FINDING A WELL-FITTED HORSE SADDLE During the cold winter months of north-central Idaho, my horse saddle spent most of its time on a stand in my Winchester office. I built a strong stand and cinched it down because most guests who came in to talk to me liked to climb up on it. It made […]
More Leadership Tips for Life & Ministry Christian leaders in family, career, and ministry aim for a Promised Land of Paradise, our end of the trail. At the beginning of everyone’s journey, we were caught in the homeland of darkness. We were trapped in a place separated from God. Then He set us free by […]
NOTHING AT PEACE ABOUT HIM On a cool, April morning in the western mountains of north-central Idaho, I was surprised to see my neighbor, Dupree Davis, huffing beside his pickup truck, next to the gravel road, with sweat dripping off his face. He looked fit to be tied and all steamed up. Nothing at peace […]
LEAVE GOOD TRACKS I heard Willie Phillips was in town recently. But I didn’t get a chance to talk to him myself. He’s a fine hand at training horses and I had a question or two for him. But he was only in town a few hours, and nobody knew what direction he headed when […]
Detecting Seasons of Marriage My wife Janet and I have gone through decades of anniversaries plus numerous seasons of marriage. We tend to talk about seasons in a sense of years. That is, when you first get married it’s presumed to be springtime. Then, through the years, you hit summer. Later on, after you’ve been […]
TO SEE THE ELEPHANT Of all the 400,000 people called ‘49ers who made it to the gold rush in California those first ten years, very few made any money. They knew they wouldn’t all get rich in the goldfields. But they traveled West anyway “to see the elephant.” The Farmer at the Circus Popular at […]
Everything Goes, From Soda to Hock I went down to an auction at the Rockin’ B Ranch. It was a good auction for a buyer. It offered a little bit of everything. Tractors, saddles, antique China, fancy furniture, and big screen television sets. I ran across the owner of the ranch who told me, “I’m […]
SHE’S A STANDER! All the heroines in the Stuart Brannon Series rate what I call ‘standers.’ They can be counted on to be there during the toughest of times. I got a letter from Kelly of Lyndale, Indiana. She enjoyed my Westerns. “I’m only eleven years old,” she wrote, “but I’ve enjoyed every one of […]
A Mountain Man’s Floating Stick A fella in Grandview, Washington wrote to me. He could remember his grandfather often saying, “Well, if that’s the way your stick floats.” So, this old boy wanted to know what that meant. Not sure if this was a westernism, I kept scratching and clawing around until I found it. […]
Water Barrel Cowards Some of the most colorful phrases coming from the Old West were localized in geography and era. They’re totally meaningless today. One of my favorite taunts, “I’ll shoot through the barrel and drown you.” This strange sounding epigram called someone a water barrel coward. Used in the right crowd, it guaranteed a […]
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