Journal Notes

The driving force behind the journal section of this website was to elaborate on information I learned researching Old West stories for the books I write. For example: Television and motion picture westerns would have viewers believe whisky was the drink of choice for cowhands and miners. The truth is whisky was in short supply beyond the Mississippi and bartenders made up drinks they liked to call whisky. A mixture of water, heated sugar, turpentine (sometimes), and a tobacco plug was served to saloon patrons who requested whisky. “Rotgut” as it was also known, could make a person very ill. Those aware of how sick it could make them ordered champagne drinks or coffee. After spending five days in Missouri meeting with attorneys and private investigators I feel like I’ve had massive quantities of rotgut. And here’s where the journal entries turn from being solely about Wild West facts to Midwest tragedy. I learned during this visit that a once beloved family member sought to cause irreparable harm to the case involving my brother. It was malicious and purposeful and inexcusable. When I was informed what had happened I felt like Al Pacino’s character in the film The Godfather must have felt when he learned his brother Fredo had betrayed him. Pacino’s character waited for just the right time to tell his brother that he knew what he’d done. “I know it was you, Fredo,” he said grabbing Fredo’s face hard and kissing him. “You broke my heart.” What happened stings but the lawyers assure me they can work around it. There’s hope for my brother. A trial is on the way along with a healthy dose of retribution. When this is all over I’m going to need plenty of homemade brew to get beyond the hurt and the insurmountable loss however. I’ll saunter into a saloon and demand that the bartender, or chemist as they were also known in the Old West, serve whisky to my friends and rotgut to my enemies.

There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are lies that kill. Like the lies the adopted son of a well-known university basketball coach made. He told authorities he had been sexually molested and yesterday admitted to the press that it never really happened. “I don’t know how I could have told such a lie,” the liar told reporters. His truth comes too late. His father’s career has been destroyed, his friends have ostracized him, his family has been torn apart, his reputation massacred. This false allegation will follow his father for the rest of his life. And there are so many other cases of false allegation that have killed everything a person built. For example: In 1992, Dale Duke was recently married, when his step-daughter accused him of sexual assault. Duke pled no contest to the charge in order to receive a deferred adjudication, and was later sentenced to 20 years prison for refusing to admit the sexual assault in a Sex Offender Treatment Program as part of his sentence. About a year after, the step-daughter recanted her testimony, claiming that the sexual assault had never happened, and that she made it up. In 2011, Duke’s attorney discovered that the Prosecutors office had never shared with the defense exculpatory information that the girl’s grandmother had told police that she thought the “victim” was untruthful and that her aunt had actually convinced the girl to fabricate the story. This exoneration comes after Duke has served almost 14 years in prison for this “crime” that never happened. Some liars are murderers. A lie that horrible takes the focus off those that are real victims. Those that might end up dead at the hand of their abusers. That’s a lie that kills in my estimation. I pray for their souls and for those that lost everything they ever were and everything they were ever going to be before the lie.

Among the most compelling want-ads I’ve come across while doing research on the Old West is an advertisement that initially ran in a London newspaper. British Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton placed the ad in preparation for the National Antarctic Expedition (which subsequently failed to reach the South Pole). Shackleton later said of the call for volunteers that “it seemed as though all the men in Great Britain were determined to accompany me, the response was so overwhelming.” The advertisement read as follows: MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success. I am inspired by the courage of men like Shackleton. The characters John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter played in the film The Searchers are equally as courageous in my estimation. Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a believer more in bullets than in words. He’s seeking his niece, captured by Comanche who massacred his family. He won’t surrender to hunger, thirst, the elements or loneliness. And in his obsessive, five-year quest, Ethan encounters something he didn’t expect to find: his own humanity. Hunter plays the brother of the kidnap victim in the picture. He absolutely will not give up on finding his sister. I can identify with the characters in that film. You’d be surprised at the lengths you will go for a lost loved one. I’d gladly give up my life to save my brother’s. I travel back to Missouri this week to try and get help for my brother. Some tough decisions will have to be made. Heartache will surely ensue. I covet all the prayers I can get in this situation. It’s been eight long years. When I feel like giving up I think about Shackleton’s ad and his expedition and of a particular line from The Searchers. In the film Wayne’s character is asked by the Reverend, played by Ward Bond, if he wants to quit combing the territory for his niece, give up and go home. Wayne’s character responds with a simple but forceful “That’ll be the day.” That’s how I feel about giving up on Rick – “That’ll be the day.”

