Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 219 - Annie Oakley

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

At the height of her career, sharpshootin' Annie Oakley the talented sharpshooter was the most famous woman in America, if not the world - dazzling audiences and setting records as she fired at clay pigeons, birds, glass balls and performing a wide array of "How in the Hell is that possible?" trick shots. Annie's love of guns began in her childhood, when she didn’t use them to entertain, but to survive. Literally. Born Phoebe Ann Mosey, Annie picked up her father’s gun when he died, and she hunted to help feed her incredibly impoverished family. As a teen, she’d use her skills to pay off her mother’s mortgage. And it was during one of these shooting competitions where she would meet and beat her future husband, an Irish immigrant named Frank Butler. Their love story is pretty damn special and incredible. In a time when a female breadwinner was almost unheard of, Annie went on to become one of the highest paid entertainers in the world. And we Suck her life and times in today's gun-slinging, wild west, record-breaking edition, of Timesuck. In honor of Veteran’s Day, we made a Bad Magic Productions donation of $10,000 to https://veteransfoodpantry.org/. Thank you Space Lizards! Also, through November 23rd, we are accepting Giving Tree applications to help give numerous Cult of the Curious families a holiday Bojangles would be proud of. If you have children, and due to financial hardships, are worried there will no gifts to open this holiday season, we want to help! Please - copy and paste the following email: (copy & paste address) [e-mail] You can remain anonymous if you wish. You can also email us here to donate yourself. We will match! Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/H_SwFHRKJZg Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Annie gets your gun. Annie Oakley. I'm so glad you decided to turn this on and listen to the incredible story of her life at the height of her career. The talented sharpshooter was arguably the most famous woman in America, if not the world, dazzling audiences

and setting records as she fired clay pigeons, birds, glass balls, and performing a wide array of how and the hell is that even possible trick shots. Her love of guns began in her childhood when she didn't use them to entertain, but to survive. Literally. Born Phoebe Ann Mozy, and he picked up her father's gun when he died and she began feeding her incredibly

impoverished family as a young child. By the age of 16, she'd used her skills to pay off her mother's mortgage. By 20, she was competing in shooting competition to Cross-O- cross Ohio and it was during one of these shooting competitions where she would meet and beat her future husband and Irish immigrant named Frank Butler. Their love story, pretty damn special, pretty incredible. In a time when a female breadwinner was almost unheard of, anyone on to become one of the

highest paid entertainers in the world. She performed in Buffalo, Bill Cote's Wild West Show and threw it performed for European royalty by pulling off amazing feats such as shooting the end of a cigarette held in her husband's lips, hitting the thin edge of a playing card from 30 paces and shooting distant targets behind her, looking at them through a mirror shooting back over her shoulder. She impressed American Indian leader sitting bulls so much in 1884 that he adopted her and bestowed upon her the additional nickname of little sure shot. The two would have a lifelong friendship. And she didn't hog all of her success to herself.

She did so much for others throughout her career. It's believed that Oakley taught more than 15,000 other women how to use a gun. Oakley believed strongly that it was crucial for women to learn how to use a gun. It's not only a form of physical and mental exercise, but also to defend themselves. She said, I would like to see every woman know how to handle guns as naturally as they know how to handle babies. Despite all the disadvantages she was born with, being very poor, growing up in an incredibly rural environment, and being a woman in the 19th century in America, any never let any of that get her down or hold her back century in America, any never let any of that get her down or hold her back. So how did any pursue her love of guns and go on to lead such a

fascinating and worldly life? How did the little girl who was for a time in indentured servant go on to become an entertainer for European royalty? Let's find out. In this week's gunsling and Wild West record breaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, addition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. You will miss the To Talk Suck. Happy Monday, hail Nimrod and happy Thanksgiving. You Turkey or Toe Furkeke Eaton motherfuckers. International meat sacks live outside the US. Go ahead and celebrate as well. Every day's a good day for mashed potatoes and gravy.

Hail Lucifina, praise both jangles and glory be to triple M as well. I'm Dan Cummins, the master's sucker, sir sucks a lot. Lord of the suck, low level servant of the good God, M way. And you are listening to Time Suck. Get ready for some inspiration today. Black Kruneck Bad Magic Productions Holiday Sweater in the store at BadMagicMarch.com. It is glorious. It's made out of 314% pure international, chinchilla vulva for maximum softness and sensuality

imported. Recorded this before Sucks Giving, hoping our virtual hang was so much fun and having a lot of fun putting together a historical suck on the darker than I was taught origins of Thanksgiving. So I guess next week, I'll hope to remember to comment on how much fun I had and hopefully you have a lot of fun. I'll also have a giving tree update next week. I will say right now, holy shit, have you meet sex, been generous? Blue away and expectations we had. Massive donation will be announced next week. I will say right now, holy shit, have you meet sex? Been generous. Blue away any expectations

we had. Massive donation will be announced next week. A lot of the cult of the curious, holiday celebrations going to be given a huge adrenaline boost. So very thankful for that. And that's it for announcements. And now for a lighter, though just as intense and interesting, weekly time suck expiration, taking a break from true crime today to get into someone's life who, as opposed to many of the murderers we've examined, used their guns for good, lots of good. We're making a living for her family, to providing for herself and her husband, to even teach a woman how to defend themselves. Any Oakley loved guns knew they could be used to entertain and inspire people.

So let's dig into her. Routine Tudon Wild West Hawk H Hawk, Hawk Dog, Quote, uh, story right now. And he hopefully lived in an interesting time. She was just 12 years old when the bloody benders from last week were doing most of their dirty, hammer work. The world, Annie grew up in just starting to become seriously industrialized. And the global economy was just starting to really rev up many industries, including show

business. The one Annie would make her living in. We're now going global, really for the first time. We'll get into this week's time stock timeline and go through Annie's childhood full of hardships in their fast, any life. But first, we'll take a look at what America in general was like in the second half of the 19th century when Annie was between the age of just popped out to 40 and will pay particularly close attention to what life was like for the majority of women at that time.

Hint, better than it had been, but still not as good as those born with an outside vagina. I'm referring to us men there. Should we start calling our penises outside vaginas? I don't know, maybe. We should probably put it up for a vote or something. New opportunities in industrialization in America in the late 1800s meant that women were presented with new options for living their lives

in a very different way than their mothers and grandmothers had lived before them, but there was still the ever present pressure to be a good wife and mother, mine, the domestic sphere, let ones husband take charge, and Annie was like, fuck that. I'm a better shot than a man, and I don't need a man to guide me through life

and throw me in the kitchen when I should be out working on my shooting. And he was the rare female breadwinner in her family. She also never had kids, which was atypical. Did not spend her free time taking care of the home. She spent it traveling around the country and then the world. And she spoke her mind without making sure

her husband approved first. She did love her husband. I should point out very much. And he loved her very much. And I think he respected her in a very different way than most men of his day. The love story of Annie Oakley and Frank Butler is an incredible one. Get your tissues ready towards the end of the show. Annie just wasn't much for domestic, domesticity and was never going to offer Frank that. Not that he wanted it from her. So, hey, I'll lose to Fena. I'll lose to Fena probably has a poster of Anniochley tacked onto one of the walls of her fiery abode.

Okay, let's really get into the cultural backdrop of her life now. The American economy expanded and matured at a remarkable rate in the decades following the War of 1812. At the beginning of the 19th century, the United States was an overwhelmingly rural and agricultural nation, 90% of the population, the northeast, and 95% of the people of the South lived on farms, or in villages with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants. It was small towns all across the land, and almost nothing but small towns. And there just wasn't that many American settlers at all at West.

The Spanish had explored the West, but not so much for the U.S. Lewis and Clark wouldn't start their famous Western expedition until 1804, and the Oregon Trail wouldn't really get going until 1839. It would still be quite some time before many Western bound U.S. settlers would McGill's pop off the buttholes in the Rockies.

The population of the U.S. was still small and scattered over a vast geographical area. Just 5.3 million people in 1800 compared to 15 million living in Britain in 27 million, living in France, both much smaller nations geographically. Transportation and communications had changed little over the previous half century before the year 1800. A co-try between Boston and New York took three days three days From New York to Philadelphia two days

South of the mason dixon line the situation was even worse except for a single stage coach that traveled between Charleston and Savannah There was no public transportation of any kind It would take 20 days to deliver a letter between Maine and Georgia American houses closing agricultural methods were surprisingly still pretty primitive. 50 miles inland, half the houses were log cabins, lacking even glass windows, farmers planted their crops in much the same way as their parents and grandparents and great grandparents before them. Few farmers practice crop rotation or used fertilizers or drained fields. They made plows out of wood, allowed their swine to run loose, left their cattle outside

except on the coldest nights and manufacturing was also still pretty backwards. And rural areas, farm families grew their own food, produced their own soap and candles, woven their own blankets and constructed their own furniture. Sounds fucking awful for someone like me with zero patience. Instead of driving three minutes, literally three minutes down the street to the nearest grocery store, or literally 90 seconds to the nearest mini-march to buy me a tasty snack. Thank you Twinkies. I would have had to make my own snack.

No bueno, gross. What is this? The 1800s? It is actually in the story. The leading manufacturing industries, iron making, textiles, and clothes making employed only about 15,000 people in mills were factories in 1800. But then in the 25 years, the fall of the War of 1812, the development of steamboats, canals, ultimately railroads, reduced transportation costs, sped up communications dramatically,

really helped industrialization. The times they were a change in. The rapid growth of cities created expanding markets for industrial goods, improvements in farming dramatically increased agricultural productivity, stimulated industrialization by paying for imports of machinery and manufactured goods, and freed many farm children to work in industry and commerce. Get them off. Get them off.

Get them off the fields into the factories, where there's no child labor loss. Not all of those good. A series of technological innovations highlighted by the development of the American system of mass production and interchangeable parts, simulated productivity. The rapid growth of the West created a great new center for the production of grains and pork, permitting the countries previously settled sections to specialize in other crops, new processes of manufacture, particularly in textiles, not only accelerated in industrial revolution in the Northeast, but also drastically enlarging the northern markets for raw materials helped account for a boom in southern cotton production.

Industrial workers organized the country's first trade unions, even working men's political parties early in this period, new large corporations thrived in an era of booming capital requirements, older and simpler forms of attracting investment capital. We're now rendered obsolete. The road leading towards the modern big corporations, work smarter, not harder, world we'd now live in really was just first being built in many ways. In the first half of the 19th century industrialization, globalization set the world on a whole new course that it is still on. Commerce became increasingly specialized with the division of labor, becoming

more and more sophisticated. By 1825, the population of the US had more than doubled since 1800, up from 5.3 million to 11.1 million. Then between 1825 and 1860, the year of Annie's birth, the population would nearly triple, from 11.1 million to 31.4 million. In the decades before the American Civil War, the young US was really starting to develop its own unique culture. It was no longer an extension of Europe. Europe on a different continent wasn't that anymore. The civilization of the US exerted an irresistible pull on a lot of visitors who sailed over in the 1800s in contrast to the relatively static and well-ordered civilization of the old world, America seemed excitingly turbulent, dynamic and in constant flux.

The balance of power in the world was shifting. The US was the world's shiniest new toy and a lot of people wanted to come and play with it. Americans were different than Europeans. People were comparatively crude, more, uh, yes, yeah, a little more Hock Fock dog folk than, well, yes, brother food. That is an exquisite vintage that will pass splendidly with this caveat. Americans were excitedly vital, awesomely ambitious, overly optimistic, incredibly independent. It was just something in the air and the young land of opportunity. Many well-bred Europeans

were evidently taken aback by the self-assurance of comparatively light-educated American common folk. The Americans have never let a lack of education all this back for better for worse. Ordinary Americans seemed unwilling to defer to anyone on the basis of their education, rank, or status. We still seem to have that spirit, right?

Whoa, whatever, Professor Big Words. Earth sure is shit, whatever professor big words. Earth sure is shit. Look flat to me. Cut to that dude peeling out in a cloud of exhaust smoke and lifted 92 silverado with a bumper sticker of Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes pissing on a Prius. Woo, fuck yeah bro. America was attracted to many and it started attracting a ton of immigrants.

In the 1830s and 1840s, the US population ramped up an extra couple of notches thanks to far more immigrants pouring into the country than it ever poured in before. Whereas about 250,000 Europeans had arrived in the first three decades of the 19th century, ten times that many red roared on over between 1830 and 1850. This particular wave of newcomers were overwhelmingly Irish and German. Germans were fleeing Germany to escape the political unrest caused by a heavy taxation and political censorship there that led to riots, rebellion, and eventually a revolution in 1848. And the Irish who composed half of all immigrants coming to the US in the 1840s mostly showed

up on accident. Many of them thought that they were sailing to England and then they ended up going the wrong way and they just kept going for weeks and weeks when their trip from one island to the next was only supposed to be a 12 mile trip because they were fucking stupid. They were stupid, stupid, stupid. And they still are.

JK, I can make that joke because according to 23 and me, I'm 55.8% British and Irish. That's how it works right now, isn't it? Okay, I can, that joke because according to twenty three me on fifty five point eight percent british irish that's how works right now isn't right okay i can okay i got irish blood in me so i can say crazy things that don't make any sense about the irish sometimes i just like to yell to get my blood pumping uh... irish showed up in america because they were fleeing the irish potato famine that lasted from eighteen forty five to eighteen forty nine

that's the truth in eighteen forty seven alone a loan tragically roughly a million Irish died, mostly from starvation, which is crazy. I guess it shouldn't be crazy to me that it happened that recently, because it still happens at parts of the world, but it still feels insane to me that in Ireland, roughly a million people died that year. And another million left Ireland,

many of these immigrants arriving on the US Eastern seaboard fueled industrialization in Eastern cities. So many new workers for so many new factories. Get in the factory, you dumb Irish ancestor of mine! Back to work! Uh, not all immigrants. I don't know why that's abusing me right now. This random slander of Irish people who I have nothing against.

Cause yeah, whatever. Not all immigrants worked in the factories, many headed west to farm and ranch, or work as shoppers to loon keepers out west, or to try and make their fortunes in gold during the many gold rushes of the 19th century, or to work on the railroads, et cetera, et cetera. Despite the growth of new industries, urban centers and immigration America in the late 19th century when Annie was around, was still predominantly rural. Seven out of 10 people in the U.S US lived in small towns with populations under 2500 or on farms, still in 1870. Most Americans continued to live out in the country with the hog

folk and the dog folk. And in the country despite this new American wave of industrialization, life hadn't changed that much for many. Although improved machinery had resulted in expanded farm production and to give further impetus to the commercialization of agriculture, the way of life for most independent agriculturalists was about the same by mid-century as it had been for the century before. Many farmers led lives marked by unremitting toil, cash shortage, and little leisure. Farm workers received minest school wages. Sounds kind of like a medieval Serfdom. In all sections of the country, much of the best land was concentrated into the hands of a small number of wealthy farmers.

It sounds exactly like medieval Serfdom. The proportion of farm families who owned their land, however, was far greater in the US than in Europe. And varied evidence points to a steady improvement in the standard and style of living of agriculturalists as the mid-century approached. So I guess a little better than Serfdom. In 1860, the year of Andy's birth,

women were still 60 years away from having the right to vote, but things were getting better for women in America and the second half of the 19th century. Well, for white women anyway. By 1860, it was almost as likely for a white girl as a white boy to attend school, even in farming regions of the country. The success of these early ventures assured

that when secondary education expanded after the Civil War, it would be overwhelmingly co-educational as far as co-ed. While this equality aspect of American education was good, and overall lack of focus on education in general in America, when Annie was a little kid was not good, in 1870, when she was 10, I couldn't believe this. I don't know why this really surprised me as well. Only 160 high schools in the entire country, right? 38.6 million people, 160 high schools.

