1978: by Jerry Flemmons - 520 pages.

Amon: The Life of Amon Carter, Sr. of Texas

Flemmons, Jerry

Biographies & Memoirs

Jenkins Pub. Co

Jerry Flemmons' Texas Siftings: A Bold and Uncommon Celebration of the Lone Star State

History

Americas

TCU Press

“We have often heard of nowhere and supposed it somewhere in Texas.”—Galveston Times “I went to Texas and ran wild on her prairies.”—William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) “God made Texas when he was a small boy and wanted a sandbox.”—Folklore on the AmericanLand “A Texan ain’t nothing but a human being way out on a limb.”—John Wayne's line in The Searchers “We are a wordy bunch, always have been, and for almost two centuries, outsiders, intrigued by all the commotion down here in the Southwest, have come to inspect, dissect, cuss and praise. . . . Texas is a heroic story, the stuff of dreams and myths. Born of an impossible revolution, settled by peoples from somewhere else, Texas engendered the epic American notion of freedom and independence, of self-sufficiency and derring-do. Texas, above all else, has been a spiritual adventure—and the whole grand chronicle is there on library shelves, in newspaper clippings, old letters, written memories. There’s little about Texas that hasn’t already been said or written, and Texas Siftings is a kind of social catalog to much of it.” So wrote Jerry Flemmons in the introduction to the first volume of Texas Siftings, which has been read and treasured by Texans, expatriate Texans, and would-be Texans from coast to coast. Now he's back with More Texas Siftings, an equally engaging and engrossing collection of stories both humorous and dramatic, letters, recipes, snippets of Texas language, outrageous praise and angry condemnation for the Lone Star State and its inhabitants.

Jerry Flemmons' More Texas Siftings: Another Bold and Uncommon Celebration of the Lone Star State

In “And Flights of Angels Sing Thee to Thy Rest,” the essay which opens this compelling collection, Jerry Flemmons displays an uncommon sense of both history and fun. When it was announced that angels would adorn the facade of the magnificent hall to be built in Fort Worth for the performing arts, the columnist, intrigued by the incongruity of angels in Cowtown, demanded, “Where in the hell did those angels come from?” He finally solved the dilemma by deciding they were the fallen angels of Hell’s Half Acre, “Irish Kate. . . on the right, and Big Birdie . . . on the left.” With strong affection for almost all things Texan, Flemmons writes of the ordinary with an extraordinary sophistication and cleverness. His Texas is sometimes a place of sadness, even tragedy, sometimes a place of high jinks and great jokes, but most often, it’s a place of vanishing traditions and long- ago days. It’s all here in this collection . . . and it’s Flemmons at his best. He was a pallbearer the day they buried Lee Harvey Oswald in Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth. There was no one around at the brief ceremony to carry the coffin, so newspapermen performed the chore. Thereafter Marguerite Oswald, or Mama Oswald as the reporters called her, telephoned Flemmons and others with histrionic demands and telephone tirades and “official” announcements on the progress of her “case.” Flemmon’s essay, “Mama Oswald,” is a compassionate and complex picture of this tormented and tragic woman. He was there, too, when they found sniper Charles Whitman on the observation deck of the famed Tower at the University of Texas. He wrote of the slight breeze that blew that day, the play of light and shadow on the deck—and on Whitman’s body—and the stunned reaction of those who found bodies on various levels of the Tower. But Flemmons also tells lighter stories with ease, such as the one about the late Amon Carter commissioning a statue of Will Rogers on horseback, then keeping it hidden in planked boxes for eight years while World War II ran itself out. Carter couldn’t have a proper unveiling with the war going on, so he waited. But those planks were an awful temptation to local boys. It may be that Flemmons writes best of the small and common bits of Texas. There are essays on hunkering, that fundamental resting position for rural men, and the importance of front porches, the nostalgia of a good courthouse clock with a bell, the etiquette of the two-step, the vanishing tradition of the game “42,” and the inadequacy of pork barbecue. Once he found his own private Brigadoon, a small East Texas town with a Gothic courthouse in the center of a square faced with old wooden storefronts. Old men pitched horseshoes, played dominoes or sat quietly on the worn benches on the lawn around the courthouse. Children played on the lawn and begged hard candies from the man behind the grocery store counter. Flemmons ate lunch at the café and a dish of ice cream at the drugstore that still boasted a counter and stools. “To this day, I cannot remember the town’s name, though I can recall everything about it. I have driven many miles in East Texas, searching for it, have found other towns with other courthouses and other old men, but never my town, my Brigadoon.”

