I’m never too far away from the thing that breaks my heart.  In my day to day job I come across items that trigger the deep hurt I thought was dammed up for a few hours at least.  One of the chapters I’m working on for a new book loosed a flood of emotions yesterday.  Anne Cook was a homesteader in Lincoln County, Nebraska in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  She was also a prostitute, bootlegger, embezzler and murderer.  She was truly a disturbed character obsessed with amassing a fortune.  She abused her children, particularly her adoptive son.  When a mob boss moved into Lincoln County threating to claim a portion of the bootlegging and prostitution market for himself, Anne’s reaction was one of outrage.  She quickly put into play an evil plan she had for getting rid of her competition.  The plan involved her adoptive son.  The nine year old boy was to volunteer his services to the mobster (make money runs for the man, deliver a gun or two) for a couple of days and then report back home.  At that time Anne would take the boy to the sheriff’s department where he would lie and tell law enforcement that the man he was helping out molested him.  Anne promised the fellow outlaw that she would make the boy testify to the act in court.  Realizing he would never be able to escape the backlash from such a claim the bad guy left town.  All the guns and muscle the outlaw had wouldn’t stand a chance against such a hideous allegation.  I marvel at the power that false allegation has and believe with all I am it is more powerful than any man-made weapon.  The mind that decides to tell this kind of lie is particularly twisted and devious.  John Steinbeck once wrote “I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. . . . The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?”  If after all the years of fighting against such a soul ends in victory for her I don’t think I’ll be able to go on.  When my brother goes so will I.  There’s no way to live here if the heart of the innocent can be so easily snuffed out and such horror is applauded. 

It’s known as the old wooden bucket delusion. Pioneers believed the best tasting water came from old wooden buckets. If they had lived as long as they thought they would sipping the swill contained in those wooden buckets they would have been outraged to learn that people are now paying $2 and $3 for bottled water. The stone well and wooden bucket are romantic symbols of country life of the 1860s, evoking nostalgia for the purity of spring water and derisive snorts at the chemical “manipulation” of modern tap water. However, our confidence in nature’s ability to purify should be balanced by an appreciation of man’s ability to pollute. The well water was indeed clean in the beginning, but settlers inadvertently contaminated it. For practical purposes the well was dug close to the farmhouse, which itself was close to the barnyard, stable, pigsty, coop and cesspool. With not even a pretense of drainage, the well exposed to all sorts of noxious matter seeping through the ground. Slush from the kitchen, festering matter from privies, and seepage from animal wastes posed a growing danger to the water supply and filled the air with vile odor. A number of health experts warned that much of the sickness and unexplained “misery” of the pioneers could be traced to polluted wells, but they were ignored – even by some physicians. “I knew a doctor,” said Oregon farmer M.T. Eales, “who had a cow-barn, a privy and a well all within one hundred feet of his kitchen.” I couldn’t help but think about that while visiting the Old West town of Berlin. The home on this journal page had a barn, privy and a well in close proximity to one another. There were rain barrels around the property too, but contrary to poplar belief, that wasn’t as good for you as one might think. While not exposed to seepage contamination, it developed its own peculiar infestation from dust and flies. I never would have made it as a pioneer. I at least like the illusion of getting a drink of water that isn’t teaming with bacteria. I don’t think I’d be able to pull that off with a horse drinking from the same container. Guess my love of the Old West only goes so far.

Enter to now to win a copy of

Thunder Over the Prairie

The initial dream was to be a stand-up comic. I’d grown up watching Totie Fields, Joan Rivers, and Phyllis Diller and couldn’t imagine anything better than making people laugh. I worked my way through college at the University of Arizona doing stand-up, and it was there I learned how easy the aforementioned women made it look. Different from prizefights that pit people against one another in the presence of paying spectators, comedy pits the fighter against the paying customers, with silence as the killer and the detonation of laughter as the victory.

You tried hard to forget the sets when no one even chuckled and relived the sets where the audience was happy and doubled over laughing. I’d had a couple of those kinds of sets and was feeling pretty good about my chosen vocation when it happened.

I settled into my seat on a bus I was taking from one part of Tucson to another and started working on a few new jokes when the guy sitting in front of me turned and pointed at me and said in a loud voice, “Oooo, you are so funny.” I smiled, thinking he’d obviously seen one of my routines. I got up and said, “Thank you, thank you so much.”

