Legends of the Wild West-Butch and Sundance: Meet Harry
Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas! I'm in a series about two of our most famous outlaws, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
I began the series by looking into Butch's(real name is Bob) past, how he was raised and what may have lead him into a lifestyle of crime. Basically it came down to a resentment against authority, hanging out with criminals, giving in to the lusts of the flesh and making a string of really dumb decisions.
Sorry Butch, you don't get a pass from me. You were a gifted young man with a promising future but you threw it all away when you became greedy... pursuing fast, easy, big payouts that you had no right to. Annie raised you better than that.
Harry
Now let's see what the Sundance Kid's life was like growing up. His real name was Harry Longabaugh and he grew up in Mont Clare, Pennsylvania. He had 2 brothers and 2 sisters. His dad never achieved much success, going from one job to the next.
His mother, who was also named Annie just like Butch's mom, was a devout Baptist. She held the family together and much like Butch's mom, she made sure they all attended church on Sundays and made sure they learned scripture by memorizing.
Their moms could have been sisters!
I find it so interesting that Butch and Harry's mothers were so similar. Both of them drilled into their boys the principles of living a successful life!
From a very young age Harry worked on his cousin's river canal business, most of which consisted of working with the mules that pulled the boats along the river with ropes.
No laws against child labor back then
It was a tough row to hoe for a kid but very common at that time for families of canal businesses. The kids would work very long days pulling the boats along the canal. In fact they had to work until the boat reached the dock which could be late at night.
It was typical for the kids to work all year until the rivers froze up, then they'd have a few months to go to school. So Harry grew up working very long and hard days.
When he was 13 years old he was sent to a large horse farm about ten miles away which specialized in breeding and raising horses.
Here he learned to become an expert in handling and caring for horses. Does this sound familiar guys? It sounds similar to Butch and his expertise with horses.
Becoming obsessed with the Wild West
In his free time Harry would read books, newspapers and dime novels about the Wild West. He purchased a library card for one dollar and became a voracious reader. His main interest were the tales of outlaws and lawmen out in the Western territories, where he longed to go.
The dime novels of course, romanticized the outlaws of the West, many times painting them as heroic and misunderstood with high moral standards who were trapped by life's circumstances. Yeah right. But Harry was a naive kid like most of them are.
He read about the daring exploits of Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok and imagined himself out West performing heroic rescues and narrow escapes and heart pounding shoot outs.
Little did he know that he would one day be as famous as any of them! By the age of 14 Harry was an expert horseman and was chomping at the bit to experience the West. As fate would have it, his cousin had recently moved to Colorado and planned to start a farm and ranch.
A chance to head West
Harry jumped at the opportunity to help him and took a train out West. Turns out that his cousin's homestead was just one mile from Tom's cabin that Butch and the boys had made their headquarters!
He went to work with the cousin helping to build buildings, raise horses, work cattle, everything that is involved in farming and ranching. He also took a job with a large neighborhood ranch as a cowboy.
Harry was finally fulfilling his dreams of being a fullfledged cowboy and learning all there was to the trade. While the work of a cowboy seldom required the use of a six shooter, it was in this time period when Harry learned the skill and art handling of pistols.
And he was good. Very good in fact. A natural giftedness kind of good. In fact, this is one of the things Hollywood got right in Robert Redford's portrayal of Sundance in the 1969 movie classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid starring Redford and Paul Newman.
Later on he would be called "The fastest gun in the West." For awhile he worked as a cowboy for the big ranch and also helped his cousin part time but he had "ants in his pants" as we used to say. lol.
He was young, restless, and wanted to see more of the West which he'd read so much about. For the next few years he drifted to New Mexico and surrounding states working as a cowboy.
Harry goes North
There was a big cattle drive going from New Mexico North to Montana and they needed cowboys so he hired on with them. The owners were the N Bar N ranch from Montana and they were driving a huge herd of 17,000 head.
The drive was so large that it took 15 chuck wagons that served 12 riders each. (For my redneck friends out there that's 180 cowboys.) That's the biggest cattle drive I've ever heard of.
