How did you choose your alias?

[Crow Choker]

My name Crow Choker has nothing to do with the great tribe of Native Americans as some of you might have wondered, but was 'hung' on me by my good friend and Ol' Shootin' Pard and CAS City citizen Jubel Starbuck. Rather than explain it to you myself, I'll leave ya all in suspence and hope Jubel himself will see this postin and tell you, since he came up with it, he could do a better job of it. Come on Jubel, ya have my permission to do so in yer best written verbalige(is that a word) that would make our Ol' Comm Skills teacher Mr. C proud of ya. If he doesn't see this postin, I'll drop him a hint.

[Dr. Bob]

Jubal,

Git yer butt in here a do some splainin!

[Kent Shootwell]

On the way back from our first SASS match the wife and I pondered alot about an alias for us. She choose Cactis Clare using her middle name and figgered I was her sidekick ala the Frico Kid movie and dubed me Sidewinder. Been that mostly but some shoots I'll sign up with what ever comes to mind. After all an alias is to keep a low profile! Kent Shootwell sounds better then what i've been called by some! Here's Cactis Clare, Sidewinder aka Kent Shootwell and Catalog Cowboy in the Owen Wister suite Virginian Hotel, Medicine Bow Wyo.

[Jubal Starbuck]

You guys asked for this.  Brace yourselves! Crow Choker was a mere stripling at the time these events took place around the tag end of the 60's or early '70s.  He used to frequent one or both of the local saloons on a Friday night, whereupon he partook of a particularly vile potion labeled "Schlitz" and often accompanied it with another dubious concoction sold under the moniker of "pizza".  Often pickled eggs were on the menu also.  Sometimes on his way home(he then lived a couple of miles west of town) he would get to feelin' a mite queasy, stop on Hobert's corner and upchuck on the roadside.  We generally went shooting on Saturdays and he would show up and comment that he had passed Hobert's corner on the way into town and noticed crows dining on "street pizza" he had left for them the night previous. Hence "Crow Choker".  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  As a footnote, he has since retired from sech shennanigans and become a semi-model citizen, if not a total paragon of virtue. 
   Ther ya have it; that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

[Crow Choker]

Thanks Jubal, I knew with yer mastery of words you could 'splain the origin of my alias better than I. Back in those days, well as Gus told Woodrow in 'Lonesome Dove' when he was laying in bed with one wheel removed, "It was quite a party!"

[Drayton Calhoun]

Drayton was the original name of my home town and Calhoun is the name of the county, plus it's the name of the main character in the series of books I am writing and preparing to try to get published. As for my avitar, well it was current about twenty-five years ago, dang guess I need a new photeegraphic, all the gray will probably put a real bad glare in the camera contraption. Still got the belt, pistols, chaps and shirt in the picture.

[Rafe Covington]

Got mine from my great great grandfather, my great grandmother used to talk about  him being a buffalohunter for the railroad in the years after the War of Northern Aggression. I can't swear thats what he did but don't believe she would make it up.

buffalohunter

[Ranger Lee Hitch]

I joining SASS early 2010 (86xxx something) the pickins were a bit slim. I wanted something unique so I looked at some old John Wayne casts and came up with "bit part"  and "angry cowboy" none of which  the trail boss would agree to. My great grandfather was a deptuy ( still have his badge) / preacher in Leadville CO around the 1880's. Old West Lawmen have always been my heros and still re-watch the "Lonesome Dove" series on ocassion. There were two Ranger Batallions in Colorado in the mid 1800's. San Juan Rangers(indian fighters)  and the Colorado Rangers (law and order). The Colorado Rangers were active untill 1935 and appers to have become the Colorado State Patrol. In the series Commache Moon there is a character Ranger Lee Hitch and I have elected to believe he was a Colorado Ranger. The trail boss bought the story and the rest as they say is history.

[Sierra Dude]

I'm so new that this is my first post. I've only been to one practice session of the Hangtown Vigilance.
"The Other Guy" heard that I was known as "The Dude" on my weekly "Rockin' 50's and 60's show that I host on KFOK in Georgetown, CA, which is situated in the Sierra foothills, and said that it was only appropriate that Dude become a part of my alias. 

