edit and get organized. I do want to keep one though, after all, these were dad’s. I gave him at least one for either his birthday or Christmas, though I don’t recall which one…and it might have been all four. So, which one to keep? I figured eventually I’d read them all, and probably I would like one more than the others.

A month or so ago, I picked up the oldest of the four stories we have here...”The Heritage of the Desert” (original copyright 1910). Then on to “The Rainbow Trail” (1915), which I got part way into, then put down. It wasn’t quite working for me, though in fairness I probably ought to finish it. A day or two ago, I finished “The Man of the Forest” (1920), which I guess I’d call a western romance. The relationships and conversations between the characters seemed to be more developed; I’ve liked this one best of the three I’ve read so far. And yesterday I started “To the Last Man” (1922).

I won’t pretend to make this into a book review, I’m really not qualified to judge western novels (ask me about science-fiction sometime). I will say I was surprised these were written that long ago. Had you asked me before, “Bob, when did Zane Grey write his novels?” I probably would have answered, “Oh, I dunno, 1940’s maybe?”.

These have been easy to read, though there were some words and turns of phrase no longer in common use. There were some regionalisms like “I reckon”, or “savvy” for understand. Also some spellings to emphasize the western drawl (“Wal,” at the start of a sentence for “Well,”; also “shore” for sure and “pore” for “poor”. Sometimes it was “horses”, unless spoken by an outlaw in a gang, when it would be “hosses”).

One thing I liked was how the curse words were edited. A few times one character or another would get agitated and I’d read a “h---“ or a “d---“. I knew what was meant, and I appreciated it was a time when you just didn’t publish words more explicit and put them in front of the readers faces. They were fans of your novels, and the last thing you wanted to do was offend them. (Then again, It’s possible Mr. Grey spelled the entire words and the publisher said, “No, that won’t go”. I don’t know.) In one particularly angry confrontation, a sentence began with the word “----!”.

I’ll never know for shore what that cowboy “said”, which is just as well. I reckon it was a powerful bad word.

The other thing I’ll say is that Zane Grey was very descriptive, he could, as they say, paint a picture with words. Enough so, that I wonder if he ever tried his hand at landscape painting. In these novels he showed a love for the deserts and forests of southern Utah and northern Arizona.

Anyway, it’s been good for me to read something different from my usual. It may help me develop more of a general feel for how novels are crafted.

Travel memories.

I’ve been out west a few times. To me, “out west” is kind of a flexible definition which could mean west of Hays or Great Bend, Kansas; or in or west of one of the panhandles (Nebraska, Oklahoma, or Texas). My first big western vacation was our family trip to Colorado and New Mexico in 1957 – July, I think. Then in 1968 a big road trip through the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, New Mexico, Arizona (Meteor Crater, The Petrified Forest, and The Grand Canyon), Utah (Bryce Canyon), Colorado, and back through Kansas. We were chased by a tornado for a while, just out of sight but according to the radio it kept pace about half a county behind us until about the time we stopped at WaKeeney, Kansas for the night. We chose to stay at a motel that night. Dad pulled a Starcraft pop-up camper behind our Thunderbird for that trip.

Then in 1972 another camping trip, this time with a Holiday Rambler travel trailer, to Colorado, Wyoming, and back through Nebraska.


(I'm just lazy enough tonight to keep my searching for photos to a minimum, but I had this one close at hand. An old church or school building somewhere in Colorado, 1972.)

In May of 1976, twelve of my college friends and I caravanned two cars and a pickup through Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. We made it as far as Glacier National Park, a truly beautiful place; then came through South Dakota and stopped at Mount Rushmore on the way back.

Almost a year after I got married, my wife’s insurance job at the time sent her to a branch office in California. I flew out there (yes, on an airplane) to join her for the better part of a week. I rented a car and we drove up and down the coast and saw parts of Los Angeles, visited friends in Laguna Beach, went to Disneyworld one day, then up to Edwards Air Force Base (or as close as they’d let us get) to witness a night landing of the Shuttle. Of course, all the lights were off for security so we saw nothing, but did hear the sonic boom as the shuttle decelerated and landed. Then we drove north to see the Monterey Peninsula (Monterey, Carmel and Pebble Beach), and spent much of a day in San Francisco (Fisherman’s Wharf, Lombard Street – the famous winding back and forth drive down the hill, the Ghirardelli Chocolate factory, and across the Golden Gate bridge to Muir Woods).

Since then, most of our trips out west have been return visits to Colorado. Once we flew out and rented a car, and spent time in the Denver and Colorado Springs area. Another time we drove out through Denver, up the mountains with a stop at Georgetown, then through the Eisenhower Tunnel, then down to Vail. Rode the alpine slide there twice. The last time our whole family has been in Colorado at the same time was a trip in late July and early August of 2000.

So more and more lately, I’ve been thinking how good it would be to take a trip out west again. Part of that may be from reading those western novels, but mostly it’s been such a long time since I’ve seen that interesting country. That and I would like to go see our eldest daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter at their place in California.

One thing that’s kind of funny. That time in 1968 when we traveled through desert areas of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah I was aware that roadrunners supposedly live there. So I had it in mind to take notice as I was watching the scenery pass by while dad drove. Never saw one that trip. A few years later in northwest Arkansas I saw two of them. Go figure.

Along those lines, I’ve been up and down I-35 and I-45 in eastern Texas several times, and have seen a few dead armadillos. Never a live one though, at least in Texas. I did finally see a live armadillo in Florida once.

The most surprising thing I’ve ever seen along the roadside was on one of the Texas trips. We had left Houston heading northwest on I-45, and were maybe 20 miles past the northernmost edge of the suburbs. Off to the right, just in the grass off the side of the road was a huge black cat. A panther, sitting pretty as you please, just watching the traffic go by.