Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Tom Mix






About two weeks ago I was visiting a friend in Arizona. I flew from Colorado (must blog about that part of the trip in a future blog) to Phoenix and my friend Natalie picked me up from the airport. We drove from Phoenix Airport (forgive me for forgetting its official name) to Tuscon. Our first stop in Tuscon was Natalie's grandmother's house. Natalie's grandmother was an absolute delight, but apparently, she also lies. I had no idea she was lying, I thought she was a sweet old lady, but apparently she lied about Tom Mix. Do you know who Tom Mix is? If so, I am impressed because I'd never heard of him. Apparently, he was quite the handsome cowboy movie star in his day. He was born in PA in 1880 and died in Arizona in 1940. He was in a ton of movies from 1911-1935 and he also did some directing, producing, and writing. He had several wives and I think two children. Apparently, there is even a museum in his honor. So there's some random info about him for you. Anyway, Natalie's grandmother mentioned him because he died in Arizona and there is a memorial in his honor that we were going to drive by on our way back to Phoenix. She mentioned that we should go see it. The controversy comes in re: how he died. Natalie's grandmother said he died when he was thrown out of a car windshield and got all cut up and shredded by the glass. Natalie told me he actually died when the lockbox that was sitting on the backseat (with all his gambling money in it) flew up and hit him in the back of the head. As I wasn't around in 1940, I have no idea what is true and what is a lie, but I found the whole thing so intriguing that I had to google Tom Mix when I got back to Natalie's. I also insisted that we stop by his memorial and take pictures. Natalie thinks that should be the high-light of my trip (Don't tell her, but I actually enjoyed Sabino Canyon, her four course French dinner, being entertained by Spencer, the bar in Tuscon, and various other things in Arizona more than the memorial, sorry Natalie.) So there you go, there's more than you probably ever wanted to know about Tom Mix, may he rest in peace. And I apologize if I got anything re: his life wrong, but you can't believe everything you read on the internet (or learn from your friend's grandmothers) so no disrespect or false info was intended.






1 comment:

Natalie said...

#1. I JUST got off the phone with my grandmother. I'm like 98% sure she told me some more lies.

#2. We will totally watch a Tom Mix movie while you are all here in Feb. 2012

#3. The Tom Mix memorial would have been much, much, much better if fountain diet coke came out of a spout in the horse.

#4. Hands down, the best part of that day was the Sonic Diet Vanilla Coke I enjoyed approximately 1.5 hours after taking those pictures.