Let's Continue

Wal, cowboys 'n cowgirls, I didn't quite finish the last post due to disruption of a major order concerning our telephone. We lost the signal and I had to tear my "Office" apart to get at the electrical inlet where the phone was plugged into the wall. I would've taken a picture, but it was just too messy. I think that desk weighed at least two tons as I tried to move it away from the wall and, of course, I had to remove everything on it and in it, including the drawers to get to the phone plug. My printer/scanner was down along with the rest of the mess, so I'm providing a couple of scans for the last post.

This first one is a copy of the cover of Jim Olson's non-fiction book, Cowboy Heroes of the Southwest, right here:

Ah-h! It showed up.

The next one is of Bobbi Jeen Olson's publicity/media card I picked up at the celebration Saturday night:

Ride 'em, Cowgirl. You go girl! (Front of the card)

(Reverse of the card). The back has her tell-all bio for public consumption, here, in three sections:

Check out her website at www.bobbijeen.com for much more.

Also, check out Jim Olson's blogs at  http://www.mycowboyheroes.blogspot.com. and
http://www.cowboymotivation.blogspot.com
for much more and great information.

Fantastic Show in Casa Grande

The wife and I traveled the 50 or so miles to Casa Grande to attend a Western Heritage Celebration put on by Jim Olson, who sponsors the show monthly and is a Western blogger and writer. Being the first one attended I can't comment on the previous shows, but if they were anywhere near the caliber of talent of this one, they had to be winners, too.

The headliner was Chris Isaacs, Arizona cowboy poet and author. His routines, and I pluralize it because he had the microphone twice, were recited from memory from his experiences as a cowboy over the years. He was funny, truthful and sad in a couple of the poems. but most of them ended on a comical note and received a loud ovation from the audience. I wouldn't ordinarily spend money to hear someone recite poetry whether is was Western or otherwise, but we both found that we enjoyed what we heard and will probably attend more gatherings like this.

The other headliner was Nancy Ruybal, Western singer, who writes her own material in most cases. She has a real sweet voice and accompanies herself on the guitar. I enjoyed her singing, and you know what, we could even understand the words. She drew a loud amount of applause, too.

For the extra added attractions, there was Janice King Deardorff, Dennis Knill, William Merritt, and Jan Michael Corey. We arrived a few minutes late and missed William Merritt and Jan Michael Corey, which I am sorry to say. Janice King Deardorff was a Western singer and guitarist and she sang and played until her time ran out. She was a fine artist, too. And Dennis Krill was in the middle of his set when we came barging in, but he sings and plays the guitar very well and is a songwriter, too. A late add-on was "Pelon" as Featured Artisan. "A unique glimpse in how they used to do it." He makes all his rawhide equipment from scratch, tightly interwoven and strong. A dying breed in this day and age.

The next celebration is on September 30, 2012, at the Paramount Theater in Casa Grande, AZ, and will feature Gary Sprague, The Singing Cowboy, who will be on stage with his horse and guns singing old Gene Autry and Roy Rogers songs as Jim announced. I will attend if I can and urge everyone to come out and support Jim and these shows. His wife is none other than "Bobbi Jeen Olson, "The Arizona Cowgirl" and loves the Western way of life. She is the hostess of Arizona Country TV and has appeared in numerous western movies, shows, and modeled more western products than one person could use." (Taken from her publicity card.) A real talented family and they deserve all the support they can get putting on these celebrations of the Old West.

I piicked up a copy of Jim's book, "Cowboy Heroes of the Southwest" and expect a good read.

True West mag, again

The October ed. of True West has some truly remarkable statuary in it. Some of the subjects I never heard of, like Kid Russell and Monte. Turns out that Kid Russell is Charles Russell, the artist who painted cowboys and Indians. And I've heard of Charles Goodnight but not John C. "Jack" Hays. The statue of Hays is in San Marcos, TX, and he was a captain in the Texas Rangers in the 1840's. There is a statue of John Wayne in Winterset, Iowa, his hometown, and several statues of Wyatt Earp. There is a series of statues that takes up a city block in Pioneer Courage Park, Omaha Nebraska, that memorializes the wagon train.

