Jesse James Rescues McDonald County

by Pa Rock
Native Son

While channel surfing earlier this week, I caught sight of something familiar as I cruised by the Turner Classic Movie (TCM) channel.   Quickly jumping back to TCM, I realized that it was the old McDonald County, Missouri, courthouse – the original one that still stands in the Pineville public square to this day.  That scene, where a young Jesse James rushes out of the building (supposedly the jail in Liberty, Missouri) and jumps on a waiting getaway horse, was from a movie that I know well – the 1939 20^th Century Fox production of “Jesse James.”

That film, by director Henry King, brought money, movies stars, tourists and attention to the very rural county that forms the southwest corner of Missouri and helped to rescue it from the final throes of the Great Depression.  

Much, though certainly not all, of "Jesse James" was shot in and around Pineville, Missouri, but the stars stayed and played in the picturesque town of Noel on the beautiful Elk River.   (If you are starting to pick up on some community pride, it may because I grew up in Noel, the Christmas City of the Ozarks, and still regard it as home.)

Pineville had just gone through the expense of having its major streets paved prior to the filming, and the city fathers had to immediately go out and have them covered with dirt so that it would be historically accurate.  Businesses on the town square were remodeled to suit the needs of the movie, and the farmhouse on the old Crowder farm, just west of Pineville, became the home place of the James clan.

But other landmarks in the county were used as well.  There was a new log cabin constructed in the pines near Noel that was the fictional home of Jesse and Zee James.  After the movie was completed, that cabin was abandoned along side of the road where it survived several decades of hard neglect and occasional transient residents, and remnants of it can still be seen to this day.  The original Mill Creek Baptist Church, which has since burned and now has a newer structure on the sight, was where Jesse and Zee were married in the movie.    The old, and very distinctive, Kansas City Southern railway depot at Noel also figures prominently in one scene.  Today it serves as Noel's city hall.

The stars of the movie were Tyrone Power (Jesse), Henry Fonda (Frank), Nancy Kelly (Zee), Randolph Scott (Marshall Will Wright), John Carradine (Bob Ford), and Jane Darwell (Mrs. Samuels – Jesse and Frank’s mother).   (Jane Darwell commented in an interview years later that she made a career of playing Henry Fonda’s mother.  Her role as his mother – Mrs. Joad – in “The Grapes of Wrath” won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1940.  She said that Fonda would refer to her as "Ma" when they encountered each other in public.)

The movie crew brought a great deal of money and commerce into McDonald County.  It was estimated that over 200,000 tourists visited the county during filming of the movie.  One local man that I knew got his start in business by hauling water – with his horse-drawn wagon – to the crew when they were in remote locations.  Other locals appeared as extras in the movies, and many people made money using their yards and pastures for parking the automobiles of all of the tourists who came in hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars and see some of the movie being filmed.  Other locals set up concession stands in their yards to quench the thirsts of the tourists.

And the movie star mania was intense.  My mother told a story of a couple of the stars visiting the J.C. Penny store on the square in Neosho.  She said that word quickly got out that they were inside, and so many people began pushing and shoving to get into the store that the hapless stars had to be spirited out the back door.

Another business that drew in movie stars and star-gazers alike was Shadow Lake, a dance club on Elk River in Noel.  It became a favorite watering hole of the stars,  and Henry Fonda and Tyrone Power were even reported to have been spotted fishing from a boat near the club.

Henry Fonda and Tyrone Power stayed in a new log home on the bluff that overlooks Shadow Lake.   Nancy Kelly had a room in a nice home on Noel’s Main Street.  Years later, as a real estate broker, I sold that home, a sale that seemed to be made somewhat easier due to the Nancy Kelly-slept-here factor.

The summer of 1939 was certainly among the best of times for many who were struggling just to get by in a very remote part of the Ozarks during rough economic times.   Instead of taking money out of the community like the original outlaw was known for, this "Jesse James" brought money in and generated a sense of local pride that was sorely needed.  Today we are still proud that so many movie people recognized the natural beauty of the area and spent their time and energy making a movie in our county all those many years ago.

Suicide by Execution

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist 

While doing research for a writing project, I found some information on capital punishment that bears repeating here.  The big pro-capital punishment argument is that it deters people from murdering other people.   If that was the case, it looks as though murders would be fewer in states with capital punishment, but that phenomenon has not occurred.  In fact, there are some instances where the knowledge that one would be put to death for murder has apparently inspired a murder.

