Oh dear,

When I updated my blog last night, the BEST info didn’t go thru!

Simply post your comments below on the THE KID IN ME Blog along with the month and day like 7/7 of your birthday and you’ll be entered into a birthday drawing for 1 of 3 of my not-even-in-the-stores yet, release Texans’ Wedding-Night Wager!   Three winners will receive this book as a birthday gift, some early, some late, but you just have to post to be included in the drawing!!

And this book is special — it’s dedicated to the original Fillies .  As I wrote this a year ago, the newbies had yet to be conceived!!

  I truly wonder sometimes, what our forefathers would say about the ways in which we celebrate our birthdays.  Back in the Old West, a child was lucky to receive a homemade scarf, socks or a new book as a birthday gift.  Little girls would be overjoyed to receive a new frilly dress or a doll.  Boys would love shining new boots or a toy. 

Their celebrations were usually after school and perhaps their mama would cook them up something special like apple pie or peach cobbler. Maybe they’d have kin join them and even a few close friends. 

I thought about this as I entered Disneyland on my birthday a few weeks ago.  Good old Walt wasn’t about to let the economy get in the way of his success. (Okay not Walt, but I tend to think of him looking down at his theme park with that sweet smile of his).  Californians who come to Disneyland on their exact birthday get in FREE. That’s the deal.

I warned my dear hubby months prior that that’s what we’d do on my birthday.  He had no complaints and sweet guy that he is, he took the day off from work. It happened to be the day of Michael Jackson’s funeral and traffic on the LA freeway is always horrendous, but especially so this day.

Traffic and my hubby are not friends.

I worried about the drive so we took the long way around and when we arrived at Disneyland without a problem, I let go a silent sigh of relief. I knew it was going to be a good day.

Disneyland really is the happiest place on earth. They gave me a button to wear with my name it and every Disney employee in the park wished me a happy birthday when they saw me. What’s even more fun is that you see all the other people with YOUR SAME BIRTHDAY and you wish each other a happy birthday by name. I was so tickled when a little boy came up to me and said, “Happy birthday, Charlene.”

I immediately squinted at his button and returned, “Happy birthday, Adam.”

How novel an idea … and how Disney of them to think of it.  

The day was magical and musical and the kid in me came out to play. We went on our favorite rides, including Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean.  BTW – I counted 3 Johnny Depps as Captain Jack Sparrow – a new addition to the attraction.

The Matterhorn still scared the stuffing out of me and I enjoyed the lyrical, relaxing It’s A Small World ride just as much as when I was a kid. We watched Minnie and Mickey during the Dance Parade from our spot in the shade and I grabbed for confetti shot into the air in the shape of little Mickeys.  Imagine that! 

The highlight of my day came when we got off the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and my hubby suggested we eat lunch at the Blue Bayou Restaurant, a classy little place inside the actual Pirates attraction, waterside with crickets chirping and twinkling lights shining. The entire place was designed with 1800 Louisiana in mind.  It’s the most romantic and popular place to eat in Disneyland. To my surprise, we were let in without reservations (people call days in advance to get to eat here).  Maybe it was my “birthday button.”

The Monte Cristo sandwich is to die for. No one makes it like the Blue Bayou and of course, dear hubby and I both ordered one and filled our bellies.  Next came the birthday surprise dessert. Chocolate mousse or should I say chocolate mouse- they served the mousse with chocolate Mickey ears!

All in all, it was a wonderful way to celebrate and as I walked through Frontierland I wondered what the old west pioneers would have thought of Thunder Mountain, Tom Sawyer’s Island and the rifle shooting galleries. Could they ever conceive of the notion of a theme park?

Are you a kid at heart too?  Have you ever been to Disneyland?  Any adventures to speak of and what’s your favorite ride?  Or do you have other theme parks in your area that really tickle your fancy?

TEXAN’S WEDDING-NIGHT WAGER AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER

Hello Darlings,

This week we’re thrilled to have Ms. Tammy Barley. Yee-Haw!

This will be her first time at the Junction and we need all of you to help make her feel right at home.

Ms. Tammy is going to share tidbits about her new book LOVE’S RESCUE. Sounds like a humdinger if ah don’t mind saying so. Ah know you’ll agree by the time it’s all said and done.

Ms. Tammy is toting some books to give away too, by George! But the prize that has this old broad’s eyes bugging out is a stay in a resort in the Rocky Mountains. Yep, you heard me right. Drop by on Saturday to get all the details.