The title of the article is "53 Statues You Need to See Before You Die" and was compiled by the editors of the magazine. An outstanding collection and hits on a subject that is not well publicized as a whole even though some of the individual artists are well known.

My latest novel, Posse Justice

Another short excerpt from Posse Justice from the beginning of Chapter 14:

     "We robbed that bank about two weeks ago," Rusty said, "and we ain't been able to spend ary a penny of the loot. And we ain't been able to lose that posse neither."
     "If we hadn't captured that girl, we could've lost the posse a long time ago," said Dave. "She's been holding us back. We ought to let her go and get on with it."
     "We can't do that. She's going to be our ticket out of here if we get surrounded. Ain't that right, Missy?" said Dusty.

     With Shaky and Flint on lookout, Rusty, Dusty, and Dave kept their eyes on me. I stared back at them from my cramped and tied-up position on the ground. I needed help getting off my horse after riding most of the day. We stopped to rest the horses in a small valley with lots of trees and bushes and a stream flowing through. I dropped to the ground.
     "Look at her," said Dusty. "A poor excuse for a woman. Her hair is all messed up, her dress is ragged and dirty, and her hands are grimy. Look at her face. What's that smudge or is it a bruise on her cheek below her left eye where it's dark-like? Did someone hit her?"
     "That's where I slapped her," said Rusty. "Had to, to get her moving."
     "You can't win her over that way," said Dusty. "You could treat her with a little kindness. Maybe she'll join up with us."
     I was quiet. I'm tired and my joints ached from the joggling on the horse. Being tied up was difficult, even if I am an experienced cowgirl. Not being able to move my arms and the strides of the horse threw me off balance at times, requiring more leg use and pressure on the inside of my calves and thighs. I managed to raise my head and take a look at the three men standing there staring at me. Groaning, I said, "Why don't yuou let me go and you can get away faster. Just leave me here."
     "Shut up!" said Rusty. "We heard enough of your suggestions."
     He raised his arm to slap me again, but Dave grabbed it.
     "You heard your brother, Rusty. You got to start treating her better to get any help from her."
     Rusty gave him a long, dirty stare and relaxed his arm, saying, "I don't believe in it, I don't. If you don't threat them rough, they run all over you."
      "I know I'm not going to change your mind," said, Dave, "but if you just take it easy on her she might start to cooperate and not hold us back with all her aches and pains."
     "Oh-ho, you done fell in love with her, haven't you?" Rusty said. "And now you're going to start protecting her like she's your very own. Did you hear that, Dusty? Dave's fell for the girl. Well, he can do all the watching of her, then, for all I care."  -End of excerpt-


Just finished this book and it should be available from Amazon in a week or two or a little longer. Pick up a copy when it's out and give it a good read and tell everyone how you liked it!

The Fastest Gun in Texas

The Fastest Gun in Texas is one of J. T. Edson's fine western novels. The story consists of three major episodes in the life of Dusty Fog, the fiercest, fastest, gunman in Texas. The first third of the book is devoted to some of his exploits in the Civil War, like being assigned to blow up a bridge to disrupt the Union Army from making headway for a time, taking on a fencing master (yes, he's an expert with the epee) while visiting the Yankee camp to testify in the case of the Union soldier who was assigned to prevent the bridge blow-up. He was honorable, too. After he takes care of the big, bad, Union General who was behind this, he makes it home to Texas and goes after killers who had murdered five Texans in a saloon without giving them a chance. And the third major episode concerns a horse his uncle bought for the OD Connected ranch. It had been captured in a wild horse roundup and was the biggest, baddest, and orneriest paint that had ever been seen. His uncle, the ranch owner, had to try to break him before anyone else tries and gets his back broken for his efforts. So, you guessed it, little Dusty Fog gives it a try and the paint is stolen out of the corral as he make progress with it.

I haven't read too many westerns where swordplay takes place in them; can't remember any off hand. It was a pleasant diversion from the gunplay which you know is coming in this well written story and some of the descriptions gets a little gory in the details. I read the Dell book published in 1968, almost ancient history, and thought it was a good read with enough action to carry me through to the exciting end.

