08/05/2025
One of my favorite authors
At home, as a child, I had been brought up on stories of Indians and Indian fighting but writing about them had not entered my mind. I did plan to write, to tell stories, but the nature of those stories was something that remained to be seen.
However, I was used to listening to older people talk, and enjoyed their stories. Moreover, I had an insatiable curiosity about places and people, so I was never content to just pass through a town. I wanted to know about it, how it came to be where it was, and who was responsible. I wanted to know about the country, and had read just enough in geology and botany to know something of land formations and plants.
They are out there by the thousands, wonderful stories. Many have never gotten into the histories, although occasionally told by local newspapers or in privately printed booklets. Stories of wagon-train massacres, buried treasures, gun battles, cattle roundups, border bandit raids--no matter where you go, east, west, north, and south, there are stories. People are forever asking me where I get my ideas, but one has only to listen, to look, and to live with awareness.
As I have said in several of my stories, all men look, but so few can see. It is all there, waiting for any passerby.
Every bit of blank paper is a challenge, and the worst of it is, at 77, almost 78 I am just learning to write, and only beginning to learn. There is so much more I want to know, so many books to read.
