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STATE
NAME OF
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
Forms to be Filled out for Eacn Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
New York
WORFER Earl Bowman
86 W. 12th Street, NYC
December 15, 1938
"THEM PETRIFIED BUZZARDS" Uncle Steve Robertson Story
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
1. Date and time o7 interview December 12, 1938
2. Place of interview
3. Name and address of informant Harry Reece (Daca)
63 Washington South, NYC
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
toucn with informant. See previous interview 11/29/38:
"Harry Reece (Dates) His Story"
5. Name and address of person, if any, accoLipanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, eacn
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FORM C
Text of Ilterviow _"/100.1, -,ea)
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
STATE ihrw York
NAVE OF WO.AER Earl Bowman
ADDRESS 8614 12th Street, NYC
DATE December 15, 1938
SUBJECT "THEM PETRIFIED BUZZARDS" Uncle Steve Robertson Story
!My Uncle Steve Robertson was a native of the State of
Missouri or Arkansas; he was not certain which, because he said he
was born so close to the line that sometimes he thought it was on
one side and sometimes on the other.
"He also said that one reason he didn't remember which
State it was, was because he started "Out Nest" when he was so young
that it really didn't matter whether he was born in Missouri or
Arkansas; he was satisfied just to be born, and was willing to let
it go at that.
"Anyway, my Uncle Steve Robertson was a great pioneer in
his day, before any government irrigation projects were built in the
lest, and he knew all about shooting bear and deer and fighting Indians,
and settling in out-of-the-way places where people had to depend mostly
on themselves and each other and there were not any eleotrio lights
or telephones or radios or WPA's or MA's or ALL. or things like
that to distrust their attentions, and postoffices were quite far
apart indeed. So, people depended to a large extent upon themselves
and not to any great extent to or on anything else.
"My Uncle Steve's idea of 'Out West' was anywhere west of
the east line of the Indian Territory (Uncle Steve never did get
around to calling it 'Oklahoma' because he said that that did not
seem natural!) he also thought that 'Out West' was bounded on the
south by the Big Bend country of the Rio Grande and an the north by
the last peak of the Bitterroot Mountains in Idaho and which leaned
over into Canada. So, Uncle Steve had quite a large idea of what
'Out West' really was, and he also had quite a lot of experience
with it...
!Naturally, also, my Uncle Steve Robertson accumulated
a vast knowledge of and quite a few strange experiences during the
many years he was a great 'pioneer of the far 'out west' and which,
I am sorry to say, quite a lot of people in New York, and especially
around the Washington Square district, do not yet realize ever existed
or for that matter may still exist to scum extent.
"Also, my Uncle Steve used to say that the one damned thing
he could not endure was... 'a danged double talkin' liar.., one of
them 'rubber -tongued' persons who could stretch the truth till she
would crack, and keep on stretchin' it, and still expect people to
believe it..,
1
year it was back in,' Uncle Steve said, 'but anyhow it was the year
"My Uncle Steve always began his 'tall tales,' (for I am
afraid that they were 'tall' tales, and some of them very tall in-
deed!) with the preliminary statement that he 'just couldn't stand
any damn person that 'zageratesP
*Mien we were on a fishing trip one time he told me about
how the petrified forests of Arizona happened to be petrified and
also about 'the petrified buzzards'... It was a hot and dry season
and I had mentioned it because the water in the creek where we were
fishing was almost all dried up, and that was Uncle Steve's excuse to
tell me about a realty hot and dry season he onoe experienced in
Arizona....
"'It was baok in... now danged if I remember jest which
that old Geronimo was loaded on the train at Bowie, Arizona, when
the government sent him to Florida to keep him from butchering people
in Arizona. Well, that was the year that it was in, and it shore -as
hell was a hot and dry year in Arizona....
"'Bob White an' me had a little cow outfit in partnership
down close to the Mexican line, and we was gettin' along pretty well.
We'd took up some land... about two sections... and dug some wells
and built some ditches so we could irrigate a little ground around
the place. We had windmills to pump water out of the wells into a
pond and the dtiches, and our nine or ten hundred head of cattle had
pretty good feed on the range. And outside of havin' to shoot a few
Apaches now and then, before the government got rid of them, we was
doin' fairly well and was contented enough, I reckon...
"'At first, 'Main' Mate, that was Bob's wife, was a little
lonesome because there wasn't no frogs to croak down by th' pond or
along th' ditches at night. She said she plumb missed frogs a-croakin'
an' if there was jest some frogs she could hear croak of a' evenin' she'd
be about as happy as she used to be bask in Slippery Elm County, Arkansas,
where she was born, and her pa and ma still lived. Well, Bob was always
sentimental and he fixed it for Main. He sent bask to Arkansas and
had a few settin's of frog eggs sent out to her. So, Mom set 'em an'
they hatched out jest fine, and before long, when the sun went down
behind old Apache Peak of an' evenin', frogs was croakin' all over
th' place and Main was plumb happy.
"'Like I said, everything was goin' smooth an' pleasant and
we was prosperous till it began to get hot and dry one summer...
hotter an' dryer, I-Gawd, than anybody'd ever knowed it to be in
that part of Arizona before, an' the first thing we realized than
damn pumps wasn't suckin' nothing out of them wells but hot air, and
th' alfalfa was withered and Man's marigolds she'd planted by the
side of the house was all dead and dried up, too.
"'And in addition to that, them nine or ten hundred head
of cattle Bob an' me had out there an th' range was staggerin' around,
so cussed thirsty an' dried out, that when they'd walk their livers
and hearts and lungs or whatever was loose inside of them would rattle
against their hides like seeds shakin' around in a ripe gourd. Yeah,
that's jest th' way they'd sound! And when one of them got tired
welkin' around, hearin' his self or herself as the case might be,
rattlin' like a gourd that ain't got nothin' in it but some seeds,
and finally laid dawn, well, danged if he or she or it didn't jest
naturally petrify... plumb solid...
