Sand Creek Massacre, Errol & Olivia, Pailin’s big day & Louis Kraft’s dark times

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020
(All rights reserved.)

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


Pailin and I hope and pray that all of you, your loved ones,
and friends worldwide are healthy and safe.

I never thought I’d make it to this wonderful time in my life,
and let me tell you that I feel like the Devil’s got a strangle hold on my left leg
and isn’t about to let go. … Not a good feeling.

Pailin took this photo of me in our front yard—which is always a place of peace for me—after a sleepless night but a good early morning on 7mar2020. I chose to use it here as an introduction to my current writing world and hopefully the beginning of the end of a living nightmare that began in June 2019. Not a promising start for what will hopefully be a very positive blog. At the same time the last nine months have perhaps been the best in my life. My brain functions—it always functions—and it has been key to me maneuvering through a maze of dead ends and false leads while not only making my deadlines, but setting myself up for the best times of my life. If not yet, the answers are getting closer. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2020)


Sand Creek
and the Tragic End of a Lifeway
has become reality

I completed all of my work at the end of December 2019,
and damnit to hell I miss it! There is a big hole in my life but Errol & Olivia is
doing a good job of lessening the loss (see below).

Available at

University of Oklahoma Press
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Goodreads
Target
and various National Historic Sites and museums

At first this project seemed like it was from hell, … a hell without end. Physically it has cost me a lot. If I had guts I’d post a recent photo here—an image taken between hanging from a limb and yet being able to scramble to safety yet again. When I was young and playing sports, we used to have a saying, “No guts, no glory.” Today I have no guts, which means no sharing of a photo wherein I’m hanging from that limb and it is starting to crack. … If I did, some of you might cringe, and I don’t want that.

Doris and Louis Kraft Sr. in Yonkers, NY, in 1947. Both were born in Yonkers, as I was, but in less than six years would migrate to Southern California, a state they had long decided would be their home after they had driven across the country twice to visit it. (photo © Louis Kraft 1947)

As the days pass, I’m good with where I am. However, I should share some words that I said at my father’s funeral in 1999:

“As my papa got older, his world shrank. By the time he died, the furthermost extension of his world was his neighborhood. And what a neighborhood it was. When I was growing up it was just like one of those fantasy neighborhoods in the ‘sixties TV shows. The world changed, got harsher, different—but not the neighborhood. It remained the same. It was still that fantasy neighborhood from a 1960 TV show. Pardon me, for I know I’m going to forget someone, and I don’t mean to. You all played a big part in my papa’s life, and Linda* and I will remain forever grateful.”
* Linda was my sister (24dec1950–1mar2006).

This was the only software badge that I bothered to capture. Sun Microsystems was flourishing when it purchased Seebeyond, but five years later it was spiraling toward oblivion when Oracle bought it for peanuts on the dollar.

My neighborhood isn’t like the one I grew up in, for it isn’t magical. That’s okay, for many people of different races and cultures surround me. I like this. My house was built in 1928 and I have lived in it since January 1993. It’s home, and I love it here, as my dad did his final home that he bought in 1955 (yeah, I’ve got a ways to go yet). Still, my life has begun to mimic his, for as I age, my world has also shrunk. (Certainly current events have impacted the previous sentence tenfold.) Maybe I’ll talk about it, and maybe I won’t.

Still, I should share that my life includes my small family of six (representing three races); Pailin’s family and friends in Thailand; our Los Angeles connections; and all of my friends that I met during my personal quest of knowledge, exploration, and creativity. This includes writers, historians, editors, directors, actors, artists, museum and National Park Service personal, the entire software world (which played a major part in my development as a writer and human being), and everyone else that has touched me in one way or another.

Sand Creek & the world it created for me

I am going to share photos of some people that have played key roles in bringing the Sand Creek story from the mists of Neverland to the reality of a book.

LK and Glen Williams, my bro for all time, on a road trip to Tucson, Arizona. On 15jan2012 we had just arrived at Mission San Xavier del Bac. I needed this trip with my good friend; some research (walking into the past and reliving it, if only for a short while), but more importantly doing some mending within myself.(a joke times two in 2011; if I ever share these two episodes from my life that are joined at the hip for all time you’d fall off your chair you’d be laughing so hard). … My sister-in-law worked with the Indian kids at the mission school in the early 1970s. I have some photos from that time, and need to find them. (photo © Louis Kraft and Glen Williams 2012)

Alas, there are many people who played major roles in this process but I don’t have images of many of them. This said, I don’t want them to be ignored or forgotten, and hopefully they won’t be.

An obscure beginning to the Sand Creek story in the 1980s

When I was preparing to walk away from the entertainment industry cold turkey in the early 1980s—and I was about to turn my back on writing screenplays as I had already had begun to write and sell magazine articles—I decided to write a novel about race relations during the time of the 1860s Cheyenne wars. By this time I was aware that some U.S. Indian agents were using their government-appointed positions to become rich by working with traders to steal from their wards. At this time my Indian wars knowledge was minimal other than my study of George Armstrong Custer, which was decent and growing.

LK walking with Leo Oliva (left) and George Elmore (right) on the parade ground at Fort Larned in Kansas on 12may2012. NPS ranger Ellen Jones shot this image as we were walking toward the reconstruction of the building that Ned Wynkoop rented from the post trader for his Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency, which was just outside the southwest perimeter of the fort. Since the early 1990s George, who is now chief historian of the National Historic Site, and Leo, who is a historian, writer, and lecturer, have played major roles in my understanding of the Cheyenne Indian wars. Ellen, after a long career in public service, which includes 17 years at Fort Larned, is retiring this April.