That's how uneducated people were back then. Now, not all of those people were of high school age, obviously, out of that population number. But this data gives us an easy way to examine how much schooling was available compared to other points in American history. For comparative purposes, there was one high school for every 64,333 people in 1870.

The US has 331 million people now and approximately 24,000 high schools, which is one high school for every 13,971 people. Way better. Per capita, we have 4.6 times as many high schools now as we did in 1870. So as frustrated as you may be with the widespread ignorance and stupidity that seems to exist today, and it is frustrating, I think, feel good knowing that in, you know, there were a lot more ignorant people in 1870s America

than in 2020s America. Like if YouTube had existed back then, you probably wouldn't even be able to read about 50% of the comments. It would be total gibberish, instead of today's quite a bit of gibberish. In 1870, one out of five American adults were completely illiterate.

Less than 1% of the current population is illiterate now. It feels like good progress. It feels to me, honestly, like that current number should be higher, but only because I'm pretty sure that 99% of the 1% that are not totally literate are very active on YouTube. Dad, how do I write funny under video? High spilt, the high spilt A, high spilt noise. By 1880, there were almost 800 high schools in America.

There were an extra 12 million people and an extra 740 high schools. That's progress. 20 years later, at the end of the century, the number of high schools had grown to 6,000 and extra 5,200 high schools for an extra 26 million people. More progress. More and more men, women in the US were being educated.

All high schools were for white people only, unfortunately until 1870, obviously horrific, More and more men, women in the US were being educated. All high schools were for white people only, unfortunately, until 1870, obviously horrific, but progress still being made. Women began to be admitted to some Midwestern universities in the 1850s and 1860s. Initially, only when those universities were short on students overall,

a shortage obviously attributed initially to the Civil War. Despite a bit more educational access opportunities in the workforce for women after childhood where nonetheless, still pretty limited in the mid 19th century. As factories took over, many of the jobs women would have had to do at home. Many women didn't begin to find opportunities working with their, excuse me, what many women did begin

to find opportunities working with their churches and social organizations, running charity schools and refuges for women in need. Still, women weren't even allowed to do this without the permission of their husbands or fathers. And the cult of patriarchal dominance and domesticity, that word fucking kills me. Domestic, I can say, domesticness fine, domesticity feels soft to me. The cult of patriarchal dominance and domesticity persisted. The cult of domesticity is an important idea

that came out of the early 19th century and encompassed essentially everything a woman was supposed to be and do. This cult term invented by historians also sometimes referred to as the cult of true womanhood. Terms used to describe the prevailing value system among the upper and middle classes during the 19th century in the US and in the UK.

The beliefs embodied in these cults gave women a central, if outwardly, passive role in the family. According to this prevailing ideology, women's God-given role was this wife and mother keeper of the household, guardian of the moral purity of all who lived therein. The Victorian home was to be a haven of comfort and quiet shelter from the harsh realities of the working world

Housework took on a scientific quality efficiency being the watchword children were to be cherished and nurtured Morality protected through the commonly promoted Protestant beliefs of and social protest against alcohol poverty and the decay of urban living Women's popular literature of this period full of advice about an encouragement for proper housekeeping. Implicit in this advice is the notion that by keeping a clean, neat, pious home and filling it with warmth and inviting smells, women are achieving their highest calling. Eek. This ideology promoted heavily by the most popular women's magazines of the day, such as

Goddy's Lady Book, published out of Philadelphia between 1830 and 1878. It was the most widely circulated magazine in America, prior to the Civil War, reaching 150,000 households. Its editor at the height of his popularity, Sarah Josephina Hale, author of Mary Had a Little Lamb, randomly, used her influence to be the 19th century equivalent of a social influencer promoting this coat of domesticity But not every woman of course wanted to live this way Such as Annie Oakley and not every woman could live this way at the time even if they wanted to rural women especially often needed to do a lot more to survive and help their family than you know like the right fucking candle

Keep the house clean Rural women were required by the nature their work to be healthy strong, strong, often working the same hours as their, their husbands did her, equally physically demanding chores. And Annie Oakley, she was born into a rough and rugged rural life. She had to learn skills not taught in Goddy's lady book. She had to learn skills like, you know, shoot a squirrel without spoiling all of its meat. For Annie's life, learning how to clean a gun was a lot more important than learning how to clean up in the kitchen. Okay, I think the context have been set now. Let's jump into this week's gun slinging shotgun shooting time suck timeline and learn how Annie shot the cult of domesticity all to shit

right after a word from our sponsors Thank you for listing meat sex get them deals go get them. Yeah. Yeah Shrap on those boots soldier. We're marching down a time-sub-time line. A quick note about the dates in this timeline before I get into it. Holy shit! For a relatively simple story, these dates were the hardest to verify out of literally any show we've done so far. Because a lot of the characters in this tale were born into rural mid 19th century poverty, and because some of them went into showbiz

during a time and place when tall tales with a norm, facts get pretty hard to nail down. Add to that a lot of lazy 19th century, early mid 20th century biographers, and end up with dates and sometimes even names varying significantly from source to source. And one story, Annie's 15, when she meets another important character, and another story she's 20.

And one source, her dad is 46 years old when she's born, and another he's around 60. Locations of huge events, very quite a bit in one telling an important shooting contest happened in Cincinnati, and another Greenville, and another it went down in North Star. All Ohio, but, you know, different places. So if you're an anti-ocly fan and you're like, hey, that's not right.

She was disolved when that happened. It happened here and out there. And you're probably right. That probably is how it went down in the telling you came across. But do a little poking around, and you'll find many other tellings. The Wild West is one of my favorite areas of history

to explore, and while Annie's story is an exactly Wild West, you grew up in Ohio. Stories about her were very popular in the Wild West is one of my favorite areas of history to explore. And while Annie's story isn't exactly Wild West, she grew up in Ohio. Stories about her were very popular in the Wild West. She became a big Wild West figure. She did tour the Wild West. She started a traveling production called Buffalo Bills Wild West show. Plenty of yippee-yay with Annie. And again, while I love the Wild West, Wild West journalism sucks.

Big stories sold books and papers. So that's what writers wrote, tall, tall tales. All that being said, I feel pretty good that we're, that we're, what we're sharing is, you know, probably 90% accurate. After digging into a lot of genealogy sites like ancestry.com and cross-referencing old interviews and having researchers Sophie Evans do the same. And also 90% truth with 10% larger than life gunboat

tales thrown in. I'm good with that. It feels right for the genre. I hope you are too. Makes it all a bit more cinematic. Just wanted to state that up top. So I didn't feel compelled to constantly point out which dates and names in places. I feel better about being accurate than others and risks slowing down and ruining her story

as a teller. So let's meet Annie now. On August 13th, 1860, Annie Oakley, born Phoebe Ann Mosie in a log cabin, less than two miles northwest of Woodland, now Willodelle and Dart County, Ohio, a rural county along the state's border with Indiana. A Willodelle very rural, not even in town right now, just an unincorporated census designated place. Post office there shut down a couple years back in 1905. For the last 115 years it's just been a couple houses and it was never much more than that. Willow Dell is about five miles eight kilometers east of the nearest big city of North Star Ohio,

North Star way bigger town. It has over 200 people. It has a historic Catholic church, and that's about it. Used to have way more people. Used to have almost 300 at the height of its population boom in 1970. Despite being pretty small and rural, it is very racially diverse. This really cracked me up when I came across this. It has no bearing on today's story, but I wanted to share it with you.

The racial makeup is currently 99.52 percent white, not 100 percent. It's also 0.48 percent Asian, which means when you do the math that there is literally one Asian person in a town full of nothing but other white people. And I bet that one person is pointed out by a lot of other people in town to prove that they're not racist, right? You know, you know that's true. Come on, I didn't mean anything about that joke. I'm not racist. I'm friends with Mark.

Dude, no way I'm racist. Sometimes I say, hi to the Asian guy, you know, Mark. How can I be racist? I drove to the last week's clan rally with Mark. Okay, come on, question. North Star folk might be the nicest, most open-minded folk in the nation. I don't know anybody.

I live in there. Just thought that was funny. There's seven miles away from Willowdale and 10 miles from North Star is Versailles, Ohio, named after the French city of Versailles, but totally mispronounced because that's how we do shit in America. We don't drink tea at a little porcelain cups with our pinkies out and we don't speak right. We are land primarily of Munchmouth.

Her sales is a real short drive now from Willowdale. It was quite the hike in the days of Annie's youth. About 2700 people live there now and around 1,000 live there when Annie was born. Annie's parents were quakers of English descent from Holidaysberg, Blair County, Pennsylvania. Susan Wise, who was 28 when Annie was born and Jacob Mozy, who was 61. Her parents had married 12 years before. Annie was born in 1848 when her mom was, yeah, 16 when her dad was 49. Yikes. Different times, very different times. Back when the world was full of dudes, married women who could age wise be their daughters or even granddaughters on a regular basis.

Oh my heck! To be fair, I don't think all those dudes were purfs or pedophiles at all. Marriage was a lot more about kicking out babies back then than it was about kinky sex. And young women's bodies could kick out more babies and pregnancy complications were more rare for younger moms than older moms. And just, you know, a lot of fucking people died. It wasn't a lot of people to pick from when it came to romance. And his parents moved to a rented farm later purchased with a with a mortgage in rural dark county back when the whole county had just over 20,000 people scattered around at 600 square miles. Sometime around 1855 with there are three young daughters Mary Jane,

Lydia and Elizabeth, two more daughters and no sons would be born before Annie, Catherine and Sarah. Catherine would die as a toddler the year before Annie was born. Annie's dad, Jacob, was by all accounts of pleasant athletic man, even at the age of 61 when Annie was born, could still hunt and knock out his farm work as well as any other man.

What was her mom like? I don't really know, not much seems to be written about her. Other than she was very religious, hardworking, she loved Annie and her other children very, very much. Annie would have a very close relationship with her mother. And when the Moesies showed up to what is now known as Willow Dell and what was then known

as Woodland, the community did not offer, like I said earlier, much more than it does now. In time during Annie's youth, Woodland Woodboast, a buggy shop, an ice house, a saloon, a restaurant, and a cream station. But when her dad Jacob arrived, he didn't even have a general store. It wouldn't have one of those until after he died. No railway service in the area either. They were out in the sticks. Annie grew into a small child,

strong despite her size, with thick dark hair, blue gray eyes that people noticed because of her large direct gaze, intense gaze. And he was a vivacious girl, a tomboy who took no interest in her sister's ragdolls. She spent time and stayed with her dad and her brother, John, born two years after she was out in the woods out on the farm. Together Jacob, Annie and little John spent their days picking brush, building fences,

butcher and cows, tanning their hides, the seller makes shoes, they smoked ham, pickled beans, tucked away apples in the fall before the winter set in. Annie, who always hated her, given first name of Phoebe, would also spend hours wandering out in the woods, lone, listening to the birds and tracking rabbits. In November of 1960, Abraham Lincoln is elected president and in December, South Carolina becomes the first Southern state to secede from the Union. The Civil War will begin in April of 1861. And many men from dark county will fight. We'll go serve in the military for the Union and his dad, Jacob Mosie wanted to. I was considered too old for active duty in the winter of 1866 on a trip to the local general store,

14 miles from their home. Jacob has caught an early blizzard and half frozen, barely makes it back to the farm. He never recovers from getting stuck out in the cold and soon dies of pneumonia, plunging the family into the first of several financial crises, getting caught in a blizzard just trying to make it home from the general store. That is some 1866 shit. And later recalled,

mother threw the door wide open into the face of the Howling Wind. It was a scene she never forgot. Her father sitting upright in the buckboard seat of his wagon, the horse reins wrapped tight around his wrist. His hands were frozen. His speech was gone.

When the storm died down, her mom later sent out one of her older daughters to fetch a doctor. The doctor came, but there was little he could do because it was 1866. And doctors were not compared to today, very good at doctoring. Whiskey, loud no, saw. In real hospitals where you can be put on like, you know, a ventilator or given antibiotics or a pump full of fluids intravenously, none of that existed. So that march and his father dies in their cabin.

Later that same year, Mary Jane and his older sister dies of tuberculosis at the age of 19. And his mother had just lost a two other family members who've been able to help the most on the family farm and with five other children still living and needing her care. She had had another daughter, Holda, with Jacob back in 1863. The Moise family must leave the farm and move to a smaller plot of land. And now they really struggle to get by. Her mom has to sell pink, the family cow to pay doctor and funeral bills.

She tries to earn a living by nursing, but only makes a buck 25 a week. And it's not enough to live on. Susan is, Susan is so poor and desperate that she gives the Bartholomew's a local family, her youngest child, hold it to raise. How gut-wrenching must that have been? Dire Straits. Given one of your kids away, because you just can't afford to raise them all, holy shit. My family went through some tougher times that was younger, but nothing in the ballpark of that. Imagine being poor little holder. Imagine being anyone in that family.

Sorry kiddo, mom literary cannot afford to keep you alive, so off you go. Annie, Lydia, Elizabeth, Sarah, John, say goodbye to your baby sister. I know you've grown kind of attached to her over the last four years, but she is a best, a bar thaw to me now. Adios kiddo, frontier life. I love living in 1867, fuck yeah bro, noise. Also in 1867, Annie's mom gets remarried to a local man, Daniel Brumbaw.

In that November, Daniel was a close neighbor whose wife had died several years earlier, whose grown children had all now left the house. And she married him because he's single and he lives next door. Single check, lives next door, check. Cool. He has checked off all the necessary criteria

for rural 1867 marriage. Daniel was 58, Susan was now 36, Susan would have one more child with Daniel, Emily, about nine months after getting married. What a life! Back in the days before reliable birth control, back when the birth control available was frowned upon due to religious beliefs, back when you married your neighbor not because you're in love but because he was single

and he was there and you needed an extra set of hands to help around the farm or you might have to give away all of your kids so grateful in this moment to live during a much much better time to be alive and yet in 2020 sometimes I still complain. I know complain to my wife about like stuff like how many hours I spend on the computer and I probably shouldn't. You know what? After I finish this recording, I think I should take myself out back and kick my own ass. We're having the nerve to complain about such things. Hey me, shut the fuck up and get back to work. We're very glad you're not an Ohio farmer in the 1860s. Now back to pie in your misery. Shortly after getting Susan pregnant, Daniel gets into some sort of accident

that is never fully described and can no longer work. So weathe. He's of no help now. He's a burden. Susan and her kids are worse off than before. You know, she has two more mouths to help feed. Her new husbands and her new babies.

Anxious to help the family. Annie begins to set traps now for birds than nearby woods, trying to bring homes to them. So meat and she does, she brings home quail and grouse. But trying to catch enough food to really help the family just using traps, it's not cutting it. To do some real hunting, to bag a significant amount of wild game she needs a gun. Annie, get your gun.

And late 1868, eight year old Annie sneaks. Her father's old rifle down from above the fireplace, packs it with some powder, heads off into the woods and shoots a squirrel. Her mother instead of being pleased is horrified and forbids her to ever fire a gun again. Damn it, Susan! Let go of your gender role expectations, let that girl put the meat on the plates.

In Annie's own words, she later recounted this event. She said, I saw squirrel run down over the grass in front of the house through the orchard and stop on a fence to get a hickory nut. It was a wonderful shot going right through the head from side to side. That is a wonderful shot. It's not like she took her dad's rifle down to the local gun range either, you know, in practice. There wasn't one. You know, she didn't get to spend a bunch of time

properly siding it in. No scope. She just lined the old school front and rear open sites held that rifle steady at eight years old blasted a squirrel through the fucking head on the first try. Not sure if you've seen a lot of squirrel heads, but if you haven't, they're pretty small as heads go. Maybe like golf ball size, definitely not like softball or basketball sized. If she had shot the ultra rare basketball size headed squirrel, I think that would have made it into the story at detail. I think the phrase steady eddy should be replaced with steady Annie. Annie also recounted my mother was perfectly horrified

when I began shooting and tried to keep me in school, but I would run away and go quail shooting in the woods or trim my dress with reasts of wild flowers. She was a nature child. On March 15th, 1878, age nine, Annie is now admitted to the dark county infirmary along with her sister Sarah Ellen and Greenville who is 11. The infirmary was a big group home that housed a homeless, mentally ill and orphan.

