15 Aug 2006
Rich,

I've just received my copy of your new book and it brings back a lot of memories. My first paid work was in the hay field raking hay at the age of nine and I was on my own economically from the time I was 12 years old (in 1940). I was hired then as a ranch hand and worked my way through high school (until I was nearly 18) as a cowboy in the summer and odd jobs in in town in the winter...telephone operator, school janitor, store clerk, truck driver. Thus, I "lived" some of what you wrote of and relived some of that life as I read your book.

Beyond the cowboy experience, I became acquainted with Badger Clark, then Poet Laurette of South Dakota, when I was eleven and wrote my first western poem a few months later. Then came a long spell (62 years) before I wrote poetry again in 2002.

I was especially interested in the Butcher photographs which you used. I was born in Custer County Nebraska where Butcher took a great many of his pictures. One of my maternal grandfathers, his sister, and her children was taken in front of my grandfather's sod home near Anselmo, Nebraska. It's posted on the web on the Library of Congress site. Also, I noted the picture of Buffalo Bill Cody...my paternal grandfather played poker with him occasionally in Nebraska in the 1880's-90's. I don't know much more about that except that granddad taught me to play poker. His advice was to sit with my back to the wall and keep a sixgun handy.

Thanks for the memories and best wishes to you,

Clark
Read Clark Crouch's Western Poetry