The Ballad of Pancho Barnes

with hints of cayenne and paprika. This innovative blank preserves the distinctive and authentic tasting notes of the traditional blank m potato crispy holds the flavor of blank. Let me give you another one, okay. Honoring the rich tradition of salted potato shapes, this premium blank features a blend of fine kosh or salt and sugar, a subtle homage to the simple perfection of blank. Um. Is it a pair of shoes? No, it's let me just let me just break it to you. It's not pretty. Is it a liquor? Yes?

Oh okay, So that's a liquor. I'm close. It's something you drink. Yeah, and it's potato flavor. It's a vodka. So we're on the right track now, Vodka potato flavor or honoring potatoes. So there's two, no, there's two kinds. One is all about the you know, spicy curled potato with cayenne and paprika, and the other one is the salted potatoes shapes salt sugar. So I'm telling you today about Arbie's vodka. What one is arbie curly fry vodka, and then they also have a crinkle fry flavored vodka.

Oh god, they don't have like a meat sauce flavored vodka. No, but they have like bloody mary recipes you can and then you shove the fries up in the top, just like as like a little dressing on the top curly hair. What is going on in the boardrooms of these businesses that they're like, look, we got a moment. What happens? They gather around, they're like, check this out. Ridiculous crime

is recording again and Elizabeth needs a mashup. Let's get on these guys, and they like take their jackets off and loosen the ties and the gals in the room who are really the bosses, you know, they just like crack their knuckles. They get up to the whiteboard, huh, start scribbling them out, and they're like, Okay, she's gonna love this. God. Yeah, so that makes absolutely no sense. No one will buy this five French Fry vodka eighty proof. Oh perfect, It's all sold out. If you go to

Arby's Vodka dot com. The bottles are like they're supposed to be like sixty bucks when they say sold out, do they make like five hundred? And then like that's why do they make any at all? Oh good question, Elizabeth, Like your suspicions, I am very suspicious. Yeah, if you got a second, I do I have one for you? Yes? Okay, this this is right up your alley, right right up my shooter alley at the shooter alley. Jagger Hoover and the FBI and the US Air Force once went to

war against one woman. Oh yes, this one woman. She was an aviation pioneer. But she'd run a foul of the decency police because this one woman. Dare dared, Elizabeth to let men and women have fun at a place called the Happy Bottom Riding Club. This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heights and cons. It's always sent murder free and one ridiculous Elizabeth Elizabeth. Today, I got a special one for you. I told you this.

I think you're gonna like this lady. She's one of my favorite American legends. Okay, her name Poncho Barnes. Poncho Barnes, that's a great name. Okay. To give you a sense of her, I'm just gonna lay out her life philosophy. She used to say, I thought you'd dig this when you have a chance. She's happy. Oh yeah, that's good. I like that. So you're ready to hear the Ballad of Poncho Barnes. She was born Florence Leontine Low. She

came into this world on July twenty second, nineteen oh one. Basically, you know, almost with the New century. She came by her adventurous spirit naturally. Her grandfather was Thaddius S. C. Low in a case you don't know, who was an inventor who specialized in balloons, and he was an aviation pioneer. And you're wondering, how is she an avination pioneer. Great question, Elizabeth.

He was the founder of the Army of the Potomac's Balloon Corps, which means he fought for the Union Army under Lincoln, which also means his balloon War affair was the start of American military aviation. Wow, father of right. Yeah, So her grandfather, Daddiuslowe also inspired her, this young tomboy to dream of her own life among the clouds. So when she's ten years old, he takes her to her first air show. She loves it. Now, you gotta keep in mind the Right brothers had just flown for the

first time when she was three years old. Now seven years later, they are aviation pioneers, right. So she sees this and she's like, oh, I gotta be in the sky. Right, But first she's a young tom boy. She's like, I should run away from home. So she runs away from home. Now, she grew up in southern California in a town called sam Marino. So for Pancho Barnes, running away meant grabbing a horse and riding to Tijuana. That sounds great, right. Yeah.

She was like, you know, in southern California back when was mostly ranches, exactly orange orchards. So she just, you know, takes off for Tijuana and has a good old time. Her family finally catches up her and they force her back to America. They enroll her in a religious school. How old was she when she about twelve thirteen, so one of many religious schools she goes to. Finally she graduates and she's like, oh, I want to become a veterinarian. And her mother's like, no, no, no, that's not a

right profession for a young lady. And she's like, but I really love animals, and she's like, no, no, no no, We're gonna put you in art school. That's a good thing for a lady who's creative in fiery like you. And her grandma's like no, no no, no, no, no art school, no no, no no. We're gonna get her married, like all good wayward girls should be. So they arrange a marriage. At this point, she's nineteen years old. The marriage is to this reverend. It doesn't last long, it doesn't sound

like a good match. They were intimate just once on their wedding night. That's it. And eventually a couple years later, her mother passes away, and this kind of sets something loose and poncho. She's like, I gotta get free. You know. It reawakens in her that sense of longing for adventure. She runs off from her husband Rome's America, starts having fairs.

She's also a footloose and fancy free young heiress, a tomboy with money to spend because when her mother died she left her about eight million dollars in twenty twenty three dollars. Whoa, So she uses her inheritance to party and enjoy. Yeah, she's twenty three years. I was sorry when she when this first happens, she gets married, she's nineteen. When the mother passes, she's twenty three, so there's nineteen twenty four. Yeah right, so yeah, Flapper era total like,

you know, the it girl. Clara Bow is the thing, and she, by the way, is a pilot, so you know this is in the air. Right. So she decides, you know what, I'm gonna go out and keep me some adventure. Now that I got some money, I don't need to work unless she goes to South America, takes a cruise down South America, has a ball, just enjoys herself all the heck. She gets back to America and she's like, you know what, forget this, I'm going back to South America. But this time she's like, I'm gonna

do things a little bit different. I want to have more adventure than I could last time. I'm ditching the dresses. I'm gonna go and be, you know, dressed as a man. Huh. So this is how she earned her nickname Poncho. She goes back to South America and she rides on a banana boat and she gets okay, dresses a man exactly. She books passed it down to banana boat. And uh, while she's on banana boat, she discovers it. The true has this little secret that they did not tell her before.

