The next three weekends are a great time to learn Texas history

Joe Southern at the 2018 Runaway Scrape
re-enactment at George Ranch Historical Park.

Don’t expect to see a whole lot of me for the next three weeks unless you’re a Texas history buff, in which case you might be seeing me quite a bit.

As a member of the Texas Army – the ceremonial re-enactment group of the Texas Revolution – the next few weeks are going to be ridiculously busy. Because of the way the calendar lines up this year, we have three major events in a row. It begins this weekend in Goliad with the re-enactments of the Battle of Coleto Creek and the Fannin Massacre. They take place at Presidio La Bahia, a beautifully reconstructed fort which contains the original chapel and many rooms from what was briefly dubbed Fort Defiant. 

The next Saturday, April 6, is the Runaway Scrape at George Ranch Historical Park. This event has been growing in popularity over the last few years and is a must-see for Texas history aficionados. This is followed by the largest celebration of the year, the re-enactment of the Battle of San Jacinto. It takes place April 13 at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site. Normally it would be a week later on the same weekend as the April 21 anniversary of the fateful battle but it was moved up a week due to Easter.

So, why should my busy schedule concern you? It’s not about me but the rich, engaging Texas history that I want you to come and experience. What most people know about this period of Texas’ storied past ended with their seventh grade history class. Sadly, a lot of that education either glossed over those momentous events or were incorrect to begin with. I know this from talking with people at the different re-enactments.

Growing up in Colorado, no one taught us Texas history. Any mention of the Alamo or the Texas Revolution was done in passing and probably didn’t even rate a question on a history test. So, when I moved to the Houston area 10 years ago I was very naïve and unknowledgeable about this very unique period of history. I had heard the battle cry “Remember the Alamo!” but had no understanding of what it meant. I could not comprehend why people would want to remember a battle that ended in a terrible loss.

Today I understand it full well. The reason I know and care about it is because I started going to re-enactments and learning about it. 

Weapons inspection at Washington-on-the-Brazos in 2018.

The first event I went to was at Washington-on-the-Brazos in 2009. That event celebrates the anniversary of the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence. My first exposure to the Texas Army was to watch the firing demonstrations of the muskets and cannons. There were no battles fought there, so the Army only does demonstrations. I thought it was cool because I used to shoot a black powder rifle during my days working as a mountain man at the Ben Delatour Scout Ranch in Red Feather Lakes, Colo., in the mid-1980s.

That triggered an interest in me to see other battle re-enactments in the area. Over the next few years I took my family to see re-enactments at George Ranch and San Jacinto. They were a lot of fun and very informative. In 2014, however, a couple things changed that ramped up my interest. The first was during a visit to Goliad when we discovered that my wife Sandy’s fourth-great uncle, Zachariah Short, was one of those massacred there. He was a fourth sergeant under Capt. Jack Shackelford’s company of Alabama Red Rovers. Suddenly we had a very real and direct connection to the Texas Revolution.

Also that year I got the idea of doing a book about the Texas Revolution re-enactors. I had seen plenty of books about Civil War and Revolutionary War re-enactors, but nothing on the Texas Revolution. So the following season I began following the Army around and shooting them with my Canon. For three years as an observer and the last year as a participant I made the rounds taking tens of thousands of photos and conducting countless interviews. 

I began in 2015 back at Washington-on-the-Brazos and then followed it up with my one and only trip to the Alamo re-enactment in San Antonio. That year was the last time the re-enactors were allowed to do their thing at the Shrine of Texas Liberty. The next year the General Land Office took over the Alamo and moved the re-enactments off site.

The San Antonio Living History Association does do regular events at the Alamo but nothing on the scale of the old re-enactments. My hat is off to my friends in this group as they work very diligently to make sure the world does not forget not only what happened at the Alamo, but why. From the perspective of Santa Anna and his Mexican government, he was quashing a rebellion. From the Texian perspective, they were fighting to free themselves from a dictatorship. The 13-day siege ended on the morning of March 6, 1836, with the battle and deaths of the Alamo defenders.

From there we go to Goliad and Presidio La Bahia. Renamed Fort Defiant, the troops garrisoned there were under the inept command of Col. James Fannin. He failed to answer the call to reinforce the Alamo. Finally following orders to join Gen. Sam Houston’s men, he marched eastward only to stop for a break short of the sheltering cover of trees and the waters of Coleto Creek. There they were caught and surrounded by Mexican forces. After a two-day battle, Fannin and over 300 men, many wounded, surrendered and were marched back to Presidio La Bahia. Over the next week or so more than 100 other men were captured and imprisoned there.