[Fiddler Green]

I had only a few days to come up with a name. I was looking through my old Regimental News letters and kept getting stuck looking at the lists of those who had gone on to Fiddler's Green. The name jumped out at me.  For anyone who's never worn crossed sabers and is, therefore, not familiar with Fiddler's Green:

FIDDLERS GREEN
HALFWAY DOWN THE TRAIL TO HELL
IN A SHADY MEADOW GREEN
ARE THE SOULS OF ALL DEAD TROOPERS CAMPED 
NEAR A GOOD OLE-TIME CANTEEN,
AND THIS ETERNAL RESTING PLACE IS
KNOW AS FIDDLERS' GREEN
MARCHING PAST STRAIGHT THROUGH TO HELL
THE INFANTRY ARE SEEN
ACCOMPANIED BY THE ENGINEERS,
ARTILLERY AND MARINES,
FOR NONE BUT THE SHADES OF CAVALRYMEN
DISMOUNT AT FIDDLERS' GREEN
THOUGH SOME GO CURVING DOWN THE TRAIL
TO SEEK A WARMER SCENE,
NO TROOPER EVER GETS TO HELL
ERE HE'S EMPTIED HIS CANTEEN.
AND SO RIDES BACK TO DRINK AGAIN
WITH FRIENDS AT FIDDLERS' GREEN
AND SO WHEN MAN AND HORSE GO DOWN
BENEATH A SABRE KEEN,
OR ON ROARING CHARGE OF FIERCE MELEE
YOU STOP A BULLET CLEAN.
AND THE HOSTILES COME TO GET YOUR SCALP
JUST EMPTY YOUR CANTEEN,
AND PUT YOUR PISTOL TO YOUR HEAD
AND GO TO FIDDLERS' GREEN.

Allons!

[Pappy Myles]

My great grand daddy was the 3rd sheriff in Edwards County , Rocks Springs Texas from about 1888 to 1903.  His record as sheriff was but a little footnote in history.  Something about one of the last comanchie raids and tracking down a horse thief.  Went out there from Guidings, to raise cattle and found out angora goats did better in that dusty dry area.  The family moved into Texas in the early 1840's when we were still a republic to Lampasas.  His grand daddy was a justic of the peace at Guidings during the war of northern agression. Anyway, he had 11 children from two wives and was known as Daddy Miles,  When the grand children came around, they refered to him as Pappy Miles.  There was a bad drout followed by a devestating tornado that tore up the town and caused the deaths of a lot of folks there in 07.  He lost the 02 election, and sold the ranch after the tornado and moved to Oklahoma with other relatives.  He passed in Sept 1933 @ 82.   When I came along 20 years loater,my folks had moved back to Pasadena Texas in 1948 after WWII.  My Dad said i looked a lot like him.  We've been teachers, preachers, lawman, and cattlemen.  I did something different.  As I was getting into cowboy about 10 years ago, my kids mentioned the similarties I had in looks also, so the recommended calling me Pappy Miles.  I figured what the heack.......

[Drayton Calhoun]

I can only speak for myself, but I am not at all troubled by that.  In fact, that's what I prefer to be called.

-- Nighteyes (Mississippi Choctaw)

My father's side of the family is Creek/Choctaw from Merridian, Mississippi, kin perhaps?

[c.o.jones]

  ......... cojones........USMC.......MAJOR C.O. JONES

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

  Great avatar c.o.Jones, your costume in fantastic, good job, it must have been fun putting it together.

       Regards

     tEN wOLVES 

[Wild Horse Hans]

Mine is pretty easy. My name is Hans and I love riding wild horses. Wife and I have 2 adopted wild horses and a half wild horse half Morgan

[Sunset Slim]