She said sale. Turns out they are smuggling guns to the Mexican revolutionaries. Oh well, she gets caught up in the Mexican Revolution. This is the Cristero Revolution, when you had warriors for Christ fighting against thee the Constitution nineteen it must have been much safer for her to travel in men's cloth completely. Yeah, you're right on with that, I know I am. When she gets caught in her men's clothes with all the other revolutionaries, Mexican officials, they

take the boat. The guns are seas. The revolutionaries are in prison, which includes Poncho Barnes. So she gets locked up as a revolutionary for about a month and a half. While she's inside, she bonds with this other American who was on the boat as well. His name was Roger Shoot and Rogers Shoot is the helmsman on the but on a boat. No, he's a well off American, you know, rich kid, and he's out there for quote the thrill of it. Interesting. Yeah, he's a Stanford graduate. He's a

marine biologist, studies fishery. So he's like a smart cat, you know, well to do footloose, fancy free, just like Poncho. Two of them decide, you know, we need to escape this Mexican prison. So they managed to steal a horse and a burrow and they take off on burrowback and horseball and they head for the American border. But then, you know what, now that we're free and in Mexico, maybe we should kick around for a little bit. So

they kick around Mexico. I figure you'd enjoy this. They're eating good food, enjoying all the sites, learning some Spanish. They decide, you know what, we should become lovers. So they become lovers. They spend seven months bouncing around Mexico. At one point they're like, we should probably get back to America. So they're in Mexico City and they decide we'll walk down to Vera Cruz. So they walked down

to Ericaus, which is on the Gulf Coast. For those who don't know, it's about a two hundred and fifty mile overland walk. But they want a book passage. So they're traversing the Mexican countryside. And at this point, she's still known as Florence Leontine. So Flow is like, you know, making a joke about her lover Roger, and she's like, oh, you're hit like that windmill jousting hero don Quixote. And he laughs and he's well educated, so he's like, oh,

then that makes you Poncho. She it's a moun props them. She corrects them. She's like, don Quixote's sidekick was Sancho Panza. Yeah, and he's like, ah, right, right. He's like, well, no matter, the nickname sticks. They start calling her Poncho, so she becomes Poncho for the rest of her life. That's a great nickname, right, totally. Yeah, I mean it's it's not as good as Dizzy, but it's good. Uh, you see me looking away for the camera. So Florence Leontine Low

is now Poncho Barnes, right, Poncho and Roger. They head back to America and leave Mexico behind. They try to go up to the Mississippi, like where the waters are coming out in New Orleans. They make it to New Orleans, they get off the boat, and then they now have to cross America because they're both from California. So they hitchhike, they train hop when there's no vehicle available, they walk. They end up taking another huge trek seventeen hundred miles

from New Orleans to California. But these are like trust fund kids in totally, and they're gonna cross the Southwest, which is no easy place. You miss that train, you're stuck in the Arizona desert, right, Yeah, So they're like managing, right exactly. So on this they get back to California, and now the lover's part way, so they both you know, young and impetuous boom. Pancho settles into her life as a rich girl in San Marino. She's got this cousin

who's got this new hobby. She's taking flying lessons ponchos like, oh, I'll ride down with you. She sees the plane, she sees the instructors, She's like, I gotta fly too, So she hops in there instant pilot. She just takes to it immediately. So she's you know, she has like this is biplane error right, So right, this is like you know, uh, like when you're imagining like the leather sided, open cockpit,

double wings. So this is how she's flying now. These planes, least the one that she learned on, it had just one instrument, like didn't have an instrument panel like an on off switch. Basically, there was an oil gage to let her know how much oil the engine had. That was that's it. That's the only girl. No fuel, no altimeter, no spiedometer, no. So for the altimeter, what she had was you look over the side of the cockpit. That's how high like a string they have that that's kidding.

That's how she knows how much a gas there is. There is a string that you dip into the gas and it's I could have built these early planes. If it's wet, there's fuel. If it's dry, try to land exactly, but also the the you know, there's like a horizon gage in a plane. The horizon gage is just a key chain tide. So if it's level, your level, if hey, I want to look out the window. So that's how

she learns to fly in this early flying machine. And she absolutely like the long flowing scarf and the level completely, the leather like like helmet, and then the goggles on top, and then the white like flowing scarooy in the back and snoopy in woodstock both yes, you know it. I was there. So it took her only six hours before she could fly solo for the first time. That's like unheard of six hours. And she's like, I'm good to go. She's like hey, hey, And so she earns her pilot's

license pretty quickly. She was so early in aviation history that Orville Wright signed her pilot's license. No, No, that's like a joke, like exactly, like what you're doing the dozens like your mom's So she got rrible right on exactly. So now she's a pilot, she's got horrible rights in premature on her license. She's like, I need a plane. So what does she do? Well, she's rich, so she goes and buys herself a nice biplane. She buys the travel Air speed Wing, which is like a real cutting

edge plane. Can people walk on the wing? Yeah? They could. Actually, it's that type of plane. So this one was owned by Howard Hawks, the film director of Screwball Comedies like Bringing a Baby. Oh really okay, So it's like a you know, it's a well maintained plane, but it's still pretty experimental, right, So the first time she flies it, she sides, I don't want to fly it across country.

So she tries flying it. The first time. She has to set it down eight times for emergency landings, eight times, almost gonna tootle up to a pebble beach exactly. She's like, not, I'll make it up bouncing down again. So she's like, you know, pretty good at flying. None of this is really terribly scary for her. So she starts competing in air races, and she starts doing barnstorming exhibitions. At one point she has Poncho Barnes's Mystery Circus of the Air.

