Happy Birthday, Duke

Of course, it's a little bit late to be ordering the tschotkes and memorabilia for your John Wayne's 100th birthday party, because he was born Marion Robert Morrison 100 years ago today in a small Iowa town. However, there's plenty of the stuff out there in the great cybermall.

For something a little more special, you go to someone like my buddy Jim, who makes custom gun rigs based upon old Hollywood A & B westerns. Here he is holding one of three John Wayne gun belt replicas made for one customer. This particular outfit was worn in The Shootist, which was a class act and fitting finale to The Duke's long career.

Prescott has been a western town far longer than its new role as a boutique town serving the Left Coast; thus you still find John Wayne symbolism here and there, such as at the front of the Grove Street gun shop. Just incidentally, when I consulted The Google concerning the western star, it referred me to the exact same cutout at a London party shop.

Here is my most favorite John Wayne appearance in town this past year -- he stands guard at the western-themed tree at Watters' annual Christmas tree extravaganza.

A small note about Prescott and western stars: our real locally connected Hollywood cowboy was Tom Mix, who shot films here and owned a ranch hereabouts. Wayne ranched up on the Rim, near Eager, a fact I learned from NPR, believe it or not. That small town is one of several celebrating his birthday this weekend.