Shoot out at the Ludzack Corral
About once a year, I like to share my tale from the Old Days (1965?). Mid-West, but just like any Clint Eastwood Western, i.e.... The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, or The Unforgiven. This story of Justice with six-shooters blazing begs to be retold.
A while back, there was a TV docudrama on the history of the American West. It was a time when Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, and Jesse James, with their Second Amendment rights intact, lived large in the tales of lawmen versus Lawbreakers.
This brought my mind back to the year 1965 on the (MID)Western frontier of Cable Wi (population 280, maybe) when I served as an 8-year-old lawman working with my deputy and 6-year-old friend David Larson. It was a time of lawlessness where 'big talk' and 'big guns' (cap & pop alike) were a way of life.
Bad blood had been brewing since Sunday School the previous Sunday, when Dastardly Dick Ludzack and Bad News Bryan Anderson again refused to sing "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know" and talked big about "singin' is for girls." This type of brash defiance of our Lord could not be tolerated. The time for words (or singin’ Jesus loves me) was over. Justice must be served.
So just a few days later, September 14, 1965 (right after school), Deputy Dave and I traveled to the Ludzack Farm on the east side of town to bring these brazen lawbreakers to justice. If justice came at the end of a rope or smokin' guns... So be it.
This day would later be known as The Shootout at Ludzack Farm. (kinda like an elementary school version of the Shootout at the OK Corral)
When we arrived at the Ludzack Farm, we learned Dastardly and Bad News were camped out on the West side of the family barn, so we quickly set up just on the Southeast corner. As news traveled, they were heading south along the east side of this same barn. We were ready but knew they would not surrender without a fight. Both sides brandished enough Guns & Ammo to make the NRA blush.
Tension was in the air as Dastardly & Bad News turned the southeast corner and were met with our guns a-blazin’. BLAM, BLAM, PEW, PEW, BANG, BANG. And POP. This gunfight was over before it started.
As the smoke from our cap guns lifted, it was clear by their (imaginary/implied) bullet-riddled bodies, both Dastardly & Bad News had their 'come-up-ins'. There would be no trial, and no chance for those boys to redeem themselves and sing like choir boys next Sunday morning, because... THEY WUZ DEAD.
Except.. out of the silence, Bad News Bryan (always hated him) shouted, "Uh-uh, you missed me, and you are both DEAD cuz I shot you both in the HEAD." Bad News was always good with a Rhyme.
This was such a grand lie! Such a big fib that 60 years later, I am surprised Bryan thinks he has a chance at Heaven. This just ruined my day. I came to this town to bring law and order, and I am thwarted by a 7-year-old and those weak words. Uh-uh! I was so mad that I went home and told my mom.
Thinking back to those lawless times in the fall of 1965, I am haunted by my failure to bring to justice those no-good lyin' snakes, Bad News Bryan Anderson and Dastardly Dick. What kind of civilization do we have when we refuse to be dead?
Although I am no longer a lawman, the story is not over, as Bad News was the best man and Dastardly an usher at my wedding in 1984. And I now meet Bad News almost every week for lunch, where we reminisce on those days gone by in the Wild Wild Midwest.
You know what they say: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Better sleep with one eye open, Bad News.
Happy Trails (until we meet again)
Jeff (dreaming of exercising my Second Amendment rights since 1965) Larson
Note: Spiritual lesson for the day? Make your peace with the Lord before you have your 'come-up-ins'.
