Sic Semper Tyrannis and Cutting Trees

Every so often I do internet searches for the three generations of the Texas branch of the McBride family tree. Just this week, using a new website sponsored by the University of North Texas called Portal to Texas History, I found this photo. No context was given with the image, so I don’t know when it was taken. The McBride is not likely kin to me, just a shared last name.

I’m betting the image is from the early 1900’s. Looking at two of the three standing men, the guys on the outside both have similar jackets buttoned all the way to the collar, while the man on the mule and the fellow standing in the middle look to be in shirt sleeves. My guess is the jackets are some sort of issued clothing, maybe by a prison, maybe by the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps, maybe by the railroad. Perhaps the two men who are “dressed up” are inspectors or visiting big wigs posing with a two-man work crew. There's only two of the hook tools being held. Whatever the unknown specifics, the photo is a stark reminder that jobs and life have gotten a lot “softer” and gone “inside” for most of us.

Moving on to writing McBee III, I’m still working to keep my history accurate. Therefore, this week I did an internet search to identify which specific regiment of the US Colored Troops fought the Fifth Texas Infantry, including my main character John McBee, in one of the key 1864 battles around Richmond.

I quickly found a detailed map of the battle –New Market Heights—that shows that the 22^nd Regiment of US Colored Troops (USCT) were the ones who charged the breastworks defended by the 5^th Texas Regiment of Confederates. 

The African-American soldiers in the regiment were from New Jersey, and in accordance with prevailing beliefs of the 1860’s that black men could not govern themselves, the officers were all white men. That bit of 19th century institutional racism is important to the story line in McBee III.

It turns out that the regimental flag of the 22^nd USCT is still in a museum, and that it was designed and painted by an African-American artist. Here is an image of the original flag in the museum and a colored photo of a replica of the flag used by a group of reenactors.

The painted image of the black soldier bayoneting a Confederate sergeant is pretty striking to me. It leaves little doubt that the regiment hoped to go into combat and not just be content with building fortifications and roads as many of the USCT regiments were assigned to do, including the 22^nd during the spring of 1864.  But, by the summer, when General Grant needed more soldiers, an entire division of 12 regiments of African-American soldiers joined his siege of Richmond, and most went into combat.

I’m not writing here about the particulars of the day the 22^nd USCT attacked the 5^th Texas Infantry, since that is grist for the plot in McBee III. Suffice to say men died on both sides.

A curious part of the history of the 22^nd USCT is that after spending time in Virginia after Richmond was taken by Grant’s army, the 22^nd was transported by steamboat to Brownsville, Texas. There they fought Texans again in the last battle of the Civil War in May of 1865, at Palmetto Ranch near the Mexico-Texas border--almost a month after Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

A last point about the flag is the Latin motto at the top, loosely translated: Death to Tyrants. Virtually the same motto can be found on some of the Confederate regimental flags scattered around in museums. Both sides were quick to label the enemy as tyrants, validating their own side's position by name-calling the other. Sounds familiar to today's politics, and war.

That’s the history lesson for this week.

Out of the Raft After Fifty Years

Phil's Note on October 14th: This post is from earlier this year, but I've moved it to the top of the list for a couple of days. It's a memory of a long time friend, Garland Ellis, who passed away last March.. I've just received an email list of other members of our Longview High School Class of '67 and moved up the old post so other high school friends of Garland might easily find it and read about him.

Here's the original post about Garland, and, yes, Leonard Nimoy, who died the same week.

Leonard Nimoy-Spock of the pointy ears-passed away this week at age 83. I was a high school nerd during the TV run of the original Star Trek series, and was a big reader of science fiction – Heinlein, Bradbury, Clark and others. As a SF fan it was a pleasure to see the first “serious” effort to bring the genre to the masses through television. Forgive me for referring to episodes like “The Trouble with Tribbles” as serious, but on the whole, Spock and Kirk’s Star Trek was thought-provoking and great fun. And, seeing a space western on TV somehow added a bit of credibility to the SF paperback books which I always seemed to be reading.

