Dac Crossley's Western Blog

In The Treasured Time

Back when we were children it was a dip in time, a treasured week. A stint outside the ordinary where your obligations just froze over. That time between Christmas and New Year’s, when school was vacant and you took the opportunity to show off your Christmas goodies to your friends. New coat, a bicycle or a football (I speak from the perspective of my gender). No responsibilities. Ignore that looming specter of next semester.

Here in a college town the old childhood dip between the holidays is observed joyfully by all. The college students are all away, traffic slows, life’s pace is less hurried. Children play in the street. Pancakes for breakfast. Nap in front of the TV.

Yet, this is the traditional time for accounting, for mending fences, forgiving debts. The Christmas decorations have become tawdry; how soon can we store them away? Our children might prefer to prolong the season. We are ready to see it pass.

For me at least, New Year’s Day is a welcome hangover from too much food, too rich. The solstice holidays are an emotional yo-yo, down and up and down again. Did we do everything required of us? There's always that hope of renewal in another year, and it's right there, just over the horizon. Take a deep breath.

Quo vadis?

Dac Crossley
December 30, 2011

“We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.” – Joan Didion.

South of the Nueces River

It was the disputed territory, the despoblado, the Nueces Strip. The Republic of Texas claimed the Rio Grande as its southern border. Mexico insisted on the Nueces River. Neither country occupied the territory between the rivers.

When Texas joined the Union, the Nueces territory became a problem for the United States. And the little village of Corpus Christi became part of that problem.

Zachary Taylor and his army showed the flag by occupying Corpus Christi on the south bank of the Nueces, the only village in the disputed territory. Taylor’s army propelled what was essentially a trading post into a township. (Laredo, on the north bank of the Rio Grande, was in the disputed territory also. Nobody there spoke much English).

Murphy Givens, retired Viewpoints Editor for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, gives us the volume “Corpus Christi. A History.” I’ve enjoyed his columns, and feel a special connection to the Caller-Times. As a paperboy I delivered that newspaper. A great-great-uncle, Eli Merriman, was editor for many years. And finally, the current newspaper building stands on the plot of ground that one housed my great-grandfather. I’m comfortable with the Caller-Times.

Givens constructed his volume “Corpus Christi” largely from newspaper stories, judging by the citations and footnotes he provides. It’s well-written and readable, with a newspaperman’s touch for displaying the facts. I’d like to see more of the personalities of some of the players. I guess that’s another book. Corpus was the site of my childhood vacations, the amusement park on North Beach, Christmas shopping in the five-and-tens. For those with similar roots, I recommend "Corpus Christi."

The notion persists that the Nueces territory was uninhabited land, home to bandits and raiders, unsettled except for Corpus Christi. Not so. Mexicans had working ranches throughout the area, including the Santa Petronilla ranch quite close to Corpus Christi itself. Rancheros usually had residences in Mexico as well, refuges in times of Indian troubles or droughts.

In 1845 those ranchers and their people had to choose -- become US citizens or return to Mexico. One or the other. Angelica Reyes in her neat little novel, “Last Ride on the Ferry,” explains how many of them chose to stay with the land, theirs for generations, whichever nation claimed it.

In that choice - is there some hint of a solution to today’s questions about citizenship and legality? I believe we need to find answers soon. For south and north of the Nueces River. And perhaps the Rio Grande itself.

Dac Crossley
December 18, 2011

“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” – Francis Bacon.

Supper-Table Stories and Cabeza de Vaca

I have a life-long interest in Cabeza de Vaca, dating back to stories mother told us around the supper table.

My mother, Eugenia Baird Crossley, found time for college when my brother Walter and I finally entered grade school. Mother pursued a Master’s Degree, and eventually wrote a thesis on the route of Cabeza de Vaca through South Texas. In the evenings, sitting at the supper table, she’d tell us what she’d discovered that day. Those people were alive for her, and she brought them to life for us.

Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions were the first Europeans to journey through Texas in the Sixteenth Century. Shipwrecked on Galveston Island, de Vaca and his colleagues were first befriended and then enslaved by Indians. Escaping, they made their way south, through my part of Texas and into Mexico. A miraculous voyage as de Vaca later described it, and a fascinating look at south Texas before the age of Europeans.

As she usually did, Mother made those tales come alive. Those suppers, and Mom’s enthusiastic tales of the castaways and Indians, are a cherished part of my childhood.

Thus, I was delighted to find a modern interpretation of de Vaca’s journey, A Land So Strange, written by Andrés Reséndez of U-Cal Davis (see my Shelfari page). This highly-readable account includes much detail about the origins of the Spanish trip through Texas. As always, I was interested – and puzzled – by the accounts of the Indians who finally befriended these castaways. Their seemingly miraculous cures of diseases endeared the Spaniards to the Indians.

Professor Reséndez offered me two new perspectives. For one, I hadn’t realized that when Cabeza de Vaca wrote his Relación it had to pass muster with the Church before it could be published. This was, in fact, the time of the Spanish Inquisition and de Vaca, like others, walked with caution. His account was filtered with that specter hanging over him.

The other perspective – well, something of a shock. Professor Reséndez says that “lots of ink has been spilled” over Cabeza de Vaca, which it surely has. When I looked at his list of Further Reading, I found that most of that ink has been spilled in the last twenty years!

Scholarship goes on. We plow the ground again, looking for more potshards.

I wish that I could hand this book to my mother.

Dac Crossley
12/12/2011

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.” – Garrison Keillor.

Guerrilla Marketing

I heard Chris Matthews on NPR ask the question: "Why does Coca-Cola advertise? Everyone knows what they are."

And the answer is: You gotta keep reminding people.

So it is with us writers. We must continue promoting our books. You gotta keep talking about them. So, I offer -- GUERRILLA MARKETING!

Here's the Escape from the Alamo golf cart --

A gift to the University of Georgia's Marine Science Institute on Sapelo Island. Where visiting scientists are not allowed to drive State of Georgia vehicles. A golf cart is not a vehicle. The Escape golf cart will help the scientists get around and the message get out. Note the steer horns on the front of the cart. Covers of my books will be displayed on the sides.

And for the final home football game of the season - the Escape from the Alamo Porta-Potty:

So much for the Autumn days. It's Holiday Season now, bright lights, music, and best of all, gift-giving. What better gift than a good old western novel, personalized by the author? I'm your huckleberry.

Happy Holidays to all,

Dac Crossley
December 1, 2011

"Boldness is a mask for fear, however great." - John Dryden.