Mystery Circus of the Air. That's flying spectacle, that's amazing. She also has the her favorite sunt that she would pull was called the surprise parachute. She would invite a member of the audience to take their first airplane flight. And because she's like, you know, she'd remember herself as a young girl, she'd usually pick a girl. Said she get a girl out on the plane. She strapped the girl into a parachute, so she's the kid would be safe.

She'd take them up in the biplane and once they are high enough that everyone can see them and the people look tiny from the ground, she would toss the child out of the plane. No, without telling the child, they're going to be taught out of the plane. Elizabeth, wait and the total surprise is injected from the byplane rang a parachute. The child plummets back to the air surprise.

The child doesn't know how to like yank the parachute yard right, So they had like a string attached to the plane that would pull the rip cord from the plane. Oh my god. And it's like if that didn't work, I don't know what's gonna happen. It always worked, so no kids were hurt, and the kid would parachute to Earth. Now I'm not a parent, right, could you imagine someone Oh my god, so it was a different time. Yeah, yeah, this is like far less lutitious exactly, which is interesting

because later on her life she sued everybody. Well, yeah, sue, sue you exact, but like, how many times was her life threatened by an angry father or mother? No reports to that that I could find, but I assume that that I didn't make the papers. I don't know. Nineteen twenty nine, a couple years later, she's doing the powder Puff Air Derby. This it's a race specifically for female pilots because there's a bunch now female pilots growing because

Emilie aarhart Is is blowing everyone's mind. Flying is a gendered event exactly. So she's coming in for a landing at one point and the truck is trying to cross the runway ahead of her planning and the driver misjudges the distance, doesn't realize how fast she's trying to come in. She nails the truck on the runway, totally walks away on scathe, just like, yeah, well you know. It can reinded me of the film The Great Waldo Pepper, which is a Robert Redford film about the flying days, and

he has a couple of crashes. I just kept picturing her doing that. The plane's upside down in the grass. She walks away like exactly lucky. So meanwhile, August first, nineteen thirty, she's flying in her new travel air type our Mystery Ships, the new fastest plane that she can buy. Mystery Ship. Yeah right, great name. So Ponto Barnes officially

becomes the fastest woman alive. Yes. Wow. She shatters Amelia Earhart speed record and the record at the time she gets his one hundred and ninety six point one nine miles an hour. Whoa yeah. So about the same time, she becomes friends with aviation Maverick Howard Hughes, friend of the show, right, and Hughes was designing aircraft like unlike anyone else, but she's doing this in like an air GLOPPI well, at this point she's buying nicer and nicer place. No, no,

nothing like that. These are all like propeller planes were nineteen thirty, So you can't even really fly. It's an air gloppy with a big ratchette spinning. She and Howard Hughes have the same love of speed, so he hires her to fly in his movie Be the Hell's Angels. Right, Okay. That so she becomes a stunt pilot in Hollywood, and then she starts a union for pilots called the Associated Motion Picture Pilots, And this is one of the first

unions in Hollywood. So you can probably now start to see why she's a personal heroine, total badass, right, okay, So let's take a quick break and then I'll get back into how Poncho Barnes got into a fight with the US Air Force and became friends with Chuck Yeager. Now, Elizabeth, yes, sar, we're back. Oh we are, Yeah, that's us cool. Now. You may have noticed when I was talking before that we were bouncing around in the early days of aviation. Yes,

I noticed that. I thought, you once, you're pretty quick, and you you've heard some iconic names, Howard Hughes, a millionaire heart. So we are kind of sidestepping the fact that in nineteen thirty there is another major social trend other than aviation shaping lives nineteen thirty. Yeah, the Great Depression. Yeah, so yeah, exactly, the Great In nineteen twenty nine stock market crash and kicks off the Great Depression. Pancho Barns and Heiress, you'd think Oh, she's somewhat buffeted from all

of the undulations of the stock market. But she isn't immune to the Great Depression. Pretty much, no one was unless they're super wealthy. So in early nineteen thirties, she has to rent out her family estate in San Marino. Later on, this is the family home she grew up in where she had horses that she ride in Tijuana. Right, So the depression drags on. She then has to sell the family estate. She leaves her life in Hollywood behind, and she leaves all of her hard partying, high flying days,

and she moves out to the desert. Huh. She buys herself a four room ranch house. It's located in a super rural area known as the Antelope Valley to Antelope Valley Okay, yeah, yeah, high desert if you take the five out of La Yeah. Okay, So it's east of La it's in the mountains. It's on this high desert plain. And she buys this, and surrounding her is this one hundred and eighty acre alfalfa farm. And meanwhile her neighbors are this place called Muroc Dry Lake. Murroc Dry Lake.

It's a huge expanse of land unsuitable for farming or anything else. It's pretty much just a dry riverbed, all dusty, brooke and earth. But it's the home of the young Army Air Corps. They use the dry lake to as a testing ground for plane pilots. Yeah, the training camp would one day grow and spread and become Edwards Air Force Base. No way, Okay, it starts back then. Yeah, that was putting the map in my head right now, right, So Ponto Barn she's sets up shop next to Murroc

Dry Lake Training Camp. Being a pilot aviation pioneer herself, she becomes fast friends with all the pilots and officers. Soon enough she's like opened it up her place for pilots to come and drink and eat and relax. There's not really plenty places to go, and they're all really enjoying the wildflowers in the spring, which is Antelope Valley

super booms. Yes, So the government signs contracts with her and they have her supply the Army Air car with not only pilots and planes that she recommends and instructor that she knows, but also to sell them hog meat and milk. So she gets the trash from the base she feeds it to the pigs and then sells the pigs back to the base. Hey, it's the circle of lights exactly. So by the end of the decade the depression, it's nineteen thirty nine. Ponto Barnes has created quite a

spread for herself. She's managed her way through the depression. She's now named the place Rancho autroo Verde, which, for those who don't speak Spanish means green gold ranch. So World War two probably a reference to the poppies and the wildfli exactly, and the alfalfa. Well. World War two kicks off in nineteen thirty nine. Two years later, the US enters the fight after Pearl Harbor. Poncho Barnes's business is now a booming as the military ramps up its operations.

