Journal Notes

The Bookseller in downtown Grass Valley graciously hosted the launch of the children’s book this weekend. It went well. Melissa and Jeff Galpin were with me – they are the illustrators of the book. During the event I was reminded of just how lost I’ve been this year. I’ve been in a depressed fog for months. Much of it has to do with my brother and his incarceration. It’s gets harder everyday to watch. I’ve lost a lot of the passion I used to have for life as a result of the desperate situation. I used to dream big, now I can’t even remember any dreams or aspirations. Jeff and Melissa had asked me to think about doing a follow up for the children’s book and at one time I was excited to do so. Saturday Jeff mentioned that they had waited long enough for me and were going to work with another author. I can’t blame them. It did make me aware of how long this sadness has gone on and the dark turn it has taken. I watch myself slip away further and further and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. With Christmas time fast approaching I thought I would extend an opportunity for visitors to this site to write and ask for a copy of the new children’s book if they would like one. Even if I am dragging these day, the story is fun and so is the artwork. Let me know if you’d like an autographed copy for your family.

I received this email yesterday and thought I’d post it on the site. It’s been one of the hardest years of my life, but little bits of encouragement like this help me keep going. Sent: Fri, Dec 11, 2009 7:27 am Subject: Your book inspired a song! Greetings from Arizona!
Just wanted to let you know how much we both enjoyed your book, “Thunder Over the Prairie”! What a great story! We enjoy the true tales of the west and in fact write songs and poems about them, as well as our own historical western creations. Your book set us to writing our second “Lawman” song called “Saddle Up!” which we are looking forward to performing for the first time publicly at the Arizona Folklore Preserve this weekend. The song is not about Dora Hand, but about the camaraderie of the lawmen of the west, I personally enjoy writing songs and reading books about the women of the west, and have several of your books on that topic in our wish list on Amazon. After this great first experience with your work, I am expecting they will be further inspiration and enjoyment! Thanks so much for your dedication and hard work!
Best Regards, Nancy Ruybal. Thank you, Nancy.

It’s been a banner year. It’s been a banner decade. In between my writing assignments I’ve been visiting with my brother who is in federal prison and struggling with his health. He was beaten and raped and the result of that violent act have changed everything. It’s hard to watch someone you love die and not want to do all you can to stop it, especially when you feel responsible. I told him to take the guilty plea and I’m having a hard time living with that. I received a letter yesterday that said I was “obsessed with him.” Maybe so. As I say, it’s hard to watch someone hurting like Rick is and not want to do all you can to save him. The letter I received consisted of a list of my faults and how I’ve been a disappointment. The intent of the letter was to hurt and it didn’t miss the mark. The one comment in the letter I do feel compelled to respond to is this one and I quote a segment of the letter now “You claim to be a Christian but you don’t worship the same God I do because the God I worship would be disappointed in you.” I know I’m a sinner and that God has a lot of work to do with me, but one thing God is not is disappointed in me. He doesn’t see us as others do. He sees us as the finished product. A sinner saved by grace. He sees His Son in us. When you see me driving down the road in a jalopy, you don’t see me strictly by myself. My car is a kind of identity. But if you see me driving down the road in a classic Corvette with chrome… Hoo boy! You see me differently, don’t you? When God looks at us, he sees the Corvette. While Paul was still a sinner, a murderer, God saw him as a great missionary. While Abraham was a sinner, a liar, he saw him as the father of a nation. I have always questioned how other people saw me, whether or not they truly loved me, but I stand on solid ground with this point. God does loves me and is proud of me even if no one else in my family ever will be. He corrects me when I’m off base and is doing that daily. He does that for everyone. He doesn’t look at us the way human beings look at us. That’s what made me want to accept Christ into my life and that’s why I seek him still. The new book Cowboy True’s Christmas Adventure is being launched Saturday at the Bookseller in Downtown Grass Valley at noon. The bookstore phoned yesterday to let me know that they were out of books. I rushed to the store to drop off more. Things will be okay.