So yeah, an orphanage essentially for Annie. Everyone, you know, back then just kind of got thrown in together in different places. Her mom just couldn't afford to take care of them. Now has to give two more over kids away. Dear God, the struggle was also real with this poor family. Greenville, about 20 miles from Willowdale, short 20-minute drive now, back then, a long day's wagon ride. According to Annie's autobiography, she was put in the care of the infirmary's superintendent, Samuel

Crawford Eddington, and his wife Nancy, who taught her to so endeavor. In 1870, Greenville was a boom in town of three rail lines, four pie roads, two newspapers, the Democrat and the journal. Life revolved around the public square, which stood within the boundaries of old Fort Greenville and extended down Broadway to Third Street. As the name suggested, Broadway was a wide street, bordered on both sides by a score of businesses. It was Farmers Bank, Thomas and then Sunsattleshop, and Judy and Miller's furniture store. Man could get a drink at Good Theals Saloon or take a room with the Broadway hotel.

There was a bookstore, a hardware store, a baker, a fur trader, Alan Lamott. Go get your fur from Alan. I was a bustling metropolis of over 2,000 people in 1870, almost 13,000 now. In Greenville, Annie was then, this is terrible, bound out was the term to a local family to help care for their infant son on the false promise these people terrible of fifty cents per week to be about ten bucks a week in two thousand nineteen and an education uh... man at just nine years old she is now being sent away from her family with

her eleven year old sister and then just after showing up she sent away from that sister at nine this little third grader age age wise, dad's dead. Mom and most of her siblings are a days travel away. Her remaining sister is a cross-town, doesn't get to see her. The couple Annie was loaned out to, originally wanted someone who could pump water, cook, and who was older and bigger, preferably.

And apparently they were disappointed with Annie's small size, and they sound like a couple real pieces of shit. Annie spent two years as their slave. They never paid her what they were supposed to. They treated her horrifically. She did what they said, which was a lot where she was beat. Sometimes even when she did do what they said, she was still beat. One time the wife put any out in the freezing cold without shoes as a punishment

because she had fallen asleep while sewing. She'd fallen asleep out of exhaustion from being worked like a dog with all of her chores. And he wrote about this later saying, I got up at four o'clock in the morning, got breakfast, milked the cows, washed the dishes, skimmed the milk, fed the calves and pigs, pumped the water for the cattle, fed the chickens, rocked the baby to sleep, weeded the garden, picked wild blackberries, got dinner, mother wrote for me to come home, they would not let me go.

I was held a prisoner. Any referred to this couple for the rest of her life as the wolves, even in her autobiography, she never revealed their real names. Incredible. How some of us meat sacks are able to treat other human beings. And spring 1872, 11 year old Annie runs away from the wolves. She tied what little clothes she had into a bundle, ran to the closest rail station, boarded a car where she sat next to some kind looking man. She didn't even have a ticket, right? She

told, tells this guy, she's running away, that she only had 48 cents to her name. He pays her fair, make sure she gets off at the right stop. She never got this guy's name, but wrote later that I prayed to God each night to keep the good man who helped me get away from the wolves. Hail Nimrod! There are lots of good people in the world and always happen. Not just wolves. She returned to the Eddington's who ran that dark county in firmery. They had no idea what was going on apparently. Didn't know how badly she was being mistreated. Made certain she would never have to return to the wolves. Not sure whether or not her older sister Sarah Ellen was still there.

Sounds like she'd left to return home before any showed up. So family-wise, she's alone, but at least she's with a nice couple. The Eddintons treated her as a daughter, let her stay in their living quarters. She made friends with Eddinton children, began attending school with them, where the kids called her topsy. Because when she smiled, she showed all of her teeth. Just like some little girl in Uncle Tom's cabin. Apparently shortly after enrolled in school,

the he-wolf member of the wolf showed up in her school and tried to basically kidnapper. The Eddington's who'd seen scars on Annie's back from her beatings came and had this he-wolf piece of shit thrown out of the school, threatened to report into the authorities via every turn. Too bad they didn't take him out back

by the school and just put a bullet in his head. And he later wrote, that night I slept untroubled for the first time in long months. The editing team paid Annie to work as a seamstress. She sewed dresses made quilts for the infirmary residents. She learned to embroider, stitched fancy cuffs and collars to brighten the orphans' dark dresses. So as a kid, she's doing nice things to make the orphans feel good about themselves. An early 1875, when Annie is 14, she finally returns

to her mother's home. Her mom had recently gotten married again. On November 25th, 1874, Susan had married Joseph Shaw, who's around 72 years old. Susan was now 43 or 44. It wasn't a lot to pick from around there. Joseph did not lead Susan and her remaining children out of poverty.

Before their marriage, Joseph had sold his farm, intending to buy another one, and then a man listed in some sources as a scoundrel. Cheated him out of all but 500 bucks. Maybe some dude running some 1870s, mid-level marketing scheme. Give me your money, Joseph, and I will double it, less than a week.

I've been blessed with the Midas Touch by the good god, Amway. Make a refined, environmentally friendly, and affordable household cleaners. The best price point, line with you, less than a week. I've been blessed with a minus touch by the good God amway maker of fine environmentally friendly and affordable household cleaners. The best price point lying with the Amway home intro bundle, which now comes with the free tote bag. If you can sign right here. Joseph used the 500 bucks he had left to put a down payment on 27 acres of land and you hired a carpenter to build a small house near the North Star Cross Road, not far from Woodland. Now Shaw had to pay the bank for his home in regular loan payments, plus interest. Grand Papp, as a children call their new stepfather, took

a job delivering mail to Greenville, but he didn't make enough money to make those mortgage payments. And it looked like Annie and her family were going to be out of yet another farm and back in dire straits again. But then young Annie, the hero of our story, decides to save the day. She was able to use her step-dead rifle to start hunting again. Mom had given up now on keeping her from shooting, and Annie was real good at hunting, like the best. She was already helping to feed the family, early into her hunting, providing most of the meat for the family, actually.

Now she wanted to see if she could trade some of that game for money. She knew that local hunters would trade their wild birds and game for staples such as flower ammunition, traps and harnesses. So after working, back at the edding, excuse me, Eddington's again, the new family farm was a lot closer to the infirmary. One day on her way home from work to the new family farm, she stopped by the local Katzenberger Brothers grocery store at the corner of Main Street and the public square in Greenville. She proposed to the brothers that they buy any small game she shipped a town on a cash. And when they agreed on a price, and he went home and got to shooting.

And he got her gun. And in just one year, she made enough extra money selling games she'd shot 200 bucks to pay the rest of the mortgage off on the family farm. Yeah, yeah! Hail Lucifina and Hail Annie Oakley. And she's doing this as her second job. And the fucking 14 year old. For the rest of her life,

Annie would now earn a living with a gun. Annie was a familiar, though strange sight around Woodland and Greenville. She was a slender girl dressed in copper-toed boots and a long yarn and long yarn stockings. She wore a short sturdy dress with knicker bockers, heavy mittens with a trigger finger stitched in and spent countless hours in the woods in the fields enjoying nothing more than the crunch of leaves under her feet and the smell of burnt gunpowder and game

blood. The cats and brother, the cats and burger, brothers, took a liking to Annie and one Christmas they sent her a special present, a can of Dupont Eagle Ducking Black powder, five pounds of shot and two boxes of percussion caps. Around the same time, Annie was given what she later called her first real gun, a Parker brother's 16 gauge breached loading hammer complete with 100 brass shells. And this is not the Parker Brothers game company that was bought and absorbed by Hasbro and

the one that made monopoly and risk. This is the Parker Brothers firearms company that made mostly shotguns from 1867 to 1942. Popular still with firearm collectors, but with her new fancy top of the line gun and ammo, Annie shot more game than ever before. She shipped packages a game by mail coach to the cats and burgers who in turn shipped the game to hotels and Cincinnati, only eight miles from Greenville to be cooked up and eaten. Little country Annie feeding fine diners and Cincinnati hotels. She also started entering local hunting based contest.

By the time she was 15, she had shot so much game and entered and won so many local turkey shoots, popular form of entertainment at the time that she was barred from entering more of these contests. So someone else could have a chance at winning. She didn't approve. She was one of the best shots in the world. If not the best, later, man or woman, I'm not surprised those dark county folks just couldn't compete. Thanksgiving Day, 1875, big day, big day for any perfect timing for the Thanksgiving week release this episode. This is an opportunity in shooting performance. She would put on, that would change her life forever. The Bowman and Butler shooting act came to Cincinnati, that Thanksgiving, as the publicity stunt before their actual theater show in town, traveling

show marksman Frank E. Butler, an Irish immigrant, one half of Bowman and Butler placed a hundred dollar bet equivalent to 2300 and 2019 are on today's money, excuse me, with Cincinnati hotel owner Jack Frost. The Butler could beat any local shooter in a marksmanship competition. Little did he know that Jack had been getting a lot of fresh game from the Katsenberger brothers, ran that grocery store back in Greenville. And Jack had heard for months, they'd been getting a good portion of their meat from the best shot they'd ever seen, and he Oakley. And Frank would now be going head to head with a petite five foot nothing 15 year old country girl. It's meat Frank.

The man who become Annie's husband was a handsome showbiz fella. Born in County Longford, Ireland in 1847, one of those stupid immigrants. I mentioned earlier, JK. Frank would have been around 28 years old when they met. He was slightly below average in heights, had dark hair, trimust mustache, quick sense of humor.

I like to tell stories and play jokes on his friends. He was an extrovert who enjoyed people, could strike up a conversation with anybody. And he was a softie. He was a sentimental fella. He liked to write poetry about nature and friendship and the passage of the seasons. His life took off in a new direction

when he joined an amateur show, a type of theatrical group. It was very common in the 1870s, several years before meeting Annie. Initially, Frank trained a troop of dogs and went on stage with them. Frank liked to tell a story about a theater he'd once played in Philadelphia, those dogs. The theater was next door to a fire station. According to Frank, one of his newly trained dogs was an old fire dog. When the fire alarm rang, just as Frank was getting ready to go on stage, the old dog instinctively took off for

the fire and then the rest of Frank's canine troop Followed that dog Leaving him with no dogs to perform for the crowd Sometime in the early 1870s Frank learned to do some trick shooting eventually scrubbed his dog act for the most part He did bring along a a pooch one of them on the road to add a little extra showmanship Deportions of his performance. He specialized in trick shooting. Trick shooting became very popular at the time and he was a good at it, he was very accurate shot. He could shoot while siding through a mirror,

he could fire a rifle while bending over backwards. His most popular act was shooting an apple in half off of the head of his pet, Poodle George. I get to theatrics, but what a horrible trick. If I could have one time, you just killed the pay love. In front of a traumatized crowd, seems a bit unnecessary. Now back to Frank meeting Annie. After Jack Frost paid $100 bucks that Annie would beat Frank his own game.

She headed to Cincinnati, Cincinnati, lured by that $100 prize, Annie competes against and defeats Butler. I talked about this in another podcast. They do incredible feats. Obviously, we're going into much more depth here today. She has 25 targets in a row, 25 out of 25, literally never missed while he missed his final shot. No nerves at all for her first, you know, really kind of high pressure performance.

And Butler is smitten by the diminutive crack shot. According to the Annie Oakley Foundation, according to their website, the match was run according to the regular rules of trap shooting. Frank shot 24 out of 25 birds, and he then won killing all 25 of her birds. Frank would later say he had lost as soon as he saw the pretty and shy 15 year old girl step to the mark, what is certain is he had fallen for her. In his professional shooting act, he was assisted by a dog, a French pool named George, and Annie fell for George. So Frank then courted Annie by sending her letters and cards signed as George.

Adorable! Oh my heck! It might have just made my Grinch heart grow three times at size. Before leaving town, Frank invites Annie to the theater to see his proper act with a shooting partner. She goes and she makes friends with Frank's poodle George. Apparently, after Frank shot an apple off George's head Insane George picked up a piece of it and then laid it at Annie's feet and their romance began

This part of the story might fall into that 10% of this is Tall tail that category reference earlier. I don't know. Maybe not maybe did happen Maybe George wasn't given her an apple slice because he liked her. Maybe it was a desperate cry for help. Please lady, please save me. Let's complete fucking maniacs. Just a goddamn apple off my head every time I make it to a new town.

He's got a myth one of these days. Everyone misses eventually. Don't you see? And what then? What happens to George? Let me tell you, George's head fucking explodes like the apple. Why?

Why is only George the poodle thinking of this? Why does no one care about the George? I don't know, maybe. George would continue to play a role in their relationship. Any who had never been courted by anyone before was nervous at the prospect of romance. And so when Frank left to perform with a circus, he pretended to let us, like I mentioned,

we're coming from George, not from him. At Christmas, George even sent Annie a box of candy. Later on, Frank finally sent Annie a poem. He wrote, there's a charming little girl. She's many miles from here. She's a loving little fairy. You'd fall in love to see her. Her presence would remind you of an angel in the skies. And you bet I love this little girl with raindrops in her eyes. Okay, no, I'm no poetry expert, but I feel like he was better shot than he was a poet. Very nice gesture though. A few weeks later, George the poodle sent Annie a poem and it said, bitch, I gave you that fucking apple slice and he's still shooting at me.

Don't kill me. Don't kill, don't kill sweet George, Annie. Why does no one care about the George? Obviously, that never happened. On August 23rd, 1876, and Cincinnati, Frank and Annie get married. So the romance works. This is Frank's second marriage.

He married a woman named Henry. He had a Saunders back in 1870. They'd had two children, Edward and Katie back in New Jersey, or Frank had worked a variety of odd jobs, and then divorced after just a few years of marriage. And back in the days when dudes just seemed to casually say goodbye to their children forever, it seems like this is what Frank did.

Hard enough to judge, but it was a very different era. Couldn't just hop on a flight to see other people like us. I don't know. Shortly after Frank and Annie's wedding ceremony, Frank put Annie on a train center to Erie, Pennsylvania to attend the Catholic school, while he traveled with his new shooting partner, John Graham. John was from Erie and his mom,

Catherine, ran a boarding house there from Erie and his mom, Catherine, Ranna Bordenhouse there. And he stayed with Catherine while Graham and Frank toured the variety circuit. Uh, Butler got work with the cell brothers, Circus, joining the show that featured 60 tons of animal actors around this time, touring with the circus. He performed feats of marksmanship while George the Poodle prayed for the good Lord to bring swift death

to his trigger happy master each and every night, praise both jangles. In early 1882, 21 year old Annie leaves eerie, joins Frank and John Graham on tour. On May 1st, she was with Butler and Springfield Ohio, only around 60 miles from where Annie grew up. Frank and his partner, John Graham, were scheduled for a show there at the Crystal Hall Theatre, and Graham became ill and could not perform. And it was decided then and there that Mrs. B, as she was introduced at night, would go on stage and hold objects for Mr. B to shoot to replace Graham. And then Mrs. B openly rebelled. No I want to fire every other shot. She told her husband in front of the crowd.

But they agreed. At least the atrix might have been planned out beforehand, and then he took the first shot and hit the target. Annie shot next, and the audience groaned when Mrs. B missed. And it seems as if she did this on purpose to gain sympathy from the audience, build us some tension and suspense because she did not miss again. The audience stood up to applaud her, standing ovation after she finished her last shot. She was big hit, the act was so successful that she joined Butler as his permanent partner.

