The Last Stand

The Last Stand Wichita 2019

Out of the fiery pages of western history come tales of the Last Stand. Written in blood by the men who participated in them, they tell the stories of good men of principle, or bad men of none, or a mixture of both that stood up for what they believed in and fought it out to the death.

There have been some pretty famous last stands, The OK Corral where it turned out to be not so ok for many of those who were there. The Alamo, where there was a huge last stand resulting in the loss of many men of principle and just bad luck, that had their day, and of course there was that whole Custer thing.

Wichita had its last stand also, in fact many of them. Almost every 15 minutes of the weekend of The Age of The Gunfighter event at the Old Cowtown museum, there was a last stand reenacted by willing gunfighters who went out into that dusty street under the blazing sun and fought it out.

What we see above is the pinnacle of action that occurs during the fight, when men are paying with their lives, willingly or unwillingly for that one moment of glory. In a moment it will be over until the next batch of marshals, desperados, innocent bystanders and curious onlookers take the stage. The Last Stand, try your hardest not to be in one they usually don’t end well.


When Good People Shoot Each Other

It’s amazing how what seem to be simple little altercations can mushroom into a full scale catastrophe in a very short period of time. Take the situation below for example. Here we have a town full of good people, except for some rowdy, alcohol infused, unsavory, unwashed, profane but blasphemous black-hearted villains, who tend to cause trouble just by being in the proximity of good folks. Then we have the good folks who tend to be just a little touchy around their less than civilized neighbors. Throw in a saloon with its tenants standing on the boardwalk making rude comments to the womenfolk as they pass by and there you have it. Chaos in a handbasket. One of the more inebriated fellows made a remark about a passing lady’s bustle and she in turn replied by smacking him in the ear with her parasol. He and his cohorts thought that might have been an overreaction and the following altercation ensued.

The rowdies seen here on the left have formed into an indignant mob demanding satisfaction and have threatened bodily harm or murder and certainly mayhem at the least, to the good folks who demanded an apology and the termination of the neer-do-wells’ occupancy in the good town of Wichita. Many insults were slung accompanied by rude gestures of the rudest kind to make their point.

On the right, in every sense of the word, we have the good folks who include husbands of the aforementioned ladies, who cannot abide rudeness in any form to their womenfolk.

After a prolonged session of taunts, provocating goading, not to mention derision and mockery, there was a comment made by one of the ladies about a fellows mustache, which of course caused guns to be drawn and shots to be fired. As you are no doubt aware, one should never make any comment about a man’s moustache. Those are not only fighting words but they demand a fight to the death.

The good folks will not stand for shots fired at them in anger or any other type of mood you happen to be in and shots were quickly returned to great effect and self-righteous efficiency. Due to their calm steel-like nerves of the insulted, but decent folks, the bad guys were dropping like flies with little or no loss of life on their side as good prevailed.

As can be seen here it does not pay to have a gunfight after one has been hanging out in the saloon all day. Four men down and things are just getting started. Many times in gunfights a killed person’s leg will jerk up like that and stay that way. Just an idiosyncrasy of the old west.

On the good folks side the ladies have cast aside their indignation as bullets began poking holes in their parasols and they gathered their skirts and lit out like a herd of scalded turtles. Safety trumping vanity and insult. The menfolk however, being staunch-hearted fellows stand their ground and coolly decimate their opponents, proving beyond doubt, that good always triumphs over evil. Unless one of the good guys gets shot in the back which would happen occasionally. Then it wouldn’t.

The upshot of all this is the provocateurs wound up being just about totally kilt and none left to make more than a feeble attempt at defiance. The good folk got to walk around feeling good about themselves for giving them their comeuppance with little reprisal from their adversaries, and the town was, after a brief respite while the streets were cleared, back to normal in a short while.

John Carson

While photographing at the Robidoux Artist and Model Camp this year I had the great privilege of meeting John Carson the great-grandson of the famous scout, mountain man, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer, Kit Carson.

Much has been written about Kit Carson, movies have been made of his exploits, and he became a famous personage in his own time. I think people tend to think of famous people as static characters in a static time, yet their lives go on and families are created, descendants continue the name, and the result is we sometimes have the good fortune to meet them. John Carson, his great-grandson, looks remarkably like his famous ancestor and from what I have read about Kit Carson being a quiet, unassuming man despite his adventures, John carries on that trait. It was an honor to meet him.

