My brother and me with Gene Autry when he toured the South. His show brought out hordes of fans only matched years later by rock stars. In his movies first thing he picked up after an affray with bad guys was his hat. My grandmother was president of our hometown Gene Autry Fan Club, determined to turn me into a little Gene, paying for guitar lessons and a riding academy. One teacher taught “picking” and the next “strumming,” which was confusing. The riding academy had English saddles and wanted us to “post.” I quit the guitar, and the academy when they refused me a Western saddle. Had to settle for shooting my grandfather’s Government Model 1911A until I was out of high school and working, when I acquired my first six-gun. Through the years, the only Autry influence that remained was cowboy hats.

I Have Measured Out My Life in… Cowboy Hats

Apologies to J. Alfred Pruifrock, who famously measured his life with a different device:

“For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons…

“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

An attendant lord… that will do to swell a progress, start a scene or two.

Advise the prince no doubt, an easy tool. Deferential, glad to be of use.

Politic, cautious, and meticulous. Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse.

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous — Almost, at times, the Fool….”

My brother and me playing cowboys and Indians with cap pistols.

The guitar lessons never worked out but I kept the blonde wood f stop hole guitar. Its appearance in a photo I submitted for a sixties passport evidently caused its rejection; guess they saw guitar, ‘stash, and long hair and concluded hippie. A more conventional photo solved the problem…

The bad-guy black cowboy hat I picked up on a North Carolina road trip, my first official work vacation. I paid for everything, refused to let my grandmother or mother cook a single meal, and would not rent any motel room with a kitchen. I remembered a “Saturday Evening Post” cover by Norman Rockwell, showing a slump-shouldered woman over a stove in a dark kitchen, gazing wistfully out at a sunny beach where a pot-gutted man sunned peacefully and children, presumably theirs, frolicked. We lived two doors from the ocean, so I figured North Carolina mountains would be a nice change of pace. One of the few picture of my grandmother happy, striking a pose and laughing at the camera, was when I stuck the hat on her head at a Tar Heel gas station in the Smoky Mountains.

Building deer stands in Florida’s Osceola National Forest with Ray Stafford, co-worker at my first newspaper and Michigan native who taught my brother and me deer hunting.

I really hated the photo with this story. Same hat as the previous one, same me, but yuck. Still, Charlie was impressed enough to hire me as his lead feature writer.

Riding the range, Florida style. I was playing cowboy for a week for a story in the newspaper’s Sunday magazine. My hat was brand new, purchased, along with new Acme boots, with book money. My mount was Midnight Bishop, a state champion quarter horse retired from competition due to an injury. But man, could he herd cattle. All I had to do was relax the reins and keep my seat. Speedy was an aging Florida cow poke whose little hammer-head could reverse fields so quickly on a stubborn cow he dumped the foreman in the corral mud on a five dollar bet he could keep his seat. The owner of the ranch saw how Bishop and I bonded and offered to sell him to me. When I said he wouldn’t fit in a Beach garage apartment they offered to stable him at the ranch. I could pay his feed bill and come visit any time; plenty of saddles for a loaner until and if I bought my own. I’d just sold my first novel, first check more than my annual salary; I was flush, and more was on the way. But it was not to be. When I got home my draft notice was waiting…

Listening for the hounds, hunting hogs in Florida for another Sunday magazine story with a Jacksonville veterinarian who loved the thrill of the chase and could patch up gored dogs. A genuine Florida redneck farmer ran a “hog claim” in the national forest, releasing them to gorge on acorns and other such treats. The hogs of course believed themselves wild and free, and had to be cornered by chase dogs before bringing in a “catch dog” to put them on the ground. We, ah, hog-tied them, slung them in the back of the station wagon, and penned them back at the farm with grain to fatten them for slaughter. Acorn-raised pork chops and bacon was transcendent.

Dealing with unruly hound unwilling to believe the hog chase was over. Same straw Stetson Hurricane Dora snatched off my head in Jacksonville and led a merry chase before pinning it to a building three stories up. When the wind shifted my hat fluttered down, none the worse for wear. Stetson built tough hats.

Dust-cover photo for Doubleday version of “Sleeping Planet.” Photo by Ray Stafford. I’d added a four-power scope. First trip to the range it shot one-inch groups at one hundred yards, to the amazement of veteran shooters. Seemed appropriate since my science-fiction hero sniped invading aliens with a bolt-action hunting rifle. I got my first copy of the book at a Basic Training mail call after a morning in the rifle pits. Our drill sergeant recruited me to help teach city boys to sight in their M-14s. The Army didn’t provide ear protection back then. A platoon’s worth of muzzle blast to the right and left all morning began destruction of my hearing. Then I caught pneumonia. In Georgia. In 98-degree summertime. Combined heat and humidity would get so bad training would be suspended to forestall heat stroke. Several weeks later at MP School our company didn’t get the suspension message — and I got heat stroke. I figured Vietnam couldn’t be worse than Georgia but never found out. A bunch of us were sent to Germany (where I froze my Florida ass off but did not catch pneumonia again)to guard nuclear weapons from Soviet incursions coordinated out of East Germany by a KGB thug named Putin. Yeah, that guy.