This is one of many versions of how Annie Oakley's stage career officially began. Here's another one I like. Frank said it was his habit to miss a target intentionally a couple times to work up the interest of the audience, but on the night of Annie's first big show, tries he might, after he intentionally missed a few times, then he could not hit the mark when he was trying to. And he missed over and over, about a dozen times. And then a burly spectator staggered up to the front of the house, pointed at Annie and

shouted, let the girl shoot. And he had never practiced the particular shot they'd set up, but Frank said she hit the target on her second try. And then he added, the crowd went into an uproar, and when I attempted to resume my act, I was howled down, and Annie Oakley continued. However it began, Frank made Annie his new partner and the new shooting team of Butler and Oakley was born. Sources don't say but I'm guessing John Graham, a little pissed to be out of a job.

Also guessing George the Poodle was fucking thrilled. Maybe his days of getting apples blast off his head were finally over. They weren't actually, but maybe you could hope that. Annie and Frank Butler based themselves in Cincinnati around this time. Oakley, she took a stage name, Oakley that is believed to have been taken from the city's neighborhood of Oakley, where they resided. Oakley still a Cincinnati neighborhood, about 10,000 people in the outer east side of the city. By the following year in 1883, the young married couple were touring the Vodville circuit on a regular basis and contrast to the behavior of the more risque female performers

of the day, Oakley dressed conservatively, let her rifle do the talking. Butler handed the business and promotional aspects of their act while Oakley became the star on stage, so unconventional in so many ways. Breadwinner wife, breadwinner wife, who is a performer who is not making a living on sex appeal. Husband in the support role, husband who was the star, now taking a backseat to his wife, wife who was a very big star

in a very male dominated arena. All right, all this in the late 19th century. Little is known of Annie Oak these early days on stage except that she and Frank played variety venues and skating rinks, honing their act, living out of a suitcase, staying in inexpensive hotels and boarding houses with George the Poodle.

Anilator said, we never rode in Pullman's those days if we could make a day trip. That extra money meant gloves, hose, and pretty hair ribbons so I could look neat ever rehearsals. Pullmans were like the nicer train carriages, by the way, kind of think a first class tickets on a plane. Annie spent her nights performing and her days practicing the fancy shots at Frank Toddler. George the poodle lurked in the background,

watching from the shadows, staying close enough to not be forgotten, make sure he gets fed, staying far enough away to keep Frank from shooting too many apples off his head. On May 19th, 1883, Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show opens in Omaha, Nebraska. And he has no idea it even exists at this point. This is the show that will make her famous worldwide.

Let's meet Bill in his show. William Frederick Cody born in Lecler, Iowa in 1846. While he was still a child, his family moved to Levinworth, Kansas. Talked about that a lot last week, at least referenced it in the bloody Bender suck. Cody left home with the young age of only 11 to herd cattle and work as a driver on a wagon train crossing the Great Plains several times. What the fuck? How did people grow up so fast back then? How the hell is this dude?

Herding cattle at 11 years old. I was completely worthless at 11 years old. I literally couldn't even beat off yet. Hello and heard some cattle. These 19th century folk, man, they make some of this modern Americans look soft. Bill then went on to do some fur trapping and gold mining. Then joined the pony express in 1860 when he was 14. Of course he did.

I'm surprised he wasn't a grandpa yet by 14. I love that he, I love that he did fur trapping and gold money. Then at 14, joined the pony express. Dude was checking a lot of shit off of a Wild West fantasy bucket list in his young teen years, heard and cattle check, wagon train check, fur trapping, gold mining, Pony Express rider, check, check, check. When he was just 17, he fought in the Civil War for the Union for two years between 1863 and 1865.

About the only thing he didn't seem to do as a young man that was very Wild West was getting to any gunslinger high noon quick draw showdowns. Did shoot dudes though, between his civil war duty and numerous skirmishes with many American Indians, he was rumored to have killed many men as younger years. Then after the civil war, Cody scouted for the army, gained the nickname Buffalo Bill as a hunter. Cody signed a contract to supply the Kansas specific Kansas Pacific railroad workers with Buffalo meat and he sure as shit fulfilled that task. Cody is rumored

to have killed 4,282 Buffalo in 18 months in 1867 and 1868. And then he got his nickname Cody and another hunter Bill Comstock apparently both wanted the nickname of Buffalo Bill, which is hilarious to me, but they both couldn't have it. They agree that they couldn't both have it. One of them got to have it. Two Wild West tough guys, two mighty Buffalo hunters, both named Bill out there going, I'm the one and only Buffalo Bill. The hell you said, Cody, no one shoots more Buffalo than Buffalo Bill Comstock.

Take that lot, you mouth buffalo than buffalo bill Comstock. Take that lie to your mouth, cry baby Comstock. My mama shoots more buffalo than you. No one shoots more buffalo than buffalo bill Cody. I shot three buffalo before they even cut my unbiblical cord. Cody, you never did no such thing. I shot two buffalo just now, while you were spitting out that full lie.

Two? Is that all you shot Comstock here? I killed myself three Buffalo this morning. What I was sitting in the outhouse, preparing my morning, defocation. You get it. I realized both of those guys sounded exactly like, maybe they didn't realize, you know, no, you didn't,

let's do. Comstock, like Cody, was an accomplished dude. He was a noted scout guide interpreter, chief of scouts at Fort Wallace, Kansas. He had the reputation of being one of the most successful Buffalo hunters, if not the most successful on the planes. General George Armstrong, Custer, once described him as perfect in horsemanship, fearless and manner, a splendid hunter and a gentleman by instinct.

And the two men competed in a bizarre eight hour Buffalo shooting match to win the exclusive right to use the Buffalo Bill name. Cody whooped Comstocks asked, he killed 68 Buffalo to Comstocks 48. And then Comstock would take the nickname of medicine bill, which doesn't sound as good. I feel like he did get the short end of the nickname stick. He got this nickname when he cut off a man's finger in order to save him from a rattlesnake bite. This is some Wild West shit.

What an interesting lives these dudes led. Buffalo Bill, Cody's life in the West offered the stuff from which legends were made. He soon was popularized and newspaper accounts and dime novels. And this no to ride, he led to showbiz. That's how to do it in a Wild West. Buffalo Bill's show business career began on December 17th, 1872 in Chicago, and he was 26.

Scouts of the Prairie was a drama created by dime novelist Ned Buntline, who appeared in it with Cody and another well-known scout Texas Jack O'Mehundro. The show was a success despite one critics characterization of Cody as a good looking fellow Tallin straight as an arrow, but ridiculous as an actor. Good thing that critic wasn't a buffalo. Cody would have shot him dead Other critics noted Cody's manner of charming the audience and the realism he brought to his performance actor or not. Buffalo Bill was an entertaining showman. The following season Cody organized his own acting troupe the Buffalo Bill combination.

The troupe show scouts of the planes included Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack, Cody's old friend Wild Bill Hickock. A lot of bills back then. Uh, I had to suck Wild Bill Hickock someday. A lot of yip yip I had to suck Wild Bill Hickock someday, a lot of Yip-Yip-Yah, and that colorful character. Wild Bill and Texas Jack eventually left the show, but Cody continued staging a variety of plays until 1882. That year, the Wild West show was conceived.

It was an outdoor spectacle designed to both educate and entertain using a cast of hundreds as well as live buffalo elk, cattle, and other animals. Cody's partner that first season was a dentist and exhibition shooter, Dr. WF Carver. Cody and Carver took to show subtitled Rocky Mountain and Prairie exhibition across the country to widespread popular acclaimed favorable reviews and launching and they launched a genre of outdoor entertainment that thrived for three decades and survived and fits and starts for almost three more. The idea for a show like that have been around for a long time.

The earliest antecedent to Buffalo Bill's Wild West show may have actually been staged in France in the middle of the 16th century, when 50 Brazilian natives were brought to Ruan to populate a replica of their village, elevated walkways, enabled royal visitors to watch the natives pretend to go about their normal lives,

exotic elements of American Indian life later became staples of European and American circuses. That French show, oh, fucking weird. Literally a human zoo, that a human zoo. Horse shows and manageries with exotic animals had been popular in America since the 18th century, the birth of the Wild West, as a successful genre was largely a product of personality, dramatic acumen and good timing. The Golden Age of Outdoor shows in America began in the 1880s,

and with his theater experience, Buffalo Bill already was skilled in the use of press agentry and poster advertising, his fame and credibility is Westerner, Lent star appeal and order of authenticity. Most importantly, Cody gave the show a dramatic narrative structure features of his show, such as the pony express, the wagon train, attack on the stage coach, recreated specific and well-known events, spectacle such as Cowboy Fun, or the tablo of American Indian life usually served as a prelude to some dramatic events such as a battle scene. It's a big show skill act such as sharp shooting with a pistol and a rifle, wing shooting with the shotgun,

roping and riding, not only showcase star performers, the show's narration linked those skills to survival in the frontier west, making these performances seem important in high stakes. An orator boom, the script to the audience from an elevated platform in the arena. The circus band became the cowboy band and backed the arena action with appropriate mood setting music. The same skits and music were later easily adapted to film and television westerns. This is like the first westerns long before TV. I watched the tone down version of one of these shows in Virginia City, Nevada a few years ago with Lindsay and the kids. This is cool.

I would have loved to have seen Buffalo Bill show. The next 20 years saw the rise and fall of dozens of smaller scale Wild West shows. The most successful was Colonel Fred Cummins, who's Congress at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in 1901, included both Calamity Jane and the great suit leader Red Cloud. That's an appear that we're related. Dig into my family tree at Ancestry.com. Too many crazy Scott Cyrus bastards pointed to America back then. So many different Cummins is in the late 1890s Buffalo bills Wild West show would become

a huge production. It had as many as 500 cast and staff members, including 25 cowboys, dozen cowgirls, 100 Native Americans, women, children, all fed three hot meals a day, cooked on a on 20 foot long ranges. The show generated its own electricity and staffed its own fire department at one point. Performers lived in wall tents during long stands or slept in railroad cars when the show moved daily Business on the back lot was carried on in what one reporter called a babble of languages Expenses were as high as $4,000 a day and by 1899 Buffalo Bill's Wild West was covering over 11,000 miles and 200 days

And given 341 performances in 132 cities and towns across America Wild West show was also an early opportunity for women in show business, with it didn't have to rely on appearing overtly sexy. Women writers at first used side saddles, but by the 1890s, they, you know, would appear as regular ranchers or cowgirls dressed for work and not as objects of attraction. By the turn of the century, it was not uncommon for women like Tad Lucas to ride buck and Broncos in the arena. Women also played traditional dramatic roles as Prairie Madonna's or as American Indian captives. Also, surviving records indicate that Buffalo Bill, at least, paid women equally with men,

which was not the norm. Buffalo Bill, like Annie Oakley, did shit his own way. And Annie Oakley and Frank Butler will meet Bill soon. Now that we know all about Bill, let's jump back into Annie's timeline. March 19th, 1884, Butler and Oakley perform in St. Paul, Minnesota in front of an audience that includes famous American Indian warrior sitting bull who had defeated general George Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. He too was now a performer at this point in his life. Sitting bull was a strange sight to a lot of the white folk of primarily Scandinavian descent living in St. Paul.

His hair long and black parted exactly in the middle. Each half plastered and bound with otterskin and a strand that fell to his waist. He wore a calico shirt, a waistcoat of plush, a brocade, and blue trousers, boarded with a fancy braid and dotted with brass buttons. His feet thrust into moccasins with India rubber soles. He never said, ufta, hangi, bangi, even one time. Trips were nothing new to sit in bull who made his home now with a standing rock reservation at Fort Yates.

He had been to Bismarck to celebrate the opening of the Northern Pacific Railroad, gone along on the last great Buffalo hunt in September 1883 before Buffalo Bill killed them all. Kind of not kidding about all the Buffalo there. Buffalo were way over hunted. Should have mentioned that earlier in the mid 19th century. This is insane to me these stats. In the early 1800s, there were an estimated 50 to 60 million Buffalo, wild Buffalo roaming

the plains of America. By by 1884 there were 325 325 wild bison left in the US 60 million to just over 300 and shit like that is why hunting is now regulated If it wasn't the bad hunters would fuck everything up for the good hunters and there would be no deer elk moose etc to put in your deep freeze fuck everything up for the good hunters. And there would be no deer, elk, moose, et cetera, to put in your deep freeze. Sitting bull was in St. Paul, this March,

with major James McLaughlin, the agent at Standing Rock who accompanied Sitting Bull on a full-blown tour of the city. And on Wednesday night, March 19, Sitting Bull went to the Olympic theater on 7th Street, near Jackson, to see the Arlington and Fields combination, build as the greatest aggregation of talents ever to appear in St. Paul sitting bowl walked to the park. sat down in a prominent seat in box B from there he watched the words brothers do acrobatics

heard miss Ali Jackson singer medley of songs and saw a variety of other performers including anioquely. It was there when any Oakley bounded on stage and snuffed a burning candle out with the bullet. Mesmerized by her marksmanship, the famous chief then sent 65 bucks to her hotel in order to get an autographed photograph. How cool is that? Famous Wild West legend sent him money to Andy's hotel hoping to get a signed picture

for his collection. Uh, Oakley later recalled, I sent him back his money and a photograph with my love and a message to say I would call the following morning. The old man was so pleased with me. He insisted upon adopting me and I was then in their Christian little sure shot. In addition to a nickname that followed Oakley for the rest of her life, Cittin Bull also reportedly gave her a pair of moccasins the pair he had worn at the battle of Little Big Horn.

That's how much he respected her. That's how much he admired her. I love that so much. A sitting bull in any Oakley parted in St. Paul that March, but their past would cross again. Maybe friends for the rest of his life. He headed west back to Standing Rock. She headed east towards Ohio to begin a tour with the Cells brothers circus. The two became even closer friends of following year when sitting bull joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show for a four-month stint. He is a dear faithful old friend and I have great respect and affection

for him, Oakley Road of Sitting Bull. After a couple years on the Vaudeville circuit, Butler and Oakley signed with the cell brother circus for a 40-week engagement in April of 1884. That year, the circus visits 187 towns and 13 states, journeying some 11,000 miles, a lot of time in the railroad. By all accounts, the cell brother circus was something to see. Cells was coming with 50 cages alive wild animals. And as the report in the papers went, just 50, no more no less, embracing every own type of beast bird reptile and deep sea monster. Cells boasted the biggest and only $57,000 pair of stupendous living hippopotamuses. The biggest and only full grown living giraffe, a $22,000 two horned rhinoceros

and the biggest and only 50,000 Arctic aquarium of amphibious monsters. All the stuff, the only, only things that they're kinda traveling around the US at the time. The star of stars, the show, was Emperor, a giant elephant, who led 10 teams of elephants drawing 10 golden chariots. It's how it's described.

And it was also described that the only thing small about the cell circus was Chima, a man build as the Chinese dwarf and a man build as having the smallest adult body that contains a soul. We bit politically incorrect for 2020. Okay, I guess in 1884. This guy was 28 inches tall, weighed 40 pounds and lived to the age of 88 toward for years before retiring to Knox, Indiana. Antioch Lee and Frank were built as champion rifle shots in this entertainment package. And Annie filled in other parts of the circus as well.

She rode side saddle and the Rose Garland Entrez doubled as Mrs. Old 12 in a pantomime in which Frank played Quaker starch back. It was a comic act starring the clown Humpty Dumpty and the pantaloon old one two. One, two in a pantomime in which Frank played Quaker starch back. It was a comic act starring the clown Humpty Dumpty and the pantaloon, old one, two. And any played old one, two's wife that whole season of 1884 as the circus train wound his way from Ohio, Illinois, Kansas, in the Missouri, Arkansas, in Texas. The couple welcomed steady pay, but did grow tired of the incessant travel under difficult conditions. Then in late 1884, tragedy struck. George the Poodle was brought back into the act.