So far this gentle, hard working Babtist boy has been seen as nothing but virtuous and honest. Not a shred of evidence to indicate he would ever step outside the boundaries of the law. Shoot, this kid's a choir boy!
But desperate times call for desperate measures when one's survival is at stake.
Harry's story continues tomorrow.
Thanks so much for reading!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck
PS- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:
The duct tape on your truck seat sticks to your butt when you get out!
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well howdy there esteemapp! thanks so much for the upvote and the fine platform!
Ants in his pants! I haven't heard anyone say that in years! Hope your day has been great!
haha! is that something you used to say? probably when you were a kid? I'm doing great, haven't been online much today though. how about you?
I remember it being a favorite saying of my mom's. I've done a some wandering around here today & now I'm going to try to watch a bit of TV. I'll be back later.
Howdy tonight Melinda! ok, you better check back in, I miss talking to you in the evenings! lol. It's funny though because I'm doing the same thing tonight, heck with making myself crazy on steemit when Mrs. J wants to talk and relax with me and tell me about her work and such, she's off tonight. so you wrote your comment 2 hours ago, I'll probably be off here when you get back. But then I'll be back later!
I wonder how often he wrote to his mom, and whether she approved of his move. Poor lady, she was probably in for some big surprises.
howdy ginnyannette! Good question, he was such a good kid that he probably wrote home often. I would bet on it. But unfortunately she wasn't around to see him get into trouble. I mean it would have been fortunate had she lived long enough but she wouldn't want to see him get into trouble either! I hope that makes sense!
Yes, it makes sense. I suppose her not being around was a blessing. Or maybe he would have acted differently if he knew she'd be disappointed. Probably not, but maybe.
howdy again ginnyannette! I was offline all evening and I see you wrote this 5 hours ago, wow! anyway, yeah I agree, maybe he would have done differently but probably not! boys!
Hello @janton.
The young and the restless. My Grandmother used to say the grass always seems greener on the otherside of the fence... but she never said it WAS greener.....(:
I jumped the fence a few times...
haha! yeah I remember that you had some kind of wild Rum story you're going to share with us someday! lol. Are you sure it was only a FEW times?
😉😂
I do have an attempted story but dang I am not the story teller you are.... !!!!
haha! oh well, maybe someday you will start putting it together, you don't have to post it until it's told the way you like it. You could take as long as you want putting it together, in other words.
Hard to think of them as honest men, but i guess they had to start somewhere, LOL!
The Movie kind of made them look better than they were, I am sure.
Fun for sure!
:)>honest men. people from Oklahoma wouldn't have a clue what that even meant! lol.
Yes, they both started out as honest, God fearing men, they really did. The movie makes them look so likeable though! lol. And I think they really were that in real life if you take away the robbing, they say they were extremely polite to the people they robbed. lol.
I understand that Bonnie and Clyde were decent to the regular people they met too. She was not too big, and preferred using a sawed off BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle), LOL.
Stay safe down south, and keep on prepping!
I cut and packed 12 bags of holly trimmings today, it was pretty outside, ROFLOL!
:)>what the? sir smithlabs, holly trimmings, what's that an herb? and what is the BAR? I mean I know you spelled it out but if I google that(duckduckgo) will it come up? is this riddle night?
Holly trimmings is Yard work. 12 / 33 gallon bags full of yard work! All better now, ROFLOL.
A BAR is a Man carried heavy machine gun with a 20 round magazine. I don't have one...YET, LOL! They fire 30-06 rounds, and are hell down range! Most Man carried machine guns are sub machine guns, that use pistol rounds. A heavy machine gun uses Rifle rounds, and hits like a truck!
They usually give the BAR to the biggest guy, but Bonnie was short, just over 5 foot, and had to saw off the stock to control the BAR. She was one tough girl to ride that cannon!
:)>Oh I see smithlabs..sorry for slacking off on my mind reading courses. I suppose you think Bonnie was from Oklahoma?