A few moments later, that same guy turned to the woman sitting next to him and said, “Oooo, you are so funny.” The man said the same thing to everyone on the bus. I was the only idiot who got up and said, “Thank you, thank you so much.”

Life is a long lesson in humility.

Somewhere along the way, I decided to give up the life of a stand-up comic and accept an opportunity to write about the history of the American West. Which is not as much a departure as one would think.

One of the books I had the privilege of writing with my friend Howard Kazanjian (Executive Producer of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi) was Thunder Over the Prairie: The True Story of a Murder and a Manhunt by the Greatest Posse of All Time. The murder took place in Dodge City, Kansas, in 1875, where future legends of the Old West, Charlie Bassett, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, and Bill Tilghman were the lawmen and set off to track down the killer.

Not long after the book was released, I received a call from Emmy Award-winning director and screenwriter Walter Hill. He was the talent behind one of my favorite Westerns entitled The Long Riders. Hill wanted to let me know how much he liked the book and that he wanted to option it and adapt a screenplay based on the work. I was thrilled, but my mind raced back to the guy on the bus who told me, “Oooo, you are so funny.”

The problem, of course, is that once you’ve been publicly humbled by a man complimenting an entire bus like he’s handing out mints at a restaurant, you develop a very specific kind of emotional callus. So, when Walter Hill says, “I love your work,” a small voice in your head immediately whispers, “Yes, but does he say that to everyone?”

I resisted the urge to ask him if there were other authors in the room he’d like to compliment before I got too excited. Instead, I did what any seasoned, battle-scarred former stand-up comic would do – I stayed seated.

Because whether it’s a comedy club, a crosstown bus, or a phone call from Hollywood, I’ve learned one very important rule: never stand up and say “thank you” until you’re absolutely sure you’re the only one they’re talking to.

I’d like to think I’ve learned a little something from all of this. This month, you have a chance to win a copy of Thunder Over the Prairie. If you’re interested, you can visit www.chrisenss.com and enter. And if you happen to win… well, feel free to say, “Oooo, you are so funny.” I promise to stay seated.

I am filled with thoughts about my brother Rick today. In federal prison for a something he did not do, he suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, his eye-sight is failing, and he still has no teeth from when he was beaten several years ago. I know that retribution is sure for his ex-wife and her daughter who caused such devastation. I pray in the near future the courts will deal harshly with them. I can’t be preoccupied with that however because the Lord tells me that vengeance is His. I am two people it seems. One who wants the bad guys to suffer horribly and the other who longs to keep my focus on the only thing that matters, Jesus Christ. I know I’m not the only one who wrestles with such things. I gain strength from the stories of others who have fought this battle. Men like Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale. Stockdale was a prisoner of war for seven and one-half years during the Vietnam war, four of them in solitary confinement. Despite repeated torture, he maintained secret communication with other American POWs and was a leader in setting the policy and standards for the prisoner’s resistance to their captors. Stockdale was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1976 and was a candidate for Vice President of the United States in 1992. At all time Stockdale carried with him something he called the ‘field manual for soldiers.’ In it was a handwritten pages which read as follows: “The essence of good and evil lies in an attitude of the will. There are things which are within your power, and there are things which are beyond your power. Within your power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion; in a word, whatever affairs are your own. Beyond your power are body, property, reputation, office; in a word, affairs not properly your own. Concern yourself with what is within your power. The essence of good consists of things within you own power; with them there is no room for envy or emulation. For your part, do not desire to be a general, or a senator or a consul, but to be free; and the only way to do this is a disregard of things which do not lie within your own power.” If only I could be as eloquent.

When the new book about mail-order brides is released in October of this year, I’ll be ready to roll out the carpet on a new fashion line inspired by the stories in Object Matrimony. The fashion line entitled Prairie Rose Designs is a series of wedding dresses pattered after the early frontier days but with a modern twist to the overall look. Talented fashion designer Christian Goodwin has started the collection off with three romantic wedding dresses. A fashion show featuring the three gowns will be take place at the location of the launch of the Object Matrimony. The time and place of the event have yet to be determined. Photos of the dresses will be posted when the launch is officially announced. I don’t know much about fashion but the professionals I’m in business with do. All I really know about fashion is what I like. I like a lot of fashion! I’m not ashamed of my body, I just don’t see any reason to not cover it up as much as possible. I’m one of those people who think those garments the Amish women wear are a great idea for everyone, regardless of their religious affiliation. I’m someone who considered becoming a nun, for the outfits. I hope to make the official announcement this week that contracts between Walter Hill and Tricor Entertainment have been signed and all is set for the making of Thunder Over the Prairie. This project has been in the works for more than two years. I’m not good at waiting. It seems I’ve been waiting for one thing or another for more than nine years. Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.