The men in Custer’s Seventh Cavalry drank when they left on a campaign and when they returned. They drank to celebrate a birthday, a promotion, when they were depressed, and when they were bored. In short, the soldier’s drank a lot. According to Elizabeth Custer, trying to keep his troops sober was a major problem for George. Often times there weren’t enough regular supplies to go around, but alcohol was never lacking. Elizabeth wrote, “A man who overindulges lives in a dream. He becomes conceited. He thinks the whole world revolves around him – and it usually does.” I never acquired a taste for alcohol. Which given my addictive personality is a good thing. The one and only time I did drink I got drunk and was sick the following day. I had a combination of Boone’s Farm wine and peppermint Schnapps. Never again! There is a history of alcoholism in my family. I saw little signs of it when I was growing up – like when my uncle asked the waitress “what wine goes with a grand slam breakfast?” Many people, and I’m guessing the men under Custer’s leadership included, go for decades without addressing their steadily worsening problem. Occasional cracks in their armor may leave them shaken but not stirred to action. Others, however, get tired of French-kissing the gutter drain and join Alcoholics Anonymous. I think that Alcoholics Anonymous is truly a wonderful, lifesaving organization. And privacy is of the utmost importance in AA and members are very, very serious about protecting their anonymity. If you don’t believe me, just tap on the window of someone with a “One Day at a Time” or “Do It Sober” bumper sticker and ask them.

My grandmother died on November 27. I returned to Missouri for her funeral last week. I was able to keep my emotions in check until I saw my 24 year-old nephew helping to carry her casket. In a flash I remembered how the two of them used to watch the movie E.T. together and play games on the floor. I heard them laughing. When I saw my nephew dressed in his Navy uniform hoist the coffin up and help march it out of the church, I understood fully then that my grandmother was gone. She and I spoke almost every other day over the phone. I missed talking with her yesterday and found myself scrolling through the speed-dial numbers in my phone until I got to her number. I almost called. She was a bright spot in my childhood and she will be missed. It’s back to work today on the book about Elizabeth Custer. Tales Behind the Tombstone is the book of the month for the excerpt section of this site. Because I’ve been spending so much time with the Custers I wanted to include an excerpt from Tales about George’s death and Libbie’s life after the Battle of Little Big Horn. She has indeed been one of the most fascinating women I’ve had the privilege of writing about. I’ve been in talks with a couple of production companies about doing a documentary on women of the west for the Discovery Channel. If all works out I’ll be in Los Angeles next month to discuss the matter further. The film projects for Playing for Time and Thunder Over the Prairie continue to move slowly ahead. It’s a long, laborious process, but one I hope will be well worth it. Until then, I’m off to Fort Riley with George and Elizabeth.

I try to maintain this site on an every other day basis, however, due to the death of my grandmother I will not be updating the journal as regularly as usuaul. I will return on December 7 with information about the latest books I’m writing, book tours in which I wil be participating, and the general chaos that is my life.

I’ve been working on Chapter 4 of the Elizabeth Custer book. It’s a great story, but it’s slow going because there’s so much material to go over. I’m anxious to review the material in Garryowen, Montana that belonged to Elizabeth. I suspect everything I’ve written so far will need to be amended or added to. She was brave to go with him into the field. She lived in the same tents, ate the same food, suffered the same troubles the 7th Cavalry was exposed to. George called her his “best soldier.” She simply refused to be without her husband and was willing to put up with anything to be by his side. In addition to lining up speaking engagements for the new year and contacting all the independent bookstores from Independence west, I’ve been working on the annual Christmas in Bethlehem program. This is year six and this year’s program promises to be bigger than the last. Visit www.nccib.org for more details. The program is free to the public. I promise that no one will be disappointed. Still no word on the complete funding for Thunder Over the Prairie. Walter Hill is still set to direct, but the funding to make the picture has to come from a variety of sources. Howard Kazanjian is working diligently on that front, but it’s slow going. There will be at least four new western released next year – a real plus for that genre. My parents are going to the prison today to see my brother. I don’t think they are fully prepared for what they are going to see. I hurt for my them, especially my mother. She won’t know until today the extent of Rick’s injuries and how rapidly his health is declining. It will be a shock. It’s like a wave of pain that washes over all of us who know and love him. The only way to deal with the pain is to dive into the oncoming wave.

