Bill Pickett—The Original Bull Dogger

Bill Picket was a big man on a horse.

Somewhere in Texas not long before the turn of the 20th Century a young cowboy spent a hot afternoon watching how ranch bull dogs could isolate and take down a longhorn steer who wandered away from the herd.  The dog would “worry” the steer and most would head back to the herd.  But the occasional obstinate one would keep trying to dodge the dog.  That’s when the dog would close in, jump up and bite down on the sensitive nose or lip of the steer then bring it down to the ground.  The dog would hold on until the steer stopped struggling.

The cowboy, Bill Pickett told the other hands, “If a dog can do that, so can I.” The next time he chased a stray on horseback instead of throwing his lariat around the horns and jerking the steer off his feet, the standard cowboy way that often resulted in the animal breaking it neck, Pickett astonished his fellow workers by leaping of his running horse, grabbing the steer by the horns and biting down on its upper lip throwing it to the ground.  It was a reckless and dangerous maneuver and required daring, agility, and brute strength.  All of which Pickett had.

He was soon entertaining folks at the ranch rodeos held at the end of round-ups when the crews of all the local ranches competed in various riding and roping games.  Pickett even invented a name for the stunt—bull dogging in honor of the dogs that inspired it, not because he took down actual bulls, which were larger and considerably meaner than the neutered steers raised for beef.

Picket was born on December 5, 1870 on a ranch in Travis County in south central Texas.  That’s the country surrounding the state capital at Austin.  He was one of 13 children of Thomas Jefferson Pickett, a former slave, and Mary “Janie” Gilbert, a woman of mixed Cherokee and White ancestry.  He was educated in schools up to the fifth grade, which made him better educated than most of his peers.  His mother had hopes that he would take up a trade.

Instead at about the age of 12, the big, strapping boy went to cowboying.  His three brothers soon joined him.   By the time he invented his stunt he already had a reputation as the greatest working cowboy in Texas.

Pickett and his brothers were not as unique as you might think if you grew up on old movies westerns with no Blacks in sight. 

The Texas cattle industry exploded after the Civil War when men came home to find that four years of war and little market had produced hundreds of thousands of surplus longhorn cattle.  When the railroads crept into Kansas, it opened beef hungry Eastern markets to ranchers—if they could get their stock hundreds of miles north through rugged territory.  It was the birth of the cowboy as we know him today.  But there was a labor shortage.  That attracted rootless men who were used to physical hardship and could spend months away from family.  The man-hungry ranchers took on all comers—plenty of experienced Mexican Vaqueros, who transmitted their skills and horse culture to newcomers, veterans of both armies including many former cavalrymen, immigrants fresh off the boats at New Orleans and Galveston, and many former slaves with no land or better prospects.  Experts believe that close to a quarter of all Texas trail cowboys were Black.

By the 1890’s the mores of the Jim Crow South was taking its toll on the once rough-and-tumble racial egalitarianism of the range.  With the days of the great cattle drives largely passed as rail line penetrated the heart of cattle country, the need for large crews for mass drives abated.  Most hands worked “a brand” at the home ranch all year except for the spring round-up.  Many Black cowboys found themselves unwanted in the close quarters of ranch bunk houses.  

But true top hands like Pickett and his brothers could still find work.

By the turn of the century, however, the boys decided there was more money to be made on the emerging circuit of country fairs and rodeos than tying themselves to the often boring drudgery of ranch life.  They formed the Pickett Brothers Bronco Busters and Rough Riders Association and began to tour from Texas up through the cowboy country of Wyoming.  Bill’s bulldogging act was the center of their show, but there was plenty of riding, roping and general daring do.

Their fame spread, but occasionally they had to pass as Native Americans to participate in some shows and cowboy competitions.

Up north in Cheyenne they participated in some of the early Frontier Days events—the first truly modern rodeo combining elements of the cowboy round-up competitions with popular wild west shows for a largely tourist audience.

In 1905 Picket joined the top touring western show of its day—the Oklahoma based 101 Wild West Shows.  That’s where Buffalo Bill Cody went when his own show went bankrupt.  Picket was a star act who toured the nation as part of a large company that also included a couple of other real cowboys—Will Rogers and Tom Mix.