You won’t be sorry you did.

The Montgomery Ward catalog has been called one of the most influential American books ever published. One such nominating committee, the Grolier Club, stated: “The mail order catalogue has been perhaps the greatest single influence in increasing the standard of American living. It brought the benefit of wholesale prices to city and hamlet, to the crossroads and prairie.”

Aaron Montgomery Ward was born in Chatham, New Jersey in 1844 and his family went west to Niles, Michigan in 1853 where his father took up the cobbler’s trade. Aaron left school at 14 to work in brickyards and a barrel factory where he learned his most valuable lesson: “I learned I was not physically or mentally suited for brick or barrel making.”

After clerking at a shoe store and then a country store, earning $6 a month,
plus board, Ward was then ready to go to the big city. At that time Chicago was home to 30,000 people and known, none too affectionately, as “The Mudhole of the Prairies.” The streets were barely above the level of Lake Michigan and covered with bottomless muck.

But by the late 1860s, Chicago was teeming with post-Civil War energy. Fifteen railroad lines moved 150 trains a day out of the busy terminals. Like thousands of other young men Ward arrived in Chicago in 1866 and began work in various dry goods firms, including one operated by Marshall Field. He became a salesman, his income rising to a whopping $12 a week.

As he made tedious rounds through the mud in his horse and buggy, he took particular notice of the country stores along his route. They were gathering places with potbelly stoves and moonlighted as meeting places for local farmers. However these outlets were far from helpful when the farmers had to actually buy something. Selections were small and prices high. Storekeepers were at the mercy of big-city wholesalers.

After considering how he could help the disadvantaged farmer, Ward decided on a mail order store. He planned to set up in the big city where he could easily reach suppliers and buy in quantity to get the best prices. He could send a catalog listing his prices to farmers who could order and receive their items by mail, cash on delivery. It was not a new idea but the few direct mail firms at the time sold only one or two items. Ward was going to bring the whole store to the farmer.

Ward worked and saved. He talked about his idea with friends and associates. They all agreed he would go broke trying to sell goods sight-unseen to back country folk. He was not dissuaded. By 1871 he finally saved enough money to buy a small amount of goods at wholesale prices. On October 8, 1871 the Great Chicago Fire engulfed the city for 30 hours. Every building in a 4-square mile area was destroyed. So was Ward’s inventory.

Ward went back to work. By August 1872 he scraped up money and convinced a few people to join him, raising $1600 in working capital. He printed up a one-page price list and hand-addressed the first circulars to the Grangers, a co-operative farm supply organization. One of his earliest price lists contained 163 items under the banner Supplied By The Cheapest Cash House In America. Most of the items cost one dollar, including clothing, a 6-view stereoscope, and a backgammon set.

For most of 1873, Ward’s mailbox was bare. His partners wanted out and Ward—who still had his sales job—managed to buy them out of their small investments. The Panic of 1873 quickly sunk even the established traditional retailers.

His business was ridiculed by the Chicago Tribune as a disreputable firm “hidden from public gaze with no merchandise displayed and reachable only through the post office.” Under threat of a lawsuit, the Tribune printed a retraction. The retraction was added to the next flyer and sales increased!

About this time, ready-made clothing began appearing. The accepted belief was that no two people had the same measurements; therefore tailors were needed to make quality garments. But the crunch for uniforms in the Civil War had demonstrated that certain combinations of measurements could be standardized. Ward told his faraway customers: “Give your age and describe your general build and we will nine times out of ten give you a fit.”

Ward wrote all the early copy. He always included a message in his catalogs, often giving money-saving tips. “It is best to make your order around five dollars. Shipping charges on small orders will eat up your savings. Consider joining a buying club with your neighbors.”

Consumers came to trust Ward’s unseen store, and business grew rapidly. He bound his first catalog in 1874, and in 1875 the book expanded to seventy-two pages. Worrying that he might become too big, Ward took an ad in Farmers Voice just to reassure his customers he had not lost touch with their needs.

In 1893 Ward sold controlling interest to George R. Thorne who had come on as a partner late in 1873. Ward remained president, but after a while he stopped attending board meetings. The last twenty years of his life were spent preserving the Chicago waterfront as a park for the people. He spent over two hundred thousand dollars of his own money to defend the public’s right to open space.