That same year, in nineteen forty one, Ponto Barnes enlarges her ranch. So now she adds a swimming pool. She adds a fish pond that shaped like the new Air Force emblem, because the Air Force is now the US the Army Air Force, so they become the Air Force on their own. Because she makes it like that laurel wreath that they have, She's like, oh, I'll make a pool like that. Yes, so she also she creates a

private hangar plane for fan totally. She's like people who love an NFL team and everything in the for the pool in the backyard. So she also has a private hanger because she's stole pilot, so she has planes being able to land. She has two airstrips, and she puts in a race track. Oh why not because you wants to get Hollywood people who come out speed exact, you get it. That's why she's my girl, right the drum up business. She starts advertising in the LA paper. She

claims that she has a quote modern flying dude ranch. Right, So it's the perfect place for the famous and the wealthy to come and kick up their heels and get away from it all. For forty nine dollars a week, she'll give you food, board and all the fun you can manage. That. That's such like an old Hollywood. This is a perfect time. Total. Yeah, I love I Just if I could go to a place like this, Oh you know how much I would spend exactly? You would

be holed up in there? Oh my god. Yes. Anyway, so the Hollywood crowd begins to wing out to Poncho Barnes is modern flying dude ranch. They mix with the pilots and the clientele. They all love each other. The pilots like the stars, the stars like the pilot. It's a fusion of both of her world. So now she can talk planes and plane crashes. She can spill gossip and talk shop. Both crowds are also hard drinkers, so

everybody's really enjoying themselves. And she becomes this desert legend of like all you gotta go out to Poncho Barnes's place the war ends. And so now Poncho renames her place Ponchos fly in Like yeah, okay, right, because it's super super fly girl. So she upgrades it again. I thought you want to know this time. She adds riding stables, she adds motel rooms, she adds a rock fountain to go with the fish pond. Beautiful. She also expands her airport,

adds a control tower and for her two airstrips. Yeah, and so the thing is is that she loves horses, right yack, I told you that. So she wants to make it so everybody can ride horses all around the ramp. But when they get done riding. They shouldn't have to go back to the paddock, and like in the stables, She's like, why didn't you just ride right into the pool. So she creates a ramp so you can ride a horse ride into the giant pool. What yes? Wait? Was

she in reference in that movie The Right Stuff? Yes? Okay, totally is the bar where they all go okay, yeah, yeah yeah. So nineteen forty seven, the Ranch earns a new nickname. A friend of Poncho Barnes is out there. He's at the ranch taking a horseback ride because she loves doing that, in racing across the desert all fast. When they get back out from the trail, he tells Poncho He's like, man, I love being back in the saddle again. It quote gave me a happy bottom. After

a little teasing of her friends, the name sticks. Pablo renames her ranch the Happy Bottom Riding Club. Did you feel happy in your bottom? Exactly? How happy is your bottom? So it made me feel so happy at the same time the bottom, my bottom is grinning the same time the test pilots stationed out amrock Dry Lake. But I was sad in my chest? Are you going? I'm just I'm just I'm just working out. You got like a mournful elbow. So the pilots of Rock Dry Lake, we're

nineteen forties. Even a big thing happens in nineteen forty seven. That's not the Roswell air crash, but another big thing in the air. Do you know what it is? Uh no, break the sound barrier? Oh right, this is the right different exactly that you were talking about earlier. So this is super movie. I'm pretending I saw it. I just you know me. Yeah, it's fuzzy. Yeah, you're younger, pilots,

you're young. It was a different time. So the problem of the speed barrier is, you like, the pilots just couldn't manage to get up to it and break problem. So it becomes this impenetrable wall in the air. Right, So the pilots are all trying to do it. They're trying to figure out how to do it. They've got jets now, so that's the key that Obviously peller won't get them fast enough that the jets will, but they still can't get up to Mock one. They're trying and trying.

They don't know how to do it. So she she makes a bet. Pancho Barnes says, I'll give a free steak dinner to whichever one of you flyboys manages to break the speed of sound barrier. Right, So they all these young test pilots and future as They're like, oh, there's a steak dinner on the line. Okay, now, now I'm really going to put my back and so yeah they do. And there's one young pilot who is a favorite of hers. And this dude his name is Chuck Yeager.

So he was a hero of mine as a boy, fastest man alive, the first person to break the sound barrier. I was a little sad to find out later on that he specifically worked to make sure that there were no black pilots at at the morocc Try training camp. There was one, and he made him leave, like yeah, So I was like, oh, Chuck, I used to love you anyway. So whatever racism in the military in nineteen forties, no great surprise. Yeah, And he's like a good old

boy anyway. So Pacho Barnes has her standing off for Chuck Yeager. He goes, I'm getting that free steak dinner. Everyone knows that Chuck Yeager is most likely going to break it. But they don't know is that He and Pacho Barnes to go out the night before. The riding horse is all fast in the desert because I love to go fast. He falls off the horse, breaks his ribs. The next days power the next day he has to go up and fly with broken ribs. Doesn't want anybody to know he does it. He goes up and he

breaks the speed of sound with broken ribs. That night he goes back to the Happy Bottom Riding Club. They have an epic party and so begins a tradition that every time a speed record follows steak dinner at the Happy Bottom. Okay, so she's digging this because it's all like her early days in the aviation and everything's about speed, you know. She she brokes a million air hearts speed record. They all know that. So everybody's just fast, fast, faster,

and they're just so happy. In nineteen forty seven, the war, they've they've won the war. Now they're about to be able to go into space. And they know this because these are they also the young astronauts. She pointed out with right stuff. So Pancho Barnes then it's like gets bored with speed being the new prize. So she's like, you know, no more steak dinners. I'm gonna come up with something else. So she comes up with the Booby Prize.

