Journal Notes

Saturdays book signing event at Barnes & Noble in Roseville was very well attended. I always meet a lot of wonderful people at the stores. I am pleased that I’ll be signing books in Independence in June. Independence, Missouri is rich with history. It was the starting off point for hundreds of pioneers heading west. I’ve been working on chapter three of the book about the loves of Buffalo Bill Cody. This chapter focuses on the way he met his wife, their wedding, and their first home. Cody was so complimentary of his wife when they first wed, but 20 years later he referred to her as being “off balance.” Of course he failed to mention the numerous affairs he had that contributed to her fragile mental state. It’s time now to write a few more pages for chapter nine of the posse book. I’ll be in Dodge City if anybody needs me.

Like most people around the Northern California area where I live, I’ve been struggling with a flu virus that has hung on now for more than a week. I did a radio interview yesterday and two lectures and my voice was low and raspy. I’m grateful for the people who tolerated the stories about women in history filtered through a voice that sounded a lot like Darth Vadar’s. Research continues on the Buffalo Bill Cody story and I’m writing chapter nine of the posse tale. Dont know if anything is going to be happening with the Roy Rogers movie anytime soon, but I live with the hope that it will be greenlit in the near future. I’ve been contemplating doing a documentary about the cowboy duo. There hasn’t been a definitive project like that done and I think fans would like to see it. Not to mention the fact that it would give me an opportunity to spend time writing about two people who always kept their eyes on the Lord no matter the circumstances. I’d like to be that kind of person. I continue to be overwhelmed with bitterness at times. Just when I think I’m past it – there it is again. I continue to miss my brother and don’t know if I’ll ever get over that.

It would be so wonderful to get this Roy Rogers Dale Evans film project up and running. There have been so many false starts and stops. As it currently stands Clint Black and Lisa Hartman-Black are set to portray the singing/acting duo. I think it is a good fit. I’ve been on the phone with their agents and managers trying to set up a time when we can meet and discuss packaging the script. I’m just waiting for the people in charge to finish reading the material. At times it seems like such a far off dream and you want to give up. I won’t though. I’m finishing up chapter one of the Buffalo Bill Cody book today. He was an interesting character. His wife catches him kissing a handful of actresses and he is stunned to find out that she is upset by the display. He wrote in his memoirs, “I do not think most wives would have felt a little angry to know and hear her husband in an adjoining room on Sunday morning, drinking beer and kissing theatrical girls of his company. I think they would have been rather proud of a husband who had six or seven months work with a party of people who were in his employ, to know and feel that they were on a kindly footing&. Not one of them got up and kissed papa goodbye, but all four of them rushed up and kissed papa, their old manager, goodbye&.” I don’t Bill was being very realistic. I am amazed at the number of women who threw themselves at him knowing he was married. They didn’t really care about that. They simply wanted the fame and monetary benefits that came from being with Cody. It ultimately led to the demise of his marriage. A famous playwright once wrote that “Being a husband is a whole-time job. That is why so many husbands fail. They cannot give their entire attention to it.” I believe that was Cody’s problem exactly.

Thank you to all the people who emailed me and asked about the new book. Copies have gone out to the first five book lovers who expressed an interest in reading Outlaw Tales of California and I hope their time spent poring over stories about some of the Old West’s bad guys is educational and entertaining. The next book, A Beautiful Mine: Women Miners of the Old West, is set to be released in July. I’ve been asked to speak at a prospectors conference to discuss the brave ladies that dared to sink their gold pans into the rivers and streams in places like Nome, Alaska and Tombstone, Arizona. It was a hard life for a man and an even more difficult way of life for a woman. It was all worth it once they discovered gold however. I placed an ad for the new books in the April/May edition of True West magazine. The edition centers around books that transport readers back in time to the wild days of the Old West. True West magazine is one of the best such publications out there. Second only to Chronicles of the Old West. Both are essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about the rugged frontier. I finished chapter eight of the posse book and am off now to start chapter nine. Charlie, Wyatt, Bat, and Bill have just brought James Kenedy into Dodge to stand trial for killing Dora Hand. The story doesn’t end the way Bill Tilghman hoped it would, but Wyatt Earp was right about the unjust outcome. Wyatt had learned the same lesson I was forced to learn this past year that the color of justice is green.

Outlaw Tales of California is in bookstores everywhere today. The subject matter was incredibly interesting to research and I hope that the title does well for Globe. It is part of a series of books about outlaws from a variety of western states. I made plans to travel to Cody, Wyoming in May to complete the research for the Buffalo Bill Cody book I’m working on. Cody is a wonderful place and I look forward to going back. The last time I was there I was doing reseach for the Buffalo Gals book and got to go through some of Annie Oakley’s personal letters. The focus of the new book is the various love affairs Cody had while married to Louisa. It promises to be very entertaining. In the past when I had a new book come out I would give away a copy to the first five people who signed my guest book. I know longer have a guest book, but I do have email. You will find my email address in the contact section of this website. I’d like to give away five copies of Outlaw Tales to anyone who writes and ask for one. I look forward to hearing from you.

