Pecos Bill

Growing up in Merrick, Long Island, a short drive from where Santos performed many of his astounding feats, I loved to read “The Real Book of American Tall Tales,” with chapters on Paul Bunyan, Davy Crockett, John Henry, Pecos Bill and more.

Among the tunes heard was “The Ballad of Pecos Bill,” who was Texas’s most famous fictional cowboy.

Men like Pecos Bill, who could tame a mountain lion and make a lasso out of a rattlesnake.

The titles give a flavour: “The Tooth of Crime”; “Buried Child”; “The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife”.

Honestly, that’s less important than Pecos Bill’s history in L.A. —  the stand has been here for 70 years, owned and operated by the Stenzel family since 1946.