So the Booby Prize is a pilot gets to walk across a sheet of rubber falsies, like a whole sheet like fake breasts. Yeah, so it's like I guess, so I don't know. She knows somebody in Los Angeles is like, I got plenty of fake chesticles for you, and they're just and they walk on them. They walk on them like a like hot coals, and the embarrassed and I don't know, it's so happy and like I'm so masculing, and the boobies are touching like weird. Wait I gotta okay,

so wait when the sheets like how many? Why do you think it is? Like it does briefly so I don't know how many. I have no idea. And these were like plastics. These are rubber breasts that you would put in like as either replacement or like as for cup girth, you know, if you want to build up the cup of the falsees. Okay, So that's what it is. It was just like a whole little that's what it is. That's what it is, Elizabeth. It's just false. What can I tell you? And this and this was the what'd

you say? This was the second prize. Ye, this is the booby prize. So if you don't get a steak dinner, then you got to walk on talk on the boobies on the booby and everyone goes, he all right, all right. So anyway, the Happy Bottom is now officially a pilot's hangout. It's just super masculine. Their whining the walls, we want to step on boots. Okay, well, I see where you're respect go. So they have their decals everywhere. Their propellers are decorations. You can kind of imagine it. And there's

also a strong female presence on the floor. And it's dude to Poncho Barnes because she hires out. She goes, she's a tomboy. She's like, we need some women in here, right, So she hires hostesses to take care of the clientele. These hostesses would wait tables, they'd serve drinks, they'd entertain all the pilots and the other Hollywood clientele. She also had a legal liquor flown in to keep the party going. So She was like having a liquor flown in from Mexico.

And I was all well enjoyed and much like the hostesses, and but Poncho assisted. It was all on the up and up. And I swear she once said, and I quote, we're not responsible for the bustling and the hustling that may go on here. Lots of people bustle and some hustle, but that's their business and a very old one. Did the hostesses have to wear outfits like sexy penguins. Sexy penguins, sexy pelicans? Where are you coming up? It was seaking like birds because in the air sick. See pelicans are

sexy to you, like big gold sexy seagulls. Sey seas to talk about sexy after this, right, I don't want to talk about Ponto. Barnes again expands the resort. Things are going well. The Booby prizes success. A booby is the blue footed booby, So there you go, sexy boobies. She regularly hires bands and artists from LA to come out and play a ranches exactly just like guns and LA guns and with guns as. She also built a stadium for a rodeo, a stadium yes, like not. And

this isn't something like fly by Night affair. This was like with three quarter Mexican bulls. I'm talking like a real rodeo, real stadium, officially sanctioned rodeo on the circuit. Wow, yeah, exactly. No. I should also tell you Elizabeth much like you. She was a singer of popular standards. Yes, just much like get me. She wrote a number of songs, she recorded a few. She had a hit song called buy Your Side, which was about her love of the Air Force and

the relationships she wrote. A love song to the Air Force was about their next door relationship. Exactly. It sold a million digits. Yes, your units. She shifted a million fingers digits, big buckets. People are like, I'll give you fifteen fingers for this forty pime how much for the boobies? So okay, buy your Side? Yes, by your Side. I'm gonna have to look that up. Yeah, it's a banger. I learn it. You could probably do it at weddings,

probably generals, retirement parties. Probably so around the same time. I just show up and I am dressed as a sexy Pelican, and then I lay down my floormat of prosthetics and then I go and a one and a two runs for the door, performing next at slots. You got to perform at Ponto Barnes's wedding. I probably should have did I I don't remember a whole lot. Well, i'll read it to you. It sounds familiar. Year nineteen

fifty two. Her it's her fourth wedding. None have lasted very long, and this time she falls for a younger man, some one who she hopes can keep up with her. So her husband. His name is Mac McKendry. He was thirty two. Thirty two, Yeah, fifty two. Good for her? Yeah right. So she gets yourself from young meat and then says, let's get married, Chuck yeager, you're going to be there. He's like, you bet you. So he stands as her wedding attendant, the commanding Officer of Edwards Air

Force based General Boyd. He gives her away six hundred and fifty guests chair on Ponto Barns fifty. It's a super short ceremony. It's a Native American Blackfoot ceremony. She after the ceremony, she changes out of her wedding dress and puts on a quote a pair of jodpurs a blouse and white cowboy boots. Oh, just a sensible bout.

The happy couples serve their wedding guests and I quote, four whole roasted pigs, eighty eighty pounds of potatoes salad, sixteen gallons of jello, and a fifty pound wedding cake. So wait, pork potato salad and a fifty poundell. Well, there's a lot of people, but dang, like you show up and they're like, just so, Jello has been sitting out in the sun and Jello. Wow. Well, things are going well in fifty two. Everyone is happy. The music was a bouncing or hits were going The illegal Mexican

liquors are flowing, the pilots in clientele. Everyone's enjoying themselves, hostesses, they're having fun. The booby prizes are being given out right. But it should be no surprise to you nor I that the decency police decided to step in and break up all the good times. The issue got there in the desert. Yeah, the issue wasn't the fight. It wasn't like a fight between drunken officers. It wasn't drunk pilots driving back to the base streaking across the desert in

their mid century steel sleds. Nope, that's not the issue. Wasn't the illegal Mexican liquor being flown over the border. The issue was the young women, the hostesses. Oh, the sexy Pelican. Yeah, they ain't hurt nobody, but they were the problem them. So the young women Ponto Barnes had hired to play hostesses. They were mostly beautiful, vivacious people, the kind of women who would like to hang out with hard drinking, hard charging pilots, Hollywood types selected Crows

and Ponto Barnes. She ran a tight ship. She had house rules for her the women. They were instructed to quote, never be vulgar, never to drink too much. In fact, the full set of house rules was this, never spend an undue length of time with any one guest, circulate, be charming and pleasant to all guests. Don't just go for the guy with the wavy hair. Don't be vulgar at any time. Don't sit on guest laps in public.

