Sam Wants You! San Jacinto Fundraiser

Selective Service System of the San Jacinto Battleground Association issues a

CALL TO ARMS, TO ARMS !!!

to support the SAN JACINTO VOLUNTEERS

The Interim President of the Republic of Texas, To GREETING:

You are hereby ordered to report to General Sam Houston, Commander in Chief of the Texas Army

At: the home of Edd and Nina Hendee, 7 Radney Estates, Houston, TX 77024 At 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, January 15, 2008 For cocktails, dinner and auctions – silent and otherwise. The purpose of this call-up is to help offset expenses of the San Jacinto Volunteers as they bring history to life each year in re-enacting the Battle of San Jacinto at the battleground. Business attire. The favor of a reply by January 10 is requested. Jerry Tubbs, Commander, San Jacinto Volunteers IMPORTANT NOTICE (Read each paragraph carefully) TO ALL REGISTRANTS: Sure to be entertaining is K.R. Wood and his band, Camp Cookie and the Cow Camp Review. Hear Wood and cohorts, “Dangerous” Doug Taylor and “Lonesome” Greg Lowrey, play and harmonize old cowboy songs from the Sons of the Pioneers, Bob Wills and others. Wood will also conduct a brief live auction. Dinner is from Ed and Nina Hendee’s “Taste of Texas”–juicy prime steaks and all the trimmins’ as only they can fix them. Auction items? Historic cruise to Morgan’s Point; travel the route the Mexican Army took on its return to Mexico through the Mar de Lodo (Sea of Mud); enjoy an expert tour of the San Jacinto Battleground; fight in the middle of the 2008 Battle of San Jacinto re-enactment (appropriately clad and armed); own a prototype Texas carbine that’s actually been fired at the Alamo and San Jacinto; possess a hand-crafted Bowie knife; take a private hardhat tour of the Battleship Texas; hang on your wall a genuine invitation to the opening of the San Jacinto Monument from April 1939; entertain thirty of your closest friends at a chuck wagon dinner; and more. Bring your invitation and designer Cliff Gillock will autograph it for you. IF YOUR PHYSICAL OR MENTAL CONDITION IS SUCH THAT YOU WISH TO ATTEND, PLEASE SO INDICATE ON THE ENCLOSED ENVELOPE..

Texas Literary Drought of the 1910's

Judy Alter in Mike Merschal's "Books Blog" at http://books.beloblog.com/archives/2007/08/top_ten_texas_books.html
recently started a string on Texas literature. I responded as below:

"Here's a list of Texana novelists made to fit a chronology for the 20th century, selected sometimes for first effort and other times for my preferred. Oddities include, I gave only one entry per novelist, so, e.g., having entered the 'Horseman' I passed by the 'Dove.' "

Andy Adams. The Log of a Cowboy. Boston: Houghton, 1903.
Dorothy Scarborough. The Wind. New York: Harper, 1925.
Katherine Anne Porter. Pale Horse, Pale Rider. New York: Knopf, 1939
George Sessions Perry. Hold Autumn in Your Hand New York: Viking, 1941.
William Goyen. House of Breath. New York: Random House, 1950.
William Humphrey. Home from the Hill. New York: Knopf, 1958.
Larry McMurtry. Horseman, Pass By. New York: Harper, 1961.
Capps, Benjamin. The Trail to Ogalla. New York: Duell, 1964.
Robert Flynn. North to Yesterday. New York: Knopf, 1967.
Shelby Hearon. Armadillo in the Grass. New York: Knopf, 1968.
Elmer Kelton The Day the Cowboys Quit. New York: Doubleday, 1971.
Tomás Rivera. . . . y no se lo tragó la tierra. Berkeley: Quinto Sol, 1971.
Rolando Hinojosa-Smith. Estampas del Valle y otras obras. Berkeley: Quinto Sol, 1972.
Edwin Shrake. Strange Peaches. 1973.
R.G. Vliet. Rockspring. New York: Viking, 1974
Donald Barthelme. The Dead Father. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1975.
Beverly Lowry. Daddy’s Girl. New York: Viking, 1981.
Sarah Bird. Alamo House. New York: Norton, 1986.
Lionel G. Garcia. Hardscrub. Houston: Arte Publico, 1990.
Americo Paredes. George Washington Gomez. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1990.
Cormac McCarthy. All the Pretty Horses. New York: Knopf, 1992.
J. California Cooper. The Wake of the Wind. New York: Doubleday, 1998.

A friendly, email pot-shot was taken for my 1910's gap. There really weren't adequate titles. The Texas novels were few, folks being interested in folklore, cowboy songs, the Soutwest, Mexico, nature, recollections, and such. Stark Young did start the "Texas Review," now the "Southwest Review," in 1915. Women were looking elsewhere. Some of the period titles include:

Joseph Atlsheler. Texan Scouts: The Story of the Alamo and Goliad, 1913 (a juvenile sequel to The Texan Star) and The Texan Triumph: A Romance of the San Jacinto Campaign, 1917.

Everett McNeil. In Texas with Davy Crockett: A Story of the Texas War of Independence, a 1918 variant of a 1908 issue(?).

Lewis Miller. Saddles and Lariats, 1912. (almost all true, a drive to California, maybe in the vein of Adams "Log" that went to Montana.)

O. Henry's shorts ended with his death in 1910.

Edwin Sabin. With Sam Houston in Texas: A Boy Volunteer..., 1916.

Zane Grey. Riders of the Purple Sage, 1912. and The Lone Star Ranger, 1915.