South Carolina, 1967. Havilah Babcock country. (He wrote “I don’t Want to Shoot an Elephant” about bobwhite quail hunting, and many other Low County yarns.) I wrote about this hunt in the Georgia Sunday magazine for which I was editor after my two-year Army hitch. Same hat worn atop Midnight Bishop. Same snake-bit Remington 870 that was always jamming. First thing I bought with my 1964 novel money — because Winchester stopped making Model 12s that year. Several competent gunsmiths could not cure it. The 870 supposedly is the most popular pump gun to this day, utterly reliable. Hah. More than once I threatened to deep-six it in a duck marsh, only to be talked down by my new wife, who was happily blasting away with my ancient 16-gauge Model 12 . The gun whose actual utter reliability had me wanting a brand-new three-inch Winchester magnum for ducks. But that’s another story…or two.

STOPPING BY THE GUANO, MY OLD DUCK HUNTING LAKE IN FLORIDA, ON A ROAD TRIP FROM PENNSYLVANIA

Nassau, 1969. The hat came with me to the islands. Untypical rainy day at the Straw Market.

Finally got a straw hat in Nassau; not exactly a cowboy hat but cooler in the heat.

Florida again, 1972, after a couple years in Pennsylvania. New camouflage cowboy hat and two “rescue” pups to train. The white one turned into a pit bull when she matured; the Tallahassee pound advertised her as an English pointer. Harry the Lab was still a Labrador when he grew up. We shared innumerable adventures in the approximate decade he lived, in Washington State and Arizona. I miss him to this day.

Four Corners: Per Wikipedia, The Four Corners is a region of the Southwestern United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. We came to Four Corners via New Mexico when we moved from Florida to Washington State. I bought the straw olive-drab Stetson in Amarillo with the idea it would be cool for hot weather dove hunting. The idea of the photo was I sat on my ass in four states at once.

Harry and me in Utah, same road trip. Is it just me or does that stone formation look like a camouflaged alien starship?

Salt Lake City, with Harry and Junkanoo, the well-traveled Bahamian cat. And my second duck boat. Sold my first to a fellow newsman in Pennsylvania at the end of a stint between Nassau and Florida. When I visited him and his third wife in the nineties he still was using it to fish smallmouth bass on the Susquehanna. Bought the the blue Ford…my first truck… in PA — only one in the whole newspaper parking lot. Left-wing anti-hunters were taking over newsrooms. The salesman talked my wife into this one because it had air conditioning — and out of the more expensive 4WD I wanted. You almost never need 4WD he said. Almost and never should not be used together, as I had later bitter experience to prove. It was years before a good friend of mine in Washington offered the perfect riposte: “But when you do need it, nothing else will do.”

Camping on the Big Wood River, Idaho, same road trip, after a pilgrimage to Hemingway’s grave and a little fly fishing to set the mood. I wore the hip boots to the graveyard.

Lake Powell, Arizona, 1977: after a couple years with Fishing and Hunting News in Seattle my hours were cut in half and I lost their very good insurance coverage that paid for our daughter’s birth. I flew to Phoenix to interview for a position with Arizona Game and Fish and was hired to resurrect “Wildlife Views,” a department publication previously suspended due to budget cuts. A big city and a desert are two of my least-favorite things, but I could assign myself anywhere in the state for stories. Four of us borrowed a houseboat from a resort for my cover story: “Poking Around Lake Powell.” New hat, an Australian Akubra purchased from Herter’s before they went defunct. Years later my teenage daughter appropriated it to pick strawberries in Holland with a friend she made during her exchange-student time in France. i seem to recall it also traveled with her to Florence, Naples, other exotic ports of call.

Colorado 1990. After moving back to Washington for a civil-service job, I wound up on state-funded junkets all over — San Diego to Quebec, Anchorage to Orlando. And Dallas, where I found a handsome Bailey cowboy hat and Justin ringtail-lizard boots, soft as glove leather. Then straight to Denver for another conference. The rental-company guy took one look and upgraded me to a Cadillac. Hotel people scrambled to handle my baggage. I remarked on all the deference shown. A cynical sergeant from our auto-theft detail said I was imagining things; “they know it’s a rental.” The ladies though liked my new profile. “He’s just jealous,” one said. And added I looked like a wealthy rancher. “No, an oil baron,” the second said. She took this picture when we went for a drive. Later at lunch she point-blank asked if I liked to fool around away from home. I’d been dying to use a Clark Gable line since I saw the movie: “No thanks, I’m trying to quit.” And what about you? “A lady never tells.” Oops, Next day I skipped out early to avoid further temptation. My magic-carpet Cadillac floated me up to Cheyenne — where I found a gray-dyed pair of iguana Justins in 14-D. Amazing. My then-wife raised holy hell at my extravagance when I got home. I’d smuggled one pair into the house in my luggage, but my son’s pal ratted me out.

