You ever go through life thinking you should’ve written that novel/filmed that movie/accepted that job/kissed that girl or guy/said yes when someone asked you to strip in front of a camera/handed that demo CD to that music exec/said hello to Paul Newman/told your best friend you love him or her/changed careers/hugged your kid/WRITTEN THAT NOVEL?
Well, don’t go through life whining about it. Just do it.
So I wrote a novel. Hence the absence. It has a western theme, so I wasn’t totally AWOL.
Anyway, lucky me, I’ll be writing another draft, but I’m glad that my life questions can center around things like shoulda said hi to Paul Newman.
In honor of a completed draft and one more step along the great dusty trails of life, here is one of my favorite covers, which, not coincidentally, reminds me of a cowboy fact-one more out of the grand total of 51:
Cowboys move.
Call it fiddle-footed restlessness or the search for whatever is over the horizon.
Call it late for dinner.
Call it Cowboy Fact 16: Cowboys can’t stay put.
This moody cover is in the style of H. L. Hoffman, an illustrator who worked for Popular Library in the forties. I don’t know much about him, alas. The cover illustration is reproduced as a line drawing on the title page, common for the time.
Eugene Cunningham, the author, wrote in a laconic drawl, but his dedication speaks to the sentimental fool in every cowpoke:
To Mary Carolyn
Who didn’t get to ride in the Rodeo
Parade that time–this book is
affectionately dedicated, as a
poor substitue for that
ride she missed, by
its and her
author
awww.
CowboyLands 