Don't go automobile riding or flying without permission. Never are you allowed to accept money and remuneration For the more intimate aspects of romance. Oh yes. So one of the hostess was a woman named Dallas Morley. She eventually became the head hostess. She cooked and bartended, and she could also play a mean hockey talk piano. Nice sound, now, Dallas Morley one set of Ponto Barnes quote. I got along with Poncho because when she'd cuss me out, I'd

just cuss her right back and she'd laugh. But she had most of the girls scared to death. Yeah, see the idea. Like I said, most of these women, they were vivacious women. Some were like Dallas morally, they had strong independence streaks. Many of them were somewhat sexually liberated, more sexually liberated than their times. They were sort of women like to sunbathe the naked, swim nude in the

hotel pool when no guests were around. And in the nineteen fifties this got lips a wagon right, so rumors were swirling. They took on a life for their own. Soon there was talk that the sex that they were sex workers, and that Poncho Barnes was the madam of this flyboy cat house team. Things a bit private. She had restricted access. She had made it a members only club. She said no enlisted men could go. Only officers. She had nine thousand person membership who had to personally know

her and she had to vouch for Wow. Yeah. And as for the rumors about it being a casual sex resort, my morally rigid yet albeit wildly racist Chuck Yeager said, Poncho's wasn't a cat house, but it wasn't a church either, So that gives you a little idea. Despite having the reendorsement of respected aviation hero Chuck Yeager and the tacit approval of the top brass at the rock Dry Lake Camp now Edwards Air Force Base, the good times had to come to an end because that's just what happens

to a a good time. So why as I told you the aforementioned decency police decency. Yeah, so after the short break, Elizabeth, I will tell you how Poncho Barnes went to war against the US Air Force and their decency pleasing. All right, so where are were? We just listen to some really great ads. Yes they were so good. Huh oh right, No, Antelope Valley, California, there's that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, super Blooms. Yes,

we're talking about Poncho Barnes. Yes, Okay, so the trouble starts for my girl when the whispered rumors about her hostesses at the Happy Bottom Riding Club turn into an issue for the young and reputation obsessed air Force. We can't have our fly boys doing this right now. Some say it was just an excuse to get the land that was underneath Poncho Barnes's resort and private air That makes sense, right. So there was his cat, General Boyd. He was the head pauncho of the base. He was

the one who gave Poncho Barnes away at her wedding. Okay, totally tight with her. They would hug and embrace and everything. Right, he gets replaced by Johnny good Boy. This this the General General J. Stanley. It was so excited, was like, that's perfect. That's a perfect name for who he is. A tall drink of water and his name is Johnny good Boy. Hey, General Johnny good Boy here. So General J. Stanley Holtner, that's no fun Yeah, well exactly. He is not a fun guy. He is what we in the

good times industry call a kill joy. So when he heard about this bar where hostess has had fun with his test pilots, he decided someone needs to put a stop to this, and that's someone is J Stanley hole Toner. Well, it doesn't seem like it was negatively impacting their performance, No, not at all. Nothing. It was, if anything, good for their performance. She's incentivizing their success with steak Dinners exactly and Booby Price. And they're they're they're flying like they're stress.

They need to place to unwind the Blacks to be able to be themselves. Let them be. But he's like, no fun on my watch, no carousing, no sexy pool time, none of it. So and since he's military General hole hole Toner, he can't come down on Pacho Barnes because she's a private industry, right, So he's got to figure out an angle. So he waits. There's a fight at the bar. So he's like, oh, my pilots, this is

enough for him to step in. He goes, no, pilots, no military personnel can go to the Happy Bottom Riding Club. It is off limits for all base personnel. Huh, that's pretty much gonna be the death sir, Yes, sir, yeah right, But this isn't enough for Captain Kildre. He's like, you know what I should also call the FBI. So what do you call the FBI? Elizabeth? Oh? Is that who's

in charge of that? Good? Right? So he calls f JAG and he's like, yoh, but not literally, but he sends like a like he sends like memos and letters. Jaygger gets this. He's like, what the Happy Bottom Riding Club? Why don't I know about this? Exactly? So he's all, like, I got to hear about these sealastious rumors. I love selacious rumors to try and get a job as a hostess. He Inclinde. There was a memo sad from future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Warren Jay Burger to Jayagger Hoover.

At the time, Burger was the Assistant Attorney General. In his nineteen fifty three memo to Hoover, Burger writes that the US Attorney General's Office will initiate a deep and wide investigation to answer the question of how happy the Happy Bottom Riding Club is? Just how happy? And he quotes wants to know if miss Barnes was operating a disorderly house. So Jagger's like, yeah, get on it and

give me all the details. So the picture the investigation of Pacho Barnes kicks off and now, Elizabeth, I know you can imagine what this all leads to. It. Just for kicks, I'd like you to close your eyes, yes, and picture it. Okay. It's August nineteen fifty three, Murrock Dry Lake, Annelipe Valley, California, three thirty pm. There's a wide blue sky above you, a slight breeze from the

northwest on a fresh air break. You've seated yourself outside the private club just to enjoy the sights and sounds of the desert vistas. It stretches off into the horizon. You've left your job behind in Hollywood. You were making lifts for short actors and you wanted a new start, so you headed out to the desert, where you've been working as the head hostess at a small private club and airport. You've only worked at the Happy Bottom Riding Club for the last few months, but you're loving the