In the early ‘20’s Picket even attracted the attention of movie makers.  He starred in two 5 reel features made by The Norman Film Manufacturing Company of Norman, Oklahoma, The Bull-Dogger and The Crimson Skull.  The movies were mostly marked to Black audiences in segregated theaters.

During that same period, rodeo was emerging as an organized sport.  Bull Dogging became of the five standard events held most major competitions under relatively standardized rules.  The other events were bare back riding, saddle bronc riding, bull riding, and calf roping.  Some rodeos offered other events like steer roping—also known as steer busting—team roping, chuck wagon and wild horse races, barrel racing for cowgirls, and calf or sheep riding for children.  In order to compete for coveted All-Around Cowboy prizes, a contestant had to compete and rack up points in at least three of the core events.

By the ‘20’s most competitors had abandoned the picket lip-bite.  But some cowboys in my day in the 1950’s still favored chewing the steer’s ear as they brought the animal down. 

As he neared 50 years of age Bill Picket was pretty beat up by a life of jumping off of moving ponies and hurling himself at thrashing beast four times his weight.  He retired from touring and competing, but not from cowboying.

Picket was killed when he was kicked in the head by an untamed bronco on April 2, 1932.  He was laid to rest in Kay County, Oklahoma near the monument to Ponica Chief White Eagle and the headquarters of the Miller Brother’s 101 Ranch.  In 1970 he was inducted into the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame, part of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

Today, the rodeo event that he invented is no longer called bull dogging.  It is called Steer Wrestling.  It is still one of the most dangerous athletic events in the world.

George Washington’s Good-by to his Officers and Why it Matters

Washington embraces Gen. Knox at Frauncis Tavern.

It was only nine days after the English under Sir Guy Carlson, Commander-in-Chief of all British Forces in North America, sailed out of New York Harbor.   

On the way out an enraged gunner on one of the ships let go one final round on Patriot crowds jeering on Staten Island.  The ball plunked pitifully in the water well short of its target. 

Barring some skirmishing by Native allies on the frontier that was the last shot of the war.  The American Revolution was essentially over and to the world’s surprise the upstart Colonies were the victors.

General George Washington, commander of the Continental Army was hovering outside the city with many of his staff officers and top commanders waiting to take control of the last bastion of British power in the fledgling states.  

Although Carlson had received orders from London to evacuate in August, he informed the President of Congress in a letter that it would take weeks to complete the task because he would also be taking with him all of the Tory refugees who could reach the city—eventually 29,000 of them—and slaves who had escaped into British lines after they were promised freedom.   By the treaty ending the war, the slaves were supposed to be returned to their “rightful owners” but despite the objections of  Southern members of Congress, the new government was eager enough to see the Red Coat army gone that they were willing to wink at this breach of the treaty.

With the refugees and former slaves safely aboard, Carlton finally loaded his garrisons and set sail on November 27.

Washington refused to enter the city until his scouts confirmed that all the troops were gone and an English ensign flying from a high pole on the Battery Park was hauled down and replaced by American colors.  That was hard because the British had greased the pole. Numerous attempts were made before the flag was finally hauled down and the Stars and Stripes were nailed to the pole.

Immediately upon spying the new flag, Washington entered the city at the head of his troops and paraded down Broadway to the Battery.

Washington did not plan to stay long in New York after securing the city.  Like all soldiers, he was eager to return home.  But he had a few loose ends to wrap up first.

In the more than two years since the last major battle, the defeat of Cornwallis’s army at Yorktown, Washington had to keep his army together and in the field until a treaty could be concluded and the British left.  But with the immediate military threat removed, Congress had been even more reluctant than usual to support the troops with supplies, provisions, and pay.  With victory at hand actual privation stalked the Army as it had in the bleakest days of the war.

Moral not only suffered, but mutiny brewed.  Although many veterans had been mustered out, fresh levies had taken their place.  A band of Pennsylvania troops stationed at Lancaster moved to march on the capital at Philadelphia.  They entered the city unobstructed and were joined by members of the local garrison who trapped Congress in the State House.  

Although the mutiny was quelled and the emergency passed, Washington was mortified.  He was also concerned by similar sentiments being voiced even among his closest circle of brother officers.  Many wanted their beloved commander to seize the government and rule as either a dictator—or even a king—who dispense favors and honors among them.