His long-time efforts to prevent the erection of buildings along Lake Michigan won him the title of The Watch Dog of the Lake Front. At one time there were forty-six building projects planned in the park, and he fought them all successfully, losing many influential friends along the way. Finally, just before his death in 1913 he won his final legal battle to forever keep the waterfront an open area.

 
The Tribune, no friend of Montgomery Ward, wrote: “We know now that Mr. Ward was right, was farsighted, was public spirited. That he was unjustly criticized as a selfish obstructionist or as a fanatic. Before he died, it is pleasant to think Mr. Ward knew that the community had swung round to his side and was grateful for the service he had performed in spite of misunderstanding and injustice.”

It’s amazing to think he was the forerunner for all the mail order catalogues that would follow, and that shopping by mail would become commonplace. Imagine what Mr. Ward would think of telemarketing or the incredible world of ebay!

Quite honestly, I make most of my book purchases online, plus a great many other things, from toys to cabinet hardware. The most awesome things I’ve purchased online recently are reproduction Jadeite cabinet knobs and glass handles and a really cool neck and shoulder heating pad stuffed with flaxseed. Received any interesting deliveries in the mail lately?

ORDER A REPRODUCTION CATALOGUE FROM AMAZON

*Mother of the Bride…seventeen days til my daughter’s wedding. 

Since I can’t find anywhere that 17 is an unlucky number, I reckon I can regale you with wedding stuff again while I still have my nerves and my mind left. Most of my mind, that is.  And I need a chance to showcase the hit of my daughter’s recent bridal shower, the “glam gloves” sent by my filly friend Pam Crooks along with a signed copy of her latest book. I can still hear the shouts of delight bursting from the throats of sorority sisters, aunties and cousins…and even myself. You can see why! Those gloves are the cutest things ever! 

 Now for all you historians and romantics out there, here are a few more bridal tidbits to file.  

Bridal Shower.  This girly gathering owes its roots to a Dutch maiden three hundred years ago whose wealthy papa pooh-poohed her marital choice of a lowly miller. His refusal of a dowry had her friends and neighbors “shower” her with enough household goods to start life with her true love.

In the 1890’s, gifts for the bride were actually placed into a Japanese parasol which was later opened over her head. Hopefully there wasn’t a cast iron frying pan or meat cleaver knife in there.

 (This pic is my friends and me, lower right, at my July 1974 shower. Talk about a vintage photograph!)   

 In the good ole days of bride-stealing and kidnapping, the groom of course had to surround himself with pals ready to assist in abducting his woman. Sometimes the “groomsmen” snatched brides of their own from the herd of bridesmaids. Romantic? Can’t decide if there’s a historical romance plot in there somewhere. WDYT?

27 Dresses. Just kidding. Christi only had six to alter after the somewhat dowdy hemline caused quite a stir of frenzy recently. Fortunately my amazing sister-in-law Roberta (Christi’s aunt and godmother) successfully converted the hems bubble-style. Christi has selected yellow to acknowledge our family’s devotion to Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong crusade against cancer, and as a tribute to her dad who beat testicular cancer last year. Walking her down the aisle is going to be particularly poignant.

 (This is Danielle, one of the bridesmaids. Her December 2008 wedding was postponed when a California wildfire burned down her family home last fall! Favors, invitations, everything but her dress was lost. Fortunately, no one was hurt and the house is being rebuilt. But…insurance delays and her dad’s recent health scare put things on hold until early 2010.  Fortunately, her dad found out he’s going to be okay. Praise God again!)

Something old, Something new. Something borrowed, something blue. Actually, most of us recite this without the last line.     …and a silver sixpence in her shoe. 

This tradition started up in Victorian times. The bride who wore/carried these good luck tokens could expect a happy marriage.

The sixpence, a silver coin minted in Britain from 1551-1967, symbolizes the hope for financial security. For optimum good fortune, it should be worn in the left shoe. With the sixpence out of production, a copper penny is okay to use…although keepsake sixpence can be found online. Fortunately, I brought a sixpence home from a college trip to England in 1972 and wore it in my wedding shoe thirty-five Augusts ago. I will pass on my lucky sixpence and its good fortune to my daughter! 

Something old symbolizes the bride’s family roots and past history. 

Something new is for hope and optimism for a happy future and her own history. 

Something borrowed is usually an item from a happily married friend or relative. It  reminds the bride that she has loved ones to depend on. 

