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Happy to announce the publication of "Tracks to Harlon County" Twenty one stories of Life and Adventure of the people starring in the Pursuers Trilogy. Thanks for being interested in reading this. Because of my father's occupation, I was educated in twelve different schools by the time I graduated at Pea Ridge High, in Arkansas. In order, my youth was spent in Missouri, Michigan, Louisiana, and Arkansas. In Missouri, I walked two miles to a one room schoolhouse. In Michigan, I walked in numbing winter weather to my Detroit classroom with my first grade younger sister. We left Detroit on Christmas day in a snowstorm to take a train to Alexandria, Louisiana. My father met us at the train station in a short-sleeved shirt. I've lived small towns and rural communities most of my life and enjoyed all of them.
In Alexandria my friends and I played around the tennis courts of the major park to the music of the simi-pro men's softball stadium with tunes on the public address system like, "Take me out to the Ballgame, Dance with me Henry, and Green Door." The mosquitos were big as bats and twice an dangerous.
I spent my summer before the fifth grade living out on the family farm where my mother read to us from Zane Grey's "The Light of the Western Stars" from the stash of books in the attic. It was my first exposure to adult fiction and I was so enthralled and discontented with the pace and brevity of her reading that I grabbed another book to read to myself. I cleaned out the attic that summer. By the time school started in Piggott I was reading at adult level and took out time only to play cowboys with my friends. We all had "Fanner 50" cap pistols. We walked to the movies as a small group and stopped at the soda shop for "graveyard specials" which were concocked with a squirt of all of the flavors.
A move soon followed and I starting playing sports and picking cotton in the sixth grade. We won our Junior High School Conference championship in basketball. I bought my own clothes from my "cotton-picking" money from that point on.
A move to Pea Ridge, Arkansas followed. The town is near the location of the "Battle of Elkhorn Tavern" which was fought during the Civil War. Again I played sports. We had a great gang of guys on the basketball team where I was a 6'4 center, and were Conference Champs my Senior year.
After graduating from high school I enrolled at Northeast Oklahoma A&M at Miami, Oklahoma as an English major. In the course of that instruction I wrote poetry and shortstories in literature class for extra credit. I was not satisfied with my writing and determined that I needed a more practical course of study. I changed my major to business and transferred to Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, Arkansas where I completed my Bachelors program.
While I and my male classmates were hiding out in college, the United States was fighting a war in Viet Nam. Many of us were drafted after graduating from college. By the time I entered in 1968, I found myself going through training with mostly college grads. I completed basic and Advanced Infantry training at Fort Polk, La. I took further training at Fort Benning, Georgia. My time there is perhaps the reason I chose that location for my four novels.
After completing training there, I was chosen to go back to Fort Polk, La to help train troops for six months. After completing that process, I received orders to go to Viet Nam. That flight was my first trip on an airplane.
I hope to add to this synapsis soon. Thanks for your interest.
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