I grew up during the 1940’s and 1950’s, in the Choctaw (McCurtain and Choctaw Counties) and Creek Indian (Okmulgee County) Nations of Oklahoma, with the spoken languages of Choctaw, Ojibwa, Spanish and English was an asset in my knowledge of story telling. Most of the time I lived on Jamaica Street in Idabel Oklahoma. My stepfather knew a lot of the old outlaws of the late 1800 and the early 1900. there were a lot of old men living on the street that my stepfather said were old outlaws and old lawmen from earlier times.
When I entered school I had trouble with writing down the English language for the way we spoke where I lived was not what I was being told so my writing was atrocious. As I advance in the grades at school my writing was not getting better. I got a job working doing part time work at the State Theater when I was only ten years old. A reporter, that worked part time at the theater when the owner was out of town or needed to do other things, for the McCurtain County Gazette told me, “Write down the stories and the things you have done in life for some day they would be useful in keeping the tales of the old folks alive after we all are gone.” I took his advice and he helped me in my writing of what I heard in the neighbor hood and it helped me immensely in junior and senior high school at Idabel.
I was working various jobs from the age of twelve doing things from cowboy, working with cattle, loading lumber or fence post on to trucks, building fences and farmer, hoeing cotton, picking cotton, stripping corn, and plowing. When got my driver licenses I started driving small trucks and hauling freight and hay. Form there I went to work for the Saint Louis San Francisco Railroad as a labor and later carpenter rebuilding wooden bridges to holding, the positions of Foreman of a bridge gang.
I enlisted in the army as a buck private and worked my way up in rank to hold the position of Command Sergeant Major of a battalion in the Army. The experience gave me the opportunity to meet a wide variety of people. I was medically discharged from the military with an honorable discharge. After a few years and I got my health up and running, so to speak, I did construction work until finally being forced to retire completely because of my health.
Moving near Russellville Alabama because my two sons came to this area to work and raise my grand-children. After over twenty years here on the mountain top my wife and I bought coming to this area we enjoy the people and the country side. Now I live and play near the Crooked Oak community near nine of my grand-children and my one great grand children.
I have written short stories, young adult books, free lance magazine articles, articles for several news papers and write novels about the tales of the old folks when I was growing up. In addition, to the western novels, I have also written two mysteries of modern day times.