Blue has been connected to weddings for centuries. Brides in ancient Rome wore the color to symbolize love, modesty, and fidelity, and Christians long associated the color with purity, as it is the standard garb for the Virgin Mary. Blue actually was a popular wedding gown color through the 1700’s.  “Marry in blue, lover be true.” 

Young Brides, Old Wives Tales.   

    1. If you find a spider on your wedding gown, you’ll come into money. 

    2. If you see a flock of birds, your marriage will be blessed with fertility. 

     3. If it snows on your wedding day, you’ll be wealthy.

     4. If the sun is out, you’ll be happy.

     5. If you marry as the hands of the clock move up (after the half hour), you’ll have good fortune.

    6. If you drop the ring during the ceremony, it’s best to start the whole thing over. 

    7. If you look in the mirror before walking down the aisle, you’ll leave a part of yourself behind. 

    8.  If you cry on your wedding day, especially before the kiss, you’ll prevent tears during the marriage. 

Well, as I leave you with these pearls of wisdom, I can positively say no snow will fall on Christi’s wedding day, but I can predict the location near the beach fill have plenty of sun. 

Somebody might drop the ring, but I doubt the coordinator will let us start the whole caboodle over.

Christi will most definitely be looking in a mirror! 

The wedding starts at 4:30…so I’m on board for the hands of the clock moving up, even if you wear a digital watch. (This antique clock was a wedding gift to my grandparents in 1917.)   

 Birds and spiders, okay. I’m a bit of a tree hugger. Just don’t poop on her dress.

  As for tears, I think they’re a given. I’ve already got handy an Irish linen hankie, a souvenir from my mom’s many travels. 

Please pass along today any pearls of wisdom, lore or old wives’ tales of your own, your hints and helps, past MOB memories, or anything you think I might start needing…on day 16. 

To order my latest release, click on the cover.

The Old West is filled with legends but none is more colorful than Poker Alice. Her real name was Alice Ivers and she born of privilege in 1851. She attended an elite boarding school for young women until her family moved to Leadville, Colorado. There Alice met Frank Duffield, a mining engineer, and they were married.

Gambling was prevalent in the rough mining camps and Frank Duffield did his share. Alice often accompanied him to keep from staying home alone. Alice quickly learned she had an ability to read cards and took up poker and faro. When Frank died in a mining accident, Alice decided to put to use what she’d learned. Left alone with no means of support she turned to poker as a way to earn a nice living. It was certainly more respectable than prostitution.

Alice stood at 5’4″ with blue eyes and lush brown hair and decked out in her fashionable dresses she was quite a sight for lonely miners. It was rare to find a “lady” in a saloon that wasn’t of the “soiled dove” caliber so they flocked to her. They quickly bestowed the nickname Poker Alice on her and she was in much demand. It’s rumored that she once broke the bank at the Gold Dust Gambling House in New Mexico where she won $6,000 in one night.

Sometime during this period she began smoking large black cigars. Some said it was quite a sight to see her in frilly dresses with a big cigar sticking from her mouth. Alice also took to carrying a .38 revolver and wasn’t a bit squeamish to use it. Her reputation grew and so did her pocketbook.

However, she was deeply religious and never gambled on Sundays. The lady did have her scruples it seems.

Alice traveled all over Colorado, New Mexico and South Dakota playing and sometimes dealing the game she loved. But it was in Deadwood, South Dakota that she met Warren Tubbs. They married shortly after and homesteaded a ranch near Sturgis, South Dakota. Loving the quiet ranch life, Alice cut back on the time spent in gambling houses. She and Warren had seven children and it was one of the happiest times of her life.

But it wasn’t to last. Alice’s poker luck didn’t extend to husbands. Warren contracted tuberculosis and died of pneumonia in the winter of 1910. Again, Alice had to turn to poker to earn a living.

She hired a man by the name of George Huckert to take care of the ranch. He fell head over heels in love with Alice and asked her to marry him several times. Finally Alice relented saying that it was cheaper to marry George than pay him all the back wages she owed him. The  ink was barely dry on the marriage license before George died in 1913, leaving Alice once more a widow.

This time when Alice returned to the gambling halls she wanted to do more than be a patron. She purchased her own place and named the saloon “Poker’s Palace.” There she provided everything a lonely man required–liquor, gambling, and working girls. One night a drunken soldier went on a rampage in the saloon, breaking furniture and threatening the customers. Alice promptly took out her .38 and shot the man dead. She was arrested of course and thrown into jail, but at the trial she was acquitted on grounds of self-defense and released.

