Learning by Giving

I learn so much when I give a talk to groups about my books and my writing. The story I tell depends much on who it is told to. The audience determines my message, although sometimes there is still a surprise in there for me.

Recently, my talks and book signings are about my latest book “Dos Gringos,” the tale based on my immigrant Norwegian father’s escapades in the Mexican Revolution. Earlier it was, or still is, on my book “Walking on Ice – An American Businessman in Russia,” an account of my many years working and living in Russia. You can imagine the interests vary with the audience. But not always.

 Aside of the usual questions about the book, I often find interest in the writing process and how I personally evolved from a pure international business life to now writing novels based on my multicultural experiences in many lands. The audiences have expressed substantial satisfaction in the gatherings. In the process, I learn much, not only from the questions, but sometimes my own answers.

I enjoy the opportunity to interchange information with others. We all learn. Contact me via my Contact Page to discuss and schedule a talk in your area.

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

DO REVOLUTIONS EVER END?

Like most revolutions, the Mexican Revolution is a story – but unlike most stories, it is one that never ends. As we sit across the border from Juarez, named for the great hero of Mexican independence, the conflict continues. Many factors contribute to the criminality of today. While celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the Revolution, we cannot ignore the conflicts today. We have a lot to consider and to learn.

It’s important for us, sitting in the safety of El Paso, Texas, deemed the Second Safest City in America and across the Rio Grande is Juarez, considered the most dangerous city in the world, with 5,500 killings since January 2008, that we reflect, learn from these tragic events, and take action as we can to change it. Revolutions are about change and like many events in life history; the end result is often not what many thought it would be. It is our responsibility to keep our hearts, and minds, and actions, directed toward change that is beneficial to all, to peace, to happiness for all. What can we Americans do to help bring safety and order to our neighbors in Mexico? What is the American role in this criminality? It is drugs and guns. And we must take steps as responsible citizens and human beings to invest our elected officials to take effective action.

 In my recent trip to El Paso to promote my book, “Dos Gringos,” I found a silence about the violence across the river. I realize there is not much an individual can do about this costly issue, but I was surprised there was not more concern expressed.  Change is difficult to manage and usually resisted. But lives are at stake here and we have to make the change quick and lasting.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

SHANAYA FASTJE ~ Amazing Young Author

It is always amazing to see the brilliance of the young. I love young kids of any type, color, or class. I have had a few myself, and now as grandkids. When a real shining star comes along it is so hard to resist getting to know them more. It was my pleasure to meet Shanaya Fastje of El Paso, Texas. She was two tables down from me, with her attentive parents, at the El Paso Public Library Great Southwest Book Fair where I was there with my novella “Dos Gringos.” This 11-year old has already published three books (she’s ahead of me,) excelled at studies and sports, and honored by the governor of Texas as a “Shining Star of Texas.”

You can see Shanaya’s “Mystery School“ books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. She is personable, articulate, and involved. She was certified a Math Master by the El Paso Community College and has earned the Blue Belt in Martial Arts. In every other way, she appeared to me to be a normal young girl, but just sharp, polite, and confident.

“May the source be with you,” Shanaya.

Shanaya’s web page is at http://www.shanayafastje.com/index.htm

El Paso ~ where “Dos Gringos” starts and ends! And another gringo discovers his home.

I have just returned from four days of book signing and speaking in El Paso, Texas, where my newest novel, “Dos Gringos,” starts and ends in an El Paso bar. This week was the local celebration of the centenary of the Mexican Revolution and there were exhibits and events all over. I was there to talk, but I learned so much. This is my home, El Paso. But as a teen, I learned little about the history of Mexico—it was all about Texas. This visit was an experience that the publishing of this story of my father’s experience in the Revolution has become the event that brings me back home—after over fifty years.

 The interest in my book was impressive. I spoke at the El Paso Museum of History, Barnes and Noble, The El Paso Central Library, and met interesting people, recognized historians, writers, and others. The response from audiences was enthusiastic, and lots of books were sold and signed. They loved the humor of the story, but also the historical setting and environment. The growing knowledge, on my part, of the larger picture of the revolution was of unexpected value.

I was so impressed with the cordiality, the helpfulness, the sincere interest of my sponsors and presenters. In fact I find the people of El Paso amongst the nicest I have met. “They are as warm as the desert they live in,” one said. I surely agree.

The story of the two mismatched foreigners loose in the midst of the Mexican Revolution totally hit home with so many as that period of time created so many unusual and unpredictable stories. It was a great experience for me and my “Dos Gringos.”  If you have any questions about El Paso, ask me and I will send you to one with the answers.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

“Dos Gringos” heads for El Paso (Uno Gringo, anyway,)

This week I will be in El Paso, Texas, my home town, to speak and sell and sign books at a number of places as part of the centenary of the Mexican Revolution there.  Talks are scheduled for the El Paso Museum of History, Barnes & Noble, and the Central Library. I hear all this is well advertised so I expect reasonably good audiences. I will be talking about the story behind my book, “Dos Gringos,” and about my father and grandfather’s part in all of that. I look forward to this as I have myself learned from giving the talks. I realize how much is into the story that comes from within. Underneath my father’s actual story, are known historical stories and some implied intuitive behavior. I am sometimes surprised at what is there, having come out from under the blankets of the past.

I will also be meeting old friends and making new ones. Coming “back home” after 50 years is a real experience. On my first trip back there three years ago I found so much had changed and so much was the same. This will be especially so in El Paso this time, rated the 2^nd safest city in America, and across the Rio Grande is Juarez, Mexico,  the most dangerous city in North America due to the drug cartels and the murders. So discussing the revolution of a hundred years ago within the present bloody atmosphere across the border will be interesting. I will have something for this space on that when I come back for sure.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

Another Pancho Villa Story

Since writing “Dos Gringos,” the stories and characters from the Mexican Revolution keep creeping out of the cracks.