I had seen a little of the soldier turned Indian agent Edward W. Wynkoop in general Indian wars books (a paragraph or two here and another there with both saying basically the same thing), none of which I could recommend at this time for no matter how accurate or how inaccurate they were, the authors glossed over their subjects with a scattering of facts. Worse, much of the information was repeated from book to book with little that was new.

Jack Hines art of George Armstrong Custer and Sitting Bull in “Two Trails to Destiny.” I’m not crazy over his text, but I’ve always liked his portraits of Sitting Bull and Custer, even though he based his rendition of GAC on a famous Civil War image of the soldier. Oh, for those of you who aren’t  aware of it, Custer had his already short hair cut before setting out on what would be his final campaign in May 1876; he died at the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. I state this as some people who have seen the Warner Bros. 1941 film, They Died with Their Boots On with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland mistakenly think that the battle site was a short distance from Fort Abraham Lincoln, and it was not. (painting © Jack Hines 1985)

I was well aware of the Indian Ring (or tradership) scandal of 1876 due to George Armstrong Custer’s testimony in March and April of that year. This led to President Ulysses S. Grant’s secretary of war William Belknap’s resignation, and his brother, Orvil Grant, being implicated. An angry president refused to see Custer, and when the lieutenant colonel left Washington D.C. without orders he was placed under arrest. This almost removed Custer from taking part in the 1876 Sioux war. Again, those film buffs who know They Died with Their Boots On (1941) intimately, Custer was punished, but it wasn’t for exposing a fake war due to gold being discovered in the Black Hills but for his participation in the Indian Ring scandal. Also, Custer wasn’t reinstated to command the Seventh U.S. Cavalry due to Flynn’s Custer confronting Grant. No! Generals Alfred Terry and Philip Sheridan requested that Custer be reinstated.

As Wynkoop was good looking, had risked his life to meet with warring Indians in an attempt to end a war, and had later become an Indian agent, I decided that he would make the perfect villain for my novel. I began to research him, and Oops! … He wasn’t who I thought he was, and he wasn’t on the take. I never wrote that novel, but my discovery of who Wynkoop really was led me on a journey that has continued to this day.

Portrait of Wynkoop that has been published in two books and I think three magazines. (art © Louis Kraft 2007)

Ultimately it would be how he reacted to the Sand Creek Massacre that allowed me to be open to writing a book about the subject. This said, it took roughly 25 years before a friend who had a hand in Lt. Charles Gatewood & his Apache Wars Memoir being published and who contracted Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek broached the subject of writing a book that I had no desire to write. He pitched that I had a lot of the required information in-house.

I didn’t have anything close to all the research in-house, but I didn’t know that then. Luckily then University of Oklahoma Press editor in chief Chuck Rankin didn’t give up.

LK with OU Press Editor-in-Chief Chuck Rankin at the Western History Association convention in Oakland, California, on 15oct2011. Chuck gave me the Wynkoop book poster hanging behind us. I framed it and it has been displayed at Tujunga House ever since. (photo © Louis Kraft & Chuck Rankin 2011)

I said “no” numerous times, but Chuck—God bless him—refused to accept my answer, and the rest is history. … Meaning he won me over, we worked out a proposal that was acceptable to both of us, the contract was signed, and I quickly descended into the depths of hell as I struggled to locate mandatory information while at the same time trying to piece the jigsaw of facts and quotes and actions of the leading and supporting players into a readable story.

Although the beginning of the project was a disaster as I searched for what was mandatory to bring the story to life, I did find numerous leads that led to block walls and dead ends. At times this was costly, … not always in cash, but always in time—special time, which is oh-so fleeting for it is something that is gone in a flash never to return except in our memories. This said, some of these failures are worth their weight in gold, for they proved without a doubt that what appeared to be history was nothing more than fiction that had been reprinted so often that it is now accepted as fact.

Gordon Yellowman (left) and Harvey Pratt standing on the overlook to the Cheyenne Washita River village site where Chief Black Kettle and his wife Medicine Woman Later where killed by Custer’s troops when the Seventh U.S. Cavalry charged into the village at dawn on 27nov1868 without knowing who the occupants were. On that day Harvey spoke about Cheyenne warriors from the past and in today’s wars around the globe. Gordon blessed the village site on this day, and on the following day talked about what it was like to be a Cheyenne chief. (photo © Louis Kraft, Gordon Yellowman, and Harvey Pratt 2011)

Of course there is one instance of this that isn’t true. Actually the documents exist but the Oklahoma state government—in an effort to hide the theft of American Indian land—blocked the access to this valuable information from researchers such as myself as the dark past had to vanish to protect the guilty. This was also tragic to historian Dee Cordry, whose upcoming book on key players that I also write about will be must reading when published. Harvey Pratt, his good friend, and a man I was privileged to meet at the Washita Battlefield NHS during a two-day symposium wherein we both spoke in 2011, provided us with the citation we needed.

My memories of the entire process of creating Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway slowly morphed into the best project of my life. It far exceeded anything from my acting career, anything from my software writing career, and anything from my fictional and nonfiction projects (including articles and talks). This is a big statement from me. … One of the highlights was Gordon Yellowman allowing me to use his magnificent art, Sand Creek, on the cover of Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway.

