Dac Crossley's Western Blog

More Blackberries

Thanks to all who shared your memories of Blackberry Winter. 

No, Blackberry Winter is NOT a text messaging device.  Come on, youngsters! 

I wasn't referring to the Margaret Mead autobiography of that title, either, although it's a good read.  She visited us once here at the University of Georgia, a good speaker and a pleasant image.

 Milan D. in Prague sent me the following information about May cold spells in Central Europe. There, late cold snaps there are called the "Days of the Frozen Men," May 12 - 14.  Those three men are Saint Pancrace, St. Servais, and St. Boniface.  They are followed by Saint Sophia - May 15th --"The Cook," who usually brings heavy rains. 

Here on the Georgia Piedmont we're emerging from Blackberry Winter now, with rain forecast for the Memorial Day weekend (Saint Sophia, are you there?).  Temperatures rise slowly, seventy degrees here on the deck at nine a.m., very pleasant.

And so, a happy Memorial Day weekend to all, with the promise for a joy-filled summer ahead.  Let's have rain in Texas, warmth in the mountains, home-grown tomatoes galore in the farmer's markets. I harvested the first jalapeños yesterday!

Remember our servicemen and women on Memorial Day. Originally it was Decoration Day (remember, you old-timers?), designated to honor those who gave their lives for their country.  Hats off! Salute the flag.

dac

5/23/2009 

"My Country!  In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be right. But my Country, right or wrong!"  -- Commodore Steven Decatur

Fourteen Hours of Daylight

Today, those of us living in the Georgia Piedmont will begin to receive our fourteen hours of daylight, a sign of the impending summer season. This is my favorite season of the year. It's especially welcome because our drought here seems to be broken. I’m encouraged to work in the yard and garden once more, now that I don’t have to hand-water everything. So, now it’s the season to pull weeds. That’s done by hand also, of course. 

The little annuals -- the spring ephemeral weeds -- are easy to pull out of the soil. Like crop plants they put their efforts above ground; for them it’s produce foliage and then flower and seed, reproduce rapidly and get out. It’s the biennials and perennial weeds that build root systems; they plan to stick around. Try to get them while they are still little. It takes constant vigilance. 

And today comes Blackberry Winter, the last cold snap of the winter season. Along about mid-May here in the Piedmont, the last polar air mass of the year descends on us. Temperature this morning dropped into the low forties, according to my window thermometer. By tomorrow it should be closer to normal.

 Blackberries are in bloom now, as they should be. Do they need a little cold snap to set seeds? I wonder? 

We may yet have another little cold wave – Whippoorwill Winter, in the first part of June, when those birds return. Some years that snap is notable, too. 

But fourteen hours of sunlight looks good to me. 

Dac

5/18/2009. Happy birthday, Steve.

 

You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money – Abraham Lincoln.  (But did he tell Mrs. Lincoln?)

 

A Big "NO!" To E-Books?

I guess it’s unanimous. You like the feel of paper in your hands, not electrons. I agree – I prefer paper to plastic. My Kindle is a different experience but it can’t replace hard copy. 

The Kindle isn’t a failure; it’s another way of reading. One advantage – if you buy a book on your Kindle, it arrives in seconds. Another – you can subscribe to newspapers and magazines delivered to your reader. I think that e-readers and laptops will converge in their offerings. Classic works are now freely available on the web. It’s coming. There's a whole generation out there, texting, waiting. 

For now – just keep buying my westerns, please. 

A few notes: 

     I’ll be signing books at the Alamo on August 1^st. Let the word go out to the surrounding villages. All of you within a 200-mile radius – I expect to see you there.

       I agree with Colin F. The best part of my newspaper is the crossword puzzle. Online news can’t match that.

       Glenda Y. says that western books are popular items in her Kentucky public library. May their tribe increase.

      I’m off, in mid-June, to the Western Writers of America Annual Conference in Oklahoma City. To rub elbows with some iconic writers of western fiction. Look out, Joyce H., I’m headed your way!

 As old Roy R. would say – keep those cards and letters comin’ in.

 Dac

5/13/09 

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.” – Douglas Adams.

My Bookshelf

My library is larger than it needs to be, considering that so much material is now available online. Will e-books become a dominant format for novels? What shape will tomorrow’s library take? 

I asked myself, which of my books would I keep on the shelf in any event – books I’ll open again and again? Here’s a few of them:

      The Eternal Frontier by Tim Flannery. This geological history of North America is so well-written, a pleasure to read. I keep sending it to skeptical friends. 

    Wicked by Gregory Maguire. The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West. What an imagination. An amazing novel.  The Wizard of Oz, a great movie, will never be the same, once you've read Wicked.

The Dartmouth Bible. Now 60 years old and out of print, it’s still my reference work for things religious.

Texian Iliad by Stephen L. Hardin. The best history of the Texas Revolution. More than a recitation of facts, the book is crammed with fascinating local color and trivia, essentials for a Texas author.

 

Now -- What’s on your bookshelf, that you wouldn’t want to give up?

 

On a personal note – Return of the Texas Ranger, by Dac Crossley, has won the National Independent Booksellers Award (western category) for 2009. Permit me to take a little bow.

 

Dac

5/11/09 

“You can do anything you want to do as long as you keep a good attitude and keep working at it. But the second you give up, you’re screwed.”  -- Dolly Parton, quoted in AARP Magazine.

Texas Rangers -- Texas Devils?

Texas Rangers - Texas Devils is  the title of a history of the Texas Rangers on the lower Rio Grande river in 1846-1861. (See the cover on my Shelfari page). The author, Michael Collins, suggests that the Rangers weren’t the good guys in the white hats. Instead, he says, the Rangers represented racism, prejudice and hatred towards Mexicans and Indians. Instead of quelling violence on the Border, the Rangers contributed to it. In fact, Collins suggests that the brutality of the Texas Rangers continues to resonate today in hatred between Mexicans and Texans. 

It doesn’t quite wash. That period of history was a violent one, any way you look at it. An insecure border, bandits and Indians with a safe refuge in Mexico, US Government troops withdrawn or mismanaged. It was a violent time, and the Rangers were violent men. In Collins’s own narrative, old-time Rangers such as Samuel Walker, “Jack” Coffee, “Rip” Ford, and Ben McCulloch really  come across as heroic leaders rather than villains. Furthermore, Collins lumps “Texas mounted volunteers” and “Texas Mounted rangers,” irregular forces, in with the Texas Rangers. There were no actual Texas Rangers before 1835. The volunteer groups had no official state sanction. 

As reviewer Allen Hatley says in Roundup Magazine, neither the Rangers nor Juan Cortina (The Robin Hood of the Rio Grande) always wore white hats. Cortina was as much a bandit as Pancho Villa.

Aside from the author’s bias, this account of Texas Rangers (and others) in this time period between wars is a fascinating story, well documented and well told. It’s well written, an enjoyable read, however you feel about the iconic Texas Rangers of yore.

Dac  5/4/2009

"Art is making something out of nothing and then selling it."  -- Frank Zappa