I have copies of sample chapter booklets for anyone who emails and lets me know they’d like a copy.  Marshall Bill Tilghman is my favorite Old West lawman, but Sam Sixkiller is right behind him. 

A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life. — Henry Ward Beecher.   The future of libraries was the topic of conversation at the Authors on the Move event I attended this past weekend.  Will there even be such things as libraries in another ten years?  I can only hope so.  Technology and the economy are threats to the life of libraries across the country.  Libraries in the Old West got their start by pioneer women who wanted to compile all the reading material they had brought with them over the plains.  They wanted the material housed in a central location for everyone to enjoy.  Calvin E. Stowe, a professor and librarian at Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, was chiefly responsible for the development of largest academic library in the world.  His wife, famous educator Harriet Beecher Stowe, believed her husband was destined to do create libraries.  “I was married when I was twenty-five years old to a rich man in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic and alas in nothing else,” she wrote in her memoirs.  “My husband had a large library of books and a great deal of learning but nothing else.  What else could he do?” A panel discussion was held at Authors on the Move between two best-selling authors about the future of libraries.  The two writers were so enamored with themselves that an answer was barely touched upon.  They spent a great deal of time bragging about themselves and their rise in the literary field.  Several at the signing left midway through their mutual praise fest.  Convinced the pair would eventually get back on topic, I stayed.  The speakers ended the commercial for their work with a challenge for authors and library lovers in the audience to consider what we need to do to help libraries remain relevant.  I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know it’s an important question.  Libraries like the one in Dodge City, Kansas are thriving.  Cathy Reeves is the head librarian there and has seen to it that her library continues to be a necessity.  Maybe we need to send enthusiastic, driven women like Cathy to speak at major book signings and conferences like the event I participated in this weekend.  She could answer all the questions asked and share her innovative ideas.  Those who attended the event could actually learn how to save a library instead of listening to two authors go on and on about how much better their work is than the Twilight series of books.

One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though … betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope

It’s hard to imagine that mother and dauther teams were scamming business owners out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1893.  That’s the kind of thing I thought only happened today and not so much with businesses but in divorce cases.  The mother is always right and the father is always pond-scum.  Pond-scum that ends up paying everything they have to visit with their children who will probably grow up to hate him because the children have been primarily raised by pain-killer addict mothers who teach the kids that their fathers are worthless.  And if that doesn’t work let’s tell the courts he raped you….but I digress.  It happened in Chicago, New York, Boston and San Francisco – Jennie Freeman and her daughter Fannie pretended to be hit by cable cars, trucks (like the one in the photo) and horse drawn carriages.  Doctors for the rail line companies they would sue for damages would call on the scammers and examine their so-called injuries.  Often times Jennie would claim Fannie was paralyzed.  The company hired doctors couldn’t figure out how they always made their symptoms seem so real.  It wasn’t until a private detective rented an apartment above the Freeman’s place in Chicago that the truth was learned.  Through a hole in the floor the investigator spied on his downstairs neighbors.  He caught them soaking their feet in freezing cold water.  Jennie and Fannie would leave their feet in the water until they became numb.  The company doctor would arrive after the water treatment and when he examined their limbs of course mother and daughter couldn’t feel a thing.  The private investigator exposed their scam and the women went to jail.  That’s how it should be when liars are exposed.  Now of days we just let them go free so they can pretend to be victims.  Jennie and Fannie were eventually shot and killed by unknown assailants.  Authorities suspected the men who shot them were hired gunmen working for the rail lines.  I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

If this were only 1881 and I could finish this war the way Earp did.  Here is today’s heartache.  It’s a statement from a cold-hearted woman who has no care for anyone but herself and no vision beyond her own grief.  Her mother died a year or so ago.  My niece is a liar and I’ve diaries and phone conversations to back this claim. “My father is not a good man.  He is sick.  The last time I saw him he was wearing an orange jumpsuit, shaking profusely, hand-cuffed and pale.”  Her father is my brother.  My brother is indeed sick.  He has Parkinson’s Disease.  He was wearing an orange jumpsuit because he was accused of something he never did.  He was shaking because he has Parkinson’s Disease.  He was pale because he has Parkinson’s Disease.  Not a good man?!  I’ll fight to my death before I let anyone accuse him of anything horrific again.  And with all the resources at my disposal I will make sure the world knows what was REALLY done and I’m not alone in that.  When the truth comes out ALL of it will come out.  You think that would make a difference but I know it won’t.

I begin the new week in much the same way I ended the old, cranky. The reasons for my cranky attitude are virtually limitless. In addition to hot flashes that rival anything Dante could imagine are the less than witty comments made by health care professionals about my age. One example: “Hot flashes are typical for a woman your age.” There’s nothing helpful in that diagnosis but the doctors seem especially proud for having made it. It’s imperative I leave the doctor’s office immediately after such keen observation or I’d be forced to insert the point of my Tony Lama cowboy boot right in the doctor’s…uh…let’s say prescription pad. I can’t help but wonder if this is such a natural progression of life why there’s no Barbie doll to represent that stage. We could call her Hot Flash Barbie – press Barbie’s bellybutton and watch her face turn beet red while tiny drops of perspiration appear on her forehead. She comes with a hand-held fan and tiny tissues. I’ve noticed a few whiskers emerging as of late. Maybe they aren’t really chin hairs just stray eyebrows. Whatever they are I can style them easier than my own hair which always looks like it’s been trimmed with a Bic lighter. And then there’s the issue of finding a quality bra that fits. When I was in my 20s I was told to look for a bra that both lifts and separates. Now I’m just looking for one that lifts. I cannot bring myself to take bra-sizing tips from the nineteen year-old working at Victoria Secret however. I simply cannot take advise from someone who purchased their breast as recently as last week. It was suggested recently that I take a trip to the ocean, maybe go for a swim. I’m sure that won’t help my cranky disposition. I could snap a thumb off getting this frame into an ill-fitting, spandex suit. I think the life expectancy of a woman my age decreases substantially swimming in the ocean too. You think the lifeguards try hard to rescue fifty year old women? My guess is they see a fifty year old woman with a few chin hairs in an ill-fitting, spandex suit with a pair of broken thumbs and they decide to stay on shore. I can hear them saying something like, “She’s lived a long life. Let her go.” I know that in the overall scheme of things these aren’t real challenging issues but I’ve had my fill of those. My brother Scott is struggling with serious health problems now. He’s been in the hospital and doctors are unable to figure out what’s wrong. I don’t want anything to happen to him. And then there’s my brother Rick. It’s been more than eight years since he was taken away. The bad guys continue to go unpunished. I count the lawyer who pretended to represent us in the case as one of the bad guys. I used to regard all lawyers with respect bordering on reverence. Not anymore. Like Pamela Anderson, the legal profession started out with good intentions, just somewhere along the line it got really scary. Speaking of Pamela Anderson, I bet she doesn’t take advice from the Victoria Secret gals either. But then I guess she doesn’t have to.