"That's when them poor buzzards got a awful shock.
"'They'd be wheelin, around, jest wheelin' around watohinl
for a caw or a steer brute to topple over, and as soon as they'd see
one topple, down they'd swoop thinkinl :they'd make a meal on it, and
when they'd try to take a bite out of that petrified carcass they'd
bust their poor bills off, and there they was... plumb helpless, so
they'd topple over, too and in a minute they'd be petrified them-
selves!
"'Mill, the rest of them damn buzzards that hadn't come
down and was still wheelin' 'round up there in the hell-blisterin'
heat and dryness, would wonder what th' hell had happened to their
brother buzzards, layin' down there all petrified beside them petri-
field cattle; they'd be scairt to come dawn, and jest keep on wheelin'
and wheelin' and gettin' more and more bewildered till damned if they
wouldn't petrify themselves up there in the sky without ever knowint
it and that's the way it was... Thousands and thousands, hell, mil-
lions of buzzards jest wheelin' and wheelin' around 'way up in that
hot, sitzlin' Arizona atmosphere and all so damned petrified they
couldn't do nothin' but keep on wheelin' and wheelin' without ever
makin' a sound or flappin' a doggone wing-- Gaud, it was a gruesome
sight I
"'Yeah, them damned buzzards all petrified and everything
jest wheelin' and wheelin' around up there in th' sky, was a terrible
thing to look at, but, IaiGawd, bad off as they was they didn't suffer
as much as them poor wild hydrophobia oats that got so dry that they
couldn't even foam at th' mouth when they'd have hydrophobia fits
That was one of the pitifUllest sights I ever seen. A poor hydrophobia
cat tryin' to foam at th' mouth when he's havin' a fit, and not be
able to do nothin' only spit out a little stream of dry, kind of
chalky dust, instead of good rich foam like he'd naturally dot It
sure as hell was pitiful to look at...
"'But them hydrophobia -oats wasn't no worse off than all
them poor ants jest amnia' around on the sand under th' blazin'
sun, without a drop to drink, jest swelterini and dryin, up till
eventually they'd be in such agony they'd double over ant bite them-
selves on their own belly -band, an' commit suicide ant perish in
misery... Geed, I'll bet ten billion ants... damn nice big red
Arizona ants committed suicide an our ranch alonet It's a awful
thing to see a poor dean ant so thirsty ant hot an' dried out that
it doubles over an' gnaws its awn belly -band in two... It sure is.
"'Still, I reckon th' worst sufferin' was done by them
miserable danged frogs; all them frogs Meshed hatched out from them
'VP 7
settin's of frog eggs Bob had had sent out from Arkansas... They
got so dry, they jest kind of shriveled up and all wrinkled sort
of -like, well, like a prune that has been laying out in th' sun too
long. That's jest th' may their hides looked jest shriveled up
an' wrinkled like a prune, or worse. But th' worst of it was when
therdidn't have no water to wailer in any more, and sort of soak
'am up; I-Gawd, when the sun would go down behind old Apache Peak
an' them poor frogs would open their mouths and try to croak, like
Mem loved to hoar gem do of an evening, all th' poor damn things
could do was jest sort of whistle.... It was terrible, th' most ago-
nizing and heart-wrenohing thing anybody can imagine. Yes, sir,
I-Gawd, if you ever saw a poor shriveled frog trying to oroak,snd
not be able to get anything out but jest a measly little damn whistle,
it's th' saddest thing you ever Bawl
"'It sure was distressin' Them poor frogs gaspin" out
little dinky whistles instead of good solid oroaks, was what settled
it. When it got that dry, Mama Bob's wife, couldn't stand it no
longer. She'd listen to them frogs trying to croak and jest break
down with grief. She jest couldn't stand it. So, finally, after all
them buzzards MAA petrified and most of them ants had °committed
suicide and them hydrophobia oats 'most plumb forgot haw to foam at
the mouth, and at last them helpless cussed frogs was whistling
'stead of croaking, Man said to no an' Bob one days- 'We're going
to move out of this cussed place, Bob White and Steve Robertson.
When it gets so danged dry that even,a buzzard petrifies and even
a frog can't croak, I-Gawd, it's time to go somewhere else....'
That's what Man said. And Bob an' me always did believe in lettin"
the women folks have their way, so, I-Gawd, we moved. An' damned if
I know whether it ever did rain an' bust th' dry spell, or not. Maybe
it did an' maybe it didn't. But While we was present it was one hell
of a dry spell and I imagine if anybody went down there to that part
of Arizona they could still see some of them petrified trees layin'
around on the ground ('Gauze while I didn't mention it before even
most of th' damn trees got to be petrified, too, before things was
dons with) an' I also imagine that anybody would probably see some
of them poor petrified buzzards still wheelin' an' wheelin' and wheelin'
around and around, 'way up there in the air... never makin' a sound an'
never flappin' a wing... Jest petrified as hell, an' unable to do any-
thing about itl
I It
"My Uncle Steve Robertson was a very great pioneer in his
day, and no doubt had many wonderful and thrilling experiences in the
very far 'Out Mast' and as I said before he was one of those
sturdy old ex -Rebel soldiers who could not 'endure a (longed liar an'
despised any ornery man that Ixagerates.' Perhaps that is why I
loved him; he was my favorite Uncle.., the one with Whom I liked
best to go fishing, or on camping -out trips..."