 According to the lyrics in the Old West song entitled the Wagoneer’s Lad by Charles Neely, the life of a pioneer woman was something to be lamented.  Some of the lyrics were as follows:   “always controlled, they’re always confined.  Controlled by their family until they are wives, then slaves to their husbands the rest of their lives.”  Women played no public roles in the early life of pioneering (1846-1860) but remained in their domestic spaces.  I hate to admit it but the relative inequality of the sexes during the start of the rush west was the basis of patriarchy and masculine power beyond the Mississippi.  In all agricultural societies women were more or less excluded from the public world.  The overall status of women in agriculture was one of institutionalized dependency, subordination and political immaturity. 

     Farm women’s ills were exacerbated by the growth of the market, for under commercial pressures gender divisions were widened, men’s economic activity was further divorced from the household, and family economic unity shattered; for farm women there was, in consequence, a further devaluation of their already questionable status.  Lacking in public roles, women were dependent upon men, while men enjoyed considerable responsibility and latitude in their social relations.  The presence of children provided male privilege with a natural cover: women were viewed as inherently responsible for domestic society, while men were free to work or wander. 

     The majority of the people coming west in the mid-1840s were farmers from Missouri.  The average age of the pioneer wife was 20-22 and the average of the pioneer male was 34-44.  I know these statics might be boring for some but for those educators who visit the site hoping to find out information about the role of pioneer women it might serve as useful.  Happy teaching and if you get this far in reading this entry take a moment to watch the newest video posted on the introductory page of this site.  It’s the short tale of what one western woman did to change her circumstances.

“No one respects the law…no one respects the courts…the courts don’t respect themselves.”  This sad verdict on justice was handed down by a journalist in the 1880s.  Things haven’t changed much since then.  It was widely believed in the Old West that men such as corrupt railroad mogul Jay Gould controlled the courts.  It was said of him that he could commit a murder without fear of arrest or conviction.  Gould’s actions were not unusual, large corporations tampered openly with the courts, paying off judges and juries alike and never feeling the slightest twinge of shame or guilt.  For men like Gould guilt was simply God’s way of letting them know they were having too good a time.  I unfortunately know too many people that think like Mr. Gould did.  People for whom in the elaborate wardrobe of human emotions, guilt is the itchy wool turtleneck that’s three sizes too small. Guilt is difficult to articulate.  For some guilt is the pledge drive constantly hammering in our heads that keeps us from fully enjoying the show.  Guilt is the reason they put the articles in Playboy.  Some experience guilt as the voice of their better natures, while for others, it’s the voice of an authority figure like a parent or a teacher.  There are some people so predisposed to guilt (and I believe I fall into that category) that when they’re born, the first thing that comes out of their mouth after being slapped by the doctor is “Harder! Harder!”  Women like Gould helped take my brother’s life.  They are murderers who walked across the street to have pizza once the job was done.  I don’t have to wonder if they will remember what they did when they pass by his gravesite at the cemetery.  They won’t.  Of course they won’t have to imagine what it will be like to be in paradise someday singing praises to the Most High.  They won’t be there to enjoy it any more than Gould is there now.  It’s hard to know how many lives Jay Gould ruin because he bought judges and juries in order to make a case go his way.  For a while he was the power behind the throne of justice.  As Collis P. Huntington (another Old West railroad boss) once said “if you pay money to have the right thing done, it is only just and fair to do it.”  If I had the kind of coin Gould possessed and I could purchase guilt, I would shower my brother’s accusers with so much guilt they’d drown in it.  For now I guess I’ll just have to look forward to the day they final understand what the word retribution mean.  As for Gould, he died of tuberculosis on December 2, 1892.  His fortune was conservatively estimated to be $72 million.  I’m sure all the money was made legitimately too.