Well...it all started when I was born tall and slim.  When I was just a tyke folks would ask me, "what do you want to be when you grow up little Slim?" and like a damn fool I'd answer "a cowboy".  I had outside influences, you see, because every chance I got I'd head for the movie house (balcony seat) for my saturday afternoon injection of double feature cowboy movies.  Rex Allen was my favorite because he had the best outfits.  Nudie shirts all embroidered along with fringe and such and some of HIS movies were in color!  He had the best horse too.  Koko was a big chocolate chestnut Morgan with a white mane and tail.  Every cowboy in the movies had a white horse or a Palomino but not me!  I'd dress like Rex and have horse like Rex and a sidekick like Rex too...Slim Pickens.  I liked Slim because he seemed so much like, well, a real cowboy (he was).  Said what he thought and said it in such a way that even I understood his meaning.  That has to count for alot!  There was another fellow I saw in the movies and I wanted to be like him when I grew up because he seemed like a real cowboy too (he was and I never knew his real name until I became an adult but when the other boys would be Roy or Gene while playing cowboy, I'd be his character).  Next to my dad I thought...that's the way a real man should conduct himself!  Turned out to be a pretty good aspiration though in retrospect I'm not sure if I ever reached it.  His name was Ben Johnson.  Sunset Carson truly was a movie heart throb back in the day and he was tall and slim like me.  My mom liked him too and read me a piece from the Hollywood Star that called him "pretty damned sexy".  Well...mom giggled and I turned red 'cause I wasn't real sure what that meant but I figured it must be something that might come in handy some day.  When we finally got a TV (grandpa Shorty said TV wouldn't 'take') my first memories of a favorite was Range Rider.  Thats it.  Just Range Rider.  What a cool name!  Jock Mahoney became my first television cowboy hero.  You put all that together and there's a man right there!  The kind of good looks that makes women swoon in Sunset Carson, The nifty attire and fancy horse that Rex Allen contributes, always say what you mean like Slim Pickens, take care to do the 'right thing' like Ben Johnson and have a mysterious but cowboy sounding name like Range Rider.  So some fifty odd years later when it became time to choose an alias I figured it'd be simple.  I'd just go ahead and take something from each of my boyhood heros and become...Bencarsonpickinrexjock.  OK...making progress but I could get arrested for that.  So then I thought about Slimjockrexcarsonjohnson.  Well...maybe not that one either.  So after hours of thought and some judicious paring I ended up with Sunset Slim.  Damn proud of it too.  Well... there it is and that's pretty much the way it happened...give or take a lie or two.  

[Durango Slim]

I'll try to make it simple  Durango it's a city in Spain, a state in Mexico, and a city in Colorado here in the US. My mother she was more from a Spaniard family, and my father was Mexican. Remember Francisco Villa? well... he was born in Durango Mexico, fought the Mexican revolution, like my grandfather, he lived in Mexico and in the US, so I gather all of these and there it is my alias. The Slim part, it's just because I've always been tall and slim, and proud to be an American living here in CA  . There in the picture you can see Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata , two Mexican Revolution heroes.

[BearBio]

My SASS alias is Rufus Brady.  Rufus was my paternal grandfather and is a commonly used name in the family back to 1400's Holland (at least).  He literally travelled the Oregon Trail (eastward-he was born in Pendleton).  Rode the Pendleton Roundup, Calgary Stampede & some others.  Lunberjack, farmer, ranched both here and in Canada.

The Brady is my maternal grandmother's maiden name.  It goes back to Ireland and is one of the "high" Irish families and the second largest Irish clan (O'Brady, O'Grady, Grady and some others are pretty much interchangeable).  Two Brady's rode with Quantrell and several fought under Stand Watie.  One maternal great grandfather was Cherokee and the other was Chickasaw.  She was the last of us registered with the tribe.

My user name here comes from the fact that I did my MS Thesis on the ecology of "urban" black bears and I currently work as a Wildlife Biologist, at least to a small amount on grizzly bears.

[Kid Sackett]

Mine was kinda easy. My favorite author is Louis L'Amour. My favorite books of his were about the Sackett's and I am from the foothills of the Clinch Mountains. This is the same area the Sackett family is from. I grew up running the same woods they did in the books, so I just naturally had to use this alias.

[bowiemaker]

I have two aliases. When I first heard about CAS I joined CAS City to learn more about it. Since I needed a name on the forum, I chose "BowieMaker" because I am a knifemaker who makes a lot of Bowie knives.

Later, when I decided to join NCOWS, I picked "Judge Carter" after my 6th cousin, Judge William Alexander Carter, who was the first to run cattle through the Big Horn Basin, the first cattle rancher in Wyoming, registered the first brand in Wyoming Territory and was pretty much responsible for the creation of the Wyoming Territory.

I had already decided that I wanted a persona more along the lines of a Doc Holiday or riverboat gambler who might dress a little fancier or be portrayed as a little more well-to-do than the everyday cowhand (might as well make the fantasy pretty far from real life). Although Judge Carter did run dangerous missions on the Overland stage and haul freight, he became one of the wealthiest men in Wyoming through his many business dealings including post trader at Ft. Bridger, mining, saw mills, oil, and cattle. It seemed like a pretty good fit to the character I had in mind and it honors my family.