Pailin took this image on 3oct2014. Good friend and great Cheyenne and Indian wars historian John Monnett (center) and his wife Linda took us to the Sand Creek Massacre NHS in southeast Colorado. Before walking along the bluffs to the west of the extended village site Jeff C. Campbell (NHS ranger–interpretation) kindly spent time with us. I consider him the foremost expert on the village and the terrible actions of November 29-30, 1864. He has since provided me invaluable information in phone conversations, and by providing his documentation and commenting on mine. I can’t begin to tell you how much John has contributed to my understanding of the Cheyenne wars of the 1860s. This was a good day for me. (photo © Jeff C. Campbell, John Monnett, Pailin Subanna-Kraft, and Louis Kraft)

Southern Cheyenne Chief Harvey Pratt (left) on 30mar2017 near El Reno, Oklahoma, when he was honored by the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes for his service to the tribal community. He is with his friend Dee Cordry, an historian and former police officer, on the day of the ceremony. Eleven chiefs of the Cheyenne Tribal Council of Forty-four were present, as were the tribal governor and lieutenant governor. (Good friend Dee Cordry shared this image with me.)

I’m already feeling the loss of having a day-in and day-out schedule that was non-ending. No matter what else I had to complete, and there was a lot going on during these long-long years that I had to deliver: talks, articles, software books (I think that my last full set of books at Oracle was 23, which I delivered on deadline—I think the cost for them was $100,000), and a novel from hell (but it contained many of the same obstacles as did the Sand Creek manuscript, and I used it as a training ground). I’m proud of The Discovery, a medical-legal thriller that goes in totally unexpected directions and of the Sand Creek story.

One thing that I have is a brain, and it functions on all cylinders at all times.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of people who help me, for there are, and they range from good friends from my Indian wars, American Indians, and Golden Age of Cinema connections. This also includes archival staffs, library staffs, and book and magazine editors and their staffs. Some I know in the flesh and have spent good times with them in SoCal and in many locations across the USA from Virginia to Tucson, Arizona, and in the case of Olivia de Havilland in Paris.

I have many-many more who have worked with me on the phone, via email, and with letters but have never met in person, and some of these people have become good friends, especially Dee Cordry, who, God-willing, I’ll meet in person later this year (at the moment COVID-19 has put that trip in jeopardy). For a number of years now Dee and I have enjoyed an open-door round-robin phone calls and emails wherein we’ve done everything possible to help each other out with our writing projects. Dee administers a terrific page on Facebook that I highly recommend: Cheyenne Trails & Tales. It is a wonderful location to learn about the “Called Out People,” the Tsistsistas (Cheyennes), and rub elbows with them and other American Indians, artists, writer-historians, and people who know and care about their lives, culture, and history.

Harvey Pratt, who, as mentioned above, came to my and Dee’s rescue with invaluable documentation that is related to his family, but is no longer available to writer-historians due to a law that the state of Oklahoma set in place years back to protect unscrupulous people that were thieves and worse. I can’t begin to say how grateful I am to him for his kindness.

I created this painting from a photo I took of Paul and Connie Hedren at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum Wrangler Awards in April 2012. Paul won a Wrangler for his book, After Custer (OU Press, 2011) and I won one for “When Wynkoop was Sheriff” (Wild West, August 2011). (art © Louis Kraft © 2016).

There have been many others who contributed, and one, Indian wars historian Paul Hedren did an in-depth peer review of the Sand Creek manuscript that was easily worth a bag of gold. So did my other peer reviewer but this person chose to remain unknown. As I know a lot of writers who distain or refuse to consider constructive criticism, I have just a handful of words for you—stuff your egos in a box and do what you can to improve your work. … Once there was a Custer historian who thought that he was God’s gift to Indian wars history. Decades back one of his books was being reprinted by another publisher, and I asked him if he would do anything to improve it. He answered, “No. It’s perfect.” He moved on to the other side many years back. Before he did, I never had the guts to tell him that I couldn’t get through the first chapter of “his masterpiece.” Back to Paul; he’s an award-winning author and a well respected authority on the Indian wars. Thank you, Paul, from the bottom of my heart.

I had hoped to post photos and talk about others here, but due the unfortunate truth that I don’t have photos that I had requested of many of them, along with the fact that I don’t have enough room to do so, I hope to address this in future blogs.

LK’s writing world is an ongoing swirl
of research & creativity

Errol & Olivia

Know that some of my copyrighted photographs have been lifted illegally; ditto some of my art. All I can say is that it is a sad state of affairs in the United States when distortion, lies, theft, and violence are condoned. A sad state. The current government is responsible for this (and I have little respect for most of the elected candidates in both major parties), for most of our elected officials think nothing about blatantly lying while doing everything to better the rich at the cost of the electorate, and in some cases doing everything possible to destroy anyone who disagrees with them.

I know, … a strange beginning to my current number 1 book project. I know.

This photo of Tujunga House was taken on 13oct2016 shortly before nightfall, and for the record our rooms are in constant change. One of the reasons is downsizing. To date the largest hit has been on books and research (and I hate to say it but they are in every room except for the bathroom and kitchen). It’s simple with the books. Do I need them for my current and future projects or will I perhaps read them again for pleasure? If no to either question—good bye. This is similar with the research, except some of the past as well as some that is still in the future is going to move to the Louis Kraft Collection at the Chávez History Library (History Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe) later this year. I had hoped (and still hope) that this could be an in-person delivery. If not, it will be via FedEx. I sold a lot of American Indian (actually everything I had up for sale last year), Custer, Indian wars, and fiction. More has since been boxed for local bookstores but my health shut that down. COVID-19 has now shut down the local stores (although one bought four huge boxes prior to the Federal government waking up to the fact that the pandemic is real) and a surgery has shut me down until mid-June. More will be eliminated ranging from Custer (my collection is still huge), more Indian wars, probably some film stuff, certainly more fiction (including a first edition Steinbeck along with other key novels), and whatever else I dig up. … Back to the room, which enters into my office and then into a hallway. Change is good, but there’s always a part of me present (and now a part of Pailin is in all the rooms, and you can see some of it here). This said, some of what you see are key to my future writing. The Flynn posters have been up for a long time for two reasons: I like them and each time I look at them they remind me to get the work done! The two small framed images by the lamp are of the pirate Francis Drake for the same reason. The two swords I designed, and they are totally illegal in dueling competition. They are your basic sabres, except that the blades are for épées (where you score points by merely plucking a wrist or arm with the point of the blade) and they don’t bend like foils or sabres, the bells are for sabres but are oversized (and not allowed in competition). Almost all the good dueling you see on stage or in film is with both thrusting and slashing, which you do with sabres. (photo © Louis Kraft 2016)

