WIT STOP

My Mom, the Sheriff, Would've Cleaned Up Tombstone with Her Maternal Cliches

The town of Tombstone on State Route 80 in southeast Arizona is known as "the town too tough to die." Since its founding in 1879, the town has endured hard times - two devastating fires, in 1881 and 1882, and mine flooding in 1886. It has survived some rough characters, too: ruthless gunslingers like Johnny Ringo, Buckskin Frank Leslie, Curly Bill Brocius, and Charley Storms. It took fearless, uncompromising lawmen to control Tombstone. Men like John Horton Slaughter and Wyatt Earp. My mother could have been the sheriff of Tombstone. Not because she was hard-nosed and brutal; heck, the closest my mom ever came to violence was when she mashed the potatoes by hand before the invention of the electric mixer. No, Mom could have been effective because like most moms she could quell a disturbance with well-chosen, time-honored maternal cliches.

I can picture my mother as sheriff of Tombstone, Sheriff Mom, being advised by one of the townspeople that a rowdy cowpoke is causing a commotion at the saloon: "Ain't you gonna take a shotgun from the gun closet?" the townsperson asks as Sheriff Mom exits her office.

"Won't need it," she says and strides across the dirt street to the saloon.

"You're gonna have to surrender your six-shooter, cowboy," she announces as she steps through the swinging doors. The badman snarls at her.

"Look at that angry face on you," Sheriff Mom says. "I hope it doesn't freeze that way."

The badman's grimace turns to a look of bewilderment. The logic of many motherly aphorisms is not always apparent on first hearing. You have to listen to them time and time again before they begin to make sense.

"I don't understand," the badman says. "Why do I have to give you my gun?"

Sheriff Mom says, "Why? I'll tell you why. Because I said so, that's why."

"Oh, like that's a reason," he says.

"You want a reason? I'll give you a reason. You're not too old for me to put over my knee, you know."

The badman backs off a step or two at that. "But my pal Wild Bill Hickok said I could come to Tombstone and raise some cane."

"And if Wild Bill Hickok told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?"

"But I just wanted to have some fun in Tombstone."

"That's the trouble with you people nowadays," Sheriff Mom says. "You don't appreciate things. We never had a nice town like this to drink and carouse in when I was your age."

"Why do you have to be so mean about it?" the badman asks.

"Everything I'm doing is for your own good. Believe me, someday you'll thank me for this."

"I just think you're being terribly unfair."

"And I just hope that someday you'll become a sheriff and have badmen of your own. Then maybe you'll appreciate all I've done for you."

The badman says, "In the town of Deadwood, I'm allowed to keep my gun."

Sheriff Mom says, "Then why don't you just go live in the town of Deadwood? As long as you're in my town under my roof, you'll obey my rules."

The badman says, "And what if I decide not to give you my gun?"

Sheriff Mom says, more to herself than anyone in particular, "Oh, it's badmen like you who are driving me to an early grave." Now she talks directly to the badman. "I'm going to say this one more time. If you know what's good for you, you won't make me say it again. I want your gun."

The badman hesitates.

Sheriff Mom adds, "I mean what I say. If you don't think I mean what I say, young man, just try me. You won't sit down for a week." The badman knows he's losing the showdown. He pleads, "Can I keep my gun, Sheriff Mom? Just for a little while? Can I, huh? Can I?"

The Sheriff says, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

The badman looks at her, confused. "Huh?"

She just stares at him, not about to help.

Then it dawns on him. "Oh, can I keep my gun, please?"

She holds out her hand to accept his sidearm. Her answer's obvious.

He says, "Can't I please just keep it till I have one little drink? I'm dry, and I'm dusty from the ride.

"You certainly are dusty," she says as she takes out her handkerchief, moistens it with spittle, and uses that to clean the grime from his cheeks.

Badmen hate that more than anything.

It's the ultimate embarrassment. Total degradation before the other patrons. He's defeated now, and he knows it.He hands over his six-shooter and slinks toward the door. This hombre will never cause trouble in Tombstone again.

Sheriff Mom shouts after him, "And just where do you think you're going?"

"You won't let me have any fun in this town, so I'm leaving."

She says, "You're not stepping one foot outside dressed like that, young man. You'll catch your death of cold."

He rides out of town wearing an ill-fitting, totally "uncool" sweater, thinking, "Man, that's one tough sheriff."