Beech Tree News Network

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What are the chances of a person surviving not one, but TWO - that's two atom bomb attacks?

A Japanese Man was visiting the city of HIROSHIMA, Japan when the first atomic bomb was dropped by U.S. forces there, in August, 1945.  The man survived.

Somehow he made his way back to his home in NAGASAKI, where two says later a second atomic bomb was dropped.  He survived that one also.  The man lived to be past 90. Recently I saw a TV movie called THE SHADOWRIDERS -  based on a book by renowned western writer, Louis L'Amour. 

Other L'Amour novels made into movies are, LAST STAND AT SABER RIVERS; HONDA, and BROKEN TRAIL.  HONDO was L'Amour's first big novel. John Wayne starred in the movie version of Hondo.

L'Amour was such a gifted word crafter, the Hondo novel became popular in a lot of college creative writing classes. 

An example of his word craft is as follows:

THE SOLITARY RIDER DID NOT FEAR HIS ALONENESS, FOR HE HAD THE COMPANIONSHIP OF THE MIND.

Also, L'Amour had a penchant for detail without being tiresome: "On closer inspection the large flat rock revealed a miniscule crack, out of which grew one tiny plant of some denomination..."Too small to know."

L'Amour was known to say, "If I describe in a novel a rock or a bush or a tree you can know that I have been there personally and seen it..." Not boasting.  Just stating fact he was.  This is one way we learn from fiction. 

The cardinal rule of good writing is to know your subject.  This can come from several sources.  My old friend, Eric Hoffer, used to say, "I get some information for my writing from books, but my best source is from THE BOOK OF LIVING... Eric was an itinerant fruit picker early on in California.  The last 25 years of his working life was spent as a longshoreman on the waterfront.  one of his best works was a non-fiction called WORKING AND THINKING ON THE WATERFRONT. 

Regarding his relationships with is fellow workers Eric Hoffer said:  "I bend over backwards to be cordial others - not to feel noble, but to feel well."

I got to chasing a rabbit a bit; I'll get back to Louis :'Amour.  Louise also had a storehouse of life experiences from which to draw upon in his writing.  he had been: a boxer, a ranch hand, a merchant sailor on freighters - making various jaunts around the world to foreign ports: last but not least, a gold miner. 

True his novels took you to the old west - the west of dusty streets of cow towns and saloons and shoot-outs.  However he was quick to say most of this was fiction..."My stocks-in-trade>"  This put bean on my table! This was what the public wanted to read.  In reality L'Amour would describe the real cowboy as one old western song goes: What does a cowboy do when all his work is through"  Just what I'm gonna do now.l  With money to spend and jingle - off into town to mingle...when pay day rolls around." (ASCAP. BMi, PMS, & CPA & ring around the collar and halitosis).

Fact is most old working cowhands could not afford to own a pistol.  On thirty dollars a month and found, they were lucky to own a saddle.  They rode the string in the ranches working remuda of cow horses.  When winter came they had the option of being laid off or staying on without pay; with a bunk and found - to ride fence, break ice in water holes and feed hay.

A hard life - but it was their life.  Most would not do anything else.  A rare breed they were.

History tells us at least one forth of the real working cowboy were black - particularly after the Civil War.

Sad to say I don't see much good writing now.  Most movie scripts in the last fifty or so year are pitiful - full of vulgarity and the taking of God's name in VANE,  and most attempts at humor are about as funny as a sword swallower with swollen glands, Ouch!  I think I'll head for the wagon - these shoes are killin' me.

Kindest regards...