Someone sent me a You Tube link to an interview with Nimoy in which he relates how he borrowed the split-fingered Vulcan greeting sign from a Hebrew ceremony he attended as a child. Essentially, the hand-sign is a Jewish blessing that Nimoy himself decided to use when he greeted the first other Vulcan character to appear on the show. He wanted a Vulcan-specific “handshake” to greet her. That Vulcan was a Jewish Italian actress who knew the religious origin of the hand-sign, and responded in kind, and the split-fingered symbol took off on a life of its own. “Live Long and Prosper.” I’m glad that Leonard Nimoy was able to both live long and prosper.

Yesterday Nita and I got one of the phone calls we all dread. The caller was Raz Ellis, the distraught wife of Garland Ellis, who called to tell us Garland had died just a few hours earlier. Garland was a friend of fifty years, one of the guys who I ran with in high school and college and with whom we’ve maintained a long-distance friendship, usually by phone calls these past few years.

Garland was a career Navy officer who did tours on the USS Chicago, which was a heavy cruiser, and on one of the giant aircraft carriers, the name of which I’ve lost. After retirement from the Navy, Garland stayed in San Diego where he worked in the defense industry, as a liaison between contractors and the navy. 

I can tell stories of us misbehaving as adolescents, driving to Bossier City, Louisiana to legally (and stupidly) drink pitchers of beer at Shakey’s Pizza joint and Singapore Slings at the Carousel bar. Stories of paddling down the Sabine River in deep East Texas, years before the film Deliverance was made. Stories of Garland’s and my great dirty dish war in college, a week-long stalemate when we each stubbornly refused to wash the dishes in the sink, swearing it was the other guy’s turn. Another roommate finally washed the damned dishes to break the gridlock. Stories of camping at Big Bend National Park and backpacking in Colorado with our wives, and stories of the summer month we spent in Japan as houseguests of the Ellis’s while Nita was pregnant.

When our grandson was born a few weeks back, Gar called right away to congratulate us.  I told him of finding a long distance phone bill in son Todd’s “baby book” from 1981 when Todd was born. Among the expected calls to family was an eight minute phone call to Japan to let Garland know that the kid who got a free ride up Mt. Fuji in his mama’s belly was now on the ground.

The photos are of Garland and me when we both were young and fit. Once Gar joined the Navy it seemed he was always “in uniform,” squared away, even way up in the Rocky Mts. The action photo is one Garland never really liked, but I enjoy, since it’s me trying to keep his big ass in the raft, and not the other way around, as it well might have been that day, the way that rubber boat was bouncing through the rapids.

Good memories of a long friendship. And yesterday, at age 65, Garland had a heart attack and fell down the stairs at home, to die at the hospital some hours later.  Just…damn.  

Peace Be With You, my friend of fifty years. You did prosper and you did live well, but I sure wish you had stayed in the raft with us a little longer.

An Evening With Thirteen Texas Authors

A week ago I had the gratifying experience of being publicly recognized as a novelist. I was among a dozen plus one Texas authors who were the featured guests at Lockhart’s annual “Evening With the Authors” garden party. 

For the past fifteen years a group of supportive folks have hosted this fund-raising event to help expand the book collection of Lockhart’s public library, the Dr. Eugene Clark Library.

The Clark Library building is itself a 116 year old historical landmark and the oldest still-functioning library building in Texas. The red brick building has a three-story-tall rotunda, a stage for performances, a balcony, lots of hardwood trim, and wooden study tables illuminated by old-fashioned reading lamps with green glass shades. How many libraries have a huge vintage stained-glass window featuring an open book and celebrating “reading”? 

The photo is son Ben and his wife Meredith smooching on the stage in front of the big stained-glass window the day after Thanksgiving last year when he proposed to her in the library. (She said ‘Yes!’)

For me, the Evening With the Authors event was my once-only opportunity to have the attention of friends and neighbors and revel in the new role of “local novelist.”

It was also a big deal to me to see my three Civil War novels stacked up on a table sponsored by Barnes and Noble Booksellers, next to the books of the other writers who were present. A fair number of my novels sold, which was also gratifying.