Progress
Progress is slow, but good. … This is the only way that I work, and honestly I’m thrilled. Just so you know, I easily have enough research in house to complete this project, but believe it or not, since I have returned to Errol & Olivia full time in January 2020 (not counting about four weeks that I have lost due to my health and other work that had to be dealt with, including this blog) my research continues to outpace my writing by easily 75 percent of the time that I have allotted to this manuscript. This is good, for as my knowledge grows so does the twists and turns in the storyline. This  is how I work, and for me it is the only way to work. And this means that I must be focused at all times while being ready to change direction at the drop of a hat.

Scope
The scope has grown considerably, but there’s nothing new here for the growth was already in place in 2015—I just didn’t advertise it. More exactly I needed to sit on this growth for five years. Am I good with this? You bet! Currently this expansion is already over 30,000 words, and more is a comin’.

The reason should be obvious, and it is based upon how long it takes me to complete a polished draft, and the fact that I need to live a long time for there are other Flynn book ideas hovering on the horizon.

What I bring to the table
I wrote these words in August 2013, and they are appropriate here.
I think you need to know a little about me that relates to me being capable of writing Errol & Olivia. Obviously I write biographies, but more is required. I don’t want to drag this out with a lot of words, so we’ll use a few bullets:
  • I discovered Flynn and de Havilland’s films when a boy
  • Flynn’s acting and writing influenced my life
  • While a young teenager I studied fencing with Ralph Faulkner in Hollywood
    • This led to me learning sabre and dueling competition in college
    • It eventually led to me learning “swashbuckling,” or stage combat, and choreographing duels and dueling on stage
  • In junior high school I began studying acting and performing
    • This continued in high school
    • In college I majored in acting and directing
  • For about 15 years after college I attempted to survive in the acting world
  • After quitting acting I have survived as a writer
  • When opportunity presented itself in 2002 I returned to the stage but only in plays I have written
  • I have a track record of bringing historical figures to life in print, on stage, and when speaking before an audience … not to mention my skill with a blade

LK working out with a lady I loved crossing swords with on 3dec1981, as she was a good swashbuckler and fun to be around. That’s our coach on the right side of the image as he and a cameraman shot this workout. Alas, I never saw the filmed footage. (photo © Louis Kraft 1981)

I believe the above qualifies me to not only write about Mr. Flynn and Ms. de Havilland but to approach their lives during a very short period of time in a different and perhaps avant-garde manner. These words are key, for they provide a hint to how I’m writing Errol & Olivia. … And better, I’m going into detail and it’s going to be fun detail; fun and multi-leveled. All I have to do is make it happen.

“Must See, Must Read”
Five intriguing books and five films about the Indian Wars
by Louis Kraft*
Wild West (August 2014)
They Died With Their Boots On (1941, on DVD, Warner Home Video): If Errol Flynn hadn’t played George Armstrong Custer, there would have been no Kraft writing about the Indian wars. Long years past through the present day, critics of this film have pounded it for its historical inaccuracy. Although true, let me invite you to actually research it—which I’ve done since the mid-1990s in preparation of multiple books on Errol Flynn (the first to be called Errol & Olivia). The thrust has been simple: In 1941 Warner Bros. feared being sued, and historical players and facts changed to fiction. Even though the film is fiction, it is so close to truths that have been disguised and altered that it’s scary. I can’t list them here, but trust me, for ’tis true. Don’t buy it? Do your own research. … Errol Flynn’s performance as George Armstrong Custer is magnificent, for he captured the spirit of the man; and Olivia de Havilland is perfect as Libbie Custer. It is arguably Flynn’s best performance, and by far their best performances in the eight films they did together.”
* This column is ongoing in Wild West (by contributors to the magazine).
Usually five books and five films have mini reviews. I made my comments personally related to my writing career. This issue also included two other LK articles.
One, a feature, “Wynkoop’s Gamble to End War,” was, I believe, the best
article that I have written about Ned Wynkoop.

Errol Flynn as George Armstrong Custer in They Died with Their Boots On just before he sets out for Montana Territory and destiny, and the real Custer 11 years before his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. For the record Custer set out from Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory on his final Indian campaign on May 17, 1876. He didn’t engage Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians on the Little Bighorn River until June 25, 1876. This fact is here for, believe it or not, people have stated to me numerous times that Custer fought his final battle a day or two after setting out. (This image is in the Louis Kraft Collection)

A glimpse at Captain Blood

Here I’m talking about Rafael Sabatini’s great 1922 novel, Captain Blood: The Odyssey, and the classic 1935 Michael Curtiz-directed Captain Blood, which made Errol Flynn a superstar (this term wouldn’t be created until decades after his death) and Olivia de Havilland (and she said this), “a small star.”

