This Collection Consists of 8 Stories $29.95

Story 1

Montana Homestead
These stories of my growing up started with my mother telling her kids, my siblings and our friends, the stories of her getting married in Kansas City and then coming west by covered wagon. Mom was a good storyteller.

She brought to life and heart those frontier days traveling through dangerous Indian territory, out onto the flat, windblown plains and laying out their homestead on the endless, unmarked, tall grass prairie... Building a tiny cabin from stones gathered by walking, finding, piling, carrying.

The lonely toughness of having her husband 'called-up' for WWI and leaving her home alone 20 miles from a town for two years.

Story 2

Grandma and Me
When Pa came home from the war in 1918 and moved our family into town, the family not only grew in numbers, but because Mom birthed seven boys in a row, a 'tough-love' style for raising kids developed.

Also, as Pa's Mom and Pop followed him west, Grandma and Grandpa shared in the childrearing. This 'Grandma time' at the age of five had a major impact on the person I was to become.

Story 3

Li'l Bear Sundown
When we boys began to go to school, my Pa, a lawyer, volunteered to chair the Chinook School Board. In this capacity, he discoverd that the Indian youth from the local Nez Perce camp were neither allowed nor required to attend school... neither were the adults allowed to vote.

Being a young revolutionary, he set out to correct both of these inequities. This led to my friendship with a young Nez Perce seatmate in third grade ... Li'l Bear Sundown.

This friendship, which lasted a quarter century, allowed my 'white, middleclass' view of 'race' to be established young and developed along free and accepting lines.

Story 4

My Last Buffalo
My friendship with Li'l Bear developed into our spending tons of time in each other's venue. Bear was accepted in town as a 'fat, dark, Bottomly', and I was accepted in the Indian Camp as a blond Indian.

These Nez Perce were remnants of the Battle of the Bear Paw ... the last major fight between Red Man and White in the opening of the west. Li'l Bear's grandpa had been a warrior in that battle. When Li'l Bear and I were nine came the 50th anniversary of that battle.

Grandpa chose to take Li'l Bear and me to the battlefield, 15 miles away, and with him, honor several of his old friends ... chiefs who had been killed and buried there. It was a memorable experience for me as we danced and chanted honor to the fallen chiefs. We also experienced a violent thunderstorm which brought out of the mountains probably the last massive buffalo stampede.

Story 5

The Eaglecatcher
The Indians of the Western Mountains and Plains had a special 'thing' about the broad, pure black-tipped white feathers from the America bald eagles' wings and tail.

These feathers were only worn as headdress by certain chiefs and in certain special ways.These feathers were highly honored and very expensive to acquire. More yet, only a few 'shaman-powered' holymen in all the west were allowed, or trained, to snatch the eagles, steal the proper feathers and release the birds back to the sky unhurt.

Li'l Bear's Grandpa Blackfeather was one of these. After the surrender of Chief Joseph to General Miles at the Bear Paw Battle, in 1877, Grandpa had never again caught an eagle. No need... no chiefs. But because the mystical power was handed down only from grandfather to grandson, the old warrior decided he needed to pass it down properly by demonstrating how this art was transacted.

This is the story of how Grandpa took us in his old wagon to the mountains where we witnessed, arguably, the last 'eagle snatch' from the sky of a wild, American bald eagle by a legitimate 'Mystic Eaglecatcher'.

Story 6

Kid Curry's Last Ride
When you grow up in the frontier west you are, whether you like it or not, a part of unfolding history. This notion is a lot of why I think it's important to pass these fireside stories down to our grandkids.

It should encourage them to do the same, and thus our local culture is handed down through the generations. The robbing of the Farmers National Bank in Chinook by the Kid Curry gang is a clear memory to most locals my age.

This is the story of that dramatic and successful heist by four armed horesemen on 4th September 1926 from the viewpoint of a 12 year old hostage.

Story 7

Grandpa Buffalo
My paternal grandfather was a giant hero to us boys. He was one of Wild Bill Hickok's deputy marshals at the Plentywood Crosstrails at the turn of the 20th century. He was also a well known buffalo hunter, guide and wagon train boss on the Oregon Trail.

He came by to visit us in Chinook usually when he got into trouble and needed his son, my Pa's, legal help. This was primarily because Grandpa Buffalo was not only six foot nine and unusually good with a Winchester, but also a world class whiskey drinker and poker player.

You can readily see these skills - rather - intersts, don't always work together for peace and long life. This story tells of the huge impact this old man had on us hero-hungry adolescents. No radio or TV, only Saturday afternoon movies.

Story 8

My Grizzly Encounter
While my Grandpa Buffalo was often in hot water, like most people who live on the sharp edge of excitement ... adventure ... especially in the early 20th century in the frontier West, good things often 'fell-our-of-the-sky'.

This story tells how our family acquired our summer home on Lake Mac Donald in Glacier Park. Believe it or not, Grandpa won it in a poker game. The central core of the story tells of my encounter with an angry mother Grizzly bear.

It is an absolutely true story and helps explain how growing up in the frontier west, with summers in the wilds and winters with the Indians, conditioned our cluster of seven brothers to survive the soon-to-come WWII as two pilots, a paratrooper, a carrier warrior, a tail gunner and a fox hole marine.

It was this set of unmeasurables in developing the whole person, through an entire generation, that brought America what has been called the 'Greatest Generation'.