Crazy Water

Crazy Water - is he Comanche, half-breed, or white? The four men who find him with a head injury on the riverbank, name him Crazy Water. He doesn’t know his true name or where he comes from. He is dressed in Comanche garb, speaks the Comanche tongue fluently, and has more knowledge of hunting and tracking than most boys his age. He remembers nothing of his life before he was found at the riverbank. For nearly ten years he lives as a Comanche. When the Jerome Agreement is put into effect, giving each Comanche 160 acres of his own land, thereby breaking up the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache reservation, Crazy Water and his friends decide to take advantage of this and return to the reservation for their share of the land. When he meets beautiful Kyah and they fall in love, he concentrates on building a life without ever learning the answers to his questions. Will he ever learn who he is? If he has parents or other family? Or will his past remain a mystery forever?

Mineral Wells, Stoval Hot Wells, Marlin, Glen Rose, Sour Lake, Indian Hot Springs, Wizard Wells -- there were dozens of places all over the state where heavily mineralized water lay beneath the soil. In pioneer days, the news often set off a land rush, with wagons flocking to the medicinal founts of "miracle" healing. Before the discovery of antibiotics -- and sometimes afterward - drinking and bathing in mineral waters were an important part of health care for many Texans. In a lively look at resorts large and small and the men who ran them, from quack doctors and elixir pitchmen to legitimate businessmen and physicians, Crazy Water takes readers from one end of the state to the other, listening to testimonials, reading amazing descriptions, marveling at the gulibility of the afflicted and the inventiveness of the healers.

In Creating Country Music, Richard Peterson traces the development of country music and its institutionalization from Fiddlin' John Carson's pioneering recordings in Atlanta in 1923 to the posthumous success of Hank Williams. Peterson captures the free-wheeling entrepreneurial spirit of the era, detailing the activities of the key promoters who sculpted the emerging country music scene. More than just a history of the music and its performers, this book is the first to explore what it means to be authentic within popular culture. "[Peterson] restores to the music a sense of fun and diversity and possibility that more naive fans (and performers) miss. Like Buck Owens, Peterson knows there is no greater adventure or challenge than to 'act naturally.'"—Ken Emerson, Los Angeles Times Book Review "A triumphal history and theory of the country music industry between 1920 and 1953."—Robert Crowley, International Journal of Comparative Sociology "One of the most important books ever written about a popular music form."—Timothy White, Billboard Magazine

Zhuo Yu is sixteen years old, seven feet tall and has a strong body. He has short hair, healthy wheat skin, a knife-like face full of youthful and lively breath, and a pair of dark eyes with cheerful and lively light. He is dressed in dirty rags, rolled up his trousers and wore a pair of dirty cloth shoes on his feet, which is extremely out of tune with his thin and handsome face.

In this culinary exploration of the Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa, Diana Henry has gathered together dishes that combine exotic flavours in ways long forgotten - or never discovered - in many Western kitchens. Colourful, aromatic and perfumed ingredients, from leathery pomegranates, with their insides bursting with ruby seeds, to flower-waters that allow you to drink in the scent of a garden, combine to bring an intoxicating whiff of the exotic to your table and pleasure to your kitchen. The core ingredients of these cuisines are increasingly available so dishes such as Chermoula-marinated Tuna, Fennel, Pomegranate and Feta Salad, and Lavender, Orange and Almond Cake are both delicious and accessible to cook.

Red dirt. What can one say about red dirt? The small town of San Augustine, Texas, sits on a twenty-six-mile swath of red clay. Once this red dirt gets into your system it is difficult to leave it behind, and if you do there is a tendency to return in your golden years. The town was organized in 1834 and was the gateway to early settlers after crossing the Sabine River into Texas. Most everyone who entered Texas in the early years passed through the town on the El Camino Real, the King’s Highway. Many settled here while others made their way to San Antonio. It was into this area of Texas that I was born and reared. This book contains 110 short stories of my experiences while growing up during the 1940s and 1950s in the town of red dirt. I have included stories of my married life as we lived in several different states through the years. A few stories of humorous events while working in law enforcement are also included. San Augustine, Texas, claims on good authority to be the oldest Anglo-Saxon town in Texas. The neighboring city of Nacogdoches is said to be the oldest town having had an Indian settlement there earlier than 1834. The debate will probably never be settled to everyone’s satisfaction.