Curmudgeon in Corduroy: The Best of Jerry Flemmons' Texas

Why am I an Iconoclast? . . . Sir, I am a seeker of Truth. . . . [W]hen you get an idea, put it on the anvil and bid the world hit it with the heaviest sledge. The more you hammer Truth the brighter it becomes." When an enraged reader gunned him down in Waco, April Fool's Day 1898, William Cowper Brann had published The Iconoclast, the nation's most controversial magazine, for some forty months. It was the only American journal to claim a quarter-of-a-million monthly circulation, owing largely to Brann's gusto for offering up his "truths." Though his circulation was international, his favorite idols for smashing were those he found at home in Waco, nicknamed "Six-Shooter Depot" and which exemplified, he believed, Texas's reputation for "furnish[ing] forth more hidebound dogmatists, narrow-minded bigots and intolerable fanatics in proportion to population than any other section of these United States!" Though a twelve-volume 1912 edition of The Iconoclast resides here and there in rare book collections, public access to the writings of Texas's perhaps most infamous and entertaining journalist has been surprisingly limited. Jerry Flemmons's lexicon synthesizes the most memorable and current Brannisms into a facilely retrievable format. From America to Texas Politics to the Universe, these selected snippets prove how brightly indeed wisdom, wit, and the well-turned phrase survive pounding of the ages. But perhaps the beacon of O dammit! is the one-man, two-act play that Flemmons presents as a lecture by Brann on the last day of his life. Though it has been performed around Texas for more than a decade, it is a script whose every stage note and direction deserves to be read and whose every line reflects not only Brann's genius but also that of the man who's become the keenest authority thereon.

O Dammit!: A Lexicon and a Lecture from William Cowper Brann, the Iconoclast

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

Texas Tech University Press

In his heyday, Amon Carter had plenty of name recognition in Texas and across the nation. He was a friend of people like the cowboy columnist Rogers and not at all shy about picking up a telephone and cussing out the governor of Texas. Or wisecracking to the President of the United States. . . . Carter lives on as the personification of the mythical Texan, that larger than life character in a cowboy hat. Texana Book Reviews For much of the mid-twentieth-century, Amon G. Carter Sr. was the man who invented the cowboyat least the larger-than-life Texas version that captured the imagination of the public, presidents, movie stars, and moguls. Carter donned his cowboy persona to build Fort Worth, from the Star-Telegram up, and much of the rest of West Texas. Jerry Flemmons brings to life the mythic huckster and newspaper giant who ushered the likes of Gary Cooper, Charles Lindbergh, Will Rogers, and Ike through the back door of his Fort Worth mansion and feted t

Amon: The Texan Who Played Cowboy for America

Montford, John T.

Community & Culture

For much of mid-twentieth-century America and the world, Amon G. Carter Sr. was the man who invented the cowboy—at least the larger-than-life Texas version that captured the imagination of not only the public, but presidents, movie stars, moguls, and other contemporary icons. What he invented was the persona he donned to build Fort Worth, from the Star-Telegram up, and much of the rest of West Texas. Arguably the greatest living authority on Carter (and Amon the Cowboy), Jerry Flemmons conjures into flesh and bone the mythical huckster and newspaper giant who waltzed the likes of Gary Cooper and Charles Lindbergh, Will Rogers and Ike, through the back door of his Fort Worth mansion and feted them at his Shady Oak Farm with almost spontaneous rodeos and parties. He allowed his famous friends to play cowboy with him and presented celebrities around the nation and the world with his signature Shady Oak hats and other expensive gifts, from diamond-studded belt buckles to autographed watermelons. Privately, Amon Carter's human compassion and philanthropy apparently knew no bounds. Originally published in 1978 as Amon: The Life of Amon G. Carter of Texas, this revised and updated edition includes new information from the previously sealed papers of H. L. Mencken; changes in the Carter communication empire; and what's happened to Amon's army of wives, family members, writers, and reporters.

Amon: The Texan Who Played Cowboy for America (Revised Edition)

Humor & Entertainment

Plowboys, Cowboys, and Slanted Pigs

From an Amazon reader review: "This book is an unexpected treasure. It mixes musings about the majesty of the perfect chicken fried steak with stark rememberences of two profound Texas tragedies that the author witnessed first hand -- the Whitman shooting from the UT Tower in 1966 and the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. These columns capture a part of Texas that gets lost in both the hype and the lore. It paints loving pictures of small town life -- of the weather extremes, the harsh land and the effect that those external forces have on the 18 million people that live there."

Business & Money

Poetry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Flemmons, Jerry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Flemmons, Jerry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Flemmons, Jerry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Amon: The Life of Amon Carter, Sr. of Texas

Jerry Flemmons' Texas Siftings: A Bold and Uncommon Celebration of the Lone Star State

Jerry Flemmons' More Texas Siftings: Another Bold and Uncommon Celebration of the Lone Star State

Curmudgeon in Corduroy: The Best of Jerry Flemmons' Texas

O Dammit!: A Lexicon and a Lecture from William Cowper Brann, the Iconoclast

Amon: The Texan Who Played Cowboy for America

Amon: The Texan Who Played Cowboy for America (Revised Edition)

Plowboys, Cowboys, and Slanted Pigs

Plowboys, Cowboys, and Slanted Pigs