Virtually unique in all history, Washington, the victorious commander, would have none of it.  He sincerely believed in civilian government and civilian authority over the military, even though it caused him no end of vexations. 

He decided to call his officers together for a “final farewell” before departing the city.  He chose the Frauncis Tavern, one of the few meeting places with food and drink in the city large enough for the gathering.  The tavern on Pearl Street had been built as the elegant mansion for a wealthy merchant but had been a popular gathering point since before the Revolution. 

At noon on December 4, 1782, the day designated by Congress for the disbandment of the Continental Army, General Washington entered the Long Room of the tavern where 80 of his officers, including most of those to whom he was personally connected, were assembled.  It was an emotional scene.  It was described in 1830 in a memoir by Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge.  Although some historians doubt the accuracy of such recollections long after the fact, most believe that something very like the scene he described actually took place:

At 12 o'clock the officers repaired to Fraunces Tavern in Pearl Street where General Washington had appointed to meet them and to take his final leave of them. We had been assembled but a few moments when his excellence entered the room. His emotions were too strong to be concealed which seemed to be reciprocated by every officer present. After partaking of a slight refreshment in almost breathless silence the General filled his glass with wine and turning to the officers said, “With a heart full of love and gratitude I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”

After the officers had taken a glass of wine General Washington said “I cannot come to each of you but shall feel obliged if each of you will come and take me by the hand.” General Knox being nearest to him turned to the Commander-in-chief who, suffused in tears, was incapable of utterance but grasped his hand when they embraced each other in silence. In the same affectionate manner every officer in the room marched up and parted with his general in chief. Such a scene of sorrow and weeping I had never before witnessed and fondly hope I may never be called to witness again.

Then, without much further ceremony or the need for pointed commentary, the offers rose to escort their commander to a barge that took him to New Jersey.  From there he rode to Annapolis, Maryland where Congress was sitting after the mutiny scare in Philadelphia.  There he submitted a final report and tendered his resignation.  Then on to retirement at Mount Vernon.

These final displays were the example to his officers and troops.  There would be no military coup, no dictatorship, no new American royalty.

It was an act more profound in many ways than any battlefield victory.

Alka-Seltzer’s First Fizz

It was the perfect product for a nation with a physical and spiritual hang over.  After the wild binge of the Roaring Twenties fueled by bathtub gin and bootleg beer and the pain of the Crash and Great Depression, America was ready for Alka-Seltzer which was introduced on December 3, 1931—80 years ago today.

The breakthrough was combining two existing remedies—aspirin for relief of headaches, fevers, and body pain and bi-carbonate of soda to neutralize stomach acids “settle the stomach."  The active ingredients and fillers were compressed into tablets about the size of a half-dollar—remember those?  That was neater than powdered products like Bromo Seltzer and dosages were better controlled.

The tablets were to be dissolved in a tumbler full of water, releasing the fizz of the bi-carbonate of soda.  The liquid form may have helped deliver the pain relief of aspirin faster than Beyer tablets and the water in the glass certainly helped combat dehydration common after both hang overs and vomiting.

Manufactured by the Dr. Miles Medicine Company, later known as Miles Laboratories, the tablets were marketed stacked in a tubular bottle with a screw top cap.  The bottles could fit into dispensers that soon set on most drug store soda fountains, lunch counters, and bars in the country.  Relief was only a nickel away.  Soon the bottles were also staples of home medicine cabinets as the product was relentlessly advertized in slick magazine ads and on radio programs like Alka-Seltzer Comedy Star of Hollywood and National Barn Dance.

The story of Alka-Seltzer is largely the story of marketing and advertising, especially in the days after World War II and the advent of mass television broadcasting.  The pain reliever was the beneficiary time and again of some of the most memorable advertising in history.

Speedy Alka-Seltzer was introduced as Sparky in 1951 in print ads.  By 1954 The cheerful stop-action animated figure on TV with both a body and hat of Alaka-Seltzer tablets had became an icon and given a name change to reflect a new slogan, “Speedy relief.” He sang a catchy jingle, “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, Oh what a relief it is” and appeared in more than 500 commercials before being retired in 1964.  Speedy has been revived in a new series of ads that started airing late 2010. 