vibe of this place. You love the women you work with, and you like the mercurial, hard cuss and hard drinking boss Poncho Barnes. For the first time in a long time, you're happy at work. In the flight tests for the day are done, so the skies above you right now are quiet, but in the distance you spot a cloud of dust approaching. It looks like a Ford Sedan. The beige car up here's dust covered. Could be a Blue Sedan for all you know. It's that dust cover. But

you watch the fifty two FOURD approach. He grows louder and louder as it grows closer and closer. Finally, sand an pulls up just outside of the Happy Bottom Riding Club doors O. Two men in gray flannel suits step out. They flash badges at you and identify themselves as FBI. One of the agents asked the question he knows the answer to, He says, is this the Happy Bottom Riding Club. Now you don't like to be asked a lot of questions,

so you sasd the FBI agent. Of course, No, this is the pushy Bottom Beach Club, Happy bottoms down the road, so neither agent laughs. I'm not surprised. These are the new IBM punch card agents. These are the humorless agents. These are gone are the charming and daring spies of the war years, as if they never really existed. What you don't know is these are also really good at their job. Spies. Nineteen fifty three is a banner year

for the FBI. Jager Hoover has his bureau humming. They stay busy hunting down fugitives and bagging names on the FBI's Most Wanted liss. They've been catching two fugitive a month every month this entire year. It's one of their record years. They catch twenty four felons this year. It will be a record that will not be surpassed until the social upheaval of nineteen sixty eight. Now, how could you know that these two gray flannel suit wearing paper

cutouts are good at their job? Why would they look like a joke to you? You're used to Flyboy, future astronauts, aging test pilots. Who are these bozos? Yeah? The FBI agent tells you we're gonna need to interrogate all the hostesses, and you're like, on whose authority? You're like, US Constitution, But of course you know they mean Jagger Hoover, So you're like, okay, whatever. You walk back to the hotel rooms where all the hostess are saying, You're like, look,

the fbis here. They're like, what do you mean? Some of them they're naked, some are in silk robe, some are in bathing suits. You're like, girls, you gotta get together yourself together. You gotta come into the bar and talk to them stiff bas like, look, it's not a request. They're here, like okay. So they go in and now Poncho Barnes, she's gone right now, she's away getting hogs

for a big pig rows. So you're in charge, and you've learned from the House un American Activities Commission in the Red Scared you saw in Hollywood, don't lie to the FBI? Right? Do you tell the girls that? And so then you send them in to go get grilled by the FBI agents. Want at a time. They go and sit down the FBI agents and you're watching them agonizing, hoping that they're doing okay. Then once they're excused to leave, you pull them aside and you go, what did they

ask you? Yeah? And then the girls like, oh, they ask any of these weird questions like what Well, like they're like, have you ever been in the white slave trade? Slave trade? Spreading? They're like, well, they're like, also, if there is there any gambling going on? Is there are there like Mexicans being flown in and They're like, what are you talking about? Yees Mexicans and dope are they flying that in? People are like, I don't know what

you're talking about. So when they're done, the hostesses are barely able to get the place set up in time for the evening crowd. You secretly are waiting for the sheriff to show up that night and rescue all and drag you off the sex workers. They don't come, nor do his deputies. Despite of all this talk of the white slave trade and smuggling Mexicans into the country, the FBI agents conclude their investigation. They find no evidence of

any crimes. No one will say anything against Poncho Barnes, so you are free to continue your leisure and happiness with all your friends. Elizabeth. Yeah, you might think having a legal tussle with the FBI, well, that couldn't get any worse than that for Poncho Barnes. And you'd be wrong because the Air Force is like, that's not damn it. I sick Jagger Hoover's boys on why didn't that work? Well, I guess we're gonna have to go one step beyond that,

So they go up to eminent domain. Yeah, because Poncho Barnes has been spinning all of this to her benefit. She'd been talking about, you know, let the rumors persist, she decided. Once the FBI declared I'm fine, She's like, yeah, let them go tell them we're all sex workers. I don't care anymore. So, you know, basically like P. T. Barnum and Kanye West, she decided, Look, there's no such thing as bad blab. So now her friend Chuck Yeager, he used to say, Poncho Barnes quote for rumor enhance

her personality. She didn't dispute it if it didn't have to be true or not true. But that's the way Poncho was. She wasn't dumb. She was a very smart old gal. So now this smart old gal has to deal with the US Air Force bringing full power that they can against her during the Cold War, so they have all sorts of powers. They use emminite domain cut to Captain Kiljoy jer Odin rolled Hoole Toner squares up

for a round two. He decides he's gonna make public his oh, I mean, the Air Force's plans to seize all the land underneath the Happy Bottom Riding Club. He lets it be known that they're gonna put in a new twenty two mile super runway complex for the a new atomic powered airplanes the Air Force has on the drawing board. I'm gonna say that one more time. Atomic powered airplanes, Elizabeth, Like, automic powered subs are one thing, but nuclear powered aircraft that's terrified crash. You have an

aerogical disaster, like where that plane crashes. The Air Force took him a little while. They're like, you know what, we're probably not gonna do. Maybe not such a good idea, but anyway, it doesn't matter. Captain Killjoys like, yeah, runways, atomic plane. So he's like shaking this at her, and so Pancho Barnes decides, you know what, sue you sue them, Sue everybody. She goes after the Air Force, and she goes into court to quote roused out the scoundrels and

the government who could perpetrate such an injustice? Right, she sounds like Mark Twain. So she acts as her own attorney. Never a good move, but it works out for her. She's the rare right every single time. Well, the LA newspapers they're siding with her. She's given them good press coverage, great quotes to fight. It is not brief, it lasts a long time. But the people and the papers are on her side. The Air Force because it's once again told the early days of the Cold War, and much