Parked outside the local Kmart yesterday were a couple asking for signatures on a few petitions. I was stopped as I entered the store and asked if I’d like to put my Jane Hancock on the form. They explained that the petitions were to increase the penalty for people accused of sexually abusing a child. Outraged by the likes of Mark Guido and his wife, two of the most despicable human beings on the planet who kidnapped and raped a child and held her against her will for decades, the petitioners felt the time had come for stiffer penalties. I agree that the type of individuals mentioned in the previous sentence should be put away for ever. Actually, I believe they should be put down in much the same way you would do a rabid animal but there wasn’t a petition for that option. I believe the same punishment is due those who falsely accuse someone of a crime. I didn’t shy away from sharing that idea with the folks looking for signatures. They were taken aback by my reaction. I was too. My thoughts on that subject are strong and never far from the service. I’ve had enough untruths in my life. I never get far away from the subject of lies even in my day to day job. I spent most of the day working on rewrite for a book about the so-called bad girl Ma Barker. Ma had four sons. All of them were rotten. All of them were criminals. Even after all the research I’ve done on the Barkers I’m not convinced Ma was the leader of the Barker gang. According to records on file with the Federal Bureau of Investigation there was no one to blame for the violent end of the Barker boys but Ma Barker herself. The records claim she “taught her four boys how to rob, kidnap and murder.” It also maintains that Ma “gave them private lessons in the fine art of loading and firing a Thompson submachine gun” and that she “patted them on the back when they carried out her carefully planned crimes.” According to the August 29, 1979 edition of the Hutchinson News, Alvin Karpis (one of the Barker gang members) insisted that Ma Barker was not capable of such things. “She was just a plain little old hillbilly out of the Ozarks,” Karpis told reporters. “She never even knew how to use a machine gun.” Ma Barker was fifty-seven years old when she was killed in a gun battle with the Feds. Because I know first hand that investigators lie I don’t believe the government report. Sorry to say I think Karpis was telling the truth about Ma Barker. Guess there was no pride, fame or money in that notion for the G-men of the 30s and 40s. Wealth makes everything easy – honesty most of all.

The only human desire more universal than the urge to put on a show is the urge to get paid for it. That’s true today and it was true in the Old West. Actresses such as Lily Langtree and Maude Adams were highly paid for their talent. They played to sell-outs houses in Denver and San Francisco. Of course they weren’t the only form of entertainment. The gun was an integral part of pioneer entertainment. Today there is widespread disapproval of firearms, but during the early 1860s through the late 1880s, even the most gentle families saw nothing immoral in allowing their children to play with guns. In the Old West it was almost a rite of puberty to give a boy his own gun, and marksmanship with a rifle and revolver was considered a highly desirable preparation for manhood. Watching displays of marksmanship was a popular form of entertainment then. Buffalo Bill Cody capitalized on that and made it the hallmark of his traveling shows. Of course people then and now seem to be drawn more to the bad guys with guns who put on a show robbing banks and freight wagons. Westerners would have paid anything to get a glimpse of Jesse James or Billy the Kid. The resulting culture gave the products of Remington, Colt and Winchester every bit the prestige of, and popularity even greater than, those of Walt Whitman or Mark Twain – especially among boys. I don’t think things have changed much. The bad guys still get a lot of attention. Few kids in the late 1900s pretended to be Mark Twain, but many of them pretended to be Billy the Kid. It’s interesting – it can take decades to become an overnight success, and only moments to be considered a lifetime failure. Maybe outlaws and professional victims attract an audience because they lack guilt for any of the bad they did. Most people can’t fathom living with themselves if they robbed a bank, held up a stage, shot and killed people, or falsely accused someone of a crime that cost an innocent man his life. It’s fascinating to watch someone who can feel everything except guilt. Nothing shakes them. They never remember the people they destroyed. I think the only thing that keeps the people who destroyed my brother awake at night is puzzlement over why their professional victim act hasn’t landed them a television show. No guilt and we can’t look away. We pay fairly hefty cable bills to watch shows featuring individuals who seemingly have no capacity to feel guilt – shows like Toddlers and Tiaras, Housewife of Wherever, and Bridezilla. Reality TV has made it easy for bad people to become stars. I would venture to say that if Billy the Kid was alive today some producer would have a weekly series about the reckless youth. They’d make excuses for his behavior and probably broadcast a real shooting or two. The network execs would say to one another, “Now that’s must see TV.”