Why does no one care about George? George was old for a Poodle at this point. 14 years old, his hearing was going, animal lovers, this is going to be rough. I'll prep you for this. Frank had developed a slight tremor in his shooting hand around this time and the combination of the tremor and George's age would prove to be pretty tragic. To up the anti-makers old trick, more dramatic Frank started against Annie's wishes, placing crab apples instead of full-sized apples upon George's head. If you've never seen a crab

apple, they are considerably smaller than a golden Fuji or red delicious. And one night in Omaha, Frank's aim was off. Too far off to hit such a little apple, and apparently Frank shot George in the right ear close to the skull in front of the crowd. And it was terrible. People were screaming, children were crying, one woman fainted. The dog would live,

but his entire right ear would have to be removed. And he would suffer permanent hearing loss. But Jango's not enjoying this part of the story. His hackles are up. And unfortunately, this would not be George's last performance. permanent hearing loss. Bojangles not enjoying this part of the story. His hackles are up. And unfortunately, this would not be Georgia's last performance. Frank was determined to teach George to enjoy performing again. As soon as the bandage, oh my God, was off his head.

George was back up on stage. Another tiny apple perched on his now one eared head. Bojangles just snapped at me. Easy Bojangles. I didn't do it. Frank Butler did. Bad dog. I need to muzzle Bojangles for this next

part. Actually, I don't. He just left the studio. Okay. In Amarillo, not more than a month later, George misses an important cue. Probably due to his hearing loss and Frank fires as the poodle moves and he shoots the dog in his right front leg, shattering the bone and he rushes to the stage, picks George up, carries him off a vet backstage is able to save his life. But unfortunately, the leg is lost. And more, unfortunately, Frank Boller is not done with this trick. Oh my God. Even though Annie is now threatening him with divorce, Frank consists of the dog still wants to perform. He says he can make him enjoy. He brings George back on stage about a month later. Why does no one care about the George? And the next few performances somehow. Why does no one care about the George?

And the next few performances somehow go okay, but then in Charlotte, George now struggling to sit still and balance his apple over. Corrects sits up to straight as Frank shoots Frank shoots this poor creature through the left eye. Three people faint, two men try to fight Frank. Any again runs on stage grabs your and fucking somehow this dog still lives. Once healed, it's never the same though. It's skittish.

Of course, it is. It's afraid of everything. Sad site to behold, a pain's Frank to see his dog this way. He knows he's responsible and he selfishly decides to put it out of its misery. I think he kind of tried to put his own misery out and he takes the dog out back behind and his dressing room and he kills it. And, you know, sad, but I guess it could be worse. We do also remember in moments like this,

when I'm talking about things like this, that George was not a person, you know? That's just an animal. People get pretty worked up about dogs getting shot and stuff, but it's really not that big of a deal. December 13th, 1884, the sales circus season concludes in New Orleans at the industrial and cotton exposition.

City was decked out in flags, bunting flowers. New Orleans was ready to celebrate the 100th year since America had exported its first cotton. Exhibits from every state and territory already crowded the floor. In the main exhibition building with the fair, Texas loaned ship 360 varieties of grasses, 21,000 plants. Philadelphia was talking about lending the Liberty Bell. And Dakota had shipped a carload of wild animals. The fair director, Mr. Dabney was in a pickle because he had no place to keep the bears in the wolves. It was going to be a big show.

George the Poodle was even going to appear at it. I know. I know. He's dead. But Frank had him stuffed after killing him, putting back in the act. And the trick worked better than ever because now George could finally sit perfectly still. And while I'm guessing most of you know this by now that I made up all the horrible, horrible, recent George to put it will get in shot multiple time stuff and then sent to a taxi dermis. For anyone who doesn't already know, for the seven people still listening, George is fine. I hope that your anger at me for telling such a disgusting, made up animal abuse nonsense story is overshadowed by the joy you now feel knowing that George is fine. Okay.

So people do care about the George. He's fine. He'll die in 1886 of natural cost as far as I can tell. Both Frank and Annie would continue to shoot Apple's office fuckhead though this whole time, which I think is so insane. Back to New Orleans, December 13th, 1884, when everyone is fine,, including poor George 25,000 visitors stream into the city. It took furnished rooms for 75 cents a day, look for things to do. The circus played every day, but attendance buried with the weather, rained often and often and hard that December. And if the cells, brothers

had hoped to stay in New Orleans, at least until the cotton exposition opened the persistent rain, then changed their minds. They closed the circus after only two weeks, packed their bags for home, leaving Annie and Frank without jobs. Frank started looking for jobs, for them almost immediately, taking out an advertisement in the trade publication,

the Clipper, Butler and Oakley, premium shots, it said, we'll close a 40 week season with sales brothers and normas shows in New Orleans, Louisiana, shortly, and we'll have a new and novel act for variety theaters, combinations or skating rinks. I love that they perform a skating rinks. Never before introduced. Address Frank Butler, Cells Brothers Show, New Orleans, Louisiana.

A also in town is Cody's Wild West Show and the Butler's asked him for a job. The Buffalo Bill already has a champion shooter named Captain Bogartis. So he turns them down at this point. Let's meet this guy real quick. Captain Adam Bogartis, interesting figure. And he was only nine years old when Captain Bogartis made a name for himself by killing a hundred pigeons in a row without a miss. Awesome for Bogartis.

Terrible for the pigeons. That same year, 1869, he also bet a Mr. RM patch in a thousand dollars that he could kill 500 pigeons and 645 minutes. The captain did it with 117 minutes to spare. More awesome for Bogartis, more tragic for pigeons. By 1871, Bogartis had defeated the champion shooter in his home state of Illinois and taken the national title. Captain Bogartis was performing in Buffalo Bill's show with his sons Eugene Edward Peter

and Henry and was also a part owner. Champion shooters were pretty plentiful in the 1870s and 1880s and Captain Bogartis was we know the most famous of a long string of exhibition shooters. His most celebrated and flamboyant rival was a man named Doc Carver. Exhibition shooters are pretty new phenomena on the data to the early 1800s when shooters performed with circuses, but it wasn't until the 1880s that they really achieved, you know, significant popularity. It was a time when the public liked a good show and when guns were a familiar part of American life, you know, part of Annie's fame does lay in the timing of,

you know, her being good at what she was good at. Had she been born 20 or more years sooner, 20 or more years later odds are, wouldn't be talking about her right now. She was very good at something that became very popular at the right time for her. Fancy shooters were becoming so common by the 1880s that even a 12 year old girl was calling herself the champion rifle shot of the world. Her name was Miss Lillian F. Smith of Watsonville, Santa Cruz County, California. She held a $500 wager that she could break 1,000 glass balls in 50 minutes. And with shooters becoming more and more popular, the variety circuit was becoming less and less lucrative for them.

The market was flooded by 1884. So many fancy shooters were on the stage that even Annie's edge as a woman had grown thin. Frank said he knew of at least 20 women and girls in industry at that time. But few of any of them were as good of a shot as Annie. Many of them were more con artist than crack shots. There was a lot of cheating in the trick shot world. Cheaters were so common, in fact, that the London referee declared that at least one half of all fancy shooters accomplished their feats by trick and device. Knocking the ashes off a cigarette hanging off of the Smokers' lips, for example, which

become one of Annie Oakley's most famous stunts was an easy trick to perform by cheating. The shooter and his accomplice simply ran a wire through the cigarette. At the report of the gun, the accomplice would touch the wire with their tongue, knocking off the ashes. So insane to me that anyone would be cool letting anyone else shoot the ash off their cigarette for real while they smoked it. Like if George truly understood why the apples on his head were exploded, I'm guessing he would have ran away.

Human beings did understand what was happening. They're like, yeah, what could go wrong? And shit could go wrong. I couldn't find a Wild West example doing a little googling, but I did find an example from 1963, a 39 year old trick shot artist named Milo Plouf was putting on a show in California. His 15 year old daughter had two balloons tied to her head. He would fire two pistols at the same time to pop them both. And he popped the right balloon with his right pistol and then the bullet from the pistol on his left hand popped his daughter's brain. He shot her in the head

and fucking killed her. Of course, that's going to happen. You do this kind of stuff. Apparently he was no anti-ocly Frank Butler back to cheating. Sorry, there's so many interesting side roads in today's suck. Even Andy's candle trick, which had impressed sitting bull could be done by cheaters instead of placing the candle out in the open, cheaters would put it in front of a block of wood. And if the bullet hit anywhere within three inches of the candle, the concussion from the bullet bouncing back off the wood was enough to snuff out the candle. Frank told the story of one faker he had seen doing a piano trick in a New York theater. The man played a tune by hitting discs that hung from each piano key halfway through the act though, his gun jams and then the piano kept on playing. The man's accomplice in the orchestra

apparently failed to see what was happening and just kept on playing. So bad night for that dude when he was laughed out of the theater, when the job didn't come through with Buffalo Bill, Annie and Frank packed their bags headed north with George the Poodle and spent the winter playing variety of theaters on their own. A March 9th 1885 after his shooting equipment is lost in a steamship accident. Captain Bogartis quits Cody show. He and his sons are out. And Oakley promptly renews her request for a job. I wrote to Colonel Cody right away and asked for an engagement, she later wrote. Cody responded, but bucked at the salary she was asking for.

According to Annie, he expressed an opinion that my terms were too steep. In the way she wrote that, it makes me think Buffalo Bill wrote something back to the effect of, get the fuck out of here. At this time, Bill Cody show happened to be about $60,000 in debt and taken on a new high salary was the last thing Buffalo Bill needed.

He also worried that Annie couldn't handle the rigors of the job. He thought that a tiny woman might not have the strength to fill Captain Bill Gartis' big, Bogartis shoes. The captain's shotguns weighed 10 pounds each. Despite all that, in audition is arranged. Buffalo Bill agrees to have a tryout with Annie, an April tryout, Louisville, Kentucky. Annie says that she'd like to travel for three days,

and if he wasn't satisfied after that, she would leave with no pay, no questions asked. With Cody's offer in hand, Annie and Frank had a Cincinnati to start training before the tryout, they're taking it seriously. Annie spends most of April at a city gun club practicing at the trap shooting range to prove her stamina, as well as to gain some practice with the shotgun. She attempts the greatest endurance

beat of her life. She takes three 16 gauge Parker shotguns and tries to break 5,000 glass balls in one day, justice.carver and captain Bogartis had done. She loads her own guns, stands 15 yards from the traps. After nine hours of shooting. She's broken 4,772 balls. Out of the second, she hits 984, when she said it was a record for that time, man or woman. While preparing for the audition while doing this, Oakley catches the attention of Cody's business manager, Nate Salisbury, who says some version of fuck a three-day trial period, you're hired. That season she goes on to appear before 15 or 150, excuse me, 1000 people in 40 cities and Oakley will perform in Cody's Wild West show for almost all the next 17 years. Speaking about her hiring and what Salisbury told Buffalo Bill,

she later said, I afterwards heard that he told Colonel Cody that I was a real daisy and completely laid the captain away in the shade. According to Annie, Salisbury ordered $7,000 worth of printing about her and impressive amount of advertising considering she was an unknown and the show's advertising rarely named specific performers. He was blown away. She secured a solo spot on the program immediately, built simply and modestly as Annie Oakley, the peerless wing and rifle shot. In the early year, she appeared midway through the program after the ride in the pony express and Buffalo Bill's duel with yellow hand. But in time, she secured the number two spot right behind Buffalo Bill himself. She eased

audiences into her act using a light load of shot at first, gradually increasing it. She didn't just walk into the arena. She tripped in from the grandstand gangway, waving, bowing, or bowing, excuse me, blowing kisses. She wore a skirt that fell just below her knees and a blouse that hung loosely about her waist. This allowed her freedom of movement necessary for a shooter. Her outfits were simple, but they were not plain. She embroidered flowers on her skirts, stitched ribbon trim along the hams.

A skill she had learned years ago at that dark county infirmary. The skirts were a-line or pleated. usually blue or light brown, her white collars were starched, giving her a wholesome well-pressed look. And she stood out amongst the rough characters of the Wild West show. As her act began, she ran to the center of the arena where she took her place by a plain wooden table, draped with a silken cover and laden with rifles and shotguns, Frank stood by unannounced to load the traps and release the clay birds.

They came singly at first and then in pairs, triplets and finally four to time and any broke them all, never hesitating, often not missing. In addition to being fast, she was also ambidextrous. For another part of her actually take a pistol on her left hand, one on her right firing them simultaneously, breaking target after target, two targets at a time. She smashed balls, fired in a rifle, held upside down over her head, while she was lying on her back across the chair. Sometimes she broke balls fastened at the end of a rope, or to the end of a rope, that Frank would twirl around his head.

She was an unbelievably good shot. I watched an old video of her. I'll talk about later. And basically, if you've watched videos of like Jimmy Hendrix, playing the guitar, Annie was like that, but with a gun. It was as if it was just a part of her body, like her skill level just out of this world is insane.

At 30 paces, she could split a playing card held edge on. She could hit dimes tossed into the air, like that's, I don't even, I can't even process that, dimes. She would shoot cigarettes from her husband's lips, shoot playing cards thrown into the air like that's that's I don't even I can't even process that dimes. She would shoot cigarettes from her husband's lips. She would playing cards during the air. She could riddle a playing card with several holes before it touched the ground. She was an elite athlete truly. And one feat annihilated shotgun in the dirt about 10 feet on the far side of her gun table. She would hurry back around to the other side of the table, wait for Frank to spring a clay bird into the air. As he released it from the trap, she would run forward, hurdle the table, and her dress pick up her shotgun, break the bird before it landed.

She only had four or five seconds to do all this from the time that the bird was released before it would hit the ground. She wasn't just fast and accurate with the gun. She was fast on her feet, too. No wonder she's such a badass hunter. And she saved her best trick for last. It required one rifle, five shotguns and 11 balls. She laid the shotguns on the gun table all neatly in a row.

The rifle she took in her hands had been turned upside down. Frank stood ready to throw up some glass balls. As the first one went up and he broke it with a charge from her inverted rifle, she would drop the rifle, pick up a shotgun, discharge both barrels, break two more balls in a flash, put the shotgun down, pick up another one, discharge both barrels again, shout out to more balls, exchanging guns five times like that until she had broken nine glass balls, and for the last two balls, she'd kick Frank in the fucking nuts! Boom!

Nice! Oh, no. Well, Frank would drop to the ground and, uh, yeah, no. Well, Frank would drop to the ground and, yeah, no. Now, she'd exchange guns five times so she broke an 11 glass ball. The stunt, the Toronto mail-in express was her cleverest number accomplished in the wonderful short time of 10 seconds.