The state of Oklahoma is very fond of executions, and in fact, it is third in the nation behind only Texas and Virginia, in modern day executions.  (The Supreme Court decision in the case of Furman v Georgia caused a national moratorium on executions for several years during the 1970's.) 

Two Oklahoma inmates took advantage of capital punishment in order to end their life sentences early. The first was James Donald French who was executed in the state's electric chair, "Old Sparky," at the McAlester State Penitentiary in August of 1966.  French, a twenty-nine-year-old married father of five,  was serving a life sentence for kidnapping and killing a man who had picked him up while he was hitchhiking.  The story goes that French quickly grew tired of prison and wanted to end his life.  Supposedly he wasn't brave enough to take his own life, so he decided to have the state do it for him.  French strangled his cellmate to death in order to earn a death sentence.

James French was the only person to be executed in 1966, and the last person executed in the United States before Furman v Georgia.  He gained a lasting bit of notoriety for his final words:  "How's this for a headline?  'French Fries.'"  

What a funny guy.

John David Duty, also an Oklahoma inmate, was serving a life sentence in 2001 for armed robbery, kidnapping, 1st degree rape, and shooting with intent to kill.  After spending several years in prison, he decided that he would rather be dead - and he set about making the state assist him in a suicide.  Duty also strangled his cellmate, a crime for which he was eventually executed in December of 2010.  He became the first person in the United States to be put to death by a lethal injection cocktail containing pentobarbital - a drug used in animal euthanasia.

Duty, in order to be seen as particularly heinous, sat in his cell and wrote the following letter to his victim's mother, Mary Wise, an hour after he killed her son:

"Mary Wise, 
Well by the time you get this letter you will already know that your son is dead. I know now because I just killed him an hour ago. Gee you'd think I'd be feeling some remorse but I'm not. I've been planning since the day he moved in last Friday. Tonight I finally pulled it off. Would you like to know how I did it? Well I told him I wanted to use him as a hostage. Hell he went right for it, thinking he was gonna get some smokes out of the deal. Well I tied him up hands and feet, then I strangled him. It's not like the movies, it took awhile. But I really did him a favor as he was too stupid to live. I mean he didn't know me 5 days and he let me tie him up like that, Please! Besides he was young and dumb and would've just been in and out of prison his whole life.So I saved him all the torment. I've been in 24 years, wish someone would have done me the same favor back then. I guess you're thinking I'll be punished for this. Well not likely in this county. The DA's here are weak bitches and don't give a damn about deaths of inmates. We're all just scum to them. Besides I'm doing 2 life sentences so they can't hurt me. But you can call them and tell them about this letter, but it wouldn't do you any good. Well I'm gonna close for now and I'll tell police in the morning about Curtis." 

The letter was confiscated before it could be mailed, and Mary Wise spoke at Duty's sentencing asking that he be spared the death penalty.  She said that he should have to live out the rest of his days in prison.  Mary Wise felt that would be the worse punishment - and apparently so did John David Duty.

The death penalty is not an effective deterrent, and there is no credible research showing otherwise.  It is all about bloodlust and revenge - not justice.

Monday's Poetry: The Beat Goes On

by Pa Rock
Cher Appreciator

This is the 67th birthday of Cher, the woman who pulled Sonny Bono out of relative obscurity before she went on to record hundreds of songs as a solo artist.  Cher, with one of the most distinctive voices in the history of recorded music, has also had time in her long career to be a social activist and a Oscar-winning movie star (Best Actress for Moonstruck in 1987.)

My favorite Cher performance was a number that she did on her television show back in the 1970's.  She, along with Anthony Newley and Tina Turner, rocked out on a long version of Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show that still makes me smile and gets my feet to tapping forty years later.  They were a dynamite explosion on the calm waters of network television.

Happy birthday, Cher.  I hope the beat goes on forever!

The Beat Goes On
by Sonny and Cher

The beat goes on, beat goes onDrums keep pounding a rhythm to the brainLa de da de de, la de da de da
Charleston was once the rage, uh huhHistory has turned the page, uh huhThe miniskirt's the current thing, uh huhTeenybopper is our newborn king, uh huh
And the beat goes on, beat goes onDrums keep pounding a rhythm to the brainLa de da de de, la de da de da
The grocery store's the supermart, uh huhLittle girls still break their hearts, uh huhAnd men still keep on marching off to warElectrically they keep a baseball score
And the beat goes on, the beat goes onDrums keep pounding a rhythm to the brainLa de da de de, la de da de da
Grandmas sit in chairs and reminisceBoys keep chasing girls to get a kissThe cars keep a going faster all the timeBums still cries, "Hey buddy, have you got a dime?"
And the beat goes on, the beat goes onDrums keep pounding a rhythm to the brainLa de da de de, la de da de da
And the beat goes on, yes, the beat goes onAnd the beat goes on, and the beat goes onThe beat goes on and the beat goes onThe beat goes on.