Perhaps the most distressing feature of Old West medicine was its inability, outside of surgical anesthesia, to alleviate pain. Even minor afflictions often meant weeks of suffering that a modern society, accustomed to instant relief, would not have the fortitude to endure. I would have been one of those that could not have endured. I need to be anesthetized to get an eye exam. If it were up to me I’d never step into another doctor’s office again – no matter how advanced medicine gets. Some physicians make one feel as though nothing has changed since the Old West. The one I saw this past week falls into that category. She was like a blindfolded auto mechanic poking around under the hood with a giant “We’re number #1” foam finger. I didn’t hate that as much as the list of ridiculous questions I was asked which ranged from “Are you exercising and drinking enough water?” to “Do you eat right and get enough sunlight?” She ended the examination with a phrase I absolutely loathe, “It’s hell getting old, isn’t it?” I should have stayed home and treated whatever was wrong the same way I try to fix my computer when it’s not acting right by banging on the back of the terminal. “Hey, Doc. I’m only 50,” I finally worked up the courage to say before I left the office. “Yes, that’s about the age,” the anorexic, silicone implanted, thirty-something woman replied. On the way back to my office my mind settled on the thousands of pioneers heading West more than one hundred and sixty years ago. They all had the illusion that no matter how tough it turned out, frontier life would at least be healthful and free of the epidemics that plagued the East. However, they also took along the germs to destroy that illusion. Smallpox traveled with them to break out in towns and even on the thinly settled prairies. The trails West were studded with crosses warning of “cholera,” which infested waterholes and salty streams. I found comfort in these facts. Just knowing neither myself or the surgically enhanced doctor would probably never have survived a trip West in 1850 made me feel better. I wouldn’t have made it because of my age and she wouldn’t have made it because…well, let’s just say infested waterholes and leave it at that.

