dual personalities

Well, the sun–thankfully–came out yesterday, but it was still quite cold. I had a lot of desk work to do, so I stayed inside mostly, only venturing out to mail a card. (Am I becoming my father?)

Today we celebrate the birthdays of two good writers–Elizabeth Bacon Custer in 1842 and Glendon Swarthout in 1918. Libby Custer was the wife of George Armstrong Custer. Left nearly destitute in the aftermath of her husband’s death, she became an outspoken advocate for his legacy through her popular books and lectures. She is largely responsible for his posthumous fame.

She never remarried and died in 1933, four days short of her 91st birthday. 

“As the sun broke through the mist a mirage appeared, which took up about half of the line of cavalry, and thenceforth for a little distance it marched, equally plain to the sight on the earth and in the sky. The future of the heroic band, whose days were even then numbered, seemed to be revealed, and already there seemed a premonition in the supernatural translation as their forms were reflected from the opaque mist of the early dawn.”

–Boots and Saddles, or Life in Dakota with General Custer

Like Libby Custer, Glendon Swarthout was born and raised in Michigan. After serving in WWII, he went back to school, earning his PhD in Victorian literature, all the while teaching in college and writing short stories. He was paid $2500 in 1955 for one of these stories, “A Horse for Mrs. Custer”, which was made into a movie starring Randolph Scott, 7th Calvary (1956). The day after he finished his last doctoral examination, he started writing a novel called They Came To Cordura about Gen. Pershing’s 1916 expedition to capture Pancho Villa. The book was quickly sold to Random House and then to Columbia Pictures in 1958, becoming a major motion picture starring Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth.

He wrote more best-selling novels, some of which were also made into good movies. As usual, though, the books are better than the movies.

So we’ll toast Libby Custer and Glendon Swarthout tonight and maybe we’ll watch They Died with Their Boots On (1941) with Olivia De Havilland as Mrs. Custer or They Came to Cordura (1956) or The Shootist (1976) starring John Wayne.

And it might be time to dust off Bless the Beasts and the Children and read it!

I will also note that recently our local rag (the Webster-Kirkwood Times) ran a story about the increase in recent coyote sightings in our neck of the woods. You will recall that I saw a coyote in my yard a few weeks ago and noted it. The experts attribute this to the huge cicada emergence last spring, which resulted in plentiful food resources and high survival rates for coyotes and other species. Well, my goodness, you don’t say? What I really want to know is who are the busybodies who report such things and to whom do they report them? I mean, if I saw a bear, I might call the police, but a coyote? That must be Karen, I guess.

*Philip Larkin, “The Trees”