She lost her saloon though. Authorities shut her down and it seemed to take a lot of the fight out of Alice. A little while passed and Alice was now in her 70′s. Her beauty had faded and she began dressing in men’s clothing. She continued to run a house of ill-repute in Sturgis and was arrested many times for drunkenness and charged with being a madam. Finally, after repeated convictions she was sentenced to prison. Alice was 75. Taking her advanced years in account, the governor of South Dakota pardoned her. She died of complications from gall bladder surgery in 1930 and was buried in Sturgis, presumably beside Warren Tubbs.

According to the Legends of America website, Alice was said to have won more than $250,000 at the gaming tables during her lifetime and she never once cheated. One of her favorite sayings was: “Praise the Lord and place your bets. I’ll take your money with no regrets.”

Doesn’t this sound like a character in a romance book? Poker Alice was colorful and independent. She lived life on her own terms. When the chips were down, she didn’t ask for a handout; she went back to work.

Have you read any books or watched western movies where the heroine was unconventional, maybe working in a saloon or even owning one? Miss Kitty definitely springs to mind, but there are others. Our own Charlene Sands’ heroine in BODINE’S BOUNTY sang in a saloon.

www.LindaBroday.com

Click on Cover to Order from Amazon

The winner of Louise Gouge’s book is:

Laurie G

email me, Laurie

mary at maryconnealy.com

and I’ll get your contact information to Louise.

And thank you everyone who stopped by and left a comment for Louise.

 I jokingly call myself the World’s Greatest Literary Janitor, when it comes to the career of Louis L’Amour my job has basically been to organize what he left behind in order to extend his career twenty years or so.  That meant going through virtually every piece of paper that he left behind searching for clues with which I could recreate various aspects of his life for Bantam Books, our web sites and, occasionally, the movie industry.

 On the personal side I’m just guy who lives in a little house in Los Angeles, creates fun projects to do with his friends, likes traveling, reading, and messing around with old cars.  This is beginning to sound like one of those dating site profiles …I’ll move on.

 Your father is famous for living a lot of the life he wrote about, was this true by the time you were able to remember him or did he live a more sedate desk bound life after his books started coming out.

 Louis never lived the life of a cowboy, though he was a miner and worker on a number of farms.   Much of this was done in a period, the 1920s, that had a greater resemblance to the frontier west than our world of today and some of the people who had lived in that earlier time were still alive.  However, it was a time that had it’s own fascinating aspects … I always wished Louis had written more about his own time.

 Once he settled down in Los Angeles right after World War Two most of that lifestyle was in the past.  By the time I came along Louis was fairly tied to his desk by the responsibility of supporting a family.  Writing, in those days, didn’t pay particularly well.  To live a relatively middle class lifestyle and prepare for problems that the future … protracted unemployment was always a risk … Dad had to write three to four books a year.  It was quite a load of work.

I have to ask, as a writer myself, how did your dad manage all these books without a computer? I am profoundly impressed. I do so much editing and revising and it would be so much harder with a typewriter. I feel like a pure wimp, but I find writers who produced as much work as your dad did especially impressive because they didn’t have computers. . .don’t even ask about James Fenimore Cooper and Jane Austen without even a typewriter. Did he tear out pages and throw them away and start over and scribble on the pages a lot? Did he write his books longhand first then transcribe it to a typewriter? Did he talk his books and have a secretary?  

Louis learned to write by trying to sell to the pulp magazines.  The pay was usually between $25 to $250 a story … and many, many, stories didn’t sell.  He set a goal of writing a story a week in those days so there wasn’t much time for rewriting or even over thinking them.  I’m sure that in the early days, long before I was born, he threw out a great many pages.  Later, however, he perfected a manner of “stream of consciousness” writing that allowed him to produce an incredible number of stories but at the cost of losing some of his ability to rewrite.  Perhaps a more accurate way of saying that would be that ‘he lost some of his will to rewrite’ … he was not so inclined to think about what he was writing, he made it more of a reaction than an intellectual process.  That delivered a boiling energy to his work but left some of it sort of rough around the edges.  Take a look at some of the writing in Yondering, stories that were highly polished in order to be sold in literary magazines, then compare them to many of the pulp westerns, where speed of production was of the essence.  There is a difference.

