Dead Man's Hand

"Who wants to play those eights and aces
Who wants a raise
Who needs a stake"
(Bob Seger, Fire Lake)

"Pushing up the ante, I know you've got to see me,
Read 'em and weep, the Dead Man's Hand again,
I see it in your eyes, take one look and die,"
(Motorhead; Ace of Spades)

These are just two songs that use the reference to the legendary Dead Man's Hand. Numerous others have written entire songs based on the episode.



Deadwood, South Dakota, August 2, 1876. The date helped put the "wild" in the legend of the wild, wild west, and it wrote the epitaph for gambler and lawman, Wild Bill Hickock. On that date Wild Bill joined a poker game at Nutall & Mann's Saloon, with, among others, Charlie Rich. Contrary to his usual precaution of sitting with his back to the wall, Hickock accepted a seat that left him with his back to the door. He also didn't notice Jack McCall, from whom he'd won money the day before, drinking heavily at the bar. While Hickock played his hand, aces and eights showing, Jack McCall walked up behind him and shot him in the back of the head with a .45 pistol, allegedly shouting, "Take that!" Some say McCall calimed it was a revenge killing for the death of his brother.

Hickock died instantly and was buried on boot hill. is friend, Charlie Utter, placed a wood plaque that read:

Wild Bill

J. B. Hickok

Killed by the assassin Jack McCall

Deadwood, Black Hills

August 2, 1876

Pard we will meet again in the

Happy Hunting Grounds to part no more

Good bye

Colorado Charlie, C. H. Utter






The 5th card in the poker hand is not authoritatively known and is much debated. The Vegas nightclub, the Stardust, displays a 5 of diamonds as the card. Deadwood, South Dakota has a 9 of diamonds in its displays about the incident and Ripley's Believe it or Not has a queen of clubs. Possible cards are the Jack of Diamonds, Five of Diamonds, Nine of Diamonds, the Queen of Clubs, QAueen of Hearts, Queen of Spades, King of Spaces and the Deuce of Spades.

Poker experts however say that if you're playing the game, the fifth card won't matter. Holding aces and eights gives you a "Dead Man's Hand". Just don't make Hickock's mistake. Keep your weapon unholstered and your back to the wall.

Eggheads & Me

So a few years back I read a book called THE MAKING OF THE ATOM BOMB by Richard Rhodes. It was a massively dense book, but simply marvelous: a history of the physics that led to the Manhattan Project during World War II and the creation of the first atomic bomb.

There were many scientific discoveries, theories and experiments that made it possible, but the bomb project was sheparded on the scientific side at Los Alamos, New Mexico, by J. Robert Oppenheimer.



He was a fascinating man (coincidentally, a very young Richard Feynman worked under him as well) and ended his life ignominiously after a dispute with Edward Teller over the ethics of proceeding with the creation of an even larger nuclear device, the hydrogen bomb. Teller prevailed, Oppenheimer had his National security clearance revoked, and he died of cancer.

And the hydrogen bomb was made.

Richard Rhodes' book, DARK SUN, chronicles that dubious scientific achievement.

A detail that I learned while reading ATOM BOMB that is chilling in is revelation that scientists, and our government, may not always choose the prudent path:

A number of the scientists, as they pondered this very first atomic chain reaction explosion, posited the theory that the chain reaction would run out of control and set the entire Earth's atmosphere aflame and the world would end.

But they went ahead anyway.




And that is why, as a child of the baby boomer generation, I was subject to the "duck and cover" drills - hence the name of my memoir blog. Because we were told that crouching in a fetal position under our desks would save us from a nuclear explosion.




Knowledge.

It can be very, very good.

Or it can be very, very bad.

Use it wisely.