He is seen here at Fort Uncompahgre wearing an exact copy of a coat that his great-grandfather wore that John made himself. It is a truly beautiful and remarkable garment. A skilled mountain man in his own right John carries on the traditions that made his Great-grandfather into the beloved figure he became. Thanks for allowing me to take this photo, John.

Standing Watch

At Fort Umcompahgre things were usually pretty quiet as far as attacks by hostiles of any type. Yet every once in awhile somebody would get a bee up their butt and decide to steal a horse or maybe catch one of the young women working in the gardens or going down to the river for water, hoping for a new wife. And every once in awhile things got a little serious and everybody had to pay attention.

War parties passing through usually didn’t bother attacking the fort what with all the sharpshooters keeping a squinty eye and taut trigger finger on those long reaching Sharps rifles. However those inside felt that a close watch was good insurance in keeping their hair so they set watches and kept an eagle eye on the surroundings.

Keeping vigilant on a long watch was difficult. Boredom and the heat was an easy way to suddenly find yourself with your chin on your chest, eyes tight shut. So no whiskey, no resting for even a moment, just keep your eyes open and moving, watch every shadow and flicker of movement in the brush. Keeping a bowl full of your best tobacca going helped keep you from nodding off until your relief came and spelled you.

Life went on at Fort Uncompahgre under the close attention of the watch keepers and things were kept on an open keel. Standing watch was just part of the usual activities of fort life.

Memorial Day 2014-2019


David L Hollingsworth and Dwight Lutsey USN 1963

Once I realized that every Memorial day I get older, I realized that my memories, once so startling clear and precise, were beginning to fade a little around the edges. There are things that cannot be lost, this memory among them. It is self explanatory as you read through it. This day in which we are supposed to remember the friends lost and the circumstances that resulted in their loss, now used as an excuse to go camping or have a barbeque in the back yard, remains a special spot in our hearts to those who have lost someone because of our service to the country. As I age I find myself moved to tears more often and especially on this day when I think back on our good times and bad together as we made our way through our part of the war I have made a solemn vow to David L Hollingsworth and my self to never let his and our memories of that long ago time fade. If you have someone like that in your life you know what I mean. So today, Memorial Day, and for every Memorial day to come as long as I’m here, I will post this memorial to my long gone friend. Here’s to you Dave. I still miss you.

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Every Memorial day I am brought back with startling clarity to that time when I was in the service. I was in the Navy. A lot of that time is just a blur of places, travel, events, people. But some parts of it are etched so deeply into my soul that I can instantly bring back every moment, every sound, every smell and I am transported back there. Completely. I can feel that hot sun, smell the salt in the breeze off the ocean and feel the presence of the best friend I have ever had. His name was David L Hollingsworth and that’s what everyone called him. David L Hollingsworth. It wasn’t required. It just happened naturally. When you saw him it was perfectly normal to say “Hey, David L Hollingsworth, What’s happening”. Even some of the officers did it and they didn’t like anybody, especially enlisted men.

We were stationed on Guam in the Mariana Islands, part of the Trust Territory and overseen by the US government. The Mariana’s trench, the deepest place in the Pacific ocean, was just past the reef and it was always a test of will power to swim out over it knowing there were miles of water between you and the ocean’s floor. The time was 1963 through 1965. The war was Viet Nam.

David and I were Hospital Corpsmen in the Navy. We both went in as “kiddie cruisers”. That was when you went into the service the day after you were 17 and got out the day before you were 21, and we were stationed at Agana Naval Hospital there on Guam. It was also the home of Anderson Air Force base where many of the B-52’s that flew into Viet Nam were kept. I had just turned 19 when this picture was taken, so was David, still teenagers. Our peers were juniors in high school when we joined. We were attached to the psych unit of the hospital there and it was the place where many of those servicemen from the entire Southeast Asian theater, but mainly from Viet Nam, who had mental problems, or had physical injuries that affected their brains, or had fallen prey to the drugs that were so prevalent in Viet Nam, were brought to for treatment and care.

Our friendship started because of the way our names were spelled. His last name started with ‘H’ and mine with ‘L’ and the Navy would assign you to the various schools or duty stations by the first letter of your last name. All the ‘A’ through ‘G’s, were a group, all the ‘H through ‘O’s were a group and so on. Both of us being in the ‘H’ through ‘O’ group, we were sent to the various schools and Duty Stations together until we finally wound up on the island in 1963.