This image is based upon a photo taken during a workout shortly before nightfall on 15sept2015. For the record, stage combat/swashbuckling is done with a minimal amount of protective gear, such as elbow and knee pads. Also, in case you didn’t know, the slashing offensive moves have numbers with the same numbers attached to the defensive actions to parry (block) the attack. It’s just like dance, and both combatants must know the moves in slow motion before confronting each other in real time. If not, and one of the duelists gets lost, he/she must get back on track by calling out the numbers so that both parties know exactly what is happening, or simply back off and halt the encounter. I know this for a fact, for while playing Miles Hendon in a 135-performance tour of The Prince and the Pauper in Northern California in 1982 I came within an inch of losing my left eye when the villain got lost and improvised. After the performance the other actors had to hold us apart as I wanted to tear his head off. … When allowed, the first thing I’ll be doing is strengthening my legs, midriff, and arms, and then working out with a blade. BTW, that’s my hair. Yep, sometimes I’m a little slow cutting it. Also I was trying to sell Johnny D. Boggs to allow me to adapt his great novel, East of the Border (Five Star, 2004), which was about Wild Bill Hickok joining Buffalo Bill Cody and Texas Jack Omohundro on the stage. I wanted to play Hickok. Neither Johnny or my great friend and only director this century, Tom Eubanks, weren’t interested. After several years I gave up. You win some and you lose some. Oh, Mr. Eubanks, this image is for you. Guess why. (image © Louis Kraft 2020)

Sabatini’s Captain Blood played a large role in the creation of the Curtiz film, which is in stark contrast to his terrific novel The Sea Hawk. I’ll spend a fair amount of time with the story line of the film, as I think what I’ll say is important. Also, what I have discovered this year has improved my view of the film at least tenfold.

I don’t think that I’m giving anything away when I state that the only thing that Warner Bros. used from Sabatini’s The Sea Hawk, was his title.

That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say about Captain Blood?

I know, … I know, and I know, but I need to say something and it is important:

I could easily add 7,500 words to this blog discussing Captain Blood, my progress with Mr. Flynn, Ms. de Havilland, and the early part of their life and times working together at Warner Bros. The lead-in to this section guarantees that I must keep my mouth shut or face the consequences—the ongoing theft of my copyrighted material, and facts turned into readable prose is a much greater loss than the images. Besides if I share everything there would be no reason for you to buy the book.

I track the thefts. Obviously I don’t have the money to sue each and every cretin. This said, if I ever meet one of them in the flesh, I will deal with them exactly as Mr. Flynn dealt with columnist Jimmie Fidler. Those of you who know Flynn, know exactly what I’m talking about (but it will be juicier than what you know); those of you who don’t will be in for a treat.

E&O on a daily basis

I bought this book (left) when it was first published in 1962, and although treated with kid gloves it hasn’t aged gracefully. The pages have all yellowed and the cover has begun to darken on the edges. There are a lot of quotes in the chapter on Flynn, but I don’t dare trust any of them. That’s right, my view of this book is not worth stating here. All I’ll say is that it won’t appear in my bibliography unless I decide to use a small portion of it to demonstrate how amoral writers deceive their readers. Honestly, this isn’t going to happen for I’m not going to waste any of my word count on a book that should never have been published.

One Flynn historian (who was clueless on how to write nonfiction, and lordy-lordy help us for the fiction will fly fancy-free with zero documentation when his BOOK to END ALL FLYNN BOOKS sees print. I know this for a fact, for after he provided me with a great quote, AND after a month’s worth of my time searching the confirmed archival file for the proof of what he provided, I realized that he was F—g me in the rear end; his research was pure bullshit). This clown once asked me why I read everything that I can get my hands on that is related to my research on Flynn and de Havilland. My answer was simple: “If you don’t know what is in print, regardless if it is accurate or not, you’ll never know this unless you read it.” This was above his egotistical comprehension. Let me just say this, a lot of what has been published about Flynn and de Havilland is error-riddled crap. Lucky us, for there is yet another book moving toward publication that will join this club. If it is ever published buy it at your own risk.

For example, the nonfiction book, “Get Me Giesler” (above) by John Roeburt (the title of the book is a quote). Jerry Giesler was the famed defense lawyer who took on Errol Flynn’s statutory rape case in 1942. I don’t know what I thought about the book in the dark ages. However, now I view it is a sensationalized piece of crap. Of course it is loaded with errors, some of which are egregious. Outrageous might be a better choice of words here, for when the author introduces that Flynn was again confronted with sex with a minor when he had just married his third wife, Patrice Wymore, in Europe, the reader is told that this crime again took place on his ketch, the Sirocco. As Errol had sold the Sirocco not too long after he was acquitted of the charges in 1943, and didn’t marry Pat until 1950, this error pops off the page. Why? Was Roeburt shooting from the hip and didn’t confirm any of his facts? Or did he do it on purpose to make a parallel comparison? If yes, why? These types of errors also make me wonder how many other errors are present in the book. If ever you read the book, and see what I’m talking about, you should also ask the same question. Mainly, are Roeburt’s errors simply piss-poor research or did he create them on purpose? Trust me, this is an either/or question.

Although writing isn’t everyday, for the simple reason that the days aren’t long enough to get everything on my daily list accomplished. More, research is ongoing from day to day. It might be working on tracking down something that may have happened and may not have have happened. Regardless, I must know the answer. Or it might be rummaging through my massive collection of primary source documentation. When I do this, I’m usually looking for something that I know I have and want to add it to the manuscript. Or it might be spent reading selections from my massive library on Mr. Flynn, Ms. de Havilland, and the supporting players in their lives.