I will now dig out another from the box of books waiting to be read. Let's see, which one will it be this time that I will put in the car and read while the wife shops? It'll have to be a pocket-size book to fit in the cubby hole.   

Mark Twain

In the late 1860's and '70's Mark Twain was resident in his mansion on a hill overlooking a valley in Elmira County, New York. He evidently was thinking about writing and censorship in a humorous way and must have spent many hours of brainpower on the subject. Whether he was thinking relative to his writing of Tom Sawyer which was already published or looking forward to writing Huckleberry Finn, I can only surmise. It was in 1876 that he wrote a short thing titled, 1601,  Conversation as it was at the Social Fireside in the time of the Tudors, and he had a heckuva time getting it published. It was finally printed up at the West Point Army Academy by the adjutant at the time. And it was passed from hand to hand among "the kings and queens" in Britain and Europe and the upper crust society of literary intellectuals in America because of the many cuss words or obscenities it contained, although the words were commonly used by the people of that time (1600) and are well known among our own generation. Mark Twain swore up a blue streak at times. I don't know if he used the epithets he picked up in the West or whether he swore from a young age. My guess is that he probably added to his swear word vocabulary as he travelled the West.  

At about the same time in American History (1880's), Tom Horn was talking to Geronimo on a hill in Mexico trying to get him back on the reservation and away from the plundering and pillaging and the vile acts he and his Chiricahua Apache cohorts had committed. Tom Horn and Al Sieber had been called there by Geronimo, who had put out the word that he wanted to return to the reservation, and he thought that he should be given about every kind of accommodation for all the U. S. Army had done to him and his family.
Tom Horn had said in his autobiography that "Geronimo must have talked for an hour or two," asking for the moon. Horn spoke Apache fluently and he was the interpreter for Sieber. Although the book by Carol Sletten and Eric Kramer, Story of the American West, that describes this meeting didn't indicate that any vile language was used, I am willing to bet that Geronimo used more than one curse word in his harangue that perhaps would have made the words in 1601 seem more ancient than they are. I'm sure there was just as much swearing going on on the part of Geronimo, Horn and Sieber and the rest of the Army as there was in the time of the Tudors. And, if all those swear words were printed in the newspapers of the time, the paper would never have been able to publish them.

At least we can enjoy 1601 now with Mark Twain's use of supposedly obscene language, and I have it on my Nook Color from Project Gutenberg ready to read. So, if you'll excuse me.......   

Here is a sketch of a young Mark Twain by me from a pic on Wikipedia? This was drawn a few months ago and I can't remember from exactly where. 

Dime Novels

I'm always on the lookout for western books and I ran across an ad in True West Magazine for Tales of the West dimenovels. It turned out to be the site for Author David Brooks, member of Single Action Shooting Society and Western Writers of America. This is his sales site showing the books, collections and gifts he has for sale and his bio, in which he says, "I try to bring creativity to the printed page while further exploring the concepts of morality and social issues of my earlier work."

Some of the titles listed are:

 Left for Dead
The Gathering Storm  
A Hanging at Horse Creek
Guns of the Arroyo
Dry Springs
Hell is Never Full

The titles are interesting and evoke a mood of excitement and suspense, and you can check them all out at http://www.dimenovels.com. I admit I haven't read any of these, but will add dimenovels to my TBP (to be purchased) list. Take a look and see if you agree.

Author Deaths

Two more fine authors passed away this week, Maeve Binchy and Gore Vidal.

Maeve Binchy was an Irish writer who got a comparatively late start at the age of 42. 

Gore Vidal was an American writer who wrote such books as Myra Breckinridge and Burr.


Most of you have already heard about the deaths and I'm posting this to see if everything is working like it's supposed to. I've been having trouble with my PC since I downloaded a program that I thought was safe, but some PUPS came along with it. The PUPS were deleted and quarantined, but I still had lingering problems. I've ran the virus scan, here and from outside, and no virus is shown, so I'm hoping everything's straight with the new blogging setup from google. 


The new heading photo is Monument Valley in a light snow. Maybe it will make you feel cooler in this hot summer.