On March 27, 1836, the prisoners were led to believe they were going to be sent back to the United States and freedom. They were marched out in three different directions, halted, and summarily executed. Fannin and a few others who were too wounded to march were killed back inside the fort.

The re-enactment of this event is outstanding for a number of reasons. First, it takes place at the actual spot where the real events occurred. Second, hosted by the Crossroads of Texas Living History Association, it is centrally located so an unusually large number of re-enactors from different groups attend. Third, due to its spacious and rural setting, there is plenty of room to accommodate large crowds. Finally, the candlelight tour in the evening is incredibly poignant. 

That brings us back home to the Runaway Scrape at George Ranch. This is the smallest of the major re-enactments but the easiest for locals here to reach. It depicts the flight of civilians and the Texas Army as they fled the advancing Mexican forces and burned their homes and villages behind them, most notably San Felipe de Austin, to keep the spoils out of the hands of the enemy. No cabins are burned at George Ranch, but there are some cool battles to see.

This was a most frustrating period in time because so many wanted to avenge the Alamo and Goliad, but Houston knew they were in no condition to do so. Ruthlessly pursued by Santa Anna, Houston soon delivered the “Napoleon of the West” his Waterloo in the marches of San Jacinto. On April 21, 1836, Houston’s army caught the Mexicans, exhausted from the march, during a siesta and within 18 minutes routed the enemy and won their freedom.

This re-enactment is celebrated each year with a festival at the San Jacinto Battlefield State Historic Site. Thousands of people come out where they enjoy a carnival-like setting at the monument and then witness the glorious battle, complete with pyrotechnics, on the west side of the grounds. 

I will be at all of these events in my period dress. I will also return to San Jacinto on April 21 for the annual San Jacinto Day Ceremony, at which time I will be made a full colonel in the Texas Army. I joined the Army last year and have completed all but two of the requirements for promotion. Potential colonels must first attend five events. They must then “shoot your plate.” That is a marksmanship requirement to shoot a paper plate five consecutive times at a range of 50 yards. That doesn’t sound too hard until you try to do it on a windy day with a muzzleloader. 

I must now make a $100 donation to the Army’s general fund and also complete an essay showing I have knowledge of the Texas Revolution. You, my friends, are witness to the latter as I will formally submit this column as my essay.

Now, if only finishing my book were so easy. As I have been saying for the last four-plus years, yes, I am still working on it and yes, I will finish it this year. But first it’s time to burn some powder. Y’all come out and see us!

Debunking the myth that Bass Reeves inspired The Lone Ranger

It’s past time to set the record straight.

Bass Reeves, the legendary lawman who was the first black man to serve as a U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi, is not nor ever has been the inspiration for the fictional hero of yesteryear known as The Lone Ranger.

That urban legend is believed to have started in 2006 when it was speculated by author Art. T. Burton in his biography entitled “Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves” that the real lawman was the inspiration for the fictional one. In his book, Burton notes the similarities between the two: the use of disguises, a Native American sidekick, riding a white horse, giving out keepsakes made of silver, and having superior marksmanship and horsemanship skills.

That, however, is where fact and fiction part ways. Had Burton done his due diligence and actually researched the creation of The Lone Ranger, he may never would have made his phony assertion. Nor would the likes of The History Channel, True West Magazine, Time, CNN, Fox News, Bill O’ Reilly, and hundreds of websites and bloggers blindly followed his lead and spread his misinformation. There is even a display about it at the Black Cowboy Museum in Rosenberg.

Today, this urban legend has spread to mythical proportions. You cannot do a Google search for The Lone Ranger without coming across numerous references to Bass Reeves, which usually come up after links to the disastrous 2013 Disney movie and the popular television show from the 1950s.

I know this because I am not only a Lone Ranger fan; I’m also the founder and former owner of the Lone Ranger Fan Club and an amateur Lone Ranger scholar. I have done a lot of research and written countless articles about the masked man and I can tell you for fact that there never was any mention or even hint of speculation prior to 2006 that the fictional character was inspired by Reeves or any other person who ever lived. The true story of how The Lone Ranger came to be is much more convoluted and entertaining than someone drawing inspiration from a long-dead cowboy with a badge.

