Autograph Hound Saturday once again, and we spotlight a famous lawman. When I was in college at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, I heard Buford Pusser would be signing clubs at a Ford dealership across town. Growing up in Tennessee, I knew of Pusser long before the series of movies that made him nationally and no doubt internationally famous.
Apparently Pusser didn’t use the clubs in real life, but once they were introduced in the Walking Tall films he went with the flow. Print the legend and all that.
I went to some effort to get over there, because I knew at the time that this appearance might be my only chance to see some modern equivalent to Wyatt Earp and company.
He was signing clubs, and impressed me as looking very much like a high school football coach. Clean-cut, tall but not a giant. His jaw seemed kind of weak, but then it had been shot off in that ambush that killed his wife. . . .
(Or so we thought at the time — new accusations say there was no ambush and Pusser may have murdered her. “May.” Were there bullet holes in the car they were in? If not, those bushwhackers were damn good shots.)
Per norm, Brian Leno is the Autograph Hound presenting the John Hancock. I told him he might want to keep an eye peeled for a signed club. I think they sell those at the Buford Pusser Museum, but those signatures have got to be autopen, right?
Here’s Brian:
It’s actually because of you I got Pusser. When you mentioned that you had seen him I remembered Walking Tall with Joe Don Baker, had really liked the movie at the time and figured What the Hell — I need a Buford Pusser in the collection.
I mean, I’m not a one-trick pony. I have many more autograph collecting manias than just fantasy writers.
I told you I picked up Sir Richard Francis Burton, and I think I told you I got a Breaker Morant autograph. Morant was executed by firing squad and yelled, “Shoot straight you bastards! Don’t make a mess of it!” How could I not want him?
And how many Morant signatures are out there? Not many, I’ll wager.
Anyway, I put Pusser in with historical figures like Morant and Sir Francis. Some people idolize them. Some hate ’em.
I never got to see him but I do have his signature.
Can you imagine me meeting him and then pestering him for his autograph? He probably would have taken out a baseball bat and launched my head into the next county.