Errol, Olivia & the Sand Creek story

One of the things that took so long to complete Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway was that I needed to get the historical events in the correct order (no easy task) and bring the main and supporting players to life (and this was totally based upon their actions, their words, and what other contemporaries said about them). This is exactly how I intend to present Mr. Flynn and Ms. de Havilland.

Pailin took this image Tom McNulty at our house on 11apr2014 when he and his beautiful wife Jan visited. (photo copyright © Thomas McNulty, Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

I’m certain that many of you who know anything about Errol Flynn’s life are acquainted with Thomas McNulty’s magnificent biography of him, Errol Flynn: His Life and Times (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2004). If you aren’t aware of Tom’s book, or haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and get your hands on it. I first read it when it was published, and immediately realized that it was—by far—the best biography written about Mr. Flynn, actor, writer, sailor, father. It was then and it still is today. I’m proud to call Tom and his wife Jan friends.

Tom went the extra mile with his EF book, he did a massive amount of research and added a lot of information that isn’t present in other biographies—that is, he did everything possible to bring Errol to life using his actions, quotes, and others’ thoughts about him.

**********

Like my writing about race relations between Cheyennes, Arapahos, Apaches (and soon to be Navajos), and whites, I have a fairly large network of Flynn/de Havilland archives and knowledgable people (and most are friends, but due to the distances between us some I only know long distance. Those of you in this category I hope to meet in the flesh someday. Flesh? Meaning naked? If you are a beautiful woman, yes! A man? Absolutely not! Regardless of your view of these words by LK, for true or not it was just my mind floating in Na-na land, Pardon me.

This photo of Selene Hutchison-Zuffi was taken in November 2019. She is a historian who works at the Duncan Tavern Historic Center in Paris, Kentucky, who loves to research, is an avid reader (“an avid reader” … my kind of person), and has a deep-rooted interest in the study of Errol Flynn. Because of this David DeWitt made her a co-administrator on his The Errol Flynn Blog on Facebook (also see below). (photo © Selene Hutchison-Zuffi 2019)

To repeat myself, E&O is about their life and times, and if all goes as planned I hope to add a lot that you may not know about them, and not just the good (although there will be good where you thought there wasn’t). All lives are not all good, although in many memoirs and biographies the subjects are pristine individuals without any faults. I have trouble reading these books for all of us—certainly me—have made decisions that weren’t good or mistakes we shouldn’t have made along the way. This is what makes us who we are. Errol and Olivia are no different, and by showing who they were/are will hopefully bring them to life. What I share will not be all positive and certainly not all negative, for the story will be about two people who thought they acted correctly when they did what they did. Trust me, Errol and Olivia were/are two exceptional human beings. Both were/are very intelligent; both were people of the world (Errol beginning with his early days and Olivia when she decided to change her life’s course); both were very desirable to those who knew/know them or wanted to know them; and damn, but both had/have great senses of humor. They were/are real people with real emotions and desires, and not clichés.


I am responsible for every word I write that is published. it doesn’t matter
if an editor messes up my facts or stuffs something into my manuscript that they
know nothing about but spit forth crap as if they are God’s gift to the published word.
When I fix their errors back to what is correct, I expect to see it in print. But sometimes this doesn’t happen. Sometimes the fixes make it into the proofs but then poof! They
are removed from a final proof that I wasn’t allowed to see. It makes no
difference why this happens, for whatever the reason for the errors,
theirs or mine, are now mine and only mine. Everything is on me.
Everything. … This said, I love my editors no matter how livid
I may become when something that should
have happened didn’t.


This is a library binding of Sabatini’s book that I purchased from a library used book sale in the San Fernando Valley decades ago. It is a 1950 reprint of the classic 1922 work.

As with all my writing, and I can’t stress this enough, is how much people help me during the entire process of discovery and comprehension while I slowly piece my manuscript together. The process continues until the work is published, and often never stops unless I decide to walk away from the subject. Selene (her photo is above) is one of these people who has kindly helped with E&O. Better, this has led to a friendship.

Oh, one more thing and it is important. Over the years I have talked about Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and some Flynn and de Havilland historians and fans haven’t been too pleased with some of my views—which I will discuss in E&O. This year I have spent a lot of time with both films digging through my primary source research, studying the scripts, and viewing selected scenes from the films that will be highlighted in the book.

To those of you who think that I need a good stoning or tar and feathering for my heretical views, mellow out. My opinions of both films* have improved considerably, and this, too, will be highlighted.

* When I complied a top 12 Flynn film list a number of years back Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood didn’t make the cut. I know, heresy. Neither did Four’s a Crowd, which I love and would have made the list if it been a top 13 list. Flynn and Livvie, as he called her, shine in this film.

Some thoughts that aren’t new

Before louiskraftwriter.com I had the long dead louiskraft.com, but I didn’t design or control it (I only supplied the words, images, and links). Eventually I couldn’t get anything updated (nothing—nada), and it didn’t matter what I offered $$$-wise to get the website updated. This was a joke, a bad joke, and there were other reasons that I couldn’t get it updated. Enough was enough! I walked away and waited for it to die a lonely death. A website (or blog) must be a living presence on the internet (and the administrator can’t disappear). A website/blog can’t be static. The end had been coming for some time, but when the website vanished—gone as if it had never existed I didn’t know it, as I wasn’t informed. It took months before I stumbled upon its demise. … A fleeting image, a ghost, remembered but no longer reality.

About two years later great bud and Errol Flynn expert David DeWitt visited LA and stayed at Tujunga House in early 2013. I had already been planning to create louiskraftwriter.com (even though I didn’t know what the name would be at that time), and he hooked me up with PressHarbor and set up the key information for the new website & blog. He also provided me with some training, a lot of tips, and information on how to proceed.

