Texas Tradition Series – serie

In a play that is realistic, sometimes humorous, and always profoundly moving, Larry L. King deals with the problems of aging and our mistaken stereotypes and impersonal treatment of the elderly. Cowboy Bennett, long a resident of the Golden Shadows Senior Citizens Home, is a man with not only memories of the past but also dreams of the future for himself and his companions—especially the charming widow, Flora Harper. At the play’s end, you'll want to stand and yell, “Ya! Ya!” with Cowboy.The Golden Shadows Old West Museum is based on Michael Blackman’s short story, which was named the Best Short Fiction of 1973 by the Texas Institute of Letters. The text of the short story is included in this edition.

Caprock, Texas, is a sleepy cow town until oil is discovered in the 1920s. Suddenly thousands of people stream in to find their fortune. Some are honest folk like Elise and Victor Underwood, who pray for a little luck with their daily bread. But too many are two-bit swindlers. And then there's frontier mobster Big Boy Daugherty. Sheriff Dave Buckalew faces a whole different set of circumstances as his town springs to life - in good and not-so-good ways. The town of Caprock is loosely based on Crane in West Texas, where Kelton grew up, although Crane did not exist until the oil boom. Honor at Daybreak represents a departure for Kelton. There is no single dominant figure. Although Sheriff Buckalew represents a quiet strength that binds his town together, this is a book in which an entire community joins together to save itself.

The story of Sam Bass, both outlaw and romantic figure, has become a familiar part of Texas folldore and is well documented in nonfiction. But in this novel, Bryan Woolley creates a compelling story by giving the antihero fictional life. Woolley brings Bass alive through six alternating voices - Maude, the whore who was Bass's lover; Mary Matson; the African American who took him in and tended him as he lay dying; Dad Egan, the lawman who was once a father-figure to young Sam Bass but feels compelled to capture the outlaw, Frank Johnson, who rode with Bass but left the outlaw life to reappear as a small-town doctor; and Jim Murphy, the well-meaning saloonkeeper who makes a bargain with the law and brings down Sam Bass. In shaping the Bass story, Woolley explores the themes of youth and age, impulse and wisdom. An outlaw, for many of us, is not a villain or a criminal but someone who, by choice or circumstance, finds himself at odds with society. We see the outlaw life as one of carefree freedom without responsibilities and full of infinite possibilities. Frank Jackson says it best as he recalls riding with Sam Bass. ""I felt like an outlaw but not like a criminal, and the beauty of the day and its freedom filled me.