 Dad wrote a minimum of five pages a day, using two fingers, on a typewriter.  He wrote six to ten hours a day, six to seven days a week for most of his adult life.  At his best he could do sixty words a minute for a pretty extended amount of time.  Most of the trick though, was just sticking to it and never doubting that what he was doing was right, the right scene, the right dialogue, whatever.

Did your dad travel to research his books? I’m wondering if you had adventures as a child that stemmed from having Louis L’Amour as a father.

 Sometimes.  Mostly he was already aware of the locations he wanted to use from his own, earlier, travels,  But we did research on many of our trips and, later on, I did research for him on my own.  My sister and I saw a lot of dirt roads when we were kids.

Have you met the actors and actresses who have performed in movie’s based on his books, like Tom Selleck and Sam Elliot?

 I have had the privilege of working with both of those guys but meeting people or working with them and knowing them are two different things.  I’ve tended to leave the celebrity types to themselves as much as possible.  Some are really nice people.  Some are absolute jerks.  In my opinion, nothing about being a movie star is wonderful or interesting.  Quite a few live difficult lives and are often not really the kind of people that you’d want to hang around with once the novelty of their being famous wore off. 

 That said there is a great difference between stars, who tend to exist in a bubble of fear and alienation, and a great number of actors, some of whom are my closest friends.  It’s amazing how many actors, who often get a bad rap based upon a few of the worst examples, are alert, intelligent, people who are amazingly hard workers and able to both do so many different things and to train themselves in new disciplines at the drop of a hat.  I really count myself lucky.

And how involved are you with current work on the books.

 I had been involved with production of our dramatized audios from the start.  For years we have done a series of audio books in a style similar to old time radio dramas … I use that term loosely because most of our productions do not try to be nostalgic or the least bit “old timey.”  Anyway, I was in charge of the scripting and casting of the vast majority of those shows, each needing a script that was an adaptation of the original story rather than a dogmatically faithful transcription.  Prose does not automatically make the best drama, just like including back and forth, script style dialogue in a novel or short story could be a mistake.  Prose is a visual art, more like painting than good drama … and drama is usually more auditory, even in the movies.  I also wrote and directed several of our audio dramas … in fact I’m at work editing the most recent, number seventy, I believe, even as I answer these questions. 

 For awhile I was doing six a year but now production has slowed considerably and we do only one every several years, however, the stories are much longer and the productions vastly more involved.  This production is an audio of one of my dad’s movies that I produced several years ago, The Diamond of Jeru.  It has been a wonderful opportunity to revisit that script and evolve it into something new and different.  In a way it is as much of an adaptation of that film as the film was of the novella.  I don’t know when it will be released, we only get about a week a month to work on these and we have to take the end of the year off as Christmas is our big sales time at louislamour.com.  We are two years in and only about half done. 

Back to the books.  Starting with Haunted Mesa I began to be involved with doing some of Louis’s research and then occasionally doing some minor editing.  After his death the work expanded to planning how to re-present the entire catalogue of his works, to art directing a new set of covers, rewriting all the jacket copy, and editing or rewriting many of the unpublished or unfinished short stories.  My friend for many years, Paul O’Dell and I run the louislamour.com website and have created hundreds of pages of material on Louis and his stories.  Our latest creation is Louis L’Amour’s Great Adventures, a website featuring all of Louis’s writing in the adventure genre and an examination of the world that the stories were written in.  It’s full of Paul’s amazing art and maps and photos from the time period … many straight from Louis’s own archives.  Also of note is louislamourslosttreasures.com, and ongoing project to catalogue many of Louis’s partially completed projects, false starts, and alternative versions of many of his published works.

I see that you’re a writer and involved in many ways in the film industry. How has being Louis L’Amour’s son helped? How as it hurt?

 Being Louis’s son has helped because I inherited a catalogue of material that was already famous … it would seem that might make it easier to sell than my original material.  Certainly studios and networks would rather talk about material written by my dad … at the same time they don’t really want to make westerns, so the whole situation is sort of self limiting.  That said, I only occasionally work in film and don’t need to go there to earn a living so it’s not really a problem.  When I want to do drama, work with actors and script and such I can do an audio.  I love film but the business is very dysfunctional and time consuming … I’m glad I have publishing.  Really glad.

I am a huge fan of all the L’Amour books and I don’t think I’ve missed a single one.

My personal favorite is The Sackett Brand. Here’s a bit about it (for the Petticoats & Pistols readers) I found on http://www.louislamour.com/ .