Gatsby, the Newest Rendition

by Pa Rock
Movie Fan

It's been nearly ninety years since F. Scott Fitzgerald penned his classic, The Great Gatsby, and nearly forty years since I saw the Robert Redford - Mia Farrow cinematic version of the tale.  Today I went to the local multiplex to view the newest movie version of Fitzgerald's timeless novel.

Actually, the novel is timeless in the sense that it is a grand story of a side-tracked love with good insights into motivations that persist among humans across the decades.   It is a very good story.  But the setting, the lush estates of Long Island in the 1920's, is a look into a lifestyle that most mortals will never know - and few knew even in the roaring twenties.

Two settings, in fact, were the real stars of the current movie:  Jay Gatsby's mansion and a few other grand homes on Long Island, and the Valley of Ashes, a urban pocket of hard poverty and blue collar sweat where Tom Buchanan's mistress lived with her mechanic husband.  Both are over-the-top in their cinematic glory.   The main party scene at Gatsby's mansion alone undoubtedly cost more to film than many independent film producers can manage to amass for entire movies.  While the visuals were lush, the movie could have benefitted from more emphasis on the jazz music of the times...just saying.

Leonardo DiCaprio, gave his usual - a flawless performance as the mysterious Jay Gatsby, but his Gatsby wasn't nearly as compelling at Tobey Maguire's Nick Carraway - or Jason Clarke as George Wilson, the mechanic with the unfaithful wife.  Clarke was a proverbial scene-stealer.  Carey Mulligan played an acceptable Daisy Buchanan.

The Great Gatsby was an enjoyable afternoon outing, but I suspect that it will be at least another forty years before I am ready to sit though it again.

Saturday with Aunt Mary

by Pa Rock
Proud Nephew

My lovely Aunt Mary King, who will be eighty-eight in just over two months, has been in Glendale this week visiting friends, and today I managed to catch up with her.  Glendale, which fifty years ago was just a small town out beyond Phoenix, today stretches across much of the West Valley.  My home, in fact, is in Glendale - and it was about a twenty-five minute drive over to the part of Glendale where Mary is staying - much of it by an expressway designed to speed cars from one part of the Valley to another.

Mary, who has spent most of her life in San Diego, has been busy touring the Phoenix area with her friends.  Today I brought her to Luke Air Force Base to show her my home and where I work.  That was followed by lunch at Haus Murphy's in "old town" Glendale.  After a wonderful German meal we strolled much of the original town of Glendale visiting some shops and touring a classic car show that was taking place around the community's park.  A band was playing songs from the fifties and sixties - an era when music had words and melodies - songs that some of us can still sing along to, from memory, half-a-century later.  And we we both singing!

It was a very charming and peaceful afternoon, and the weather was surprisingly pleasant.  We were able to eat our meal outside in the beer garden at Haus Murphy's.  The pleasant weather will soon disappear in the Great Phoenix Bake-Off, but for today, at least, Aunt Mary and I were able to enjoy being outside.

And we thoroughly enjoyed our visit!

Talk Strong!

by Pa Rock
Wordsmith

Several tornadoes touched down in Texas, near the city of Granbury, the night before last.  At least six people were killed and some others are still missing.  One of the tornadoes was rated an F-4, which is fairly significant on a power scale that tops out at F-5.  (An F-4 can have 3-second wind gusts between 166 and 200 miles per hour.)

While listening to a National Public Radio broadcast regarding the Texas tornadoes yesterday morning, my typist’s sensibilities were offended when I heard the reporter refer to the incident as “a bevy of tornadoes.”

Bevy?  Really?  If the reporter was just going to grab a collective noun out of thin air, why couldn’t she have chosen one a little more colorful – or forceful.  We are discussing one of nature’s most violent events.  Bevy, indeed!

Many collective nouns originated in the Middle Ages and have come down to the present day in literature and common parlance.  Bevy, according to Internet sources (and if it’s on the Internet it must be true), is an acceptable collective noun for a group of swans, quail, or larks, but nary a reference was made regarding tornadoes.  In fact, I accessed multiple lists of collective nouns and found no mention of tornadoes at all.  So, it would appear, we are in uncharted territory.

