Dac Crossley's Western Blog

Selling Western Stories in Georgia.

Yes, they do indeed read westerns here in Georgia.

I’m just back from an excellent Writer’s Conference in Blue Ridge, Georgia. A chance to meet other Georgia writers, new and old. “Webbing” is important for us, exchanging ideas, forging new relationships, always learning the craft. Sharon McCrumb (She Walks These Hills) and I sold our novels at the opposite ends of a long table, separated from each other by a vast number of non-fiction “how to” manuals. I’m grateful to Jeff Hanser and his wife Dorothy, of the Book Nook in Blairsville, GA, for their help. The very accomplished writer Janelle McCarthy generously shared her wisdom re POD publishing, suggesting some new approaches to marketing. 

(Note to Texans: Blue Ridge, Georgia, is the County seat of Fannin County, named for – you guessed it – James W. Fannin, the martyr of Goliad. He was born in the north Georgia mountains and raised at Marion, Georgia. Who knew?). 

Last Wednesday, in the rain, the first Athens book signing for The Return of the Texas Ranger. At the local Borders Books, Vicky Joiner arranged a centrally-located display and I wore my cowboy outfit. Musician friends provided major backup for the event. We sold out all copies of Return and Guns both! Thanks to my writer friends, and to all who braved the rain. 

A note for drought-stricken South Texas – Here in Georgia, we recorded over 7 inches of rain in the month of March, enough to erase this year’s deficit. The climatic pattern that had held us so dry may now be easing up. I hope you, too, will soon be drenched. 

Hoping for a quieter week, 

Dac

3/29/2009   Write what you know, always from the heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barefoot in the Park?

In early springtime in South Texas, we’d be watching the wires – the power lines – for the return of a special bird. Mother said, “You can go bare-footed when the Scissor-tails come back.” 

The scissortail flycatcher is a showy bird with two elongated tail feathers that trail behind when it flies and fold up when it perches. I don’t know where they over-winter, but they return to South Texas in mid-spring. When I was a little boy, scissortails were abundant in Kingsville.

Going barefoot in town meant cool grass between your toes, carpet grass in the well-tended lawns and Bermuda grass elsewhere. And concrete sidewalks which got really hot on bare feet; better stay in the grass beside the sidewalk.

Out of town, in the country, dirt or caliche roads felt good on the toes, but watch where you step!  

When you got home -- "Wash your feet before you come into this house!"

 Grass burrs were everyplace, little stickers that aggravated more than they hurt. If your socks fell from the clothesline, they were certain to acquire grass burrs. The ones we called goat-heads were vicious stickers that really got your attention. I recall a big patch of them, runners spreading across dirt, beside Flato Elementary School. If you wound up in that patch, bare-footed, it was like walking through a mine field. 

Going barefoot toughened your soles, and by mid-summer you had some immunity to the less vicious thorns. Sometimes your mother would sit you down and use a sewing needle to pry little thorns out of your feet. Sometimes you got a bad thorn that wouldn’t respond; then it was time for a bacon poultice.

 Kids today just don’t know what they are missing …

(Yes, girls went bare-footed too.)

 dac

 3/16/2009  (Thanks, Tillie, for the memories of growing up in Lantana Park).

 

 

Decline of the Texas Horned Toad

The Texas State Reptile, the horned toad, is disappearing from much of its range. 

Of course it isn’t really a toad or even a frog (sorry, TCU). It’s a lizard. We who spent our childhood in Texas found them everyplace, in the schoolyard, in the back alley, wherever you went. Horned toads didn’t try to get away. They would just run a few feet and then stop. Easy to catch. 

Horned toads would flatten themselves against the dirt and cock an eye in your direction. We kids picked them up by their two horns. Turn them over and stoke their stomachs; their eyes would close and they’d go to sleep. 

The rumor was that horned toads could squirt blood out of their eyes? Well, it’s true, they can do that. I saw it happen once, with a toad I’d played with repeatedly. Maybe a response to confuse predators?

Why is the lizard declining in numbers? The main prey item of the horned toad is the “red ant,” the harvester ant with the potent sting, another memory from childhood spent in Texas. Red ants are also in decline, perhaps because of overuse of pesticides, but more likely due to competition with the Imported Fire Ant. Those invaders will destroy the red ant queens. 

The most famous Texas horned toad was “Old Rip,” who supposedly survived 30 years sealed in a courthouse cornerstone in Eastland, Texas. Hoax or not, Old Rip made a splash in 1928. He toured the U.S. and met President Grover Cleveland (check out Handbook of Texas Online).

The horned toad is a protect species in the state of Texas, but it hasn’t yet found its way onto the federal list of endangered species. 

And the red ants?  I kinda miss them, too, stings and all. We spent some happy hours teasing them, poking the nest with sticks, offering them a Frito and watching them fight over it. 

What about that other childhood memory, the big black tarantula that roamed free in the early evenings in south Texas? Is that spider declining also?

Dac

3/14/2009 

Thanks, Tillie H., for the memories of growing up on the west edge of Kingsville, Texas.

 

 

G.T.T. -- Gone to Texas

G T T – Gone to Texas! That’s what some pioneers painted on the back of their wagons: G T T . 

Me, I flew on a jet. To San Antonio for a quick visit to parts south, in a rented Camry. 

I drove down US 181, paralleling I-37, back roads through all the little towns I remember from my childhood. No longer thriving communities, the energy sucked out of them, perhaps by I-37, or the demise of the railroad, or the severe South Texas drought. 

No greens of springtime here, the drought burns everything. Only a few cotton fields disked, black soil looking hopeful. Blooms crouched on some huisache branches along the byways. Even the coastal marshes struggle in the drought. 

Economy thrives in the San Antonio to Austin axis, Houston and the ports, and Dallas – Fort Worth combo. But South Texas hurts. 

In Texas, A Modern History, McComb describes economic history of the state: cotton, then cattle, then petroleum, and now finance and shipping. The east Texas coast is still the economic driver. McComb sees an industrial state, with manufacturing, shipping, financial powers dominating, all led by East Texas. Modern Texas.

Perhaps so. But I wonder – This spring, someplace, will a little boy climb up into the branches of a mesquite tree to study its mystical blossoms? Will a barefoot little girl reach into the dust and grasp a horned toad, to stroke its stomach and put it to sleep? Will roadrunners still find fence lizards?

 Dac

3/12/2009

And thanks to Larry and Peggy C, Bob and Melba G., and Marj and Colin F., for showing me true Texas hospitality.