For my information I refer to two books which I consider to be the bibles of Lone Ranger lore. The first is “Who Was That Masked Man?” by David Rothel, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in 2008. The other is “From Out of the Past: A Pictorial History of The Lone Ranger” by the late Dave Holland. Both authors go into great detail about how the character was created. In Rothel’s case, he personally interviewed some of the people who share credit for making the masked man. 

You see, The Lone Ranger evolved through a process of contributions by several people working simultaneously in different states. The story becomes convoluted because each co-author told varying versions of the story, each taking more credit than they probably deserved. Fortunately, Rothel and Holland have been able piece together reasonable accounts of how The Lone Ranger came to be. 

The whole thing started in late 1932 after George W. Trendle, owner of WXYZ radio station in Detroit, broke away from the CBS network and needed programing for his now independent network of radio stations. To create that programing he put his staff to work. Among his directives for one of the programs were three “givens.”

The first was that the program was going to be a drama, because they were inexpensive. The second was that it would be a children’s program because children were less critical and very persuasive when it comes to coaxing parents to buy sponsors’ goods. The third is it would be a Western. 

In one of the first staff brainstorming sessions, Trendle said he wanted the new hero to be modeled after Robin Hood and Zorro. The staff liked the idea of a Zorro-like mask and the benevolent outlaw approach to the character.

“I see him as sort of a lone operator. He could even be a former Texas Ranger,” Trendle said. (Note: Reeves was a U.S. Marshal.)

Program director James Jewel, who was in that first meeting and is credited with coming up with some of the finer details of the character, said it was studio manager Harold True who came up with the name after it was pointed out that “The Lone Star Ranger” couldn’t be used because Zane Grey had already used it in a book. That led True to shorten it to The Lone Ranger.

Trendle felt it was important that the character ride a magnificent horse, like all the other Western heroes of the time.

On Dec. 28, 1932, Jewel wrote a letter to Fran Striker, a writer who lived in Buffalo, N.Y., with a bunch of the basic concepts for the character. Striker cobbled them together and re-worked scripts from other Westerns he had written and came up with the first few Lone Ranger radio scripts. Some of the details were augmented by Jewel during rehearsals.

A few stories into the program it was determined that the masked man needed a companion to talk to in order to move the stories along. Otherwise he would have to talk to himself or his horse or there would be long breaks in the action for lengthy narration. That led to Tonto becoming part of the Lone Ranger legend.

Of course, the books by Rothel and Holland give a much better telling of the story and the tale is much more complex than I have reported here. The point is that The Lone Ranger arose out of the collaborative efforts of several people over a period of time. There were many contributors and detractors along the way. Other than the influence of the fictional Robin Hood and Zorro, there is no evidence of The Lone Ranger being inspired by any one person, including Bass Reeves.

Another excellent source to help back my claim is the self-published eBook by Martin Grams Jr. called “The Lone Ranger and Bass Reeves: Debunking the Myth.”

“Even Time Magazine printed a retraction when they discovered through my eBook a year ago that the Bass Reeves connection was a myth and the man that started it confessed he never had anything to back it up,” Grams told me last week in a conversation on Facebook.

So there you have it. This takes nothing away from Bass Reeves, who was a great man in his own right and deserves better than to have his legacy tainted by fiction. I bring this up not be racist or to take anything away from the accomplishments of a great, black man. I do this to set the record straight and to separate fact from fiction and truth from speculation.

On that note, I will quietly exit the scene with a hearty, hi-yo Silver, away!

Republicans rally to thwart progressive socialist movement

Drs. Shahid Shafi and Ben Carson pose for photos

prior to speaking at the Lincoln-Reagan Dinner
for the Fort Bend County Republican Party, held

March 1 at Safari Texas Ranch. (Photo by Joe
Southern)

I watched as hundreds of mostly white people paid extra money and stood in a long line just to have their picture taken with a black man.

I watched as the mostly white crowd of about 700 people gave a standing ovation to an Indian-born Muslim after his speech.

For a political rally, one might think I was at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. I wasn’t. I was at the Safari Texas Ranch covering the Lincoln-Reagan Dinner for the Fort Bend County Republican Party. As I watched the events of the evening unfold the night of March 1, it occurred to me that some of the rhetoric espoused by the local Republicans was not unlike the rhetoric pushed by Democrats recently.

