When did Billy the Kid Die? July 14, 1881

The movie "The Kid" (2019) starring Ethan Hawke and others paints a pretty grim picture of the wild west then.

Though California was much less wild than things were west of the Rockies back in the 1880s there still were people alive who remembered things like this when I grew up in the 1950s. My grandparents were all born between the 1870s and 1888 and so they and their friends often talked to me about what life was really like back then and it's not so much what most movies say. It was more (west of the Rockies) at least much more like in the movie "The Kid" (2019).

If you see this movie because you are interested in those times still, just remember most of what Billy the Kid Does in this movie is historically accurate about him. I think he had to kill his first person at age 13 and it was mostly downhill for him after that even though he wasn't always as bad as most people think he was but had to become that way towards the end of his short young life in order to survive even one more day. In fact, the Sheriff who shot him actually was a friend of his and the man who shot him never got over the fact that he had to shoot a friend. His life was ruined by shooting Billy the Kid.

If you look around the world what happens to "Billy the Kid" and the boy about 14 and the girl about 16 or 17 is still happening all over the world and worse things are still going on because most of the world is still dog eat dog and wild and crazy, especially regarding children under 20.

So, though this movie informs better than most what life was actually like in the 1880s west of Colorado, just remember this kind of thing or worse is happening still all over the world to children's lives still today.

Though I found watching this movie Horrifying, I couldn't help but feel it is much more accurate about what young people experienced in the "Wild West" than most movies.

It also is the same kind of thing that I experienced a lot growing up in Los Angeles even in the 1950s. Because there was always a lot of violence. And you had to be very very intelligent to stay alive and out of the hospital then in the 1950s growing up even in Glendale. So, growing up in Glendale from 1956 to 1969 I saw a lot of violence and mayhem then in school and just after school. Luckily, I was big for my age and usually a head taller than most in my class so I could scare most people away so I didn't have to fight all the time. Smaller and younger boys and girls often wound up in the hospital back then though, especially in Junior High and High School. You always had to be very careful what you said and did to survive at all in Junior High and High School then.

I was telling my wife a story about a race riot in a girlfriend's high school in Long Beach and I was supposed to meet her at her home then. And she came running barefoot to me from her High school  and her house because she was trying not to be killed in a riot then at her high school. Her shoes were dress up shoes so she had to take them off and run in order to stay alive that day at her High School. This happened a lot in the 1950s through the 1970s even in California then.

In the 1960s  I had many friends that were black then because even then white people could easily be friends with Black People in California. This was likely because California tends to be a more equal state than many on the east coast. For example, in North Carolina I asked a black man if I could help him and thought he was going to beat me up and realized almost too late I wasn't in California where Black people are treated like human beings.

Race relations aren't perfect anywhere on earth. But, California is more of an Equal state than anywhere else on earth I know of. We don't have all the baggage that the East Coast (both north and south have) regarding race relations. So, we are very lucky that way.

We are a melting pot of people all over the world here in California so we are likely the most international place on earth where people get along better from all over the world  than any other place I know of at this time on earth.

People in California are very into trying new things and exploring all over the world and into understanding other cultures better. It's just something in the nature of most educated Californians to be interested in cultures and languages all over the world. So, it's possible more foreign languages are spoken in California by more people than anywhere else on earth too. I think for California about 1/2 of more of the people have English as their 2nd language. But English binds the State together so all the nationalities come together under the banner of speaking English together.

Since California is the 5th largest economy all by itself on earth you see how successful we have been at getting along with cultures from all over the world here.