She did all that in 10 seconds. 1886, the Wild West show spends a summer performing on Staten Island. New York was the richest city in the U.S. in 1886. Manhattan already had an impressive skyline, electricity, thousands of telephones. The new Brooklyn Bridge span the East River, architects were planning the first skyscraper with a steel skeleton, the 11 story tower building at 50 Broadway. The city's population had already reached one and a half million and almost 360,000 would

attend any shows that summer. Taking a ferry from Manhattan passed the brand news to actual liberty, said to be dedicated that fall, then riding a newly constructed rail line four miles to the event grounds. On Saturday, July 24th nearly 28,000 people showed up so many that the Wild West couldn't seat them all. The Wild West show. Also this summer, a 15 year old female sharpshooter named Lillian Smith joins Cody's show

and quickly becomes Oakley's rival. Smith is built as the California Huntress and champion girl rifle shot. Smith begins bragging that Annie Oakley's done for. Now that she's joined the show, 26 year old Oakley, who did look quite young for her age, responds by lopping six years off her publicized age, now telling the press that she was born in 1866, and we're just 20 years old, a little illustration

of how proud and competitive Annie Oakley was, and also super annoying that she did that because it fucked our timeline. It made it really hard to remember like which states go where? Because of the fact that she tried to change her age later. Oakley refused to let Lily and outshine her, even if it meant working while she was ill, which is exactly what she did during the big opening day parade that summer in New York. And he was determined to be in the parade, even though she was running a high fever caused by some random bug that had flown into her right ear, lodged near her ear drum shortly before the Wild West

set up camp on Staten Island. Frank had tried unsuccessfully to wash this bug out with some oil. Couldn't get it out. She's still going to perform on the morning of the parade and he hurries to a doctor who gives her a leech to drought to bug. She takes it heads back to camp, finds that everyone was ready to head to Manhattan Manhattan for the big parade. She lands with the troop of 23rd Street and though feeling weak joins the parade goes up to eighth avenue to 42nd Street over to 5th Avenue by the time it ended and it was two week to even climb off her horse. Frank and Nate Salisbury rush over, lift her up, carry her back to the boat. Frank now applies the leads to doctor given her. She just rushed off earlier without even, you know, given her treatment ago, blood spurts and her ear bleeds for five hours. That's so gross. The next morning

the doctor comes in, says she has blood poisoning. She's bedridden for four days, on the fifth day against the doctor's and her husband's wishes. She decides she has to perform. She makes her way into the arena, is so weak she has to lean against her gun table while she shoots. Those four performances she missed would be the only performances she missed in 17 fucking years. With Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.

I like it! She was a tiger! October 7, 1886, Annie Beats a well-known English shooter, William Graham, in competition even though she was wounded. The day before she and Frank had went out to practice, Annie smashed 25 targets and handed the gun to Frank so he could give a try at the birds. She walked over to the trap, slides in a target form, as she pulls her hand out, the spiral spring flies out with a zing, striking between the first and second fingers on our left hand and cutting it pretty badly.

She hurries to a doctor who closed the wound with stitches puts her arm in a sling. He forbids her from participating in the match and then the next day Annie tries to explain to Graham what has happened. He's understanding they can't do it. The organizers of the match however less understanding and insist that the match continue. Annie says, essentially, fuck it. I'm going to shoot one handed. She was to shoot 11 birds. In the 10, she manages to shoot easily the first 10. On the 11th, she cuts the tail feathers off clean, but the bird keeps going. Not one to give up.

She pulls her hand out of the sling to get a better grasp on the gun for one more shot and it rips out her stitches. Frank then runs into the arena announcing the matches over and Annie leaves a mid-definite cheering with her hand covered in dripping blood covered in blood and dripping blood. She's tough lady. And the winner of 86 87 Buffalo Bill takes the show indoors debuting the revamped Wild West show in front of 6,000 people in Madison Square Garden, the day before Thanksgiving, Annie Oakley playing the garden. Very cool. March 31st, 1887. Oakley and the rest of Cody's performers depart New York for London on the steamer, state of Nebraska. Some 180 horses, 18 buffalo also make the trip. Before Annie heads out she takes a train to Ohio to say goodbye to her mom and her second

stepdad, Joseph Shaw. Frank worried that American fans will forget about his wife while she's gone. Takes out an ad in the New York Clipper, dated April 2nd, 1887 in big bold letters it reads, don't forget this. There is only one in Eoclid and she leaves for Europe with the Wild West. I love it. March 9th, 1887. The American Expo opens in London with a short prayer by Canon Farah, a welcome by Lord Ronald Gower and the singing of the star-spangled banner in rural Britannia. A band strikes up Dixie and with that the crowd makes a mad stampede, not for the main exhibition, but for the covered bridge that led over some railroad tracks to the Wild West camp.

The Daily Telegraph would report not a soul stayed behind to look at the false teeth or linger over the iron clad brand duster. That's pretty boring. Those things. The Wild West show was all the talk and Londoners who soon dubbed it the Yankees flocked to its circular grandstands from the first moment it arrived. The crush and fight and struggle amongst both quadrupeds and bipeds to reach the gates of the Yankees was for some hours something

terrific. The evening news reported on the first day, 10,000 people were smart enough to show up early take the best seats in the grandstand of full hour before the show was set to begin. All the world and his wife were there, wrote a reporter. It was a fashionable and distinguished throng indeed, the cream of London society. The famous English stage actor Henry Irving was there as were Irish as was Irish writer Oscar Wilde, a lady ran off Churchill wife of a British statesman, mother of Winston Churchill, playwright William Gilbert, composer Arthur Sullivan, many others. According to the evening news, indeed everyone who was known in London's innermost literary and dramatic circles was there. For the rest of the run, the Wild West show would draw 30 to 40,000 people a day.

In the course of its run, the show would attract both Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales. After Annie's performance one night, Prince Edward called her up to the royal box to congratulate her, as she approached, she extended his hand over the box, expecting a handshake, and Annie, for a moment, ignored it. She turned instead to princess Alexandra shook her hand first and said to Prince Edward, you'll have to excuse me please because I'm an American and an America ladies come first. So it's a maverick showing the future king how shit was done in America. The press has a field day with this noting Annie's horrendous social faux pas and he doesn't care. She said she did it on purpose. She said she intended to snub Prince Edward who was a known ladies

man and was rumored to have had an affair with the English actress Lily Langtree. Alexander had been married to Edward for 24 years, had long since accepted her husband's infidelity and he had not any wrote later in her autobiography that it was worth the bad press to see the pleasantly surprised look on Alexandra's face. This, uh, this, uh, apparently didn't hurt any socially, uh, in American who visited one of that summer reported, Miss Oakley is a great favorite here. She is invited out nearly every day to some reception or another. Her tent was full of flowers.

And as the newspaper, the referee reported the loudest applause of the night is reserved for Annie Oakley. Annie felt so welcome in England that for a time that summer she considered making it her permanent home. She said, I like England immensely and could talk a lot about it, but do not want to sicken you with any outburst of full-sum adulation. I know this much that if I had my mother living with me here, I should be in no hurry to get back to the States.

This country is quite good enough for me. But she didn't stay because of Mama. After all they went through together as a kid, that makes me super happy to hear. The best shot in the world would live anywhere, be loved anywhere, needed to get back to America because you love her, her mama with all her heart. June 11, 1887, Annie is roundly applauded as the gun club president, Lord Stormont. Hands her a souvenir of her visit, a handsome gold medal. It's faced with beautifully engraved with the drawing of Notting Hill and the shooting

enclosure there and on the claps were the words presented to Miss Antiochly by the members of the London gun club June 11th, 1887. The medal said to be the first ever awarded by the club would always be Annie's favorite. It was the one she would wear front and center at publicity photos. It was a valuable metal, larger than a five-sheeling piece. More important than that, it told that she had mastered the blue rocks. And then she had found acceptance among the highest class of London shooters. It was on the back of the London gun club metal that Annie would have engraved the words.

She said, we're spoken to her by Prince Edward. I know of no one more worthy of it. So I guess Prince Edward hadn't been too mad after all. How great must that have felt to be embraced like that and London for Annie? The girl who grew up in dark county Ohio, so poor her mom had to send her for an orphanage, or two an orphanage for a few years. A girl who'd been the child's slave to the wolves for two years. A girl who was about as country's country got, not able to go to school for long stretches had to hunt as a teen to keep her mom from losing

another farm. Now the toast of London, beautiful rags to Rich's tail. July 19th, 1887. Annie's rivalry with Lily and Smith is still on. Lily and Annie are busy preparing for a rifle competition in Wimbleton, a London suburb. I heard of it. Put on by Britain's rival association, Lily and appeared on Tuesday, July 19th, accompanied by a number of cowboys and other celebrities. Miss Smith herself noted the weekly dispatch presented a striking combination of native eccentricity and feminine slavishness to the dictates of fashion. And these people really fucking wrote a sentence back then. She wore a white summer dress in congruously accompanied by yellow silk Mexican sash and plug head.

When they came to the running deer target, Lillian's shooting was a disaster. First two bullets missed the target entirely. The two shots hit the metal deer's haunch, embarrassed Lillian claims that the gun was too heavy and she would return on Thursday with her own gun. However, she did not return. And she didn't pay a fine, I guess she was supposed to pay for hit net deer hodge.

Lillian was then roasted in the press and the press and it was quite a different story when Annie Oakley showed up and wimbleed in the next day. Not a flash. She dressed her brand of any means, any competes at the same metal running deer event dressed. Plainly, the papers report that she did much better than Lillian and Prince Edward pushed with the crowd to congratulate her. Feels like the ladies, man, Prince Edward wanted to do more than that, more than congratulate her. I like the ladies man Prince Edward wanted to do more than that, more than congratulate her. I guess an Annie and her husband Frank had lots to say about him

in their private moments. Annie's success reflected badly on Lily and Smith, especially because Lily and was considered to be the Wild West rifle expert, and he was the shotgun expert and now had beaten Lily and at her own game. Halloween 1887 Oakley quits the Wild West. Just as it finishes, London run, why? It sounds like because she found a way to make even more money. During the end of the run and afterwards, she was giving shooting lessons and was being paid for exhibitions at local

gun clubs. Though compensation was never mentioned beforehand, Annie said the clubs always slipped her 50 pounds, 250 bucks at the time, And one week she made 750 bucks, equivalent to over 20,000 bucks today, solid week's wage. The Butler's party with Buffalo Bill happened quietly, mentioned only in a short note in the evening news on October 31st, 1887. By the way, the note read, the show will lose one of its principal attractions in the purpose in the person of Miss Annie Oakley, who severed her connection with the Wild West voluntarily. Her lost to the Wild West show will be a serious one. Around the same time, a novel was published called

The Rifle Queen. With its 64 pages, it was the truthful and stirring story, quote unquote, of Annie Oakley, published by the general publishing company, 280 The Strand London. Not sure if she got paid for this extremely distorted unofficial biography or not. The two penny book told how Annie grew up in Kansas.

She didn't. She had many adventures there. There she killed the unscrupulous scoundrel, dark emerald. Doesn't exist. She also put a bullet through the eye of a panther. Shot a wolf. She tried to skin that wolf,

but then it was still alive and his jaw clamped on her arm. Chapters of the rifle queen were full of Annie's adventures and where she met up with some dude named Mac, a Desperado, she backed a bear, she survived a blizzard, she saved an entire train from robbers. Apparently there was not literally an ounce of truth in the rifle queen. Like this dude didn't interview her at all, he just fucking made up whatever sounded right about Annie Oakley. Also apparently she wasn't angry about it because it pushed her legend to even greater heights.

Sounds kind of cool. I want someone to publish one of these type of biographies about me, but they're not bound by the truth. Like what if today's time suck was brought to you by this sponsor? Order your advanced copy of the Suck Master today. The all-true story of podcaster, comedian, international powerlifting champion, great white shark trainer, fitness model,

explosives expert, undefeated heavyweight UFC champion, monster truck stunt driver, polyf Fame 10 times Super Bowl winning quarterback brain surgeon time machine inventor cult leader one world government president for life the man unanimously voted best husband

most sexually desirable male greatest father by literally everyone on earth including himself sure now you know Dan Cummins is the most successful human who ever lived! But do you know where he came from? How did he transform from a poor rural Idaho kid with a giant head, small mouth, trouble speaking, weirdly skinny body, into an apex predator,

with the world's biggest, hardest penis? It wasn't easy. You had to pay a lot of dues to make it to the top. For many years, she raised enough money to free himself from his backwood surroundings. Dan recorded video of himself giving blow jobs to farm animals, and he sold those videos behind the local grocery store dumpster. Then used that money to buy and sell illegal assault rifles to kindergarteners, while also working as an underground fight promoter, arranging death matches

between orphans and wild bears he would feed nothing but cocaine. Before starting off in comedy he moved to the Ukraine and worked as a human sex trafficker, kidnapping disabled widows and selling them to snuff film producers. You know what? On second thought, I would rather not have a fake biography. I really like the first part of my fake bio. I hated the origin story section. If I want to have a fake biography, I'm going to definitely need to hire a better fake author than whoever that fake asshole was.

So please disregard all of that. Let's get back to any story, the real one. April 2, 1888. Oakley returns to the stage, debuting at a variety show in Philadelphia. Did America remember her? They sure shit it. She plays the sold out shows.

Annie performs with Tony Pastor's company at the Criterion in Brooklyn, the Howard, Antenim in Boston and Jacobin Procter in Hartford. Before the year ended, she'd set an American record at doubles by scoring 25 pairs in a row. On another day, she defeated New Jersey State shooting champion Miles Johnson, who reportedly had never been beaten on New Jersey soil.

Between 15 and 31,000 people watched the match. Holy shit. So many that traps had to be moved farther out three times because the crowd kept overflowing from the grandstand. Annie missed only her 47th bird with the mist she turned to Johnson said, did you bring that bird from England? He replied, no, I trained that fellow in order to get in one miss on you. And he didn't win every match almost, but not quite.

Even Michael Jordan and his prime didn't make all his buzzer beater shots. And he lost at least two during 1888, one to her old friend, Albandol, of Cincinnati, 10 to 9. And one to her new friend Phil daily junior of long branch to Jersey 43 to 42. My God, each loss. She only loses about one shot. Clearly this never phoned it in.

Even in defeat, anyone admirers, a reporter from the Philadelphia commercial Gazette who watched Annie lose to Albandon, Bandele said her exhibition was wonderful. And the applause she received, even in defeat, was something to make her proud. In the summer of 1888, Annie Leaves Tony Pastry's company joins up with Buffalo Bill's rival company, the Comanche Bill Wild West Show for $300 a week. The Comanche Bill Wild West Show soon buys the floundering Pawnee Bill Show. How has there so many bills back then? Couldn't anyone name their kid Bob or Hank or Jethro have them open to fucking Wild West Show? This is insane. This is a post-Russ man of bills. On December 24th, 1888, Christmas

Eve, 28 year old Annie does not take the night off, acts in a play called Deadwood Dick or the Sunbeam of the Sierra's. Annie plays Sunbeam, a white girl who grew up among the Indians after she survived an attack on her family's covered wagon. She learned to shoot a garden and showed the audience what she could do by smashing glass balls with unairing aim and then running off stage, leaving the house full of smoke and an astonished audience behind. Pretty good description. Audiences loved it.

Newspapers, more critical. The Philadelphia Press reported on December 25th. The plot is unreasonable and the dialogue is remarkable for its bombastic crudidity or crudity. I don't think anybody ever used that word anymore. So it's profane. Oh well, critics don't pay a performer's bills. The audience does.

February, 1889, after Annie's rival, Lillian Smith leaves Cody's Wild West show. The stage is set for Oakley to return. A newspaper announces she'll be rejoining the show. Now that this other ladies out of there in time for its trip to Paris to participate in the universal expo there. Now, I see you going to France. The Paris exposition, which commemorates the hundredth anniversary of the French evolution, open revolution, opens

in April, features a newly built Eiffel Tower and a Wild West show fronted by Annie. So many visitors were in Paris that the city's population swelled by 200,000 a day All told 32 million people would pay admission to the fair including 90,000 Americans And these performance attracts to remarkable offers This killed me the president of front while the second one does first one's really cool the president of France says She can have a commission of the French army saying when you feel like changing your nationality in profession There is a commission awaiting you in the French army People lover they're like we're ready to take her England, now ready in France to put her in the army. As we learned in the Joan of ArcSuck, there was historical precedent in France for bad ass war uresses.

