Buffalo Bill played 4 string like nobody's business. He could make it howl at the moon around the campfire on starry nights until the Coyotes would answer... What a guy.
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Ya, dad called Iowa a dry state. He taught me to drive when I was 14 so I could take over driving when we went on our rambles. He kept a jug in the glove box which he called his heart medicine. We spent most every weekend cruising the back roads. He tried to give me the childhood he didn't have during the Great Depression. We had good times.
Dave, I occasionally got to go to a bar with my dad too - and it was always a bit of treat. Back in the 50s in Iowa the bars he went to were called beer joints and they were not allowed to serve hard liquor.
It's one of my fondest childhood memories. Lots of the bars in the area had used gun cases or back rooms crammed with old guns. My dad would take me squirrel hunting along the Minnesota River bottom near Shakopee, Chaska, Carver area. We'd hunt the bluffs for squirrel and the bottoms for rabbit. He was a good dad but we did stop at the bars also. He liked his vodka.
There was a wonderful restaurant, used gun shop and music machine museum in Shakopee MN when I was a kid. The owner's name was Buffalo Bill. It was called the stage coach. The music machines were fabulous. Whole brass band in one. They were coin op machines. Violins would play, horns even tubas would play. Some were huge. Like 7 ft. Tall and 10 ft. Long. A gun collection on the walls and a back room gun shop. My dad would take me there and he'd drink in the bar while I ran the machines and drooled over the guns. Old photos of gun slingers on the walls most of who were dead and propped up for the photo, coins in their eyes. I loved that shop. A real stagecoach outside and horses out back. Buffalo Bill dressed in leathers with fringes and a beard like the real Bill. To me he was The real deal. Thanks for bringing back the memories Rich.
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Pretty good memories, Dave.
Dave, I occasionally got to go to a bar with my dad too - and it was always a bit of treat. Back in the 50s in Iowa the bars he went to were called beer joints and they were not allowed to serve hard liquor.
Sounds cool, Dave. I have visited B. Bill's home in Ogalala, Nebraska.
I went to high school with Bill. Good likeness. We were both playing 3 strings back then.