WESTPHALIA

Dewey is home to the Tom Mix Museum, dedicated to the trick-riding cowboy star of both silent film and talkie fame who lived and worked in Dewey for some time. Dewey had also been the home of my great-grandmother for years, and, since I spent a hunk of my growing-up years in neighboring Bartlesville, I had seen the Tom Mix museum many times from the outside. I even went in it once.

That didn't keep me from getting a completely false idea in my head about the nature of Tom Mix's death. For some reason, I spent years completely convinced that Tom Mix died in the fire at the Coconut Grove, where more than 400 souls lost their lives because they panicked, rushed to the exits and pressed, as a crowd, against exit doors that opened in rather than out, effectively trapping themselves. I actually told people that Tom Mix had died in this fire, although why I was talking about Tom Mix to anybody I can't imagine. I just remembered I did it.

Then, about five years ago, I was sending my mom home from a trip with some record albums that I suggested she just lay flat on the back seat of her car. She refused, saying she didn't want to stop and have the records fly up out of the back seat and cut her head off. No, she didn't want to die like Tom Mix.

What? Tom Mix didn't have his head chopped off by a flying record, I told her. He died in the Coconut Grove fire.

No, it wasn't a record, she clarified. He ran off the road in his car and hit something, and his suitcase, which was sitting in the back seat, flew up and hit him in the back of the head and broke his neck.

Mom was right; that's what happened. I have no idea where that Coconut Grove story came from, especially since the truth was much more interesting.

Before embarking on this trip, I had read that the Tom Mix Museum in Dewey had the suitcase that killed him on display. While I'm not sure it was truly the "suitcase of death" that I saw in Dewey, I definitely saw a couple of shiny metal Halliburton suitcases emblazoned with a "TM," with some text describing his death immediately above them.

Tom Mix apparently had to have his initials on everything. We saw a lot of initialed stuff on display at the museum, including saddles, guns, Masonic paraphernalia, and cereal premiums. We also saw a bit of a movie called "My Pal The King," featuring Tom Mix and an extremely young Mickey Rooney playing the benevolent child king of a strange imaginary country.

There was a photo in the museum of the old Dewey Jail, where Mix had put away criminals during a stint in small-town law enforcement. My mom recognized the building in the picture, and we searched it out. We had no trouble tracking it down, even though there are no markers of any kind. It looks like it once had three cells, one of which has totally collapsed. The doors are chained shut now with bicycle cable, so I couldn't actually get in, but it looked like it was probably a pretty unpleasant place to be incarcerated.

He ain't heavy, he's my concrete gorilla.