Everyone please remove their hats and take a freakishly large moment of silence

The man they called "Hoss" would've been 80 years old Wednesday.

Dan Blocker's hometown O'Donnell, which I understand has a museum exhibit in his honor, recognized the event, and will recognize it some more this weekend, according to the Avalanche-Journal.

True story -- this morning my wife got back from shopping, and noted, "It was slim pickens at the bread store today." And I had this brief vision of Slim going over the baked apple pies and expressing consternation at the Boboli. Then I remembered his glorious beatdown with Hoss on Bonanza, pretty much my favorite TV western fight in anything until Deadwood.

And then the A-J reminded me it was Hoss's b-day.


Fight starts at 4:47.

Note: The A-J reporter meant to refer to Hoss as a "gentle giant" but added an "i" in the wrong spot, thus noting that Hoss was a large man of the Christian persuasion (since corrected). Several people showed up to jeer in the story's comment section, thus hacking off this former copy editor. I feel the urge to show some surliness.