Alamo Fast Draw

Alamo Fast Draw interview with Bob Crismon: Well first off I should point out that the fellow's that are listening in that know me you're going to hear things that you didn't know because I generally have a difficult time talking about myself unlike my friend Bob Graham. There's a lot of secrets around here and I'm gonna tell you about them. First I'll talk about my first 10 years in fast draw which was from 1955 to 1965. I've been around guns and horses since the beginning of my life. My dad was a U.S. Army Cavalry guy for 30 years and I was born on an army post at Fort Riley Kansas. You know most of you guys when you were kids when you played at recess you went out and played. Well growing up on an army post, we had close order drill kind of like Kindy Garden Cops with the kids marching around.I don't remember alot about my young years but I guess somethings become a indelible in our memory, but I remember that about nine years old going out to the target range with my pop on the weekends with the whole family and pop practiced, and he had to practice for machine gun qualification. The soldiers got paid a little bit more if they qualify as an expert with certain arms. So pop with a whole bunch of kids as an enlisted man he needed to get as much income as a can. And of course, when he was through a shooting a machine gun out all of us 6 kids had to go pick up all of that Brass. Pop earned the expert bars in rifle, pistol, machine gun and mounted saber. He retired and 1945 and moved mom and us 6 kids to San Antonio. Pop was stationed there in 1916 and 1917 chasing Poncho Via up and down the border there. Hadn't been back since that time, I guess he expected to go back to a sleepy little town of San Antonio but it was quite different. When I was a kid in high school most guys from a, I wouldn't call it a poor family but a family with limited income, a soldier's retirement pay. We had weak and jobs will most guys of gas or something like that but I had a weekend hunting business. I'd go out and I would and shoot squirrels, rabbits, Quayle, and other small game and I sold them for dollar each to a couple of guys down the street that had businesses that just love the game but cook and go out and shoot game. Back in those days a guy could have a heck of a time with a couple of bucks and his if girl on Saturday night. I joined the army reserve in 1949, I shot on the fourth army rifle team for most of nine years, I reenlisted three times. Interesting to me I think I was aloud to keep an M1 rifle at home and was given all the ammo if I could shoot. They encouraged me to go out every weekend that I could after work or what ever and shoot and practice. I guess I practiced enough because I made Camp Peary one year shooting the M1 rifle. In 1953 the movie Shane came out that was the first time I ever saw a gun fanned. I didn't go too many movies because we didn't have much money but I was shooting live ammo fast draw in San Antonio about that time. There was about maybe 8 to 10 guys they all shot mostly single action but some shot double action many different calibers. We shot a man to man the elimination facing 2 55 gallon drums each guy. I shot a first generation if colt 45 I also had a cylinder made I think it was called Christie in California they made a 45 ACP cylinder for a colt 45 single action. It was really nice because you could buy a canister of army surplus 45 ACP ammo for real cheap. So we were out there earning up a lot of ammo without having to reload. In September of 55 Gunsmoke came out everything changed after that everything. I had a call that black and white TV at home, very few people did I don't know why I did but Saturday night was a real party that's when Gunsmoke came on. A dozen or so wannabe cowboys like myself we'd all line up and get ready and I fired and Matt Dillon came on if we'll try to out draw Matt and of course we all claimed we did but no one ever did. If the funny part about it was the girls would all be drinking dacaries and they would just laugh at us so we had a lot of fun.

If any of you Gunfighters would like to hear more of this interveiw you can listen to episode 5 on the audio player(red) on the right side of this page. If you would like to join in the show live or listen live to the Alamo Fast Draw show or call 1-724-444-7444 show#16056. Whether you are a gunfighter or not its a fun show.