See David’s great The Errol Flynn Blog, and also his The Errol Flynn Blog on Facebook, both of which he administers. Selene Hutchison-Zuffi, who has become my friend, is also an administrator on the EF Facebook blog.

David_DeWitt_jan2013

I took this image of David DeWitt in the front of Tujunga House in January 2013 when he visited and helped me set up this website/blog. Great times for LK. (photo © Louis Kraft & David DeWitt 2013)

David is an extraordinary gentleman, funny, bright, and I can’t begin to tell you how many great hours we shared just letting our minds connect and flow deep into the night while we talked during his visit. Certainly we discussed Flynn and Olivia de Havilland during his visit, but we also chatted about our current worlds—his and mine—and our past worlds. David is one of my great friends and a go to-expert that I respect.

We live near oceans. I have a mountain range (Santa Monica Mountains) between me and the Pacific, which means if ever a tsunami assaults SoCal as has have happened to Thailand, India, and many other locations Pailin and I will survive the devastation (I shouldn’t say this, but will: there are a lot of stories to tell about LK and the Pacific and some of them are R-rated). David lives on a beach on the South Carolina coast of the Atlantic. When he shares some of his images that he has taken while walking along the sand it looks like heaven. I can’t tell you how envious I am, if I ignore the hurricanes. … Luckily we have a great relationship that grows and thrives. I just wish that we were both lived on the same USA coast.

As everyone who sees these blogs knows that louiskraftwriter.com deals with my thoughts on writing, history, work, life, opinions, and sometimes craziness. I don’t need to say anything else about it, other than when you visit I hope that I don’t bore you to tears.

The website has been updated; some pages have vanished while others have appeared, and certainly Errol & Olivia is featured under Projects.

psk_hallowween_2016_1_ws

Something that hasn’t happened—yet

Jasmine took this image of Taipae, her dog, and my beautiful Pailin at Green Day Spa on Halloween 2016. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2016)

In mid-September 2016 I learned that louiskraft.com would become available to purchase at a bargain, and I started the process to buy it. Why? I don’t know, but it didn’t matter, for after I had the winning and only bid I was told that they wanted more money. Adios, amigos. Viya con Dios (Go with God). End of subject. No loss for LK.

Timing is always everything. At that time when the website name became available, but before I realized it was a scam, Pailin had presented me with a Thai word that she told me meant “happy.” When I started using it, she laughed and laughed. Something smelled fishy, but what? Finally we agreed that I’d use the word as it related to a friend (forever unnamed) and she’d film it. Afterward she laughed and laughed. We viewed the video together and she again laughed and laughed. I had used an angry interpretation of the word but couldn’t understand why she was laughing. She enlightened me somewhat, but not totally. I told her that I needed a take no. 2. We taped it. Much better, as I came across sincere, but she couldn’t stop laughing when I viewed it with her. Why? She refused to share the reason. I said that I’d post take 2 on You Tube.”No! No!” she exclaimed, “You can’t do that!” “Huh?” Silence. … I pressed her for what was really going on and eventually she told me the word’s real definition. … What it really meant, … and it wasn’t close to what she had originally told me. The word actually meant something totally different—something good, something that’s always on my R+ rated mind (sorry, but no details are forthcoming).

Pailin at Tujunga House on 22nov2018—Thanksgiving. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2018)

My turn. I laughed and laughed. She was right. Neither tape could ever be posted anywhere. Ever!

*****

Still the two tapes gave me an idea on how to try to expand my writing projects to the public. Heck, you never know—it might even bring in extra money. Wouldn’t that be nice? More important, this idea might be another way for me to raise questions that I need to ask. How can I truthfully write about people if I’m unclear who they were or why they did what they did? … Alas, this still has not happened due to time limitations. Fingers are crossed that it may now be in my near future.

February 14 throughout time …

Time is short, and I don’t have much to spare, but this day has always played an important role in my life. … And it continues until this time. Actually the here and now is much-much more important than ever.

February 14 is Pailin’s day and it is my day, and nothing can
change this. Ever. Night has arrived. The Vette is ready to growl
(something that makes my lady nervous, but it shouldn’t as the car
and I have bonded over the years). We are off to celebrate not
only this special day but also our marriage on this day in
2014—time flies when you are in love for all time.
(photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2020)


Oh yeah, the wrinkles are deeper now, thanks to the past nine months.
Still, I’m grateful for each and every minute since June last,
for this time has been the most special in my entire life.

This image of us playing in the snow was taken in 1956; most likely at Mount Baldy, which is local to Los Angeles and was an easy drive from Reseda, where we lived in the San Fernando Valley. (photo © Louis Kraft 1956)

My mother was my first Valentine
And she was so for many-many years. As the song that Elvis Presley sang and excelled at, says, “Oh, mama liked the roses in such a special way …,” and mine did, especially on Mother’s day and Valentine’s day. I was a mama’s boy, and I can’t begin to tell you how close we were over the years. … We still are.

It’s hard to believe that she’s now been gone for over forty years.

Five women who played major roles in my life
I’m not sharing their names (but you know one of them for she’s in this blog—and she and one other are the only two people I would forfeit my life for in a heartbeat), but some of you may have known one of the other three. There are stories to tell here. Some would make you laugh; others might make you cringe. This said, I’m lucky to know or have known all five. … One I still have contact with and another currently plays a huge part in my life (our relationship has grown and matured over the decades).

