Dac Crossley's Western Blog

Climates of the West. Ancient and Modern

I swore off blogging about climate change and global warming, since politics has overtaken the science involvved. And my blog's purpose is to promote Guns Across the Rio. 

However, a recent book by Tim Flannery has brought me back to the history of climates. I’m referring to The Eternal Frontier. An Ecological History of North America and its Peoples. (see the citation on my Shelfari page). Flannery, an Australian, writes in a style so readable that it’s hard to put down his book. I’ll read it a second time – maybe a third. 

     Flannery writes about the last 65 million years of North America, changes that happened after the collision with the Chicxulub asteroid. My knowledge of historical geology is at least 60 years out of date. I’m familiar with old labels such as Tertiary and Quaternary, and so I’m learning some modern terminology. 

     I didn’t realize that the history of North America actually begins at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. Before then, North America didn’t exist as such (the way Flannery tells it, anyway). It consisted of two large islands, eastern and western, separated by a shallow sea that ran north-south down the middle of our modern continent – the Bearpaw Sea. The two islands were in the process of merging when the asteroid struck – a glancing blow, a golfer’s “chip shot” that scattered the divot all along the shallow midland sea into Canada. (I enjoy Flannery’s analogies). Effects of that impact ended the age of the dinosaurs. 

     Flannery’s book takes us from the asteroid strike up to modern times, geological epoch at a time. And in the process, through a set of climate shifts in North America. 

     Yes, it was warmer in some epochs, and cooler in others. Climate change is nothing new to North America. What is striking to me, is the realization that each climatic shift was followed by major changes in the plants and animals inhabiting North America. Entire groups of species disappeared to be replaced by others. Will this kind of consequence pursue us in the ensuing decades here? Possibly so.

     A further thought. The great plains divide into two regions – shortgrass and tallgrass prairies. Their ecologies differ in a number of ways. For one – chigger bites on the eastern side, none on the western. Walter Prescott Webb (The Great Plains) drew in the 98^th meridian on each of his maps. He called it a major separation between the two ecologies. 

     Now – this separation seems to follow the shallow Bearpaw Sea of 65  million year ago. Any connection? Am I looking at a 65-million-year hangover?

dac

August 31, 2008    Nettle Lou Keirsey Crossley, 1929-1959

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

Texas in the Rear-View Mirror

A short vacation, Mary and Dac, getting away. We spent a week sloshing through South Texas in the rain (unfamiliar to us Georgians). Time mostly spent in San Antonio but drifting through the landscape as well. Daughter Mary did most of the driving, Dad Dac watched the scenery – mesquite and huisache, cactus and Cenezo and calieche, the colors of the Brush Country. From San Marcos down to Corpus Christi and parts in between. San Marcos and its springs hold an endangered fish, the Fountain Darter, smallest darter in North America, that we admired. And good food, served over the river. 

Corpus Christi and my boyhood stomping grounds, lots of family history, seawall and a marvelous saltwater aquarium (It’s nice to visit an aquarium with someone like Mary, who knows all the fish personally). Lunch in Robstown at Joe Cotton’s Barbeque with Wes Prejean, my oldest friend. And on to Kingsville, a disappointing remnant of my childhood. 

(In Kingsville they wanted to know if they’d REALLY found a Bigfoot in Georgia?  And I asked them, “Did you notice that pig fly by, just now?”) 

In San Antonio, Poinciana and Esperanza in bloom. History and food and music – especially music. Not only the mariachis, either. We found a joyful 3-piece band down on the Riverwalk, “Small World.”  With Polly Harrison playing a 7-string guitar -- something new to us. Great old tunes, guitar and drums and vocals and sax (or piano).  "Body and Soul."  And in our honor, "Georgia On My Mind." We kept going back to hear more. They’re worth another trip to San Antonio. 

Which I intend to make. The band put me onto a mystery book store, “Remember the Alibi.” Owner Ray Hengst accepted some copies of Guns Across the Rio, my Western mystery. And, I’ll be going back there for a book signing on November 24^th. Wow! 

And now, inspired and recharged, it’s on with the sequel to Guns. Keep writing!

Thanks, Mary! 

Dac 

8/28/2008  (Birthday of Ida-May DeRyee Crossley, b. 1886).

 

 

Off to San Antonio!!

The old blogger needs a week off, and a chance to trod the soils of Texas. Tomorrow (Sunday), with Mary Freeman, we’ll fly from Atlanta to San Antonio, rent a car, and check into the Marriott Plaza for a few days of R&R. I seek inspiration for the sequel to Guns Across the Rio. Working title: The Last Texas Ranger. It’s about 60 percent completed. I hope to have it out before Christmas. I need to renew that Texas feeling, as Kandy and Ken Duke recently did. 