Being on Guam was very much like that opening line “In A tale of Two Cities”.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way –”

Living on an island in the South Pacific is not the Paradise everyone thinks it is. Yes it is beautiful, yes you are disconnected from everyday life, yes it is the getaway that you want, but only for a short time. After a while reality sets in. The constant heat, humidity, the unrelenting trade winds that drive you crazy. The boredom, the smallness of the island. You could ride a bike around it in a couple of hours. The tedious yet dangerous aspect of the work, all combined to make it a place you wanted to be away from. And right now. It was why we put in for every opportunity to get off the island, whether it was for extra duty, or leave, or any excuse you could think of, you wanted to be gone.

We all handled our time there in different ways. I bitched. I bitched about it constantly. I know it’s not the most flattering way to describe yourself but it is accurate. I hated it there. I couldn’t wait for any opportunity to leave and pulled every string I could to make it happen. I also spent my time thinking about the future, how long did I have before I could get off this rock, what I was missing by being there, everything I could do to make my stay there more miserable, I did. David on the other hand lived in the moment. He took each day as a new one, bright with promise. There was always something that made the day exciting, fulfilling, adventuresome. It didn’t matter that it was Guam, why sweat it, we were alive. A lot of guys weren’t. He was the most serene person I have ever known. I used to call him Buddha because of it. That and his round, bowling ball shaped head.

It was due to him that I was able to finish my time there and finally leave and come home. Come back to the world we called it. Every time I felt like I was going to lose it he was there and in a few simple sentences would talk me down and I was good for another little while. He never needed that. He was a rock. He could find something new and interesting to do when all the rest of us just saw the endless days on the calendar with the x’s marked through showing how long we’d been there and how long we had to go. David didn’t have a calendar, he didn’t care. “Let’s go diving”, he’d say. Or “lets get a beer”. We were lucky, we got out of there, we made it through, we lived, and we returned to the world. We stayed in touch.

I remember the first night I got the phone call. It was 3 in the morning. I was asleep with my wife. He was crying so hard that I couldn’t understand him. He had just recently gotten married to the love of his life, they were starting a family. He had finally finished jumping through all the hoops to become a doctor and had just joined a prestigious practice where he was an oncology resident. His life was pointed forward in the best way it could be, And he was dying. Dying from Hodgkin’s. It was the first of many late night calls. Nights were hard for him. I used to wake up in the middle of the night thinking I heard the phone ring. Sometimes I would lay awake waiting because I knew he was going to call.

We talked of many things. In the beginning it was usually about treatment. Then when it became apparent that there wasn’t going to be any treatment that would work we talked of other things. We talked about our time together on Guam, and the liberty we pulled. The women we knew. We remembered his visit to the house when I was first starting out with my family and he wanted to see my son. “So I can remember him like this when he is a man” he’d said. And we talked about the one thing that we’d never talked about when we were together and that was the future. David’s whole life philosophy was, if you’re not happy with your self or your life now, what’s going to make it better in the future.

I won’t go into those discussions because even now nearly 30 years later, they’re too personal and too difficult to set down on paper. For someone who was able to handle every difficulty life threw at him by being able to be positive in the present, the future was the one thing that terrified him the most. Not for himself so much but for the ones he would leave behind. It seemed like our late night calls went on forever and his dying lasted an eternity but they were really very short. He died in just a few months.

I was asked to be a pallbearer and we flew out to California for the funeral. Of course the airline lost my luggage and I showed up in jeans and a leather jacket to perform my duties. It seemed like everyone in the world was there. David made friends by the busload. All the doctors he worked with, some of the team from our service days, personal friends of the family, he had a big send off. He was just 41. One of the guys asked why I hadn’t worn a suit and I told him the airline lost my luggage. He said ” Oh, I thought you were just making a statement” which I probably would have if I’d thought of it. Dave would have thought it was cool.

So Memorial day for me is a sad kind of day. I think about all the guys that didn’t make it. Those that I knew and those that I didn’t. When you see a lot of death at a young age it changes how you think about it. You get callous. That changes as you get older though. The callouses rub off. Now I have to be careful how I think about those things because all the emotions I didn’t have or hid, as a young man, I have in spades now. It doesn’t take a whole lot to bring me to my knees. One of the hardest things for me is realizing that my best friend in the world didn’t have a future and if anyone on this earth deserved one it was him.

