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A Study in Contrasts: Houston and Lincoln
It’s an old-fashioned study in contrasts, considering the two of them, Abraham Lincoln and Sam Houston; both political giants, both of them a linchpin around which a certain point of American history...
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A Poem – From Edgar Lee Masters
(I knew this poem from an anthology collection that I had as a kid – it was called The Magic Circle – and I suppose my sister wound up with it, although most of our childhood books wound up in my...
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The Dream Home
Period log and stone farmhouse at Becker Vinyards Now and again, I dream of what I would like for my very own bespoke retirement property … only that it wouldn’t be retirement, actually; I’ll be...
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The Haunting of Mason County
The so-called Mason County Hoo-Doo War was one of those particularly impenetrable frontier feuds which mixed up all the classic western feud elements into one bloody and protracted mess; legal...
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Up to the Minute: The Lady Spy and Library Action
First up – I have a post up at the Unusual Historicals website, as part of their series on women in war. My post is about Elizabeth van Lew, the Union’s lady spy in Richmond, during the Civil war. And...
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Part 2: The Mason County Hoo-Doo War
The Hoo-Doo war eventually became so bitter and vicious that all sides involved in it splintered into factions – even the company of Texas Rangers eventually dispatched to quell the range war split...
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The Mason County Hoodoo War – Part 3
Scott Cooley, who lived for revenge on those who had a part in the murder of his foster-father, Tim Williamson, made a kind of headquarters with his violent and disreputable friends in Loyal Valley....
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Something New…
… no, not a gorgeously decorated Easter egg, but a collection, all in one Kindle book, of just about all my blog posts about Texas; the complicated history 19th century history of, and some of the...
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From The Quivera Trail – Chapter 22
(From the work in progress:Chapter 22 – Daughters and Sons. Isobel Becker, staying in Liesel and Hansi Richter’s San Antonio mansion. has just given birth. Her husband Dolph is in the Palo Duro country...
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The Most One-Sided Gunfight in the Old West
This affray did not happen in Texas, but in New Mexico in 1884. It did have all the classic Western elements; rowdy cowboys, a small town fed to the back teeth with their destructive and abusive...
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My First Book
… is now revived in a Kindle edition. I didn’t republish it when I moved from Booklocker to Watercress Press, as it is very short, and composed mainly of blog entries that I wrote about my eccentric...
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Stories
I am not one of those given to assume that just because a lot of people like something, then it must be good; after all, Debbie Boone’s warbling of You Light Up My Life was on top of American Top Forty...
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So, How is That Book Thing Going – 2013 Edition
Pretty well, actually – I finished a chapter Saturday afternoon, and tallied up what I have so far; a little over 300 pages, but only about another three plot twists and set-piece scenes to go. I’ll do...
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Rebuilding the Collection
When the house that my parents had built for their retirement retreat burned in a catastrophic brushfire in 2003, they had only about half-an-hour warning, and so there were a good many things they...
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The Picador’s Horse – a Memory of Spain
During our last summers overseas, my daughter and I took to camping on our vacations, as the most economical way of traveling and seeing as much of the country as we could. A nice campground in Spain...
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Mickey Free – Apache Indian Scout
His name wasn’t really Mickey Free, and he wasn’t really an Apache Indian. The legendary Al Sieber, chief of Army scouts in the badlands of the Southwest after the Civil War once described him as ‘Half...
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From The Work in Progress – The Quivera Trail
(Jane Goodacre has accompanied her employer, Lizzie Johnson on a visit to friends in San Antonio. Jane has found fullfillment and friends as a school-teacher, but she cherishes a warm friendship with...
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Sleeping Warm Under a Handmade Quilt
We visited Boerne this week, just in time for Quiltfest on Hauptstrasse (Main Street.) Lots of lovely quilts on display along the street in downtown Old Boerne – and in the Town Plaza. Patchwork...
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The Great Siege of Elm Creek
As the Civil War raged in the east, the western frontier went up in flames, along the Sierra Nevada, and from Minnesota to Texas. With the attention of both the Union and Confederate militaries focused...
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Stranded in the Death Valley
When gold was discovered in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada in 1848, it didn’t take very long for word to get out. From the eastern United States, California was then a six-month journey by...
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