And then this is the one that killed me. The king of Senegal, approaches Buffalo Bill, wants to buy Annie for 100,000 francs. So he can use sort of kill tigers that are playing his country. Clearly, things worked a little different in Senegal at that time. As a dude, Caesar is like, I would like to buy the woman. How much? So this is a theatrical performance, not a slave auction. Please return to your seat and shut the fuck up. Annie declines both offers. But upon meeting, famed inventor Thomas Edison, she has a request of her own, she wants to know if he can design an electric gun. Edison says he'll consider it. When the Wild West show ends up in six months, when the Wild West show ends its six months,

I cannot talk to the Paris engagement in the fall of 1889. Too much info to get out in too little time. Coating his company began on a three year tour of Europe. This three year tour only cements Oakley as America's first international female star. She earns more than any other perform in the show, except for Buffalo Bill himself, also performed in many shows on the side for you.

More income and Europe she performs for Queen Victoria, King Umberto of Italy, President Marie François Sadi Khanah of France, other crowned heads of state. Oakley even supposedly shoots the Ashes off a cigarette held in the mouth of newly crowned German Kaiser Wilhelm II at his request. Crazy. December 29th, 1890, Annie and Frank are spending Christmas at the Royal Oak Hotel in Ashford Kent when Annie picks up a newspaper. Read some pretty startling news, reads that she's died.

The article says that she has died of congestion of the lungs in Buenos Aires. The report, apparently, first published in a French newspaper on December, yeah, that same day was picked up by many other newspapers, Annie's obituary appearing all over Europe in America. Poor Annie Oakley dies in a far off land. The greatest of female shots reported the Cincinnati commercial on January 2nd, 1891. And his mother cries for two days when she reads the news in the in the North Star paper. Even Buffalo Bill, who had returned to the US for the winter, did know to think he sent three cables to Frank, anxiously awaited

for an answer. The response came back shortly. Annie just finished a full Christmas platter. No truth in report. And Cody wrote back, I'm so glad our Annie ain't dead, ain't you? Very much alive. Annie rejoins the Wild West for a second tour of Europe in April, 1981. The show opened in Germany, then made stands in Belgium and Holland, then cross the North Sea into England for a long tour of the British Isles. The show played Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol, Lister, Birmingham, Brighton, Portsmouth. Before crossing the border into Wales, then Scotland were set up for the winner in the East End exhibition building on Duke Street in Glasgow, October 27, 1892. 32-year-old Annie returns to America, a superstar superstar with newspapers clamoring for interviews in the public hanging on her every word. She makes 150 bucks a week at the Buffalo Bill Wild

Lesho not as much as she'd made in Europe at different points, but still a fortune in a day when the average worker in the US made 483 bucks a year. May 1st, 1893, the Chicago Columbia Exposition Opens commemorating the 400th anniversary of Columbus Landing in the Americas. Been a while since we visited that expo, we have visited it before on a much darker episode. Remember which one long time suckers? 19th century serial killer, H.H. Holmes. He was running his infamous murder castle scheme during the expo, making some tourists disappear forever and that Terrifying house luckily he was not interested in married women or high profile types like Annie Oakley

Also, there's likely she would have shot him dead if you would try to do anything although the Wild West show not part of the official white city exposition It actually opened five days before in April 26 It does track some of the biggest crowds of the expo or in the city that year, record crowds in the venue across the street. This year will be Cody's best with the show playing before six million people making a profit of $1 million equivalent to almost 30 million today. On Sunday, October 8th, for example, the Wild West took in $19,000 and just two performances. In December, 1893, the butlers move into a new home in Nuttley, New Jersey, 304 Grant Avenue, more than a thousand miles from the Wild West, where she never lived but came to symbolize.

It was a roomy house, said to have cost as much as $9,000, three stories, porch across the front, railed balcony, and a turret at the side. They're crushing it! May 1894, the Wild West show sets up shop for the summer in Brooklyn, but the first time the show can be performed at night thanks to an enormous array of new electric lights. Oakley travels to electric light inventor Thomas Edison's studio in West Orange, New Jersey this summer to give a shooting demonstration in front of another one of his contraptions

called a canettoscope. Edison wants to see if the canettoscope for runner of today's motion picture cameras can capture the smoke from Oakley shots, which it does. Talk about this in a second. October 6, 1894, the Wild West show closes for the season of financial disappointment for Cody. He blames in part on the country's new economic depression and the cost of running the all or running all the electric lights. Oakley and Butler perform in Edison's Connecticut film on November 1st, the little sure shot of the Wild West, an exhibition of rifle shooting at Glass Balls, which was filmed at Edison's Black Maria Studio

by William Heiss. And you can find this video on YouTube or on Annie's Wikipedia page. It is awesome to be able to actually see her shoot. Her aim is so steady, it is unreal. It's like a robot. She's so fast. The video is only 20 seconds long, and I highly recommend you check it out if you like

the story. 1895, in an effort to restore its past profitability, Cody takes his wild away show back on the road, visiting 131 towns. Oakley continues to tour, and will tour for the next several years, Chris Crossy in the country by train while firing in her estimation, more than 40,000 shots a year. Oakley's act is celebrated through the country, but life on the road is beginning to exhaustor. July 4th 1896, Independence Day, the Wild West show plays in Piqua, Ohio. For Annie, this day brings a most special visitor, her mom. Piqua was only about 30 miles from North Star, Susan Shaw rides over with Annie's brother,

her sisters and a number of nest nephews and nieces. It was the first time they'd ever seen Annie perform. Two of Annie's oldest friends, Nancy Ann and Crawford Eddington, a couple that had helped her when she was just a little girl, showed up at the Wild West, a lot a few days later in Bluffton, Indiana. Everyone is so happy to see how well things are going for Annie. Doing what she loves, making an amazing living, a superstar traveling the world,

and still in love with Frank as ever. Frank called Annie Missy, she called him Jimmy, a name that according to Annie's niece, Fern Campbell's Swart Wout, was coin one day when Annie was sick. Annie, Frank came into her room and began to do funny stunts to make her laugh. Now Jimmy, the squirrel does tricks, Annie had said,

the fucking no idea why, just whatever little cute nickname. And from that day on, she called him Jimmy. Frank would keep scrapbooks of their letters, including poems and stories he would write for her, including this one that happened after that little nickname was coined. Jim was a squirrel that lived in a park. He washed his face with his tail and went for a lark. He met a Miss Chipmunk, another kind of squirrel, says Jim. Jim was a squirrel that lived in a park. He washed his face with his tail and went for a lark. He made a Miss Chipmunk, another kind of squirrel, says Jim, she will do for my very best girl.

So he cocked his left ear and winked his right eye. Miss Chipmunk looked bashful but made no reply. But Jim was a squirrel that never would carry. So he made his best bow and asked her to marry. Miss Chipmunk smiled sweetly saying between me and you, this is very sudden, but I don't care if I do. Then they were happiest squirrels could be and lived in a hole in the big Elm tree. They jumped and they played every day in their life for the, for she loved her gym and gym loved his wife. Pretty, pretty sweet that Frank Boller and I hope Lindsey does not listen to this episode because I don't want a new poetry expectation put upon

me. At the end of the 19th century, Oakley promoted the service of women in combat operations for the U.S. for their armed forces. He wrote a letter to President McKinley on April 5th, 1898, said, but in case of such an event, I am ready to place a company of 50 lady sharpshooters at your disposal. Every one of them will be an American, and as they will furnish their own arms and ammunition, will be little if any expense to the government wants to fight for a country. The Spanish-American war does occur but Oakley's offer is not accepted. Teddy mother fucking Roosevelt did however name his volunteer cavalry the Rough Riders after

the Buffalo Bills, Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the world where Oakley was a major star. To show you how truly famous she was around this time, check this out. In the late 1800s, early 1900s, usheres traditionally punched a hole or two in free tickets to the circus, theater or sporting events in order to differentiate them from those of paying customers when tabulating receipts. The Pock Marks tickets resembled the playing cards Oakley would shoot holes through during her performances, which led to free admissions being referred to as Annie Oakley's.

According to the Dixon baseball dictionary, the term also became part of baseball lingo to refer to a walk because it was a free pass to first base in Annie Oakley. July 25th, 1900, Annie performs in her hometown, a Greenville, Ohio. Kind of her hometown. You get it. We went over her bio. It was considered to be your hometown, kind of her hometown. You get it. We went over her bio. It was considered to be your hometown, kind of like Grangel Idaho. Sometimes she's listed as my hometown, even though I'm not in the fucking ballpark or

not a variety, but because I was born, even though I never lived there. For the first time as part of the Wild West show, the travel to Greenville, given a commemorative silver cup by the town's people, Annie says she prizes it more highly than anything ever presented to me. In 1901, the same year as McKinley's assassination, Annie is badly injured in a train accident, but recovers after suffering from temporary paralysis and going through five spinal operations. Five spinal operations in 1901. That sounds absolutely horrific.

She leaves the Buffalo Bill show in 1902, begins a less taxing acting career in a stage play written especially for her, the Western girl plays a role in Nancy Berry, who uses the pistol rifle and roped out smart a group of outlaws. So I guess those back surgeries clearly worked. In 1904, Annie gets slandered in the press for the first time, big time. Yes, there was that lie about her dying, but this is very different. Sensational cocaine prohibition stories were selling well. And newspaper magnet, William Randolph Hurst.

We met him in the strange kidnapping of Patty Hurstsuck. He publishes a false story that Oakley had been arrested for stealing to support a cocaine habit. The woman actually arrested was a burlesque performer who told Chicago police that her name was Annie Oakley, something she made up on the spot. So then a Hurst rice that Annie Oakley was now in prison for stealing in order to get money with which to buy cocaine. Newspapers all around the country print this story.

Most of them then immediately retract it with apologies when they learn of the libelous error. Herst tries to avoid paying anticipated court judgments of $20,000 equivalent to $570,000 in today's money by sending an investigator to dark county Iowa, Ohio. I was, I keep on to call Iowa with the intent of collecting reputation smearing gossip from Oakley's past. The investigator does not find anything. Oakley then spends much the next six years winning all but one of her 55 different

libel lawsuits against various papers. She will collect awards ranging from $900 to $27,500. It doesn't make any money. It ends up losing money when all of her legal and other expenses are factored in. For her, it wasn't about the money. It was about the principal and fuck William Randolph Hurst, but he could have just paid a big settlement. He had so much money. He could have paid a big settlement for his big mistake, but he chose not to. Everything I read about that guy, especially in his later years, it seems like a fucking dirtbag. Successful, but dirtbag. August 18th, 1908, Annie, who has been a period in various shooting events, learns that her mother has died, returns to Ohio.

Susan experienced a lot of tragedy in her adult life, as we know. But Annie did make sure that for the majority of her life, her mom lived in comfort. And she lived at the age of 76 and is now buried in Mendenhall, Cemetery in Dark County. May 1910 Oakley pays a visit to Cody's Wild West who are then performing again at Madison Square Garden. Buffalo Bill asked her to return, but she declines. She does in 1911 join a rival show called Young Buffalo Wild West and performs with it for the next two years,

although now we're 50 after five spinal surgeries, still keeps up with the show's grueling pace, traveling more than 8,000 miles in 127 weeks span. 1912, the Butler's built a brick bungalow style home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is known as the Annie Oakley House and is listed on the National Historic Register of Historic Place, the National Register of Historic Places.

Cody Show in 1913 goes bankrupt that same year. October 4th Annie Oakley's career in Wild West shows also comes to an end. She retires after performance in Marion, Illinois. The heyday of America's Wild West shows is officially over. Summer of 1915, the Butler's embark on an automobile road trip to visit Buffalo Bill who is now in failing health. Butler's decided to winter in Pinehurst, North Carolina, where Oakley gives lessons to women who want to learn shooting, many, many women, as we mentioned in the open of the show.

Lesson two years later, January 1st, 1917, Buffalo Bill, Cody dies in Denver, Colorado. Neither of the Butler's attend the funeral, bit harder to zip across the country back then. Oakley does compose a eulogy for her old friend that runs in several newspapers. In it, she calls Cody the kindest, simplest, most loyal man I ever knew, the personification of those sturdy and lovable qualities that really made the West. And he continues to set shooting accuracy records into her sixties now also engages in extensive philanthrop philanthropy for women's rights and other causes. She embarked on a sure shot comeback and intended to start a feature length silent movie.

She hits 100 clay targets in a row from 16 yards at the age of 62 and a 19 shoot 22 shooting contest and pine hers North Carolina. Later in 1917 in April, the US enters World War I and Oakley telegraphs the Secretary of War, offering to raise a regiment of women to join the fight. To offer it again to help the government and war, the government does not reply. Oakley ends up giving shooting demonstrations to raise money though. It varies army camps around the country. God love her.

What a fucking badass. Right. She's ready to go overseas, still fight for a country with the regiment of other sharpshooters. When they tell her, no, she doesn't just go sit and soak in the corner. She raises money for the war effort. November 19th, 1922, a car accident in Florida fractures Oakley's hip and right ankle for the rest of her life. She will walk with a leg brace leg brace. Florida. Apparently, they've always had bad drivers. If you live in Florida, you know what i'm talking about uh any eventually performed again after more than a year of recovery and set more shooting records in 1924 because of course she did

she could have lost both legs and both arms netcars since somehow still kept shooting uh December 1924 the butlers moved to date in Ohio and then in uh failing health in the summer of 1926 Oakley moves back to dark county, place of her birth. Anioclydyes of pernicious anemia in Greenville, Ohio at the age of 66 on November 3, 1926. Today, some B-12 vitamins are just a change in diet could have cured this easily. It's a condition where your body just can't make enough healthy red blood cells because it lacks vitamin B12. Damn you old timey doctors.

And he was cremated and our ashes buried at Brock Cemetery near Greenville. And now get your allergy eye pills ready. Maybe grab some allergy tissues. 79 year old Frank so grieved by Annie's death, the death of the love of his life, a woman he'd been smitten with since that Thanksgiving day, 1875 or 50 years earlier, when he met her back

in Ohio for the first time, he stops eating. 18 days later, he dies of starvation, dies of a broken heart, just had zero interest in living in a world without any oakley. First couple of times, I went over that. I had a crazy allergic reaction. Thinking about how powerful their love was, really kind of irritated my eyeballs. Frank was buried next to her ashes.

Both her, both body and ashes were interred in the cemetery on Thanksgiving day, November 25th, 1926. After her death, her incomplete autobiography was given to stage comedian Fred Stone and it was discovered that her entire fortune had been spent on her family and her charities. She was fucking best. 20 years later, May 16th, 1946, Roger and Hammerstein's musical Annie Get Your Guns opens on Broadway in New York City. The show will later be made into a film and then a TV series called Annie Oakley and that will run from 1954 to 1957 and that will take us out of this inspiring time suck timeline. Good job, soldier.

You made it back barely. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! Annie Oakley was fierce, force of nature, a testament to the power of the human will.

When there is a will, there is often truly a way and Annie had so much will in her. But teeth, five foot nothing, and as powerful as I'll get out. Annie did most of what she did living in a time when women were still 40 years away from gaining the right to vote. When women were expected to make a proper home for their husbands and children, let their husbands call the shots. Annie wouldn't do any of that shit. She called the shots. She shot the shots too much loose to feed in her too much fire. Born Phoebe Ann Mozey in 1860 to a very struggling family in Ruraldark County, Ohio. Annie first used her gun to survive, then used to save

her family farm, and then eventually used it to pay off the mortgage on her mother's farm before entering and local shooting competitions at one such competition. This young Annie would meet the love of her life, Frank Butler, who would be with Annie until their deaths in 1926. During her lifetime, Annie would see the world change so much. The American Civil War raged on around her when she was a little kid. She was the major part of the end of the Wild West. She saw the Spanish American War offered to form a command of female sharpshooters, did

that for World War I as well. Saw the invention of the moving picture, was in a moving picture, traveled the world in a way no woman had really ever done before as an international star, meaning entertaining foreign dignitaries and leaders. In a time when people were fast-handed by the bloody battles for survival in the American frontier, Annie used her record breaking unparalleled skills to impress audiences, to build the American legend of the Wild West, build her own legend, used her talents to teach women how to defend themselves, to empower them.