The date on the small rock tombstone atop of Bob Ford’s grave in Richmond, Missouri is incorrect. Ford was born in 1861, but the tombstone has 1841 as his birthday. A reader who picked up a copy of Tales Behind the Tombstones pointed that out yesterday. The book was released in 2007 and I never noticed the discrepancy. I guess the tombstone has been left that way because Ford was not a well liked character then and he’s still not a well liked character to the folks in and around Ray County today. When I visited the gravesite for the first time there were still flags around the tombstone that read “The Dirty Coward who Shot Mr. Howard.” Howard was one of Jesse James’s alias. I’m not sure who oversees such matters, I’ll find out when I’m in Missouri in a couple of weeks. I’ll point out the error but I suspect they already know and don’t care. Since this matter was brought to my attention I’ve thought a lot about the “we don’t care” attitude from those in positions to make changes and set policy. Pulling from my most recent memory I note that an attorney working for the Missouri District Attorney’s office possessed such an mindset with regards to my brother and family more than seven years ago. My brother’s arrest was one of the most traumatic experiences I’d ever gone through in my life. As soon as they allowed him to make calls he phoned me crying. He was terrified about what could happen to him. All his worse fears were indeed met. During one particular conversation he asked me to go into the camper where he was living and remove some of his most precious possessions. He didn’t want his soon to be ex-wife to lay claim to the few things he left their home with. The camper where my brother lived was situated behind my parent’s home. At this point the mock investigation was over and the camper was NOT, NOR EVER WAS PART OF A CRIME SCENE. My brother was petrified and cried all the time. He begged me to help him in any way I could. “I’m innocent and don’t belong here,” he sobbed. I told him I would do what I could and that I would never leave him behind. I never went into his camper to remove anything, but I told him I did to calm his anxious heart. I would have told him anything to calm his anxious heart. I’d never experienced anything like that and I was in pieces. I promised that I’d get him out, buy him a house, get him a new car, I promise to restore his life and replace those things his ex-wife refused to return to him. The District Attorney’s office recorded the conversations I had with my brother promising him that I would take care of his requests and for reasons I still cannot fathom, told my nieces and nephew that I had removed evidence from Rick’s camper. I received a veiled threat from the District Attorney’s office shortly after that. I was told that if I return to be with Rick at court I would be arrested for “obstruction of justice.” Having no experience with the law that threat scared me. I knew then the Feds could come in an arrest you for no reason and I was frightened. Incidentally, I still believe they can arrest a citizen for no reason and keep them locked up indefinitely. Due process is only for the very rich. Looking back on the incident now I should have stood up to them and told them to do what they felt they needed to do. The D-A was selective about what they told my nieces and nephew. They weren’t interested in protecting them in the long run they only wanted to use them to get what they wanted right then. They succeeded. I just wanted to set the record straight in my small way and mention that I do have copies of the entire conversations I had with my brother in jail – should anyone be interested in the truth. TRUTH IS ESSENTIAL. Einstein once said, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” That advise goes for D-A’s, anyone who makes false, life altering allegations against another and the inscription on an outlaw’s tombstone.

I like clean slates. The idea of blank canvas before me gives me some hope. The possibilities are endless. The first work day of the New Year…that clean slate promises to be filled by the day’s end. Looking forward I have three new books that are going to be released – two in the summer and one in the fall. I have three books to complete for release in 2013, a few speaking engagements, a book launch, and hopefully a Broadway musical and the development of the book Thunder Over the Prairie into a film. I am anxious to start work on the new fiction western based on the life of Laura Reno, sister of the famed Reno Gang and the completion of the mystery I’ve been picking at for eight years entitled Frogs in Paradise. There are several Bible studies I’m excited to be a part of and a full Easter production I’ll be writing and directing. Looking forward almost makes me happy…almost. It’s the looking back I still have to do that threatens to slow any real forward movement. The fight for my brother’s life continues. There will be results this year, most unpleasant results. I read a story entitled Matilda, Who Told Lies, and Was Burned to Death. It serves as an example of the results that happen when a person lies and ruins lives. I believe those who lied about my brother will be forced to deal with the consequences of their actions this year. Not in the literal way Matilda did, but certainly they will burn with the knowledge that their deceit was costly. And now, the story of Matilda. Matilda told such dreadful lies, it made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes; Her aunt, who, from her earliest youth, had kept a strict regard for truth. Attempted to believe Matilda: The effort very nearly killed her, and would have done so, had not she discovered this infirmity. For once, toward the close of day, Matilda, growing tired of play, and finding she was left alone went tiptoe to the telephone and summoned the immediate aid of London’s noble fire brigade. Within an hour the gallant band were pouring in on every hand, from Putney, Hackney Downs and Bow, with courage high and hearts aglow. They galloped, roaring through the town, “Matilda’s house is burning down!” Inspired by British cheers and loud, proceeding from the frenzied crowd, they ran their ladders through a score of windows on the ballroom floor; and took peculiar pains to souse the pictures up and down the house. Until Matilda’s aunt succeeded in showing them they were not needed and even then she had to pay to get the men to go away. It happened that a few weeks later her aunt was off to the theater. She refused to take her niece to hear this entertaining piece: A deprivation just and wise to punish her for telling lies. That night a fire did break out – you should have heard Matilda shout! You should have heard her scream and bawl, and throw the window up and call to people passing in the street. But all in vain! For every time she shouted “Fire!” They only answered “Little liar!” And therefore when her aunt returned, Matilda, and the house, were burned.