like the FBI, they're pretty much feeling themselves. They just seize the land anyway, eminent domain. Yeah, and they're like, you know what we're into, like killing joy, making things less sexy, no fun. We love that. It's the fifties. What do you want from us? You're like, dude, you want a world war for this? Like what the hell? But anyway, Poncho Barnes, living spirit of early aviation, reckless and joyful days are pretty much over. She's now fighting the US Air Force in court all the time. It

gets mad, costly, but she won't give up. She's like the Happy Bottom Riding Club deserves a fight. So things though, didn't take a fatal turn, because in November nineteen fifty three, there's an explosion inside the dance hall. Fire tears to the resort. It's mostly wood, it's in the desert. Firefighters can't get there in time. The Happy Bottom Riding Club burns to the ground. That is suspicious. There was a

lot of accusations of arson. Sure, I accuse them of hay duration in the dancery like Mary jay BlimE would not. But anyway, no one gets got no one gets arrested for the fire. Mary Jabies would also be upset about that, yes, But Poncho Barnes, you know, as I said, she's like, this is arson, but there's nothing she can do about that. People there who were there that night of the fire, though, they risked their lives to run in over and over

again to save all the priceless a replaceable memorabilia. You love that movie. Back to so Ponto Barnes, she'd kept a scrapbook of her life in the clouds. One of her her friends, like the coworkers, the one of the hostesses. They managed to get in and get the scrapbook and save it. So that's like the big thing that she's most happy about. And in her ongoing battle to save her land after it's burned down, the Air Force has

already seized the land underneath it. She then pretty much has to go back into court and remind the Air Force that her grandfather Thaddius Lowe founded the US Air Force, and they're like, oh, that's right, she's in the days like yeah, that's true, he made you, and they're like okay, fine, and so she wins her legal battle. The Air Force

backs off. They give her four hundred thousand dollars for her land, and they also then clear her name, and she insists they cleared the names of reputations of all the women who they've besmirched as hostess, which, yeah, I thought you'd like that. Yeah. So the Air Force later then scraps its plans for its new super runway complex and the runways never get built. All that fight for nothing.

No atomic planes ever hit the air. In her retiring years, though, Ponto Barnes begins to turn her that scrap book that was saved into an autobiography, and she also, I thought you'd like this, spend her time breeding Yorkshire terriers. Like that, She gets back to her animal lover ways full circle, and in nineteen seventy one, one of her friends, a former test pilot from the Murrock Dry Lake Days, invites her to Edwards Air Force Base to celebrate her seventieth birthday.

That friend was friend of the show buzz Aldron. Oh okay, And now each year the Air Force sets aside one calendar day to celebrate her. Fittingly, it's called Poncho Barnes Day, and it's kind of like a small maya culpa from the Air Force, like, yeah, we totally jacked up on that one. And it ends up though, in a nice little turn of events, at the end of the night there's an adult's only portion of the evening they brought back to sexy. So Ponto Barnes once said, and I quote,

the most important thing is to be yourself. So don't even don't even try to be like someone else, because we've seen that already. Oh I like that a lot. So Elizabeth, I got to ask you, since you'll never ask me, what's our ridiculous takeaway? Here? My ridiculous takeaway is whatever, you're ridiculous. No. I love the dynamic nature of her life, all the different elements of it, but also the fact that she, you know, went toe to toe with some serious dude Jagger Hoover, US Air Force,

the Mexican authorities, and the revolution didn't back down exactly. Zaren, what's your ridiculous takeaway? We said that again, Zaren, what's your ridiculous takace sounds nice? Doesn't sound good? Ever? Heard that, thank you for asking. Mine is if someone isn't hurting anyone and they're just being sexy or whatever they're doing, let people be mind your own decency. Don't worry about my decency. My decency is between me and God and

the devil or whoever I believe in. But you know, look, look, some women know some people they want to get naked into pool at them. Who cares. We all need all the sexy we can get on this planet. We'll think about it too. The amount of man hours and money and resources spent to fight sexy pool time ridiculous hours. I think there are a lot of other things you could be doing. And it's like those pilots needed that. I mean, not just the sexy it's but all of it.

Being able to cut loose and just be themselves and out in the desert. It's not like, oh, we have to write about any specific subculture exactly, very specific, you know, lifestyle and mindset for we need to make room for It's. I always say, if you're gonna make a plan in the future, you need the a little space for crime because it's going to be there. Yeah, surely you're not going to get rid of crime. You can talk about what crimes occur, you can talk about which crimes you allow,

but there's going to be somebody who breaks. The question is just like debauchery, exactly is this really a crime? Doesn't sound like those women were exploited working there? What I can tell? What I could tell, they were all willingly being there and there wasn't any active prostitution. Now, maybe some of them got a little sideways and did some hot side picking up handsome fly boys. I don't

blame them. Yeah, the ones with the wavey here, that's right, the ones with like they're bald on the top and just the edges, a very specific one like Ben Franklin. He liked air bats, so I could see them. There you go. That's all. It's all there, All of the evidence is there. Well, that's all I got for you today, Elizabeth. Well, it's pretty good. Thank you. Well, you know, well, you can find us online Ridiculous Crime on Twitter and Instagram

if you'd like some more. That's on the bird we got the words and on the ground we got the pictures, so check them out. And also if you want to hit us up, you know, we've got these talkbacks you can do on the iron Heart app. You can email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. You can also just shout into the women. You can write a fun rap yeah about us and write it on fun Rap just a fun wrap that would be amazing. Well,

thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time. Ridiculous Crime is used by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Brunett's produced and edited by the Ratchet Daddy of the Happy Bottom Riding Club Dave cas. Research is by the Fastest Women in Facts Mersa Brown and Andrea Song Sharp and Tier. Our theme song is by Thomas travel Air Special Lee and Travis type Awe Mystery Ship Dutton Executive producers are Ben Buzz Bowland and Noel Neil Brownie See It One More Time,

Geeks Crime. Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts of iHeartRadio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.