A loose herd of Texans / by Bill Porterfield.

Author
Porterfield, Bill [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Εdition
1st ed.
Published/​Created
College Station : Texas A & M University Press, ©1978.
Description
xiv, 198 pages ; 24 cm

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Forrestal Annex - AF391.P84 Browse related items Request

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    Summary note
    Mixing the profile with the personal essay, plain storytelling with reporting and the fanciful, Bill Porterfield, in this collection of short pieces, prances out a memorable cast of his characters from the Texas heartland. ?Loose herd? is about as tight a noose of definition as you can draw around their collective necks. Clarence of Green Mansions is a mystic with a two-thousand-year-old memory; J. D. Graham ekes out a living as owner of a general store in the dried-up crossroads of The Grove; Old Juan lives in a hole in the ground and defies anyone to bother him; Larry Bowman became famous by winning the jackpot on TV bowling; George White was a self-proclaimed genius until he picked his toe with a rusty knife and died of gangrene; John Waggoner, scion of great ranchers, has given up the New York stockbrokers life for stock raising; and Goyo Maldonado stopped going to church when he found the Stone That Cries Like a Child. Obscure eccentrics and ordinary folk outnumber the rich and famous.
    Contents
    • Introduction : a mythical place
    • Uncle John
    • Clarence of green mansions
    • J.D. and the gang in the grove
    • Brother Nail's magic
    • The new ranchers
    • The genius
    • Barrymore of the courtroom
    • Don Pedroito
    • The outcasts of Western Heights Cemetery
    • On the banks with Larry Bowman
    • The sanctified lady
    • The ghost of Amon Carter
    • Ravel's elegy and the sad violinist
    • The cowboy
    • An oilman
    • The stone that cries like child
    • The last spring of our innocence
    • The Christian and the Pagan
    • H.L. Hunt's long good-bye
    • The Santa Berta
    • The folk singer who sang opera
    • Old Juan
    • The Aurora spaceman
    • Farewell to LBJ : a Hill Country valediction.
    ISBN
    • 0890960445
    • 9780890960448
    LCCN
    77099277
    OCLC
    3771646
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