Dac Crossley's Western Blog

What's in your Bookshelf?

The Re-arranged Bookshelf.

Just had a new floor installed, and took the opportunity to update the bookcase in the den. These are the keepers, the historic ones, the books I plan to read again. I triaged them, so now I've got space to expand.

Let me tell you how my books are arranged.

Upper left - Poetry. A large set that laps over to the shelf below. Sometimes I snatch a chance read Kipling, late in the evening.

Third shelf down on the left are my science books, textbooks, references I might use, or just memories of happy times.

Third shelf down on the right I keep some old family heirlooms. Who doesn't have those?

Top right - Astronomy. I can't practice star-gazing as I did in Texas but I still enjoy the play of the constellations and planets.

Now then. Second shelf on the right - This is the Special Shelf. These are books I know I'll read again and again. Novels such as The Poisonwood Bible and Wicked. Visions of nature. Your Inner Fish.The Dartmouth Bible. These are books that have expanded my horizons; changed my perspectives.

It is my hope that books will continue to be published and read, for both entertainment and enlightenment. I hope that the digital world will not replace them. Will my great-grandchildren read or will they watch?

Post-script. I've just added a book to the special shelf, and it's a book of poems! "Nearing Ninety and other comedies of late life," by Judith Viorst. I'm in my nineties now. Do you want to know how I'm coping, how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking? Judith Viorst has hit it on the head!

Dac Crossley
July 14, 2019

"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash." - Leonard Cohen.

New Members of the Tribe

Here 'tis July, which will bring the birth of two great-grandchildren. Gives me pause to think. What kind of world have I made for them?

Yes, you and I have made this world. Some are calling this geological epoch the Anthropocene - the age of man. What have we done?

We've tried to shield ourselves from nature. Our homes are heated and cooled, using energy stolen from streams and from fossilized plant remains. We've streamlined agriculture. Our food comes to us pre-packaged at the supermarket, or delivered pre-cooked in drive-ins. We travel rapidly now. Instead of trains or buses, we trek by air, fast and furious, in herds. Or use our own automobiles on crowded concrete arteries. We've built giant cities that further protect us from the nature our grandparents endured.

We've taken an important step in significant-problem solving. Namely, we've created significant problems.

We're heating up the planet, a fact that many of us refuse to recognize. We've tried to control our flora and fauna by poisoning the earth, and the consequences are becoming obvious. And we've assaulted our forests and meadows, the lungs of the earth.

In my neighborhood there seems to be a goal -- convert your front yard into a putting green. Neatly trimmed grasses, bring green without blight, comes at a very high cost in pesticide and fertilizers washing into our streams.

So there, new babies. Your ancestors have been selfish. They've betrayed you.

What are you gonna do about it?

Dac Crossley
July 5, 2019

"Recognition of plants, animals and environments is basic to human survival." -- Charles H. Wharton.

Populating the Panhandle

I've been writing about Lubbock, Texas as I work on memoirs. I went to Texas Tech there in the late 1940's. Flat, flat, flat; brown and sandy, so different from my next stop in Lawrence, Kansas.

The east edge of the Panhandle was green in places, where streams emerged from under the Caprock. Comanches wintered in those canyons, Tule and Palo Duro. The Indians knew where the Playa lakes were; the US Cavalry did not.

Fort Elliot first US Army Post established in the Panhandle area, up north on the eastern edge. The fort protected the hide hunters, the plainsmen who soon eradicated the buffalo -- an official Government policy to starve the Indian tribes into submission.
A settlement named "Hide town" grew near the fort. Its walls were made from buffalo hides. By 1875 a saloon held notables such as Bat Masterson and Poker Alice. The town's name was changed to "Sweetwater."

Progress passed them by. Ranchers and farmers entered the Panhandle; other towns grew. Today, Fort Elliot survives as a concrete marker. Sweetwater is still on the maps. The name of the little town was changed to "Mootebie." Perhaps that's an Indian word for "Sweet water."

Stay tuned. My memoirs take me to Eastern Kansas, so different from the Panhandle and a culture so different from the drought-stricken Texans.

Dac Crossley
July 1, 2019

"Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife." - John Dewey.

Populating the Panhandle

I've been writing about Lubbock, Texas as I work on memoirs. I went to Texas Tech there in the late 1940's. Flat, flat, flat; brown and sandy, so different from my next stop in Lawrence, Kansas.

The east edge of the Panhandle was green in places, where streams emerged from under the Caprock. Comanches wintered in those canyons, Tule and Palo Duro. The Indians knew where the Playa lakes were; the US Cavalry did not.

Fort Elliot first US Army Post established in the Panhandle area, up north on the eastern edge. The fort protected the hide hunters, the plainsmen who soon eradicated the buffalo -- an official Government policy to starve the Indian tribes into submission.
A settlement named "Hide town" grew near the fort. Its walls were made from buffalo hides. By 1875 a saloon held notables such as Bat Masterson and Poker Alice. The town's name was changed to "Sweetwater."

Progress passed them by. Ranchers and farmers entered the Panhandle; other towns grew. Today, Fort Elliot survives as a concrete marker. Sweetwater is still on the maps. The name of the little town was changed to "Mootebie." Perhaps that's an Indian word for "Sweet water."

Stay tuned. My memoirs take me to Eastern Kansas, so different from the Panhandle and a culture so different from the drought-stricken Texans.

Dac Crossley
July 1, 2019

"Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife." - John Dewey.