Once or twice a year I sell my Civil War books at Civil War reenactments, but the Evening With the Authors was different. I wasn’t competing with snow cone and kettle corn vendors, but with other recognized authors, and the 200 potential buyers were all people who actually like to read.

To top off the joy of the occasion, my mom, now 90, but still the sharp-eyed lady who took her three kids to the library every week throughout our childhoods, sat next to me at my author’s table. I was proud to introduce her as the person who started and nurtured my love of reading way back when. And of course, grandson Jackson had to make an appearance with his great-grandmama.

Naturally, there was of a spread of tasty rations and the ongoing popping of corks from many bottles of Texas wine to encourage conversation and the use of credit cards for folks to buy lots of books.

As to McBee III, I’ve shovelled through the snows of the first two chapters, the action in both chapters occurring in January in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. I diligently strived to introduce the established characters to new readers without unduly retelling the story in Redeeming Honor and boring anyone who has read the first two volumes of the trilogy. 

Writers of sequels and “threequels” have to confront that issue from the first paragraph. And the final title won’t be McBee III, it‘ll be another honor title, unknown at this time.

This past week I read quickly through two fine new CIA spy novels focused on us vs. the new Russia under Putin. Both are real page-turner thrillers written by a man who spent over 30 years as a CIA operative, along with his wife. The books are Red Sparrow and Palace of Treason by Jason Matthews.

One of the two central characters in both Matthew’s books is a young, beautiful, competent woman spy into whose character outline I shamelessly colored in with shades of Faith Samuelson as I read. I think the two dangerous women have a lot in common. That means I like Matthews' lady spy.

Have a good week and READ SOMETHING for fun.

66

Today is my 66^th birthday and this is my 63^rd blog post. Too bad I didn’t count ahead and do three more posts during the last year so today could have been #66 on my 66^th.

Anyway, I’ve just elbowed my way up to the Social Security trough, hopefully to keep some of on my children’s payroll taxes in the family for a long time. Although, it’s possible that the taboo platter of thick-sliced bacon I cooked for my celebratory breakfast might shorten my monthly drain on the SS bank account. Before the bacon grease congeals my blood to slurry, here’s a few random birthday reflections.

Today, while Nita keeps grandson Jackson next door, I’m alone and writing this blog post and Chapter 2 of the final Captain McBee Civil War novel. I’m introducing Faith, the lady lead in all three books, to new readers by writing a steamy bit in which she reflects on her last night on a mountain trail wrapped in a blanket with the good captain.

The chapter is also an experiment to see if a 66-year-old grandpa in 2015 can put together the right string of words to fog up his own eyeglasses while jumping into the head of a 29-year old woman who grew up in a tightly constrained Victorian southern culture. We’ll see.

Two weeks ago I went to a Civil War reenactment on the Arkansas-Missouri border, commemorating the early war battle of Pea Ridge. The photo below was taken as we started the Saturday battle for the paying spectators. Given the recent controversies surrounding the venerable and abused old Confederate battle flag, we all figured those crossing jet contrails were intentional, someone’s editorial statement, appearing as if from one of the rebellious gods up in the blue sky.

Last Saturday night I was extremely flattered to be among the twelve invited regional authors who were the center of attention at our local Friends of the Library fund-raising event. It’s the Evening With the Authors garden party. Each author has his/her own table and hostess and receives a stream of paying guests who stop by to chat about the author’s books and have copies signed. Of course, all the authors’ books are laid out on a table for sale and wine and tasty nibbles and bits are served.

Being one of the authors, in my case being the local author in the bunch, was gratifying on two levels. First, I was honored to be recognized and greeted as a competent novelist in a select group of writers, and not just “my friend Phil.”

Second, it was professionally validating as a novelist to see my books displayed  on the Barnes and Nobles table along with the books of all those authors who have agents and publishing houses. And a fair number of my three Civil War novels sold, which is always nice.

Finally, here’s another old photograph. This one is my great great grandmother Lavenia McFarland. She was born in Kentucky and married there in 1870 near where the climatic action in Redeeming Honor takes place.