The ‘60’s saw memorable ads like the cartoon man arguing with his own stomach, the jazzy “No Matter What Shape Your Stomach's In” featuring close ups of bellies of all shapes and sizes while the catchy jingle played, the classic “Mamma mia, that's-a spicy meat ball-a!”, “Try it, You’ll Like it!”, and “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”

Today Alaka-Seltzer is owned and marketed by German based pharmaceutical conglomerate Bayer.  The glass tubes have long since been replaced with blue boxes holding individual foil wrapped doses of two tablets.  The original Alaka-Seltzer is just the anchor of a line of home remedies including flavored tablets, Alaka-Seltzer Gold with no aspirin, just soda, and current best seller Alaka-Seltzer Plus, marketed as a cold and flu remedy.

With so many competing products now on the shelves, Alka-Seltzer is neither as ubiquitous or quite as iconic a product as it used to be.  But it may still be a hang over’s best friend.

Woodstock Unitarian Universalist Choir Offers a Farewell Holiday Concert

The Adult Choir of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock will offer a special Farewell Holiday Concert and New Home Benefit at the church, 221 Dean Street on Sunday, December 18 at 7 PM.

The holiday concerts by the Choir have long been a tradition at the church, but have usually been held as part of a Sunday morning service during the season.  “There is a very special reason for this evening concert,” Music Director Thomas Steffens said, “We have been at our present building on Dean Street since 1907. Now after 104 years, we are leaving one great home for another. In January, we will move to our new location on Bull Valley Road, in McHenry.”

The choir wanted to present an evening performance as a gesture of gratitude from the congregation to its long time home town.

The 28 voices in the choir will present   holiday music from the Christian, Jewish, pagan, and African traditions, as well many seasonal secular favorites. Members of the choir will be featured as soloists and in small ensembles and accompanied by guest musicians trumpeter Terry Guynes and percussionist Brenton Bartelt.  Choir members Ken Johnson will play guitar and Beth Hoover-Gavriel will perform on English horn

Steffens composed two original songs on the program, Let Us Sing Noel and Which is My Christmas, the latter with former congregation minister the Rev. Dan Larsen.  Many of the other selections are presented in original arrangements.

Soloists will include Carrie MacDonald, Ken Johnson, and Ron Relic.  An a capella male quartet including Steffens, Johnson, Paul Krieg, and George Kazlusky will sing a song in Hebrew.

Admission is free, but there will be a free will offering with proceeds to support expenses for the church in its upcoming move to McHenry. 

Childcare will be available for infants and toddlers.  Parking is available in the municipal lot across Dean Street and on the street.  Come early to secure a seat.

A reception in the basement Helen Wright Room will follow the concert.

For more information contact the church at 815 338-0731 or visit http://joomla.uucofwoodstock.org/.

Surprise! It’s World AIDS Awareness Day

AIDS seems to have been swept off the public agenda in the United States which is why a lot of folks might be surprised to learn that today is International AIDS Awareness Day.  Stifling a yawn they are apt to say, “Really?  I thought that was over."

No, not really.  Although various extremely effective pharmaceutical cocktails have largely eliminated AIDS as an automatic death sentence in this country and most of the developing world, infection rates continue to rise at alarming rates in the Third World, Eastern Europe, and states of the old Soviet Union.  The costs of western treatments are prohibitive and although new low cost treatments have been developed, they are less effective and still unattainable for many.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been and continues to be hard hit.  In some areas whole generations have been nearly wiped out leaving behind another generation of orphans, many of them infected from birth.  With continuing war and famine, large swaths of the continent are being depopulated despite exploding birth rates.

A well publicized, and for many surprising, commitment by President George W. Bush to AIDS eradication in Africa has fizzled despite the expenditure of vast sums.  Right wing politics in the U.S. has blocked use of the funds for education about and distribution of condoms, the proven most successful tool in preventing spread of the plague.  Instead money has been wasted on ineffective abstinence education projects and much has been funneled to religious based charities, many of which have highly questionable agendas.  Instead of combating AIDS, suspected homosexual have come under attack, persecution, and even the threat of execution in some countries, despite the fact that in Africa heterosexual transmission is the main driving force behind the epidemic.