As of two day ago, there’s more than a good chance I’ll get to take a look at some of Elizabeth Custer’s personal letters – letters few others have seen before. That will enhance the book I’m working on about her life as I’d like to include information that isn’t common knowledge. I don’t know what the weather is like in Montana in February, but that’s where I’ll be heading to learn more about this fascinating woman. My excitement over that possibility is mixed with the frustration and bitterness I feel over a judge in Austin, Texas pouring over my website looking for information about my brother. I know this judge is related to the low-life my brother was married to and her accomplice that helped fabricate the most deadliest of all accusations. I’m perplexed by their continued interest in Rick and my family. They never make any contact with me, but I can see them poking around like rats. From 9:30 yesterday morning to 11:10 a.m. they nosed around my site. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know what I do. Today is Veteran’s Day. My grandfather, father, nephew, and my brother Rick are all veterans and I’m proud and grateful for their contribution. On this day I’m reminded of something the stoic philosopher Epictetus once wrote. Frederick the Great carried a copy of this book on all his campaigns. So did Vietnam POW Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale. It was referred to as a ?field manual for soldiers.’ Some of it reads 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 only with what is within your power. The essence of good consists of things within your 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.” Now there’s a lesson to live by.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “There is no scale or chart on earth to measure what a friend if worth.” That particular sentiment was acted out in my life this weekend through the kindness of my friend Cindy McIntosh. Cindy is the coordinator of the annual 4-H Leadership Conference. More than a year ago she invited me to be the keynote speaker at the first night of the conference. I was pleased to do so. The event was held in beautiful Monterey. When I arrived was struggling with another incident involving my brother in federal prison. I wanted so much to forget about that for just one night, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Cindy greeted me at the event with enthusiasm and excitement that I was going to be speaking. I set up my table of books and hurried off to have dinner with her. The event was the most organized one I’d ever had the privilege of being involved. Everyone at the conference was incredibly kind. With all that’s happened in the last five years that’s a rarity. After the speaking engagement and selling many books to attendees (thank you Carol Scofield – I couldn’t have done all that without you), I was packing up my stuff to get ready to leave. As I noted, I now had to be somewhere else after the talk. Cindy came by and suggested I leave everything there and that she would make sure I got it all back. I still had books left over and she believed more conference goers would want to buy them. I had to leave, but was not worried about what would happen to the left over books, money, posters, bins, all the things that one has to take with them on the road. I couldn’t believe she offered to let me leave the things these and bring them back to Nevada County for me. It was a kind gesture right in the heart of a difficult time. A kind gesture right in the heart of a time when I struggle with trusting at all. After hugging Cindy for the fourth time she said, “See, there are still some good people left in the world.” She’s right. My faith in such things has been eroded away since the incident involving my brother. I thought I was going to Monterey simply to give a speech about women of the Old West. I did, but God used it to show me that the goodness in mankind is not completed gone. Thank you Cindy, for being the instrument he used to show me that truth. I’m grateful.

There are some days that the only way you can express how you’re feeling is through the lines of a great western movie. This is one of those days. Out in the wild, wild West, the men were strong, the horses were fast, and the talk was rough. What a time. “Temper’s something only the very strong or the very rich can afford. My father taught me that very early.” – rancher John Parrish (Glenn Ford) to his foreman Jim McCloud (Warner Anderson) from the movie The Violent Men. “I don’t intend to start at the bottom. Been there. It’s too crowded.” from the movie Stars in My Crown. “I don’t want trouble with anybody – unless I start it.” from the movie The Showdown. “I say we do it my way – and that’s an order.” “Yes, sir. But if you’re wrong, don’t ever give me another.” John Wayne to Ward Bond in one of my favorite westerns, The Searchers. “This ranch isn’t big enough to hold the two of us.” Robert Mitchum in Pursued. “Whenever he gets low in spirits or confused in his mind, he doesn’t feel right until he’s had a fight.” Harry Morgan in The Ox-Bow Incident. I’m heading to Monterrey tomorrow to speak at the 4-H leadership convention. I’m looking forward to spending some time gazing out over the ocean and contemplating what life holds next. Which brings me back to another great movie line. “Faith can move mountains. But it can’t beat a faster draw.” from the movie El Dorado. Couldn’t of said it better myself.