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Anecdotes about Rex Cravat

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Rex was the sort of man who had a lot of stories to tell, and about whom many anecdotes can be told. I'm starting off this page with a few of my own, in no particular order.

Please email your own anecdotes about him to me and I'll add them to this page.

Thanks!     Jerry Ferrin

      Rex Cravat, 1976, by Jerry Ferrin.

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• I used a midi file of The Dance, a song by Garth Brooks, as the theme song for this site because of it's association in my mind with the time when Rex was working part-time as a bartender at the Stockman's Bar at Roger Rd. & Flowing Wells Rd. in Tucson, Az. When I'd stop in to see Rex, that song was often playing on the jukebox.

• Some of the scummiest people I've ever met in my life were acquaintances of Rex's from Bisbee, Arizona, circa 1985: Zann Lascott, Raoul Rodriguez and some stumbling, obnoxious clown who called himself "Loki". I used to drive down to Bisbee to visit Rex around that time, and dreaded meeting his acqaintances there, with just a few exceptions, such as Grant, Jim and Francine.

• Rex was expert at sharpening knifes and could literally put a "shaving edge" on a good blade. In fact, he had one large, single-bladed, folding pocket knife which he used to shave his face in preference to a safety razor.

• My brother, Darrell Ferrin, nicknamed Rex "The Pilgrim", and called him that for the past 25 years or so when he referred to him. When he was talking with Rex, he usually just called him "Pilgrim".

  It was a name Rex liked. He had a customized mug made for himself to use at Saint Elmo's Bar in Bisbee, Az, with "The Pilgrim" engraved on it which hung back of the bar ready for his use back in the latter part of the 1980's.

• Over the years, Rex had glass shops in Tucson, Tombstone and Bisbee, Arizona, as well as in Los Vegas, Nevada, near Black Hills, South Dakota, in Minnesota, in New Jersey and other places.

• Rex had a BMW motorcycle when I met him in 1975 and he kept it for many years. We often used to take the "Triple-T Tour", which was a moonlight ride on our motorcyles out Old Spanish Trail, past Colossal Cave, to I-10 and then back into Tucson with a stop at the Triple-T Truckstop for coffee and pie on the way.

• Judy Cory: There was a great singer/songwriter by the name of Townes van Zandt who took his own life about 4 years ago. He was well known in the music industry, little known to the general public. Emmy Lou Harris pumped some life into his career by singing his song "Pancho and Lefty". Anyway, my favorite song of his has always been...

  "Rex's Blues":

  Ride the blue wind high and free
  She'll lead you down through misery
  Leave you low come time to go
  Alone and low as low can be

  If I had a nickel I'd find a game
  If I won a dollar I'd make it rain
  If it rained an ocean I'd drink it dry
  And lay me down dissatisfied

  Legs to walk and thoughts to fly
  Eyes to laugh and lips to cry
  A restless tongue to classify
  All born to grow and grown to die

  Tell my baby I said so long
  Tell my mother I did no wrong
  Tell my brother to watch his own
  Tell my friends to mourn me none

  Chained upon the winds of time
  Feeling full of foolish rhyme
  There ain't no dark till something shines
  I'm bound to leave this dark behind

  (This song was written in honor of Rex "Wrecks" Bell, listen to "Wrecks" sing it here.)

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