Wondering about wild grapes

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Wondering About Doc Holiday.

In 1879, on this date, the famous (or infamous) gunfighter of the old west, Doc Holiday shoots and kills his first man after that guy shot up Doc's saloon.  I watch the Western Channel on TV and they have a lot of the old "cowboy" shows.  One of these shows is "Wyatt Earp".  On this show Doc killed lots of bad guys, but in real life it has been verified that he only had eight shootouts and only killed two men, not the very many that the TV show and the movies tell of.

Here is the way www.history.com/this-day-in history tells about it his first killing:

On this day in 1879, a former army scout named Mike Gordon tried to persuade one of Holliday's saloon girls to quit her job and run away with him. When she refused, Gordon became infuriated. He went out to the street and began to fire bullets randomly into the saloon. He didn't have a chance to do much damage–after the second shot, Holliday calmly stepped out of the saloon and dropped Gordon with a single bullet. Gordon died the next day.    


Although he lived a dangerous life of drinking, gambling, and gun fighting, he managed to survive to die of tuberculosis in a health resort in Colorado in 1887.  He couldn't believe that he would end up having a peaceful end and not dying "with his boots on" because of the violent life that he lived, so his last words were "This is funny".

Now, you all have a great day, you hear?

11 comments:

  1. Thanks Chuck and Anneke. Sometimes the true stories are better than the fiction, but this guy was for real!!

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  2. Have you gotten your big yard decoration (motorhome) back yet???

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    1. No, not yet. Waiting on parts, so I am told.

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  3. Darn Dizzy, I have written two comments and they were lost when I hit preview.

    Wondering if it is my computer or Blogger. Better luck tomorrow :(

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    1. Probably blogger is at fault. This one showed up OK.

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    2. That one showed up because I hit Publish...I like to do preview because I tend to be a bad speller and like to catch my mistakes.

      Anyhow I was going to say that I had no idea Doc Holliday was a real life character...I thought it was fiction until I read this post.

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  4. Just watched that movie a couple of months ago. Had never seen it.

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    1. That is the one with Val Kilmer as Doc. Good movie.

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  5. Hollywood can sure build people up.

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    1. Or down. The good guys get better and the bad guys get worse in the movies and on TV.

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