Editor's Page

EDITOR'S

ARIZONA HAS MORE than its share of humorists, tale tellers, myth spinners, folklorists, and critics of all sorts both the bought-and-paid-for kind and the self-appointed.

From their typewriters and computers come a wide variety of social comment, some acerbic, some curmudgeonly, some lighthearted, some funny. The good ones are always insightful.

Here are two such good ones.

The first was written about five years ago by Budge Ruffner, whose affable indignation is always well aimed. The story is as applicable today as it was then.

The short tale is by Marshall Trimble, a collector of Old West stories, true and untrue.

Once you've finished them, pass them along. Everybody needs a laugh now and then.

Being a terminal romanticist, I was delighted to hear of a lawsuit recently filed in Maricopa County by a man bitten by a rattlesnake while playing pool. To sue for snakebite in the Southwest is, of course, absurd. It was the snakebite, in a poolroom on the west side of Phoenix, that gave me a glimmer of hope.

Nowadays nostalgia is in. Phoenix, about to succeed in a summer rerun of the Los Angeles freeway life-style, was becoming oblivious of heritage and rapidly losing identity. The rattlesnake struck just in the nick of time.

Please understand I do not approve of the lawsuit. I feel it is frivolous and foolish. After all, this is Arizona, and a man must expect this sort of thing. The "victim" contends he was playing pool in a normally well run pool hall, and the rattler, atop the green felt table, bit him three times on the right hand.

The pool player, recently arrived from the East, contends the operator of the pool hall was negligent.

Ridiculous.

Any old-time Arizona pool player would have been on the lookout for snakes. The newcomer does not have a strong case for damages; it's merely a matter of culture shock. In a lot of pool halls in this part of the country it's difficult to tell the snakes from the pool cues. This man obviously doesn't know the territory.

True, you don't know what judges are going to do these days, but there was a time when any experienced Arizona judge would throw this case right out of court. Keep in mind the guy was bitten on the right hand.

This would indicate he was a left-handed pool player, and left-handed pool players are notoriously unstable. "Never trust a left-handed pool player" is an oft-quoted and well justified adage.

Another point the court should consider, if indeed the case gets that far: this dude contends the snake bit him three times. That is a telling point, as even the slow learners know that rattlesnakes, like an alarm clock, must coil before they strike. What was this guy doing with his hands on the table after he had been bitten once?

With thousands of people moving into the Sunbelt, it is inevitable that a certain proportion are going to be bitten by rattlesnakes while playing pool. The chamber of commerce won't tell you, but that's the nature of the country. The pamphlets the chamber mails out show happy people sunbathing in January and playing shirt-sleeve golf on Christmas Eve, but it never mentions the rattlesnakes on the pool tables.

If the guy wants to sue somebody, it should be the chamber of commerce. It was less than honest in letting him know what kind of land he lived in.

During Tombstone's heyday in the 1880s, the lure of riches attracted the gamut of frontier society, from tinhorns to deacons. Lawyers were among the first to arrive. Their offices were conveniently located between the courthouse on Toughnut Street and the bistros on Allen Street.

Locals affectionately called the complex of law offices "Rotten Row."

Some of the most skilled attorneys in the West hung their shingles in Tombstone. None was more gifted than the irrepressible Allen English. He was an Eastern-educated lawyer from an aristocratic Maryland family, who found the practice of law in the East too conventional for his venturesome spirit.

English cut a bodacious swath through Tombstone's coarse society. He stood more than six feet tall and sported a magnificent crown of hair. Dressed in a cutaway coat and striped pants, he moved with the grace of a ballet dancer. An elocutionist without peer, he could hold a jury spellbound with whispered emotion or, in a voice thundering with resonance, he could spit fire and brimstone that would have done a preacher proud. People came from miles around to watch Tombstone's "courtroom colossus" in action. Clever and witty, he seduced many a jury by flattery, cajolery, crying, or begging. His rapier wit and unconventional antics kept spectators in hysterics and left judges and opposing lawyers in a state of consternation.

Allen English had at least two vices. Once was chewing tobacco. He could spit with all the aplomb of a mule skinner. It was said he could spit over his shoulder and hit the inside of a cuspidor from 10 feet. Folks naturally dubbed these Allen's "Great Expectorations."

English also had a problem with whiskey. Once he appeared in court drunk and was promptly fined $25 for contempt of court. Rising indignantly, he roared, "Your honor, that $25 wouldn't pay for half the contempt I have for this court."

Someone once called him outspoken. "He may be outmaneuvered, outsmarted, and outthought," a weary prosecutor corrected, "but he is never outspoken."