Usually you think of Memorial day as one in which we remember the ones who fell in the war, serving our country, and that is a big part of it for me too, but also as one who spent the most formative years of my young adult life in the service, in a place where nothing was permanent, where when you said good-by to someone you meant it, it was the relationships, the friendships that were formed and carried forward for the rest of my life that are the most memorable. David didn’t die in the war like so many others we knew, but it was where we met. And our bonds were forged during that time when people we knew were fighting and dying, and dealing with it was the basis of our friendship. I know it played a crucial part in who I became and who David became. It made us brothers. And when he died it didn’t matter that we didn’t share blood. The grief was the same. Every Memorial day I remember and so far the memory has never faded, we were brothers, once and forever.

Rest in Peace David L Hollingsworth. I could use your friendship again. I miss you.

1000th Post Published !!! Thousands Cheered

BigShotsNow the Blog publishes its 1000th post!

Back on March 19 2013 The blog “BigShotsNow.com” published its first ever post titled http://www.bigshotsnow.com/how-this-is-going-to-work/  .  In it I explained how all this was going to work and with it I posted a smoke filled image of a Canada goose standing on a rock. It was the beginning of a love/hate relationship with the keyboard, the monitor, and my creative side. Now, approximately six years later here is the 1000th post, the result of fulfilling a long time goal of posting my favorite images with accompanying stories to amaze you, excite you, or stupefy you depending on how you received each post.

Prior to beginning the blog I had never written anything remotely readable (and some argue I still haven’t) and as it was painfully obvious, it showed. But did I let that bother me? Or even Stop me? Uhmm No, It Didn’t. I thought in my ignorance that my photography would carry me until I learned how to put more than three words together in a recognizable sentence. I’ve been a photographer for over sixty plus years, I have learned a few things about that side of the mix. And after all who was going to see the thing anyway. The internet was just a vague concept with so much in it no one would ever find my tiny literary attempt. But to my amazement some did and as of last count there are now readers regularly visiting the blog from over 200 countries. Thank you readers. Your support has enabled me to keep this up when many times I had given up hope.

One of the questions I get is “How do you come up with all the different stories you tell?” Well Virginia, the answer is I have many, many photographs in my portfolio, over a million. And when I get ready to write a post I go through them until one stands out and if a title appears in my mind I have the story already created and I simply type it out. I know, it’s weird but that’s how it works. No title, no story. That’s why so many of the stories have strange and crazy names. Poke around in the archives and you’ll see what I mean.

The stories have ranged from animal encounters, people encounters, and my incredible good fortune in being able to work with and photograph many of the Plains tribes in the West, has produced an amazing journey. Travel adventures are another subject explored at length, but my favorite all around subject ever, has been my association with the extraordinary, shadowy, surreal and not quite real connection with The Institute.

The Institute. It’s hard to say the name of that august body without my chest swelling up with pride and getting a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. The more you personally learn about the workings of The Institute the more your stomach may swell up and you’ll get a funny feeling in your chest too. I could literally write a book about the effects The Institute has had on Science, the Government, The Director, that shadowy hidden figure whose name can never be mentioned but whose initials are Dwight Lutsey. Their good deeds could fill a small spiral bound notebook, even maybe another half of one and still you wouldn’t know the entire story. I don’t either and I’m the one making it up. If you must know more about The Institute, and you know you do, simply click on this link, http://www.bigshotsnow.com/the-institute/ . Or go to the home page and click on the Tab labeled The Institute. Then be prepared to be amazed, astounded and did I mention amazed, because I’m running out of descriptive words here, so just do it. You’ll be glad you did.

This is just a small effort on my part to try and express my genuine thanks to those of you who continue to read my blog, and as I have noticed that some of you have fallen asleep I will cut this short and simply say Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Three thanks you’s in some cultures means roughly three times the thanks so you know, thanks again. Rest assured that BigShotsNow the blog will continue to produce and post less than stellar attempts with occasional moments of grandeur for as long as I can see the keyboard and remember what I’m supposed to write about. Until then, Seeya in the Funny papers and oh yeah, Thank you.

Dwight Lutsey