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Show BEVERLY HILLS Well all I know is just what I read in the papers or what I see here and there. Couple of weeks L-,.3 A Lri stayed their 1UU days, that's all they are paid for, and it was pretty tough on the old boys at that, to stay there and not get paid, bo from then all they got was cussing. Before, they got paid and cussing combined, but they eliminated eliminat-ed the pay. Well sir I had a happy experience. 1 knew he was up there somewhere. I dident know just where, as 1 hear from him every little while, but I hadent seen him in years, that was Buck McKee. Buck McKee was the cowboy that used to work with me In a vaudeville act andTbde the horse, or little cowpony rather, Teddy. He trained in the pony for the stage. He wasent any trick pony, he just worked on a smooth board stage, with felt bottom boots buckled on his feet like goloshes, and run for my fancy roping catches. But Buck trained him to do on a slick stage just about what a good turning cow-pony cow-pony can do on the ground. We started the act in the spring of 1905, just exactly 30 years to a week from when I met Buck up in Sacramento. Sacra-mento. He was with me for 1 think it was four or five years. We made two trips to Europe togeather. We went over just one year after 1 had opened on the stage. That was in the spring of 1906. We went to the Winter Win-ter Garden Theatre in Berlin, that was the Premier Vaudeville Theatre of all Europe. We played there a month. Well he is at Roseville Cal., a beautiful beau-tiful little town about 20 miles out of Sacramento toward Reno, Nev. He still is handling horses, the thing he does best in the world. He runs a riding academy about two miles out of town at the "Whipple Ranch," has been there 12 years. Everybody knows and likes him as usual. His wife Maudy is with him. She was a dancer in a vaudeville act that we played on the bill with. They fell in love and were married, and she has developed into a splendid horsewoman, horse-woman, and they are excellent teachers and they have learned many young and old people both to ride, and ride correctly, and above all they are so good to their horses, lots of patience, and real love for a horse. He was breaking in some lovely young horses, making gaited horses out o them. He has a fine thoroughbred thorough-bred stallion, and is raising a few young ones himself. It was good to see em. We come back from Berlin to London Lon-don and played the Palace Theatre there, then we went back to London in 1908. We played in that very Sacramento Sac-ramento in the hot summer of 1907 on what was called the Sullivan and Considine Circuit. J. C. Nugent the spiendid actor and playwright, with all his talented family was on the bill and Billy Hanlons was our hang out. He is now the proprietor of the big and fine Senator Hotel In Sacramento. Sacramen-to. We just stood and looked at each other that day, Buck and I. Here thirty thir-ty years ago we had stepped on the stage togeather, only he was on horseback. He always said, "I can get away if anything happens, but the audience can get you." Those were great old days, (but darn it any old days are great old days. Even the tough ones, after they are over, you can look back on with great memorys). I was married too In 1908. And sometimes the salary wasent any too big to ship Buck and his wife and Teddv. and mv wife and self, to the next town. In fact I think Buck rode some of the short jumps. It was great fun, not a worry. I regret re-gret the loss of vaudeville more than any part of it. It was the greatest form of entertainment ago we were up on the Sacramento Sacramen-to River making a movie. We had a fine time. They are great folks up around there. Well they are nice folks every-where. every-where. Their Legislature was in session, and they had just Nothing In the world ever give the satisfaction of a good vaudeville show. We was mighty proud to be playing in it It had class In those days. Buck looks fine, no older, and of course I am just practically a babe In arms yet. But I Just knew lots of old friends and old timers would want to know about Buck. Roseville, Rose-ville, Cal., will catch him. Speaking Speak-ing of catching him, 1 bet he has been roped, (and missed too) more times than any man in the world. He did look great when he come charging In on that stage with that beautiful little brown pony. Well old i-'mers talk too much so I must shut up. 1935, McXauskt Syndicate, Im. |