There are several collective nouns currently in use that would, in my opinion, do a better job of describing a gaggle group of tornadoes.   “Swarm,” often used to denote large accumulations of ants or bees, is a bit more colorful and has at least a hint of danger.  “Troop,” which can describe a gathering of baboons, has some force to it and adds an alliterative quality – “a troop of tornadoes.”  “Pounce,” a term sometimes used with cats, would highlight the quickness and energy of tornadoes.

Why couldn’t “siege” be borrowed from a grouping of herons and given over to tornadoes?  Certainly an entire family hiding in a dank cellar or crammed into a bathtub would feel that they were under siege.  “Plague,” often used to describe an infestation of insects, would also be symbolic of the personal devastation brought on by an onslaught of tornadoes.  Or how about “rout?”  A “rout” of tornadoes seems far more graphically understandable than the word’s standard collective noun usage – to describe a group of snails.

Or, continuing to borrow from collective nouns that are already in use, why not appropriate “scream” from swifts, “murder” from crows and magpies, or, and this is my personal favorite, “ambush” from tigers?

Another option, of course, would be to come up with an entirely new collective noun to describe a large, roaring group of tornadoes.  Here are some ideas that crossed my old, gray mind:  a “blast” of tornadoes, a “slam dance” of tornadoes, or a “scram” of tornadoes.  How about a "trial" of tornadoes, or even a "shock" of tornadoes?

Certainly an organization with the reach and resources of National Public Radio could come up with a better tornadic collective descriptor than “bevy.”   A bevy of beer bottles or beautiful babes, maybe, but not a bevy of tornadoes.  That’s just an affront to the power of language.

Pomp and Stomp

by Pa Rock
Observer

The military doesn't always get things right, but one thing that it does well is ceremonies.

Today I went to a retirement ceremony for a good friend - an Air Force First Sergeant who has spent the past twenty-four years in uniform serving his country.   My friend is relatively young, and is, in fact, just barely two years older than my oldest son.  And now he is retired and getting ready to start another career.

The ceremony, indoors at the base Club (formerly called the NCO Club in a different era) was a masterwork.  The Club's ballroom was filled with his family, friends, peers, and a host of people in uniform, many of whom served under him.  Awards, including some ribbons and numerous certificates of achievement and letters of appreciation, were presented, accolades were given, and the other First Sergeants marched into the ceremony in formation.  (The Air Force calls First Sergeants "Shirts" - and their chief assistants are often referred to as "Under Shirts" - seriously!)

My friend's wife and son also received certificates of appreciation, stylish "thank you's" for sharing their loved one with the military for so many years.

The ceremony contained a prayer, a beautiful rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, the formal presentation of a flag which had also been used in the funeral of my friend's World War II veteran grandfather, speeches, laughter, tears, and a long receiving line that involved far more hugs than handshakes..  All of that was followed by food, glorious food!

When it comes to pomp and stomp, nobody does it better than the military!

Congratulations, Chris!

Inspirational Drinks

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Recently while doing some research on two famous American writers of the 1920’s, Dashiell Hammett and F. Scott Fitzgerald, both nearly as well known for their drinking as their writing abilities, I came across information on the drinks of choice of five notable authors.  (Unfortunately neither Hammett nor his long-term love interest, playwright Lillian Hellman, herself a tippler of some skill and regularity, were on the list.  I became interested in the writers and their preferred cocktails, and was soon able to locate similar information on five additional prolific American writers.

The first source material that I encountered was from a rehab website which raised a basic question:  did the prodigious use of alcohol free the imaginations of these authors and enhance their writing abilities, or did alcoholism ultimately limit their productivity and potential?  That is, of course, one of those questions which generate more heat than light, with many people having strong opinions on the powers and liabilities of demon rum.

F. Scott Fitzgerald and his lovely (but somewhat wild) wife, Zelda, were both known for being fond of alcohol .  Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby and several other American classics once famously said, “First you take a drink, then the drink takes you.”  His favorite cocktail was the "Gin Rickey.”   Fitzgerald died in his early forties from alcohol-related heart attacks.  The drink had obviously “taken” him.

The” Gimlet” was the preferred drink of mystery writer Raymond Chandler, the man who brought a detective named Philip Marlowe onto the American literary scene.   Chandler, via Philip Marlowe, helped to popularize the “Gimlet” in the novel, The Long Goodbye.

 Not surprisingly, rough and tough Ernest Hemingway, who had multiple homes in the Caribbean (Havana and Key West),  expressed a fondness for rum.  Hemingway’s favorite cocktail was the “Mojito.”

William Faulkner, the epitome of the genteel southern gentleman, was, of course, fashionably at home with a “Mint Julep.”   Faulkner, like Fitzgerald, died of a heart issue thought to have been brought on by drinking.

