Their Eyes are Smiling...

As a little boy, I often spent Sunday mornings as my grandmother Lee Ellen's "clicker," if she had misplaced it. I'd crawl in the bed with her as my grandfather cooked breakfast, and we'd watch 'The Cisco Kid,' 'Rawhide,' 'The Lone Ranger,' and whatever other old Western show WGN had in its vaults. I loved those shows despite the blatant racism beneath the veneer. 

    At my other grandmother's house, I would devour any books she had. The encyclopedias, Reader's Digest Condensed books, baseball biographies, and this one book, 'Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee.' It aroused my curiosity because of the title and the picture of a Native American on the cover. I read it, and learned the stories of the destruction of the Native American tribes of the West.

    I fell in love with the Old West because of those two ladies (with help from my Mama and Time-Life books!), and the love affair grew over time. When I learned 'The Lone Ranger' was based on a Black man named Bass Reeves, and that Black cowboys were in abundance in the Old West, I felt even more connected.

     Lee Ellen was a voracious reader, her nightstand overflowing with books. She introduced me to the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, which gave me another viewpoint of the West. Without the input of Lee Ellen and Grams, I might have missed out.

     Two years ago, my family and I went on a Western road trip, covering Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. In my heart, I labelled the trip 'The Grandmother's Circle,' because I visited the Black Hills, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Deadwood, the Sundance museum, and our last stop was in the Wisconsin Big Woods (Pepin), where Laura Ingalls Wilder was born. I covered all the bases... for them.

     Funny thing happened though. I started writing a Western novel. I shelved it after a while because there were so many other things on my plate. As my writing began to encompass all genres, I submitted a Western story 'Outhouses and Taters' to Saddlebag Dispatches Magazine. Not only was it accepted, it was applauded. I wrote a few more Western short stories, just to push the envelope on a personal level.

     I wrote a story 'Four Wolves becomes A Man,' about Custer's Last Stand, and submitted it. On the heels of that submission, somewhere, somehow, my name came up in a meeting. I was asked if I would be interested in writing a Western series of novels. Me. The inner city kid with the love affair with the West. Duck aka 'The Fonz' aka 'Kid.' Grams always called me 'Kid.'

     I pondered it for a few days. Could I do it? It's one thing to daydream about being mentioned with the likes of L'Amour, McMurtry, Richards, or McCormack, but... maybe this could be a reality. I went into my vault and retrieved my novel 'Over the Horizon.' I stared into space, and I came up with the concept for the series...

     My social life will suffer, and I'll miss a lot of things, but see, I owe this to myself and to the ladies who poured the West into me. I have a three book deal for a Western series to be completed over the next eighteen months. Maybe I'll earn a Spur Award, or something like it. It'll be fun and an adventure, and maybe there'll be a kid somewhere who picks up my book and daydreams of a world different from where they are. That's something right there.

     Oh, and my story 'Four Wolves becomes A Man,' has been accepted by Saddlebag Dispatches magazine for their next edition. I'm thinking and hoping that somewhere up above all the beautiful stars, two amazing women are seeing this and smiling with pride. I can hear Lee Ellen telling anyone nearby "That's my second oldest grandson Marlon. He's a writer."

     Meanwhile, Grams would just be smiling, telling me the same thing she told me all my life; "You can do it, Kid."

   I promise I will...