The book signing I participated in yesterday at the Placer County courthouse in Auburn was well attended. I met many nice people and some of them even brought their own historical artifacts along. One kind woman brought an autographed photo of the famed child actress Lotta Crabtree and a pair of Lotta’s earrings. I’m always hoping that I’ll come across a treasure like that. I’d like to be one of those lucky people who finds a rare photograph of Wild Bill Hickock hidden behind a velvet painting of dogs playing poker. The closest thing I thing I have to a real historic artifact is an old bottle with a piece of the Donner cabin inside that dates back to 1846. I keep it in my Bobby Sherman lunchbox. If the piece of the cabin has no significant value I’m sure the Bobby Sherman lunch will be worth a fortune someday. And I keep that on a dresser underneath my velvet painting of dogs playing poker.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get past the decisions I made concerning my brother. I shouldn’t have succumbed to threats and then asked him to take a plea. In doing the research about cases similar to my brother’s I’ve found a number of broken people who have had to live through the turmoil of false allegations of sexual abuse. Brad Mavis of Lee Summit, MO served 5 years of a 50 year sentence after he was falsely convicted of sexually molesting his step-daughter. His conviction was overturned in 2005, and he was acquitted at re-trial. After further review it was learned that The Lee Summit police detective who initially investigated the allegation was having an affair with Mavis’s then wife and framed Mavis on false charges to get rid of him. Mavis’s ex-wife subsequently married the detective and Brad Mavis is suing both of them.

In Texas, a 12 year-old girl accused her adopted father of sexually assaulting her. He phone CPS about the allegation and was arrested. Over the next two years his wife was also charged. The couple lost their business, their home and their two biological children. A jury found the father not guilty of the sexual assault charges and ruled that the girl had made the allegations up because she felt she was not getting enough attention from her parents.

In Brooklyn, New York a school custodian was accused of stockpiling child pornography and of being a child rapist. The two teenagers who accused the man of the heinous crime wanted to find a way to become famous. The custodian was found not guilty, but the man is now too scared to go out of his front door, he can’t sleep, he can’t wipe away the nightmare of being arrested, jailed, and wrongly accused.

For Michael Lenvens of Orlando, Florida the nightmare began in August of 2004 when his youngest daughter accused him of molesting her, a charge Lenvens absolutely and unequivocally denied. His first trial ended in a hung jury. Lenvens was convicted at his second trial in 2005, a conviction that the Fifth District Court of Appeals concluded rested on claims that Lenvens had a prior conviction of assault. (It was later found that it was another Michaels Lenvens that was charged for assault. How familiar this all sounds.) When the Court of Appeals reversed Lenvens’ conviction, the Orange County judge continued to refuse to allow Lenvens’ release from prison.

Lenvens, who is awaiting his third trial on the same charges stated, “I am 54 years old and must have been sleeping all those years not to realize that the trial courts and the prosecutors in this country are so corrupt only looking for the conviction and not the truth. The people of this country need to be told about the state of affairs in the judicial system in this country. Until this happened to me I thought that this country was a very good country to live in. The people of this country need to vote to change the system back to what our founding fathers wanted. Without the knowledge of the broken system though people will not know to make the changes.”

I guess you never forget your first love. You relish in the anticipation of when you will see them next and imagine what you’ll say or do. It’s a glorious sickness. I never would have thought someone like Buffalo Bill Cody would have remembered his first love, but he did. I’ve been writing a book about his life and loves and have learned that the first girl to capture his attention was Mary Hyatt. They were 12 and although she liked Bill she was mostly interested in another boy in their class. Bill grew up to turn the heads of many a young women, but always looked back with fondness on the one who first captured his fancy. I’ll be speaking at the Nevada County library this evening. It should be fun. Maybe I’ll get a chance to talk about Cody and his life and loves and spur the attendees to remember their first heart-throb. I know I’ll never forget mine.

I’ve never enjoyed writing about a subject as much as the posse story I’ve been working on. The heart of tale is about the pursuit of justice and atonement for a horrible wrong. Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, and Charlie Bassett would sooner yield to frontier style justice and shoot the man who killed Dora Hand on the spot, but Bill Tilghman insisted that the law must be upheld and the murderer brought be brought to trial. Dora Hand’s killer is devastated when he learns the bullet he intended for the Mayor of Dodge City found its way to Dora. At one point in his arrest he pleads for forgiveness. Bat responds with a comment I’ve been pondering for days. “How do you forgive the devil?” He asks rhetorically. The enemy disguises itself in many ways. He can be an outlaw, a lawyer, a neighbor, even someone you used to call family. How do you forgive the devil? I don’t think men like Bat and Wyatt ever learned how. Maybe that’s because their brothers had been taken from them. Bill did not have the same point of reference that the other lawmen had. He was the cooler head that prevailed. He was the voice of reason that held the others back when the devil changed his tune and insisted he was justified. We all need a voice like that when the enemy cries out that hes the victim. Until next time…I’m off with the posse.

The book signing at Barnes & Noble in Citrus Heights was a real pleasure. There were many people waiting to get a copy of the John Wayne biography and hear stories about the women of the Old West containted in some of the other titles. It’s a treat to meet such avid readers. Some of them have wonderful stories about their ancestors that traveled here during the Gold Rush. They are so excited about their heritage and their connection with the history of westward expansion. Mike Troyan is the manager of the store and a wonderful author in his own right. He penned a book about Greer Garson and is working on a tome about MGM. All in all it was a nice day. I haven’t had too many of those in the last few years so I cherish them all the more when they come around. Thanks to all the good people who attended the event. You were all a delight.