Tennessee Williams, another writer who affected a southern background and demeanor, had a preference for a drink called the “Ramos Gin Fizz,” a cocktail that reportedly can still be found in and around New Orleans today.

Carson McCullers was said to have enjoyed a beer while typing in the mornings, and would usually finish her day with a cocktail – her preference being “Long Island Iced Tea” – a concoction which contains about everything except iced tea!

Truman Capote, whose In Cold Blood set the standard for true crime reporting, had a preference for the “Screwdriver” which he called “my orange drink.”

Beat author Jack Kerouac developed a fondness for the” Margarita,” probably as a result of his travels in Mexico.

“Between the Sheets” was the name of a cocktail favored by Edna St. Vincent Millay.   One description of this little-known drink is that was a “Sidecar with rum.”

And lastly, John Steinbeck favored a drink called the “Jack Rose” or “Jersey Lightening,” which apparently had brandy as its main ingredient.

The takeaway form all of the above is this:  if one believes that alcohol might be a building block to literary success, one strategy for becoming a great writer might be to adopt the cocktail-of-choice of the writer whose style one most admires.     It couldn’t hurt, when done in moderation, and might even make the blank page a little less threatening.

Cheers!

Mud: Huck and Tom Meet Romeo and Juliet Along the River of Life

by Pa Rock
Movie Fan

It is a continuing aggravation to me that the really good movies are rarely shown in Phoenix’s West Valley.  It’s as though the persons who make the decisions of what movies will play in which theatres, make the assumption that people in the West Valley would not understand anything beyond car chases, action flicks, and brainless comedies. 

Matthew McConaughey has starred in two very fine movies in the past year, films that show the actor’s amazing range and ability – which both extend well beyond the fluff comedies for which he had been known.  The first of those movies, Killer Joe, never did play in the West Valley, forcing me to drive to Scottsdale, where our betters live, to see it.  The second movie, Mud, finally made it into one theatre in the West Valley last week – the over-priced one next to the stadium – allowing me to be able to see it without burning through half a tank of gas.

So much to bitch about;  so little time.

The true star of Mud is the Mississippi River as it drifts along between Arkansas and Tennessee heading to the Gulf.  The characters in the movie live along the river, make their livings from the river, hide out on the river, and use the river as an escape.  The movie was filmed in and around the communities of Dumas and Stuttgart, Arkansas.

Jeff Nichols, the writer and director of Mud, required the cast to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn before the movie was filmed, undoubtedly to give them a sense of the river from literary and historic perspectives.   The end result was a masterwork that floated along the same river, and had the same feel, as where Tom and Huck and Jim had their grand adventures.

 The plot revolves around two fourteen-year-old boys, Ellis and Neckbone, who cruise the river in their john boat.    The boys find a boat nestled in a treetop out on an island in the Mississippi.  Upon closer inspection they discover that someone is living in the boat, and soon encounter a river derelict by the name of Mud, who is living hand-to-mouth on the river while he waits for his girlfriend, Juniper, to arrive.  As the plot develops, it is revealed that Mud is on the run from the law and the dangerous family of one of Juniper’s boyfriends, a man that he killed in Texas.

Mud (McConaughey) and his white trash girlfriend, Reese Witherspoon, have an on-and-off relationship that is doomed to failure.  Ellis, whose parents are getting ready to split up, invests time and effort into trying to help the couple make it because he wants  to believe in the idea of love.  Ultimately the only thing that endures is the river.

There were four outstanding performers in this movie, besides the Mighty Mississippi.  McConaughey delivered a riveting portrayal of the title character.  Young Tye Sheridan who played Ellis, proved beyond a doubt that he has a future as an actor.   Ray  McKinnon did an amazing job as Senior, Ellis’s dad, who had to struggle with earning a living and understanding his son’s sudden behavior problems while powerlessly facing and dealing with the imminent breakup of his marriage.  And then there was the almost legendary Sam Shepard who played Ellis’s neighbor and Mud’s old friend – a retired CIA assassin.  Shepard, a Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist (Buried Child, 1979) and Academy Award-nominated actor (The Right Stuff, 1983), did not hurt his professional reputation at all with this role.  The aging Shepard is still a lion on film.

This could be the movie where Matthew McConaughey gets his first Oscar nomination, an honor for which he is clearly ready.   The screenplay was formidable and should also wind up garnering plenty of recognition and possibly even an award or two. 

Mud is an awesome movie, far too good to be stuck in Scottsdale.