Both sides talk about the importance of diversity and inclusiveness. They talk about empowering women and minorities. They talk about ending the violent culture war and seeking common ground. They talk about principles and values, albeit different ones.

That’s where the wall goes up between the two ideologies. Specifically, President Trump’s border wall – or more accurately, Trump himself. The President has become a lightning rod of criticism and contention from both sides of the aisle.

That black man I mentioned earlier is Dr. Ben Carson, the famed neurosurgeon turned presidential candidate and currently the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. As he put it in his keynote address, “Our president is not a choirboy.”

“He is what we need right now,” Carson continued. “Those who want to fundamentally change this nation, they hate him because he represents all the things that they are trying to change.”

What Carson and fellow speaker, U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, said is that there is a growing, radical, far-left element under the progressive banner aiming to transform the country into something resembling a socialist state.

“It’s not about Republicans and Democrats, it’s about people who love our nation and our system and people who want to fundamentally change us into something else. We have a fight on our hands. What we have is really worth saving,” Carson said.

Trump has always been a controversial figure with failed marriages and shady business dealings littering his past. His crude, bull-in-a-china-shop recklessness has rankled many in the GOP who back him not because of who he is or how he gets things done but because of what he does get done. After eight years of Barack Obama, results matter.

As for Trump’s wall, I honestly don’t care if it gets built or not. It wasn’t an issue until Trump made it one. Border security, however, is increasingly important. There are other ways to deal with it without building a wall. I do agree with him that there is a crisis at the border. It’s a crisis of policy and enforcement. America’s inept enforcement of its immigration laws has allowed this crisis to build over a period of decades or more.

Forget the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, what we have are the corrupt, the immoral, and the criminal pouring into the country. Sure, there are plenty of people trying to come into America with the hope for a better life. That better life, however, follows a legal immigration process. Sneaking into the country and leaching off the welfare system isn’t prosperity, it’s trespassing and theft – taking something that doesn’t belong to you that someone else worked and paid for.

Yet there are some ideologists dancing around on the far-left fringes who have no problem with that. There are some who feel that if you are rich you must be inherently evil and have made your fortune on the backs of the oppressed and the poor and therefore do not deserve to keep what you have earned and worked and risked everything for. 

What these progressives are doing is working to undermine the country from within. They’re politically active, getting elected and pushing laws that countermand the Constitution. They infiltrate the schools and spread their beliefs to the next generations. They become talking heads on “news” programs and disseminate their agenda to the masses. 

We’re just 17 years removed from the 9/11 attacks and they want us to forget that it was Muslim extremists who brought war to our shores. They seem to want us to be open-minded and accepting of our Muslim brethren to the extent of rejecting our Judeo-Christian beliefs and heritage.

That’s what made the appearance of Dr. Shahid Shafi such an enigma at the Lincoln-Reagan Dinner. Regrettably, I did not record or take notes on Shafi’s remarks. If you have not heard of Dr. Shafi, he is on the Southlake City Council and is vice chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party in the Dallas area. 

The Tarrant County GOP tried to oust him as their vice chairman last year because he is a Muslim. He survived the effort, which redoubled his belief that the Grand Old Party has a big enough tent for all people, not just rich, white folks. This is important because the left works so hard to paint the right as racist, which is untrue.

I don’t recall exactly what Shafi had to say, but I do recall feeling strongly that the Republican Party had turned a page when it could so warmly and affectionately welcome a Muslim man into its ranks. He was here to reinforce conservatism, not alter it. To me he represented a push toward middle ground. 

He is proof that when followed properly, the U.S. immigration system works well. He came here with little, became a doctor, and has built a successful medical practice and become a respected member of his community. He did it at a time when immigrants and Muslims were facing extreme prejudice. I have to admire that.

Ultimately, I think the point I’m trying to make here is that we can have peace and civility despite our differences. What we need is to teach ourselves and our children how to have reasonable discussions with those who are different from us. We can disagree without being disagreeable. By finding common ground and working together we can weaken the radical fringes on both sides and rediscover that united spirit that we all felt in the days right after 9/11.

Gastronomic greatness awaits foodie fanatics at RodeoHouston

Joe Southern prepares to take another
bite of bug pizza, one of the more
novel food items judged at the
Gold Buckle Foodie Awards at the
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

Even though this was my fourth year as a Gold Buckle Foodie Award judge, I was not prepared for what hit me Thursday at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

After years of successfully dodging the bug pizza (topped with scorpions, mealworms and crickets), I finally had a bite. That, however, is not what got me. What set my stomach spinning was the sheer volume of gooey, sticky, deep-fried, spicy, bacon-wrapped, nitrogen-infused, impaled-on-a-stick concoctions that were placed before us to try.