Meanwhile international and private funding of a new generation of “cheap” AIDS treatment drugs designed for the Third World lag far behind the overwhelming demand.

In Muslim and conservative traditional cultures in devastated South Asia governments and religious leaders have actively fought implementing policies to stem the spread or treat the victims effectively.

At home a generation has grown up with no memory of the devastating losses to AIDS that brought the issue to the fore-front in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s.  That has caused a lax attitude about prevention among young people at the same time that abstinence only education demanded by the Religious Right has eliminated frank discussions in most public schools.  Despite living in a hyper-sexualized culture, kids are less informed and more apt to make dangerous choices than a decade ago.

And AIDS has ceased to be just the Gay Curse.  Especially in minority communities it is now spread most commonly by heterosexual contact and women are now the majority of victims.  The disastrous American health care system does not make the expensive AIDS treatment in use in this country available to everyone.  For the first time in years, actual AIDS deaths are on the rise in this country.

But you would hardly know it.

International AIDS Awareness Day was the brain child of two public information officers, James W. Bunn and Thomas Netter, working for the Global Program on AIDS at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland in 1987.  Program Director Dr. Jonathan Mann approved and set December 1, 1988 as the date for the first observation.

It was Bunn, a broadcast journalist from hard-hit San Francisco, who came up with the date.  The U.S. was then the epi-center of the spreading epidemic.  Bunn knew that the period after the November elections and Thanksgiving but before the full rush of Christmas was a “dead news” time when publicists could expect maximum coverage of a fresh target.  It was also the time of year when Americans were typically open to charitable appeals.

It worked.  Along with the ubiquitous Red Ribbon World AIDS Day, as it came to be popularly known, raised awareness and spread information on prevention.  The first two years focused on children infected with HIV, a decision that angered many in the decimated Gay community.  But by focusing on “innocents” like 14 year old Ryan White of Indiana, the campaign did break through the prejudices of much of the public.

In subsequent years, attention shifted to the Gay community, almost the exclusion of heterosexual transmission and victims.

Meanwhile what was once considered in much of the rest of the world as a degenerate curse on a decadent Western society was becoming epidemic in Africa.

In 1996 the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) took over the administration of World AIDS Day.  And it immediately decided to down play the once-a-year event in favor of the World AIDS Campaign in 1997 to focus on year-round communications, prevention and education.  In 2004 the World AIDS Campaign became a stand-alone organization.

This year, and for each of the next five years, the announced theme of the AIDS Campaign will be Getting to Zero, focusing on the prevention of new cases.

Back in the Mid ‘90’s in the boonies of McHenry County we were still finding it a struggle to raise awareness of the epidemic and remove the stigma from the growing numbers of victims in the county.  The Rev. Dan Larsen and our congregation, then known as the Congregational Unitarian Church were leaders in public campaigns centered on the Red Ribbon and bring panels of the AIDS Quilt to the area.  It was an uphill battle.  The county coroner, a popular Crystal Lake funeral director, had written articles in the local paper blaming the spread of AIDS to shared air on airliners and toilet seats.  Homophobia was rampant in the county and almost all local gays were both closeted and living in fear.

In 1996 World AIDS Day fell on a Sunday—the first Sunday of Advent, as a matter of fact.  Our congregation joined churches around the country ringing its bell as part of the commemoration.  And I composed and read a poem for the Sunday service.  This is it:

World AIDS Day/First Sunday in Advent

We light a candle and await, 

            await the coming of light and hope,

            the promise foretold, fulfilled.

We light a candle and await,

            await the pealing of the bells in joy triumphant,

            where now they toll in somber mourning.

We light a candle and await,

            await the hour of reunion,

            prodigal and patriarch alike embraced,

            alike forgiven,

            all that was sundered made whole again.

We light a candle and await,

            await the gifts a million shortened lives

            could have wrapped for us

            and our delight at their discovery.

We light a candle and await,

            await the day the Quilt is at last finished,

            can be lovingly folded and nestled in cedar,

            and taken out only on cold nights

            to wrap us in the warmth of remembrance.

We light a candle and await.

—Patrick Murfin

Originally published as AIDS Advent Sunday in We Build Temples in the Heart, Skinner House Books, Boston, 2004