I think she must have been a beautiful young woman. It pains me now to realize that I had her forgotten photo in a file during those weeks when I was looking for a period image of a pretty woman of the 1860’s to put on the cover of Tangled Honor, the first McBee novel. I had it all the time. I may find a way to work it onto the cover of the last McBee novel. We’ll see.

Book sales on Amazon for Redeeming Honor are trickling along. A $2.99 Kindle e-book download would make fine lunchtime reading and be cheaper and better for you than a Whataburger. Just food for thought. Sorry, I know I promised not to use this blog for any more shameless self-promotion. But it’s my birthday, what can I say.

Have a good week.

What’s the Big Deal About Honor?

I decided a couple of years ago that the titles of the three Captain McBee Civil War novels would share a theme. It wasn’t hard to settle on the term “honor” to be the commonality: Tangled Honor; Redeeeming Honor; and Something-to-be-Determined Honor for the last book I just started writing. So, why “honor”? Why not some other word?

Remember Faulkner? “The past is not dead; it’s not even past.” Bear with me.

When I was twelve I made a pact with myself. I really did. If I’ve broken that pact in the fifty-four years since then, I’ve blotted out the memory. That means I still take my personal covenant seriously. Here it is. Please don’t laugh.

I was a year into Boy Scouts and we opened our weekly troop meetings by standing at attention in our khaki uniforms. We folded one finger down and held three fingers straight up in the Scout Hand Sign, and recited the Scout Oath: “On my Honor, I will…”

On my honor. Honor. What the hell? Just what is honor? The online thesaurus tosses out four synonyms: Integrity; Respect; Dignity; Reputation. Good enough, I can work with those.

Honor matters. I think the Boy Scouts have had it right since 1910 by prefacing every recitation of the organization’s belief statement with “On my Honor.”

The aforementioned pact I made with myself as a twelve-year old is that if ever I say “Scout’s Honor” when asked a tough question, whether about my behavior, or something else, I would tell the truth.

My rabbit hole to personal safety has been that before today I’ve never told anyone else about that secret pact with myself, my internal promise not to lie if confronted and asked, “Scout’s Honor?”

But, if someone like my big brother knew me well enough to add “Scout’s Honor?” when talking with me, I’d be confined to the truth. “Did you scratch my new record? Scout's Honor, was it you?” Or, whatever, I was honor-bound to tell the truth.

Of course, my secret pact with myself also gave me an out to lie like a big dog to a teacher or whoever didn’t include the magic code “Scout’s Honor” in any interrogation.

I hope I haven’t overplayed my “out,” because I do really try to stick with the truth and not mislead or lie, even without “Scout’s Honor.”

Jumping to my choice of “honor” as the common denominator for my Civil War novel titles, here’s why I chose it: Honor is the anchor that good men need to keep their heads above the swirling currents and suck-holes of the horror of war. I think.

I’ve never been in a war, but what I read is that war can quickly wipe away the norms we were raised to view as sacred, and war can easily twist a man’s personal honor to make the unthinkable acceptable. 

That brings me around to Captain McBee and his honor. In Book I, he got tangled up in a deep patch of clinging moral seaweed, a danger he never saw until it wrapped around his legs. McBee almost drowned.

In Book II, he worked his way back to the surface, accepted a new reality of what he was capable of doing, both good and bad, and redeemed himself, more or less.

In Book III, McBee is going to struggle again to hold onto the honor--that is the integrity, respect, dignity, and reputation--he lost once and barely reclaimed.

But things in the Confederacy in 1864 went downhill at rapid pace. (Is the fall of the Confederacy the origin of the modern phrase to describe when things are going badly as “going south”?)

Anyway, elusive “honor” is going to once more do its best to confound and trip up McBee and those dear to him.

My sincere thanks to the readers of my blog who have ordered a paperback copy or a Kindle download of Redeeming Honor from Amazon. I’m not writing novels to support myself or send the grandkids through college, but sales on Amazon are gratifying proof that some folks like my books. And that’s what I really want.

It’s October and there’s actually a nip in the air outside here in little Lockhart. Hoorah!