No they were Ttttexans, so they didn't have any choice; a life of crime was their only option, ROFLOL! They hit enough banks here in Oklahoma though.
One of the reasons they were so effective, was that they hit armories first, so they had military weapons. That way they always had better fire power when the law showed up.
Don't you need a mind for those courses to take? :)
I would LOVE to shoot a BAR. I have fired a Thompson full auto, and it was fun!
:)>So if Sundance really was the fastest gun in the west, what does that mean? Fast in the quick-draw sense? I thought all the gun duel at high noon stuff was a myth? I watched the movie last night and the opening scene has Sundance shoot the gunbelt off a guy, and then shoot at his gun, blowing it across the floor. It's a pretty good scene! :)
Howdy sir keithboone! Well the mythe is that two men would go out into the middle of the street, face each other and see which one could draw the fastest. total myth. I don't believe anyone has ever found that it happened like that. But occasionally speed was a factor but the most important factors were calmness, nerves of steel and marksmanship.
Like modern gun battles that I read about, shootouts where an officer empties his entire cylinder or magazine and doesn't have a single hit from 20 ft away because of adrenaline and nerves, that's why nerves is so important. Wild Bill had ice in his veins when it came to shootouts, that's why he always won.
I don't know what they really based that title on and it may have been largely embellished and romanticized as his reputation spread, just like Wild Bill's. But I may learn more about those specifics as I do more reading.
How's it going with you today? I've been offline almost all day so I'm way behind!
That makes sense, thanks! I've been working on the first part of a ghost story which is coming out tomorrow - complete with photos of course! A very famous ghost story from these parts which has been without any photographic evidence - until now that is! :)
what? you mean you have the evidence? Did you take pictures of a ghost? no way!
Oh yes, plenty of them. It's going to be a two or three part story so I can show all the photos! :)
what in the world? is this going to be a spoof? No way you have ghost pictures, I know you're a great photographer but no one has ghost pictures! lol.
Spoof? I don't know what that means. You'll have to judge for yourself, I worked for weeks to capture these photos - at great risk to myself!
ok sir Keith well now I'm really curious to see if you actually went somewhere at night, that is creepy stuff! lol.
Intriguing tales of how and what shaped the lives of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. From the beginning of time I think people have felt compelled to look for or get caught up in following certain role models for what ever reason. It is easy to romanticize a concept if we want it badly enough and this is obviously what happened with Harry.
Robert Redford and Paul Newman made a great team didn't they? They must have had a lot of fun working together. (U & R )
Yes Ma'am! oh they were the best of friends as long as they knew each other too. And what a pair of fine men. Paul Newman was one of the most humble, kind, caring, loving, loyal men there ever was. In many ways the total opposite of the typical leading Hollywood movie star. Never had a single scandal, lived low key, was faithful to his one wife his whole life, never had any affairs. I remember one time a reporter asked him something about being so faithful to his wife or not being overly friendly to actresses or other women, something along those lines.
And Paul Newman said .." why would I want to go out for a hamburger when I have steak at home?" lol. I thought that was classic. He was pure class. I don't know if you're that interested but I'll say one more thing about him because he was so very unusual for a movie star.
He died of cancer I think it was, he was sicker and it came time that he was about ended and he died at home with family around and one of the last things he said, or maybe it WAS the very last thing he said was.."It's been an honor being here."
that was a great and humble spirit. and that last statement shows what kind of man he was. He was a Christian too. He helped so many people in his philanthropy. okay it's getting late here and I'm babbling!
Yes, I'd heard most of these things about Paul Newman and his character was such a refreshing change from the typical movie star stereotype and this is why he endeared himself to many.
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howdy there steem-plus! Thanks so much for the upvote and for a great program!
Nah. I keep that duct tape on the seat covered up with a saddle blanket seat cover...
I'm loving the story and the way you are telling it. Waiting more or less patiently till tomorrow.
haha! laughing at the duct tape thing. Hey you can't use duct tape on a bike, it would be kinda hard to cover it with a blanket! Although some redeck has probably figured a way. lol. Thank you sir for the kind words!