I’m well aware of the advice to pace yourself – this is a marathon, not a sprint. What I was not prepared for was to sample 51 foods in the span of three and a half hours. That’s a lot more food than we’ve judged before. It was so much more that many of my fellow judges tapped out before we finished judging. I think that had a lot to do with both the volume of food and that fact that we went well beyond our scheduled time. It was like a game of Fair Food Survivor.

For those who don’t know, the Gold Buckle Foodie Award is a competition among the food vendors at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to see who has the best foods in eight categories. The winners get ribbons and major bragging rights, which can translate to a lot of dollars at an event as big as the HLSR.

Being selected as a judge is an honor. It’s something we have a lot of fun with but a responsibility we take seriously. All the judges are media personalities, which is a great ploy to help market the fantastic foods at RodeoHouston. Several of the judges were broadcasting live via social media feeds. Most all of us went back to our respective outlets and reported on the event, generating more interest in the big show.

The judging format changed a little this year. For one thing, about a third of the judges didn’t show. So, instead of having everyone judge part of all eight categories, they divided us into two groups. Each group judged four categories. I had Best Specialty Food, Food on a Stick, Fried Food, New Flavor, and one item in Most Creative (which became necessary at the end after so many judges had departed). 

Another problem we had was the fact that a lot of food arrived to us cold, which really impacts the taste. (Think bacon-wrapped sausage on a stick that has started to congeal.) I tried to keep that in mind when casting my votes. That was what I noticed the most when I sampled the bug pizza. I didn’t mind the crunchy scorpion nearly as much as the blah taste of cold pizza. I’m sure it would have been much better piping hot and fresh.

Joker of Majic 102.1-FM gets
excited at one of the foods served
by Tricia Dilick of Sugar Land
during the judging of the Gold
Buckle Foodie Awards.

So, enough of the rambling, let’s cut to the chase. What was good and what wasn’t? Among the things I’d go back for are the pizza on a stick, Smoorcookie, deep-fried cookie dough, banana pudding funnel cake, Fruity Pebble covered fried shrimp, and the chocolate covered bacon. One item in particular that stood out to me was a dessert taco. It had a green shell and was filled with a sweet, frozen yellow concoction that I really couldn’t get enough of.

I also noticed this year that there was an explosion of foods covered in Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (corn on the cob, pizza, caramel apples, and cotton candy). It was a novelty last year but was overkill this year. Still, it’s good stuff and likely to be a fair staple for years to come.

The worst thing I had to sample was a falafel. I’m sure it was great as far as falafel’s go, but I almost gagged on it. I’ve never had a falafel before and found it dry and bitter. We had numerous corndogs to try and most were pretty good. There was one, and I don’t know who made it, that was awful. I also sampled a fried mac-n-cheese that was barely palatable because it had cooled so much.

Fellow judge Michael Garfield, the High-Tech Texan, sank his sweet tooth into categories of foods other than the ones I tried. In the dessert category he fell for the colorful Unicorn Float.

“The Unicorn Float was like Candyland in a cup,” said Garfield, an 11-year foodie veteran. “The entries have become more creative each year.”

Without further ado, I present to you the 2019 Gold Buckle Foodie Award winners:

·     Best Food-on-a-Stick: “Bacon Wrapped Pecan Smoked Sausage” – Holmes Smokehouse (RP60)

·     Best Value: “Chicken and Ribs Platter” – Salt Grass (L0063)

·     Best New Flavor: “Smoorcookie” – Totally Baked Cookie Joint (Carnival)

·     Best Dessert: “Cookie Dough Parfait” – Aunt Edmoes Cookies (CD205)

·     Best Fried Food: “Minnechocolate Pie” – The Original Minneapple Pie (CD202)

·     Best Specialty Food: “Chocolate Cobbler” – All of Us (E12107)

·     Classic Fair Food: “Hot Crunchy Cheetos Cotton Candy” – The Candy Factory (Carnival)

·     Most Creative Food: “Unicorn Float” – The Candy Factory (The Junction).

#GoldBuckleFoodieAwards, #rodeoeats.