Even after her death, her fortune would go to her family in various charities and the charities would continue to help women. I think I can really begin to see why Frank loved her as much as he did. How can you not love any Oakley? Was there not to love about her and her incredible inspiring story? Let's look at her life a few more times. In today's top five, take away. Time suck, top five, take away.

Number one, any Oakley started using a gun at around the age of eight. Long before she competed, she was using it as a supportive family. Even though her mother banned her from touching her father's gun at one point, and then her mother rethought that policy when Annie used her shooting skills to pay her mortgage off. Number two, at one point, Annie was arguably the most well-known living woman in America really in the world. She delighted thousands of crowds, millions of people broke lots of marksmanship records,

was even the adopted child of sitting bull. Number three, though she would come to symbolize the American frontier in the West, Annie was from Ohio. Legend of the Wild West would drive primarily in Wild West shows that travel to country in any time shows which were the four runners of TV's westerns, westerns like Val Camer's tombstone. Thank you, Annie, for my favorite movie of all time. Number four, Frank Butler and Annie met when she was just a teen.

And they would soon become inseparable and remain together for the rest of their lives, brought together in a competition in which she beat him Frank would never publicly be insecure or jealous of his wife's successes. He took on the role of a manager, made sure that her reputation and career was always on the right track. And he would die just 18 days after she did of essentially a broken heart. And number five, new info. Let's meet another female sharpshooter, our exploration of Annie Lettuce, that I otherwise would not have known about. Umeela Pavoshenko. Umeela would become one of the most famous and deadly shooters of all time, often referred to as the world's deadliest female sniper.

Her nickname is Lady Death. Umeela was born in 1916 in what is now Ukraine, but was then the Russian Empire. When she was 14 her family moved to Kiev, where Umeela joined a paramilitary shooting club enrolled in civilian sniper classes and worked at Kiev Arsenal Factory. At 21 Umeela competed a master's degree in history in the Soviet Union. She was among the first group of volunteers recruited. She was offered

a nursing position because she was a woman. She balked at that offer instead requested to be in the infantry, was given an infantry assignment, placed in the Red Army's 25th Rifle Division after dinner, and she was in the military service. She was in the military service, and she was in the military service, and she was in the military service, and she was in the military service. She was in the military service, and she was in the military service, and she was in the military service, and she was a woman, she balked at that offer instead requested to be in the infantry was given an infantry assignment placed in the red army's 25th rifle division after demonstrating some anti-ocle-esque shooting skills. Numea served for two and a half months near Odessa during which time she had 187 confirmed kills promoted to

senior sergeant. Nazi soldiers in the area knew of Lady Death feared her. Her fellow Soviet soldiers began to see her as a leader and inspiration despite a general lack of tolerance for women in their service at that time. In October of 1941, her unit was relocated to a Sevastopol in Sevastopol. In Sevastopol, Yomila was promoted to Lieutenant and achieved the rest of her total 309 confirmed kills, including 36 enemy snipers.

Wow. Umila became so well known that she was pulled from combat in 1942 and was sent to tour the US, Canada and England to promote the war effort there. In the US, Umila became the first Soviet citizen to be received by US president or by a US president after Frank the long D Roosevelt welcomed her to the White House. The first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt invited Umele to tour the country and speak to Americans about her combat experiences to help raise support for the war.

At first, the American press seemed more occupied with what Umele wore than her achievements on the field of battle. Journalist fired questions at her about whether women could wear makeup on the front line or after a white shoe war uniform that made her look fat Jesus Christ The papers dubbed her the girl sniper belittling her achievements You mean this gracious handling of their questions eventually turn to understandable frustration and she once responded to a journalist I wish you could experience a bombing raid you would immediately forget about your choice of outfit. Fuck yeah, tell her or tell him.

After the war, she finished her education at Kiev University and became historian and I think Annie Oakley would have loved her. Time sucked. Top five takeaways. Annie Oakley has been sucked. A lot of yippee-yay, a lot of mush mouth, which I do apologize for. And what's crazy, it's like when you feel too confident. I felt so confident about at least pronunciations

going into this episode. I was like, yeah, it's fucking this American story. I can speak English and this is gonna be fine. And I put on my, you know, little phonetic spellings into the notes and this is gonna be great. And then my mouth was like, fuck you. Why? Why? Because you made that joke about George the Poodle's gonna be great. And then my mouth was like, fuck you. Why? Why, because you made that joke about George the Poodle,

that's why. I hope you liked her tale as much as I did though. Truly. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help and making time suck each and every week. Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsey Cummins, Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, Scripps Keeper, Zach Flannery,

Sophie Faxx, Source for Sevens, Biddle-Lixer, Logan the Art Warlock, running BadMagicMarch.com and the socials. Liz Hernandez also helping now with the socials. Sophie Faxx source for seven's, Biddle, Biddle Xer, Logan the art warlock running bad magic merch.com and the socials, Liz Hernandez also helping now with the socials thanks to all of those who have joined the Coler the Curious private Facebook group of 23,000 members of a true online community. Now with splinter groups constantly breaking off and all kinds of different ways, all kinds of friendships being made, fun being had, and apparently romantic hookups are happening.

I love it. Luciferina loves it. Captain Whiskerhorn loves it. Sasspurala Spunkmister loves it. Thanks to Liz Hernandez again, and her all-seeing eyes running the Colt the Curious Facebook page. Megan Howe, Ellie Darling, Danny Ryan, Robbie Erickson, Jacob Carey, Kaylee Fitzpatrick, Jeffrey Bistrin, Adam Gustafson, Gustafson, Gustafson. There we go.

Kathleen Solor and Shelley Anninson. I think I got your name right this time, Shelley. Thanks to all the wonderful weirdos having fun over on Discord as well, beef steak and the mod squad of Jesse Becky and Cody. Thank you for having easy names and keeping shit weird and fun. Thanks to all of you, spaces are playing the time. So trivia game on the app, Bodie 210 currently in round fives lead with 4,540 points. New round starts on Monday, December 7th at 3 p.m. Pacific time. Next week on the suck,

a significantly less inspiring tale, but very interesting. The truck stop killer. Robert, I hope you're not inspired by this tale. God, I hope you're not. by this tale. God, I hope you're not. Robert Ben Rhodes, born in 1945, seemed to most like an unassuming trucker. The Iowa native had an idyllic childhood

that ended abruptly. When his dad was arrested for a very alarming crime, and after that thing spiraled out of control, he became a sexual satist, became deeply interested in BDSM, and that interest soon led to rape fantasies, the led to an interest in just straight-up rapes, and murder. Rhodes was a deeply fucked-up individual,

whose identity orbited around mostly causing pain. On the CB radio, on the road, he called himself whips and chains. Estimated by many that he killed over 50 people during his active period from 75 to 1990, most of them young women, and the occasional men who they were traveling with, whom Roads quickly disposed of

before he got to his true sick purpose, rape and torture. He kept his victims alive sometimes for weeks in the back of his truck, which was rigged up like a mobile torture dungeon, reminiscent of the toy box killer setup, with nipple clamps, belts, chains, handcuffs, and much more. Then the young woman's bodies will be dumped their heads and pubic hair shaved. It's just like, it's all out of like a horror movie.

Yikes! Another dirty, dirty dirt bag explored next week. Now let's explore the cult of the curious in this week's Time Sucker Updates. Our first update is an amazing example of Cummins Law, an awesome law enforcement sucker who remains anonymous, very understandably sending this message, I love so much. They write, dear sir, mother sucker, I've emailed you a few times mainly with just the words handy-randy because I still laugh at that shit at least once a week. Anyway, I work in law enforcement and while on duty, I had contact with a guy and long story

short I had to arrest him. The guy was very cooperative and while I was putting him in the cage of my patrol car My phone in my pocket connected to the Bluetooth. I have been listening to the John Hay acid bath killer suck Before I got out of my car When the phone connected it automatically started at the part where you were going ham about Luciferine's body and all her pleasurable nerve centers at the part where you were going ham about Luciferin's body and all her pleasurable nerve centers. I heard up and got the guy in my car, ran around to get in on my side, thinking the whole time, fuck you Dan,

you're fucking coming as long. After turning the volume down, I'm waiting for the guy to ask you what the hell I'm listening to. I hear him from my cage say, hey man, I'm cool with listening to Time Suck a few hours. I said, you're a lizard? He says, yeah, I've been exposed.

So we listened to Time Suck together on the way to jail. I couldn't help but laugh afterwards. Keep on sucking that long hard majestic, sometimes hairy, but always enjoyable time. I love it. Two spaces, one, an officer of the law, one of them who just got arrested and joined suck together on the way to jail.

That cracked me up so much. And thank you, Officer Handy Randy, for what you do. I hope 2021 is a lot easier for you and others in your profession. It seems to have been in 2020. Now a touching message from a grieving, but very grateful super sucker, Robert Hanson, Robert writes, dear Captain Whisk or horn, I have a tale for you back in December of 2015 in the age before all this COVID bullshittery. My mother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and was near inoperable. Fortunately, a miracle happened, and due to the amazing surgeons at UCSF,

she was able to have the tumor removed completely and survive the ordeal. The doctor's warned us that the cancer would return, but if I'm being honest, we were a bit too happy about her survival to focus on that. Then a year passed with no cancer, then another, and a few more. And truth, we all kind of hope it was gone for good. Then just before COVID hit, the tumor came back much larger, far more aggressive. Surgery was an option, but not a good one. So I turned to the cold to the curious for some help.

Thanks to the cold and a local church, we were able to get medical equipment to help my mother in the home. So when COVID hit, my mother did not have to go spend all her time in hospitals alone and in danger of infection. Unfortunately, this did not last and surgery was needed and when you know what, that steel hardened woman made it through a second heavily invasive brain surgery and came home. Then things got worse and very quickly she developed a swelling on her brain from the surgery that would not yield within a month. She could not walk a week after that. She could no longer speak or hold down her food. I had to spend eight days watching her lay in bed, refusing to eat or drink any

water on October 27th. She passed away in her bed surrounded by her children and family and friends. I'm sorry to share such a heart wrenching story, but I haven't been handling my grief. Well, and I needed to share, but that's not the point of this email. The point is to thank you, the people working in the studio, most of Most of all the cold to the curious you gave my mother another year of life You allowed her to meet my now fiance to see us get engaged to reconcile a relationship with her daughter And to allow her to pass how she wanted at home with her family not on a hospital, but alone I cannot thank all of you enough for that gift

Thank you for reading this and an even bigger one if you read it on the show, keep on sucking. Robert, uh, damn, Robert, I am so sorry if you're lost. I cannot imagine also so very grateful that the community that's sprang up around this podcast, the community that has a life of its own very much now, uh, so crazy, uh, that this community was able to help ease your, uh, loss, ease your mother's pain. I hope it continues to be a source of comfort, strength for you and many others. Hail, Nimrod. I hope your mother's spirit is smiling down upon you for whatever world lies beyond this one.

Crazy Zodiac Killer update. Now coming in from Top Shell Sack, Nick Hanson, who writes, Dear Master Sucker, longtime listener, first time emailer. I wanted to write in and share an unconfirmed run-in with the Zodiac Killer that my father-in-law recently shared with me. My father-in-law grew up in the Bay area. He was either late, high school, or very early college

when the zodiac, when the zodiac killings began. He had a Volkswagen camper van decided to take his girlfriend out for a drive to try out the bed in the back of the van. So where does he go? To the area where the zodiac killer has been active. Takes the van, turns off the street to a dirt road. Oh boy, drives a while where they think they can get some privacy, locks the doors, draws the shades around the inside of the whole van so nobody can see inside. He does not share the immediate details with me of what happens next. Thankfully, but eventually they hear another car drive up and someone gets out and starts

walking around their van. This person even tries to open the doors. They hear the footsteps trail off. My father-in-law grabs his rifle that he had in the van, tries to peek out the blind to see what he's dealing with. He's able to look at the front window, so he's a masked hooded figure, around 50 feet away in front of the van,

and this figure's pointing a gun at the van. The man points the gun away from the van to his side and fires it, then points it back, back to his side, and fires it again. At this point, my father-in-law was trying to figure out a plan on how he's going to roll out of the van and have a shootout with this guy. Luckily, the masked man walks further away from them, gets out of sight, so he just gets in the driver's sight and halls ass out of there. As they're getting back to the street, he was able to get a good look at the car.

He said it matched the description of the car used by the Zodiac Killer. After this crazy store, I had to ask him, did he honestly think that it was the Zodiac Killer that night? And he said, yes, sorry, not sorry for the long email, a huge fan of your comedy, time suck and an OG space. I love hearing this story from my father-in-law and being able to talk to him about what I learned on the podcast and explaining to him how lucky he was to survive this potential zodiac killer running amazing podcast wouldn't change a thing three out of five stars Nick.

Wow. Thank you, Nick, for sending that in. Holy shit. It definitely seems like your father-in-law had a run in with the zodiac killer and it's very lucky that he didn't die and die in horrible fashion that night. That's insane. What a weird thing to reflect on later. Oh, man, bummer he couldn't have shot that guy. How crazy is that? He had a rifle in his hands. If he would have, which I know is extreme in that situation to think that, you know, to

ask him to do, but if he could have shot that guy, they could have identified the Zodiac killer who was never caught. Crazy. I'll help you still enjoy the show Nick. Last update. Let's end on, well you still enjoy the show Nick. Last update. Let's end on, we'll copy the start of a love story. Cupid like sucker Jeff Russo shared a post he came across in the Cult of the Curious Facebook group that needs some promotion.

You're gonna love this, I hope. I don't know why you wouldn't. Jeff writes, master sucker of all things dark, gory, inspiring, and all things in between. There's a space that I feel needs a shout out. This fellow sucker posted in our Colt of the Curious Group that's hit many of us in the fields. And we as a cult will be damned if we can't help him. Attached is a shot of the post in our group inspired by you.

I hope you do your due diligence as our Supreme Coal leader to help this sucking lizard out. Okay, so this post was attached in the email. The post was left by Chris, Michael or Michelle, M-I-C-H-E-L. So Chris, I'll say Michelle, Mitchell, I don't know. Chris, Michael, I'll go with Michael. You guys know, I'm not going to go with this. I met a wonderful space.

Is there named Katie in line today at Keystone Ski Resort while wearing my lizards time. So Jersey, great conversation about our favorite episodes. Katie, if you're on here, shoot me a private message. I wish I had asked your phone number. And then he writes, yes, I am posting this here. I have no shame. Good for you, Chris. And then is Chris, M-I-C-H-E-L, Katie, Katie, where are you? Let this guy, Chris, know if you're interested or if you're not. I hope we all hear more about this soon. Love me some love. Thank you everyone for your messages and again, good luck, Chris. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net.

We all did. Another week in the books meets SACS, more bad magic productions content coming the rest of this holiday week. Any Oakley didn't stop for holidays. We don't either. Thank you again for all the ratings and reviews. It really truly continues to help this show and our other bad magic productions content grow. New Spooks with scared of death on Tuesday night. Pure silliness with Is We Dumb Wednesday at noon. Pure pure irreverent silliness. We get a little buck wild over

it as we dumb. Not that I don't hear. As I'm saying that I'm like, what are you talking about? It's like, you've said basically everything horrific imagine what you can say on this podcast. I hope you're inspired by Annie. Hopefully you are not inspired to put an apple in your dog's head and try and shoot it off. Please don't do that. Instead, maybe eat too much.

Maybe you have too much pumpkin pie. Have a happy Thanksgiving. And definitely keep on sucking. [♪ music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, I think I can do this. I feel very inspired. Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss