A weekend enjoying Dodge City Days

I've covered Dodge City Days for the past 11 years and have reported on a number of events — the chuckwagon breakfast, Summer Sing in Wright Park, the barbecue contest and others.
    But I don't often get a chance to enjoy some of the events because I'm too busy reporting on them.
    Well, this year was slightly different.
    I spent most of this weekend seeing some familiar Dodge City Days events from a new angle — once as a reporter, twice as a spectator. The experience gave me a new appreciation for events that once struck me as routine.
    I started the weekend as a spectator at Boot Hill's High Noon Gunfight, then followed that up as a member of the audience at an intimate cabaret.
    Then I capped the weekend with a stroll through the arts and crafts show on Sunday, tape recorder and notebook in hand.
    Here are my impressions of the weekend, starting with the gunfight.

Battle at Boot Hill
    I've seen plenty of Boot Hill gunfights over the years —  both the regular gunfights and the Dodge City Days High Noon Gunfight — and each of them left me impressed with the performers' skill and attention to detail.
    The gunfighters  in this year's High Noon Gunfight wowed me yet again.
    The show, set in the wild Dodge City of 1878, began with a group of townspeople carrying a coffin bearing the body of their mayor, who had been murdered the week before.
    As soon as the funeral escort turned the corner and disappeared, two cowboys strolled down the street, bent on getting their friend — a cowboy who had allegedly killed the mayor — out of jail. They encountered the forces of law and order, and the fight began.
    That was just the starting point for a half-hour show filled with horseplay, brawling, fistfights and — to the delight of the crowd — a catfight involving several of the can-can dancers. The crowd laughed with glee as the girls shrieked and slapped each other, and they gasped with pleasure when one girl dunked another in a tank filled with water.
    I've written previews of the High Noon Gunfight before and covered the event itself, but I was too consumed with taking notes to simply enjoy the show.
    This time was different. Although I still took a couple of pages of notes (old habits die hard), I could relax enough to watch the show unfold. I chuckled at the antics of the drunken cowboy on the fringes of the action, covered my ears briefly when the shooting began and took delight in the spectacle of can-can girls fighting.
    The gunfight was among the best I've seen, and it made the perfect start to a Dodge City Days weekend.

Shopping downtown
    I spent about an hour Sunday morning wandering up and down Front Street, taking in the sights and sounds of the second day of the arts and crafts show.
    Booths lined both sides of the street from Third to First avenues, offering products including fancy purses, stone signs, magnetic jewelry and homemade jams and jellies. A couple of vendors offered patrons food and drink instead of merchandise.
    Clayton, N.M., resident Stephanie Whitney had trays of her product — scented and unscented soaps made from goat milk — spread out in front of her. Above the rows of soap, a sign read "Apache Valley Soap."
    A newcomer to the arts and crafts show, Whitney said she made the 200-mile trip to Dodge City because she had heard that the event attracts a lot of people. She said she was hoping that sales would be solid enough to justify the trip.
    "We've more than broken even," she said. "Hoping to do a little more."
    Less than a block away, Ford resident Charolett Murrow was studying a tray of necklaces at Pat's Magnetic Jewelry booth.
    "I like the magnetics," said Murrow, who tries to attend the arts and crafts show each year. "I think it's a neat concept."
    She said she had bought a few items already, including things she needed for school.
    I had promised myself I wouldn't buy anything from the vendors, but I had a $20 bill in my wallet begging to be spent. Besides, I was thirsty.
    So I broke my vow and bought a cup of lemonade — which was more a necessity than a luxury, given the heat — and a jar of peach butter from Farm Shed Goods and Gifts of Inman.
    It was the first time in several years that I'd attended the arts and crafts show, and I was glad I went. The vendors were unfailingly cheerful and helpful, and people wandering between the booths seemed to enjoy themselves.

Cabaret night
    The gunfight lived up to my expectations, and the arts show was a fun way to spend Sunday morning.
    But the true highlight of my weekend came on Saturday night, when I spent about two hours in the company of four talented singers and their backup band.
    The intimate cabaret, which turned the lobby of the old Harvey House hotel into a sophisticated nightclub, featured songs I'd first heard when I was growing up — standards like "Pennies From Heaven," "Why Can't You Behave?" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." Singers Ed Bethea, Karen Deno, Ash Leigh Drake and Seth Eckelman brought new life to these classics, reminding me why they've remained in my head all these years.
    For me, keyboard player Patty Ahern summed up the pleasure of the evening when she said, "Isn't it nice to be in an atmosphere where you feel like you're transported?"
    It certainly is.