Dac Crossley's Western Blog

Back to the Alamo

Christmas in San Antonio, and I’ll take a copy of Escape along and show it to the Alamo Gift Shop. Maybe I can do a book signing sometime next spring. Maybe they’ll want to stock it now.

The Alamo! So many myths we love, so many truths we hate. So declares the cover of the February 2011 issue of Wild West magazine. Inside, the historian Paul Hutton writes a well-researched, scholarly account of Alamo history. William Groneman counters with ten persistent misconceptions about the Alamo battle.

Hutton accepts the validity of the de la Peña papers which describe the execution of Davy Crockett. Groneman denies them. I watched these two gentleman debate the issue in Knoxville this past summer. It was not a gentlemanly debate… Both of their articles in Wild West magazine deserve the careful attention of any Texan, native or displaced.

There’s also a nice big map, a view of the Alamo compound from above. I should carry that map around with me. How many times have you heard someone say, “I was surprised that the Alamo was so small?”

Got all your Christmas shopping done? A subscription to Wild West magazine will entertain your western fans and friends. I assume you’ve already got your gift copies of Escape from the Alamo….

Happy Holidays, and thanks again to Celia Y.,

Dac Crossley
12/18/2010

“In victory you deserve Champagne, in defeat you need it.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

Waiting For The Buffalo To Return

Empire of the Summer Moon, by S. C. Gwynne, tells the history of the Comanches, the most powerful and most feared Indian tribe in Texas. Gwynne pulls no punches. These Indians are the vicious raiders our Texas grandfathers talked about. My Baird and DeRyee ancestors spoke of their hatred for Comanches.

This book is an excellent read for anyone who wants to understand the history of Texas, because the Comanches were very much a part of it. Gwynne explains how contact with Americans helped to degrade Comanche society, as it did all other native peoples.

Encroachment of settlers in the Hill Country of Texas pushed Comanches onto the wind-swept High Plains of the Panhandle. American extermination of the buffalo herds was the final coffin nail for the Comanches. The Texas Rangers didn't defeat that tribe. U.S. Army Colonel Ranald Mackenzie did, by killing their horse herd.

What did the Comanches do to save themselves? Turned to a medicine man who promised the return of the buffalo and immunity to white man’s bullets (today he might be a member of the Tea Party?) Of course none of it worked. Author Gwynne details the spectacular Comanche failure at the battle of Adobe Walls.

And I wonder – are we western authors waiting for the return of the buffalo?

The loss of another publishing house is bemoaned in this month’s issue of Roundup magazine, the official organ of the Western Writers of America, Inc. I’m an Associate Member, barred from full membership because I’m self-published. E-books are out of the question. What is a western writer to do? Is there a sun dance we could perform to bring back the publishing houses? Are we doomed to extinction, like the Comanches?

My fellow writers – and readers – the buffalo aren’t coming back! Books will be written and published, but in new ways. Wake up and smell the cow chips. Man up. Join the excitement.

BTW – Thanks to those of you followed my on-line interview with the Sweethearts of the West.
(http://sweetheartsofthewest.blogspot.com/2010/12/sweethearts-of-west-welcome-dac.html).

They report that I received their all-time most page views. Bookmark their blog; I have.

Dac Crossley
12/15/2010

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” – Sylvia Plath

Texas For Christmas

Three of us will make it to San Antonio for the Christmas weekend. Poor cats must stay behind.

Are they watching for Santa? Or his reindeer?

In younger days, Christmas travel was a long overnight dash, hoping the old car would hold out --

Rushing diagonally southwest across Kansas to Amarillo, KVOO (Tulsa) on the radio playing carols, each little Kansas town with a 5-pointed star lit on top of the water tower. We'll be there by morning.

On down to Brownsville and Christmas lights reflected in a resaca. Mother's students bringing gifts of tamales - a Christmas Eve feast! Swimming on Christmas day - just for the heck of it.

In later years, the Christmas Eve trek up US11 from Athens to Knoxville, slow traffic, a solid stream of red tail-lights trailing off into the distance. Anticipating chili and Tennessee tamales by midnight.

Is Delta Airlines an improvement over the olden days?

Dac Crossley
12/8/2010

"Adventure is not outside man; it is within." - George Eliot