 Forty gunslingers from the Lazy A have got Tell Sackett cornered under the Mogollon Rim. They’re fixing to hang him if they can capture him alive, fill him extra full of lead if they can’t.

It’s just about the best of the best in my opinion. I consider however, Jubal Sackett to be, again in my opinion, his epic story. I just loved that book. I have a question about it.

In Jubal Sackett. . .when Jubal went into that cave and saw those dead bodies and heard the words, “Find them. . .” I have ALWAYS been crazed to know what that meant. Find WHO?????

Any ideas? Even guesses would be appreciated. Was it something Louis was going to go into in a later book? Is it in Jubal Sackett and I somehow missed it?

 It was a set up for the future but I don’t know where he was going with it.  If that drove you crazy you really love Louis L’Amour Treasures.  It’s hundreds of mysteries wrapped in riddles.  Take a look …

 Beau L’Amour

And go to http://www.louislamour.com/ to find specially bound editions of Louis L’Amour’s classic novels.

Ah’m so excited!

Have you circled your calendar and double-checked the date?

Mr. Beau L’Amour has arrived at the Junction and will be here bright and early tomorrow.

The Fillies will be up at the first rooster crow, you can bet your bottom dollar on that!

This rare opportunity won’t come along every day of the week so don’t stand around gawking.

 Follow the trail; you can’t miss it!

I’m so happy to be invited to share some thoughts on the Petticoats and Pistols blog. While my current book doesn’t actually fit the Western theme, I did live in Colorado—a truly Western state, if there ever was one—for many years, dated cowboys, and attended many rodeos. Even wore a pair of cowgirl boots once upon a time. My small, southern Colorado town of Monte Vista was all about cattle and ranching, so once I became a writer, I expected to write novels set in the Old West. As it turned out, my first novel, published in 1994, took place in Colorado. But it was a contemporary romance written long after I moved away from that beautiful state many people call God’s Country to another beautiful, but much different state, Florida.

As strange as it may seem, I never expected to write about Florida, even though it has been my home state these past thirty years. But when my fellow author Kristy Dykes (1951 – 2008) suggested that I write a historical novel about Florida, the setting just seemed right. Digging into this state’s history has been a great joy for me. Talk about a frontier territory! Florida rivals Colorado in its rich history of untamed land and fascinating characters. Even rattlesnakes! Add alligators to that list, and you’ll see why this state deserves as much attention as my stories can give it. And my goodness, have I learned a lot.

One thing I never knew before was that England owned more than thirteen colonies in the part of North American that became the United States of America. What fun to discover that while the Patriots in those thirteen colonies were struggling to form an independent nation, two other English colonies called East Florida and West Florida had the potential of becoming the fourteenth and fifteenth states. Such was not to be, however. Instead, Loyalists fled to East Florida to escape the American Revolution and held the line against Patriots who tried to breach their defenses. Just think of how different history might have been if General George Washington had accomplished his dream of winning this third front of the American Revolution.

Another interesting fact has to do with my fictional setting of St. Johns Settlement. I chose the site because it was near an old French fort on the St. Johns River. Imagine my surprise when I interviewed Fort Caroline Park Guide Bill Johnson and he informed me that there actually had been a burgeoning English village named St. Johns Towne on the very spot I had chosen. Plantations large and small filled the surrounding area, and in recent years many artifacts and much evidence have been discovered there. What fun to have my fictional setting meet up with reality!

Love Thine Enemy (Steeple Hill Love Inspired Historical, July 2009) is the first book in my Florida series. I hope you’ll read Rachel and Frederick’s love story and its sequel, The Captain’s Lady (Steeple Hill Love Inspired Historical, March 2010). In both stories, I hope to inspire my readers always to seek God’s guidance, especially when making the decision of whom they will marry. Regarding my own marriage, my dear husband David and I have been married for forty-four years. He is my best friend and biggest encourager of my writing career. And, yes, I did seek God’s will about marrying David. The Lord’s response? “Don’t let this one get away!” All these years later, I’m so glad I didn’t.

I love to hear from readers, so if you have a comment about Love Thine Enemy, please contact me through my website, www.Louisemgouge.com. While you’re there, leave a comment and be entered to win a copy of Love Thine Enemy, LIH July 2009, ISBN – 13: 978-0-373-82815-9.

Blessings,

Louise M. Gouge

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