Dac Crossley's Western Blog

The Good Part of Galveston

Galveston it was. Daughter Mary maneuvered me through the airport routine (where I didn't have to take off my shoes!) and over to the Island. We checked into the 100-year-old Hotel Galvez, comfortable and right on the seawall and equipped with a good bar.

For the novel under construction I needed the sense of place you get only with boots on the ground. The sense of sand and heat and water and palm trees. I had forgotten how strong the Gulf winds can be. Hurricane Ike from eight years ago left its marks, although recovery is about complete (ten feet of water in the old train station, one of my targets for this visit).

The real bonus was a visit with two old classmates from high school times. Luella W. and Bob B. joined us at the Galvez. Outside under the stars the ebb and flow of memory bits, bouncing against one another, reinforced our recollections of our callow days. Just for a while we were young again, the hurt of years slipping into the shadows. Why don't we manage to do that frequently, while we still can?

Back to Athens and the novel lunges toward a climax. Provisional title: Revenge of the Texas Ranger.

And yes - we did locate the remnants of Jean Lafitte's blockhouse. A weedy city lot, fenced in but unlocked in the rear. I stood where the pirate must have lived and laughed, but felt no spiritual connection. It was too hot.

Dac Crossley
July 28, 2012 (Happy birthday, JoeAnn!)

"The dream which is not fed with dream disappears." - Antonio Porchia

Jean Lafitte’s Last Known Address

I’m working on another Texas novel and Galveston Island will be one of the settings. To move things along, I’ll visit Galveston this coming weekend. Get my toes in the sand, feel the wind, poke into some historic sites there.

(My friend Carol H. said, “Oh, Galveston. Are you gonna have a hurricane in your book?” Probably not. Too much of an Act of God to be a good plot device. But – maybe…)

Pirates made Galveston Island their base in the early 1800’s, where they preyed on Spanish ships. The pirate Jean Lafitte, hero of the Battle of New Orleans, arrived there in 1817 and organized the pirate band. Made himself commander of the Island. After some pirates abducted a Karankawa Indian woman, the Indians attacked. The pirates turned their ship’s cannons on them, chasing them off the Island. Lafitte owned it all.

At first, the United States Navy left Lafitte alone. After all, he did help with the Battle of New Orleans. He only raided Spanish vessels. That changed after 1818, when the US forbid the importation of slaves. Lafitte began capturing slave ships and smuggling their cargo into Louisiana (with the cooperation of James Bowie, later hero of The Alamo). Capturing an American merchantman didn't help, either.

That was too much. The US forced Jean Lafitte to abandon Galveston Island. He sailed out into the Spanish Main and into history.

Supposedly, the foundations of Jean Lafitte’s blockhouse are still visible in Galveston. I’ll look for them.

And get my toes in the sands.

Dac Crossley
July 19, 2012

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.” – James Oppenheim

Adventures to Come

I didn’t learn to read in the First Grade at Flato Elementary in Kingsville, Texas. The following summer my mother took me and a box of books to my grandmother Baird, who did indeed teach me to read.

Mom wanted to be sure I kept practicing my reading, and she kept me supplied with all kinds of books. One day when I was about ten years old, she brought home Adventures to Come, a volume of short stories set in an imagined future.

That was my introduction to science fiction, and I ate it up. From there I progressed to Amazing Stories, then to Astounding Science Fiction. Novels by Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, John Campbell, Ray Bradbury, and L. Ron Hubbard (who announced his discovery of “Dianetics” in a science fiction magazine). I became a budding scientist, convinced that I’d see these wonders and would help to create some of them.

The science fiction genre began to decline after the Star Wars movies. I guess it became too easy. Poorly written rip-offs chased quality out of the market. The good stuff was still there, books by younger authors such as C. J. Cherryh and Greg Bear. But I lost interest.

Then came the Kindle and some free e-books. And I ran across a trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson. I think he is channeling Isaac Asimov. If you’ve given up on SciFi, as I had, track down those books for your e-reader. You’ll meet good writing first-hand.

Don’t read science fiction? Don’t be too sure.

Dac Crossley
July 14, 2012“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” – Albert Einstein.

A Texan Who Would Be President

John Nance Garner was Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President from March 1933 to January 1941. A Conservative, his warm relationship with FDR soon soured. Powers in the Democratic Party urged Garner to run for the presidency in 1940, when Roosevelt’s second term ended.

Garner first served in the Texas legislature, where he fervently supported the selection of the prickly pear as state flower for Texas. The bluebonnet won out, but Garner won the nickname “Cactus Jack.”

He entered the US House of Representatives in 1902, from a newly-created South Texas District. His hard work earned him the respect of his colleagues. He became minority floor leader, and in 1931, Speaker of the House of Representatives. Garner created what he called his “board of education” during the Prohibition era, a gathering of where fellow legislators could have a drink. The “board meetings” continued after the Volstead act ended prohibition.

FDR invited Garner onto his ticket as Vice President in 1931. Garner also ran in the congressional race, so when he was elected in 1932 he became simultaneously Speaker of the House and President of the Senate.

The Vice Presidency was not to Garner’s liking; it gave him too little to do. He famously described the office as “not worth a bucket of warm piss.”

Would FDR run for a third term? He wouldn’t say. No President had sought more than two terms. Garner was the champion of the traditional Democratic Party, the odds-on favorite. But at the Convention, Roosevelt arranged a floor demonstration that demanded he be drafted for a third term. Garner received only a handful of votes.

“Cactus Jack” retired to Uvalde for the next 28 years of his life. He lived to see another Texas become President of the United States.

Dac Crossley
July 8, 2012

“The Vice Presidency is the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived.” – John Adams.