San Antonio is the old home stompin’ ground for me, a place of wonder in my childhood. My family would stay in the Alamo Court on Broadway. I’d lie awake all night, listening to the traffic, too excited to sleep. Planning for the zoo in Brackenridge Park. I enlisted in the Navy in San Antonio, and left for Boot Camp (San Diego) in 1945, boarding the train at the old Southern Station, the one with the Indian on top.On occasion, Larry Cavazos and I chased across San Antonio, hurrying between bus stations, on trek to Lubbock and Texas Tech. More recently, I’ve had my family in San Antonio for Thanksgiving, a chance to visit family history. 

This trip will be strictly for relaxing. I plan to have breakfast in the Menger Hotel. Visit the Alamo, once again. Walk through La Villita, maybe hear some music. Yes, do the Riverwalk, and Jim Cullum's Jazz club. I look forward to Texas specialties, such as  chicken fried steak and the best enchiladas in the world. (Pralines for dessert; take some back to forward to Tometta). Bar-b-q at Joe Cotton’s in Robstown, with the best friends in the world. Cold Beer. Shrimp at the seawall in Corpus. And if time permits, Texas oysters at King’s Inn on Baffin Bay. 

Let me hear about any topics you’d like to see displayed in the blog. I’m planning for a note on climate change during the past 65 million years. More on that when I get back to  Georgia. 

Dac 

8/16/2008  

With His Pistol In His Hand

Texas Ranger Captain John Coffee Hays, on patrol with 15 men in search of cattle rustlers, encountered a war party of Comanches. The Indians pretended to run, intending to lure Hays into an ambush. He surprised them by flanking them. And discovered he was opposed by 75 Indians. 

Hays didn’t consider himself outnumbered. His fifteen men had the new Paterson Colt (manufactured in Paterson, NJ). It was a five-shot repeating revolver. Hayes counted five times fifteen and decided the match was even, at least. 

The Paterson Colt carried the day for the Rangers and became a favorite. It had a disappearing trigger, that emerged when the hammer was cocked. There were some disadvantages. Early models required  disassembly for reloading; hard to do in the dark and nearly impossible on horseback. Some Rangers carried spare cylinders already loaded, a dubious procedure. The Paterson shot accurately, though, and became widely used. Later models could be reloaded more easily.

Hays was lauded for his victory over the Comanches. He was a self-effacing man, and he spoke of the heroism and leadership of the Comanche chief during that fight. (Hays left Texas for California in 1848. In 1850 he was elected mayor of San Francisco County. Hays was one of the founders of Oakland, California).

Texas Ranger Samuel Walker visited Samuel Colt in New York and suggested some improvements in the Colt revolver. He wanted a pistol of 44 or 45 caliber (the Paterson fired a 36 caliber ball), and he wanted a six-shooter instead of the Paterson's five shots. He suggested a longer, bigger barrel (“half as long as your arm). And he wanted a heavier weapon that could be used as a club if necessary. The Paterson colt weight just over two pounds; the “Walker Colt” weighed 4.5 pounds. 

The Walker Colt is recognized today as the most powerful handgun produced until the S&W 357 Magnum in 1935. It made its mark in the Mexican War of 1846-48. There were several problems with it – the reloading lever often fell down, preventing it from firing (Rangers solved this by tying it to the barrel with a piece of rawhide). And the cylinder sometimes exploded, which Rangers blamed on weak materials. John S. (“Rip”) Ford thought differently. In his report on the Walker Colt, he said that troopers sometimes loaded the conical bullets backwards in the cylinders. They thought the pointed end belonged under the cap. 

(Ford got his nickname from his habit of writing “R. I. P.,” rest in peace, in the casualty lists. And became well known as Rip Ford.).

dac

8/9/2008

Saved by the Prickly-Pear Cactus

I’ve read that the prickly-pear (Genus Opuntia) can be  found in every one of our fifty states. In my childhood in South Texas I became well acquainted with it. Cactus grew everywhere, and the prickly-pear was strangely attractive to a youngster. The big yellow flowers (the “Yellow Rose of Texas”) swarming with bugs, then later on, the bright red fruit. And don’t forget the cochineal bugs, hiding under wisps of cotton on the pads. Squash one and stain your fingers bright red. And sooner or later you learn to avoid those big guard thorns. Heaven help you if you brush against those tiny little curved spines (glochids) than you just can’t brush off. (Now I wonder – would duct tape help remove them?). 

A curiosity now, but salvation to the Indian tribes of the Texas coast. And for Cabeza de Vaca and his few colleagues who survived several disasters, only to be enslaved by the natives. Andrés Reséndez (in his book A Land So Strange; see my Shelfari page) describes how Cabeza de Vaca accompanied his captors to the “tuna fields,” extensive stands of huge cactus, where Indians gathered to feast on the fruits when they ripened. One such field was up the Nueces near Corpus Christi; another further to the west (Falfurrias, perhaps?). The Spaniards managed to shift between Indian tribes when all of them gathered at the tuna fields. Wonder what those Indians did about the thorns, large and small? 

Here in Georgia, our local prickly-pear is a shriveled little thing. I find it on rocky outcrops in the woods. So few thorns you can just pick it up. It lies flat on the ground during the winter. In the springtime it stand up and blooms, a pretty yellow flower. For me, a nice reminder of Texas.

dac

8/5/08