Blizzard in Washington. Not too long after the Dallas-Denver junket the ”Siberian Express” came calling in Western Washington. I used my son’s small Bronco to ferry my wife’s stranded co-workers home. My daughter was into cameras and snapped this when I got back. Cup, Pendleton duster — and hat — are long gone. The cup broke. I think the duster and hat left with the bisexual young woman I lived with after my divorce. My daughter slyly said “Mom’s been griping about you talking to women on the internet. Post this in your profile and they’ll give her something to really gripe about…”

1993 — My life was in free fall after I lost my last job because of a governor’s peccadillos. Ironically my Personnel Appeals Board hearing took place the week he groped a subordinate in the back seat of his government car — a subordinate whose boyfriend was an investigative reporter. Didn’t matter: the fix was in. And unlike his pal Slick Willy in Arkansas, there was no “Troopergate,” state troopers who blew the whistle about driving him to assignations and lying about his whereabouts to his significant other. This governor appointed his own “special prosecutor” who questioned all his State Patrol bodyguard-drivers. Each consulted the trooper-union lawyer. Then went before the prosecutor and did the see-no-evil hear-no-evil dance. She concluded the man who appointed her had done no evil. And the governor fired the Patrol chief and appointed the union lawyer in his place — a female trooper who earned her law degree while in uniform, then resigned to represent the union. My appeal was denied. I took it into the court system. Time dragged on. I settled into painting every decoy I owned. My daughter was there with her camera. Photo shows a piece of the straw Stetson that did not survive the painting, too smeared with paint to wear going out. Somewhere in there I saw a shrink who diagnosed clinical depression and put me on meds that slowed and dulled me. She recommended a marriage councilor, who spotted “tells” in my wife’s behavior, dug in, and uncovered mind-numbing tales of incest in her family. Not only had she been a victim — her molester was her babysitter of choice for our kids. Only when he ran out of family in his target age range did he turn his attention to the Sunday-school kids he watched while parents attended services. They told on him, he was arrested and convicted and jailed. And still my wife defended him. Maybe that’s what tipped off the marriage counselor. Eventually my firing appeal made it to the state court of appeals — where the judges informed me the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled federal law the state violated that I cited did not apply to how a state treated its own employees, only other residents. Something about separation of powers. My shrink had recommended applying for Social Security Disability. I was denied repeatedly. End of the line, beginning of what I now call my dark decade…

Florida, early 21st Century. When my house in Buckley sold, trailer parks refused my travel trailer as too old. My son refused me the full hookup he built beside his home on land I quit-claimed to him. He moved his in-laws in instead. I asked my brother if I could move down and stay in one of his rentals. “I’m not taking you to raise” was, word for word, his reply. So I wound up sharing an apartment with a bisexual redhead, the only one who offered me a place to stay. Her salary paid the rent and my welfare checks and food stamps fed us. I never found another job. My brother never “got” depression. He said come on down to Tallahassee and I’ll snap you out of it. Nice thought but it doesn’t work that way. Still it was a nice visit with his kids quizzing me about stories he’d told. Did I really brand him with a potato masher I heated on the stove? Did I really shoot my BB gun at his feet telling him to dance, like in a Western? My reply: did he tell you about planting his foot on my Lionel train tracks causing miniature train wrecks and then running for the grownups before I could catch him? My hat that year was a crushable cowboy hat from Shepler’s in Denver.

Sitting on my wheeled walker, plinking. After my legs gave out, a good friend from bureaucrat days would drive down, load my walker and gear, and drive me to our range. I’d bought the olive drab Akubra for duck hunting when I began to need glasses, to ward off rain. Akubra evidently is as big a deal in Australia as Stetson is in America. A guy who set up a booth at the Western Washington State Fair told me all about them, and sold me another one, a white one as close to Gene Autry’s as I ever found. It rests in my closet beside three pairs of cowboy boots my swollen feet no longer fit. My dark decade ended about sixteen years ago when I finally won my Social Security appeal with full back pay to date of filing. I was able to join a duck club for three seasons. It could have been more if my room mate didn’t help herself to a few grand while I wasn’t paying attention. When a friend opened an ebook publishing venture and invited me to “play” I began to publish books again, and was going strong when my health began to deteriorate. At least for me, hospital beds are not conducive to creative writing. Lately my hands have betrayed me: diabetic neuropathy and arthritis on top of carpal tunnel syndrome with a little “trigger finger” …as in too stiff and weak to pull one…thrown in. So writing dries up.

Scenic overlook in the Columbia Gorge on the way home from Salt Lake City. The year before the plague: twenty nineteen…numbers no longer work on this keyboard…was my last road trip when I could still manage with just a crutch. Knee brace, thumb brace, crutch, “diabetic” belly…and hunting Akubra. I was afraid my white Gene Autry clone would be soiled or ruined. Flew to SLC…first plane ride this century…to meet my lady love and drive her here, after she fell down a cliff taking scenic Utah photos and shattered her wrist and broke her upper arm. She'd been driving to see me after visiting a college roommate. ER docs said no driving, so I pulled myself together and hobbled to the rescue. Just THOUGHT I was in bad shape then…