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Some have wondered about the identity of the “Black Bart” to whom the book is dedicated. She is, of course, none other than my wife/editor/everything Diane Ayres. When she was a kid, she liked to dress up as a cowboy all in black, hence the nickname.
And here are two shots of her at her Black Bartiest. The first, which I’ve been using in my slide presentation, is from the actual first trip we took to El Tovar in 1993 which originally inspired the book. (Bart is shown twirling toy guns, and wearing a toy sheriff’s badge and holsters, all purchased at the Fred Harvey giftshop at the hotel; I’ve had this picture, and three others from the series, hanging over my desk ever since.) The second is from the last moments of the One Nation Under Fred train tour last week–on the rental car shuttle to LAX, with Diane sporting the new Black Bart hat she bought at the fabulous store at the Autry Center. She was partly inspired by a great-grandaughter of Fred’s, Jean Vanderbilt, who wore her own black cowgirl hat so well, turning heads from Kansas to New Mexico, during our train trip.
Howdy pardner!
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Twirling those six-shooters just like Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls, huh?
Congrats for being the first person to make astute observation! I was wondering when somebody would. Here’s the thing though: I had never seen the Judy Garland movie nor had I ever heard of a Harvey Girl when that picture was taken. That photo of me twirling six-shooters at El Tovar was pure regression. (I had hung up my black plastic holster and toy guns when I was 7 or 8 and started reading Spy vs. Spy in MAD Magazine, and falling hopelessly in love with Illya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. I decided to become a double-agent, donning a black turtleneck, black skinny pants, black Beatle Boots and a London Fog, arming myself with a faux camera that transformed (long before Transformers) into a Berreta, along with a portable transister radio that turned into a machine gun. I’ve been dressing like that pretty much ever since–except I’m unarmed now and totally support stricter gun control laws.) Point is: the Harvey Girl played by Judy Garland in that perfectly camp Hollywood musical can barely grip a couple of fake six-shooters in her hands at all, let alone spin them on her index fingers. I daresay an honest-ta-gawd Harvey Girl would not have been such a silly klutz as the one depicted by Judy’s character. Any one of the real live Harvey Girls we met while riding the rails would have secured Mr. Harvey’s signature steaks by maintaining the highest standard of sure-shot competence and pure panache–and kept those white aprons spotless, to boot.. Right, Girls?
Nothing like a cowgirl dressed in all black!!! ;-)) Handcuff me and take me to jail!
down boy.