 I got a call from El Paso from a man about my age, who told me about his great- grandfather who was a building contractor in Ciudad Chihuahua in the 1890s. A young man he had hired fell off a ladder and hurt his leg. He was bnadaged and kept on the job. When the cast was removed the man left the job, but returned in a few weeks with some men and told his former employer he was going to change the world and wanted support. He was refused, but he returned in a few weeks with more men and again was refused. Then after some weeks he showed up again, with lots of men with guns. The contractor couldn’t refuse the young man who was, as you guessed, Pancho Villa.

 Villa was born in 1878 as Doroteo Arango, but at age 16 Arango changed his name to Francisco Villa after he shot and killed a hacienda owner who had reportedly assaulted his sister. The rest is history, and stories—and more stories. Some of them have got to be true.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

Hooray for El Paso

 This summer, El Paso, Texas was named a 2010 All-America City.  The All-America City Award, given to ten communities each year by the National Civic League, is considered the “Nobel Prize” of city awards. El Paso is my hometown and the beginning and ending settings of my historical novel, “Dos Gringos,” set during the Mexican Revolution.

You wouldn’t guess that with Juarez, Mexico, a city of 1.7 million, and one of the deadliest cities in the world, that El Paso across the Rio Grande is the 2nd safest city in the United States for cities over 500,000 in population. (Honolulu is first safest.)

The violence in Juarez has been ongoing for nearly three years, with killings averaging between 200 and 300 a month, while crime in the City of El Paso continues to decrease. The 2nd safest city ranking is based on Uniformed Crime Report data compiled by CQ express numbers from 2008. El Paso’s 2009 numbers were lower than 2008, and 2010 numbers are currently lower than 2009. El Paso is a safe city, full of life and culture.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

The Rio Grande~Pathway of the Colonizers

The Rio Grande River is the border between Texas and Mexico, the fifth longest river in the United States, and many simply don’t know about it. But Don Juan de Onate and an army of soldiers and colonists knew about it and in 1598 crossed it and then followed through the mountain pass which became known as El Paso del Norte, today’s El Paso, Texas, my home town. The Rio Grande plays a role in the novel based on my father’s tale “Dos Gringos.”

As a kid and a Boy Scout, we used to splash in the river, known to be “a mile wide and an inch deep,” actually a muddy waterway about knee-deep. But, in Onate’s day it was crystal clear and a life-saver for his army. From there he marched north with his soldiers, horses, and mules, fighting Indians and eventually founding Santa Fe, now the oldest continual state capital in the United States. The Rio Grande flows out of the San Juan mountains of southern Colorado and streams straight south, splitting New Mexico, to El Paso where it forms the American border with Mexico and then on to the Gulf of Mexico, a total of about 1900 miles.

North of Santa Fe, near Taos, New Mexico, I recently visited this river of my youth, but there near its source, the river was a noisy rushing stream in a rocky deep canyon. Beautiful.  What a piece of history.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

Jewish Lady breaks horses for Pancho Villa

Some years ago, at a summer camp in Maine, I heard a story I have never forgotten. A lady, hearing about my father’s story in the Mexican Revolution, now the published book  “Dos Gringos,” told me about her Jewish grandmother and Pancho Villa.

It seems the woman was a recognized horse-breaker during those hectic years, living in central Texas, maybe San Antonio. Determined to meet Pancho Villa, she drove her Cadillac sedan into Mexico to find the infamous revolutionary leader. She found him and, as you can imagine, he didn’t know what to do with this American. I understand he gave her his toughest horse, one which the men had failed to break. And she succeeded to break that horse. I don’t remember what the lady in Maine told me after that.

I would dearly like to know the whole story of this. If anyone reading this post has any ideas who this woman might be and reliable details of this really humorous story, I would really like to know. The Jews of Texas were historic and accomplished many things in those days. But a Jewish grandmother breaking a horse for Pancho Villa is indeed historic—and a bit unusual, don’t you think?

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

“Pancho Villa’s Air Force”

It is amazing who you meet at the beach. Learning I had written “Dos Gringos,” a book set in The Mexican Revolution, a nice woman introduced me to her friend saying the friend’s father was involved with building an air force for Pancho Villa.  The father was Frank Wallace, one of those adventurous aviation pioneers during the wild days before, during, and after WW I. Wallace’s story is full of thrills and survival. His first flight was at the age of eleven when his foot caught in the rope of a hot-air balloon which hauled him up, ankle first over Bellingham, Washington. They pulled him into the basket, but the crowd thought it was part of the show and so he continued to do it, for money.

No, Pancho Villa never had an “air force” as badly as he wanted airplanes to bomb the Federáles. But, there was no shortage of money for this after all the banks were robbed.  It was Frank Wallace who was involved to get these planes, but it all fell through as much seemed to do for all sides, and the money into various pockets. Villa had an American or two flying reconnaissance for him at times, but neither the airplanes or the pilots lasted for long. That’s a bigger story. The photo above is of the famous Curtiss JN-4 “Jenney” used by the fledging American forces to chase Villa after he invaded New Mexico.

In his flying life Wallace knew them all– Glenn Curtiss, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, Howard Hughes, and Henry Ford and was a member of the esoteric Quiet Birdmen society. He soloed at Curtiss’ North Island School in March, 1911, then barnstormed and flew in Mexico, South America, Italy, Poland, and Costa Rica.  His story, and voluminous notes are compiled in a draft by his daughter JoAnne Rowan who shared the stories with me.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.