My father
He was never my Valentine, but he was forever present in my life … as I was in his (and there are stories to tell here; I could write a book about our relationship). Over most of those years we clashed, and yet he always had my back. There was never a doubt that we loved each other, although at times our actions may have seemed to contradict this. … As the years passed and he grew frail I took care of him, and saw him three- or four- or five-times each week. We ate together, drank together, joked together, discussed our lives (past and present) and enjoyed each others company.

When this photo was taken I wrote for Storm Control Systems, a company that created software that controlled unmanned spacecraft after they were in orbit. We had one customer, the Hughes Satellite Wing of the Hughes Space and Communications Company, which was across the street from us in the South Bay of Los Angeles County in El Segundo. My hours began at 6:00 am and the 26-mile drive was a breeze, but it didn’t matter if I left at 3:00 pm or two or three hours later—the drive was a nightmare (at least an hour and a half to his house and two to mine). I did all his shopping and ate with him about four times a week. Although he was totally against me not following in his footsteps, he saw every play I did locally and read and commented on my drafts, screenplays, articles, and books. On this day (probably a Sunday) we were watching a Dallas Cowboys football game. Johnny Unitas was my man (and always will be). I did like Joe Montana, and Jim Plunkett looked like he played sandlot football (which I did often) but he won some big games. They were gone and I dropped football like a hot potato, except when with my dad—although I did enjoy John Elway’s perseverance. It took Tony Romo (near the end of his career) and Tom Brady to bring me back to football. In this image my dad was enjoying a glass of whiskey and water or Coke, and I may have had a glass of vodka and juice. (photo © Louis Kraft 1998)

My presence, along with a family with three boys across the street, did everything we could so that he could remain in his home. We almost succeeded, but he became so frail that he needed to spend time in an assisted living facility. He was there a week, maybe a little longer, and I could see he wouldn’t leave. I saw him and spent good time with him every day. On a special evening as I was leaving, he said, “I love you.” I always knew this, for during our entire lives together it was obvious. This was the first and only time he ever said this to me.

The next day, February 14, 1999, began early in the morning but quickly turned into a long day and night in living color—a nightmare without end. He died shortly before the wee hours of the fifteenth. This seems like a terrible memory. It wasn’t, for I was lucky to be with him to the end. It was as it had been when his wife/my mother died nineteen years earlier—just him and me (although on this late afternoon and evening three ladies/two are still major in my life) were with me even though a wall separated us when the time arrived. … Afterward my daughter and I were then able to spend time with him.

I’m one lucky cowboy,
for my father gave me the strength to follow my own trail.

Pailin’s perfect day

The following was mostly pulled from social media, but I posted it there so that it
was ready to place here. Those that have already read it, my apologies for
my lady’s perfect day was a major piece of her life and it belongs here.

As some of you knew I had problems beginning in late January before exploding into burning pain by mid-February. Unable to learn how to deal with it online I figured out how to work around this to allow me to escape from captivity even if only for a short time—don’t eat anything.

Pailin playing finger guns with me on 17jun2015. It’s a combination of hide and seek and shooting each other. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

Also, as some of you may know, Pailin and I are much alike. We are goofballs and we make each other laugh all the time. Perhaps this is because we are still kids at heart. We also have total focus on what we want to do, what we want to accomplish, and we do whatever is necessary to make this happen regardless of what we must overcome.

March 10 was an important day in my lady’s life and I wasn’t going to miss it. She drove while I chattered away, kept my legs as straight as possible, and applied pressure to the lower right side of my abdomen. The early morning rainstorm pounded her car while she maneuvered her way through bumper-to-bumper traffic while avoiding numerous freeways. She was heading to the USCIS building in downtown Los Angeles. This is a place that we both know well, and she intimately, for although I have been in key meetings there with her, on this day it would just be her. Oh, if you don’t know, USCIS stands for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The rain had stopped by the time we reached her destination, and this was lucky for us for after we took an elevator up to a courtyard in a mall I led us up the wrong staircase. Outside we should have been facing the USCIS building, but weren’t. Still we crossed the street to figure out where we were. As it turned out we had used the wrong elevator, and the courtyard looked the same to the east and west staircase exits. As we could see the building to the west we worked our way to it. The cane worked fine as did the pressure I held on the trouble spot. Once inside the building and in the correct room Pailin checked in and sat down to await her turn. I tried to get comfortable while standing, but couldn’t do it. We had discussed this, and had agreed that I would return to the car.

Pailin in the huge garage across Los Angeles Street from USCIS on 10mar2020 (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2020)

As it turned out Pailin’s interview was elsewhere in the building. As she reached the door for her interview the person before her exited the room crying. Pailin knew immediately why, for this lady only carried her passport and what looked like her appointment letter. In stark contrast she carried a large briefcase with all the required documentation, including five years of tax returns, all the original documents from her life, which also included our marriage license, photos, her and my passports, and on and on. She also had two books that I had dedicated to her. She had studied for months (including a document with 100 possible questions to a handful of films and slideshows that showed the process as well as presented different questions), and I can’t begin to tell you how much her spoken and written English had improved. She had a good idea of how the meeting would play out and was not upset by what she had just seen.

She called me after she returned to the courtyard, and I hustled to get to her. She was so excited and happy. We hugged and hugged, and I’ll never be able to tell you how proud I am of her for it is beyond belief.

Pailin and LK shortly after see aced her USCIS interview. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2020)

Pailin’s interviewer was a Latina, and the entire meeting was casual; that is, they mostly talked about this and that in Pailin’s life with the USCIS agent randomly slipping questions into their conversation. Basically they chatted and got to know each other a little. The meeting focused on Pailin’s life, civics, U.S. history, and the English language.

Pailin told me that the USCIS agent asked her about the drive that morning and how long it took, her name, her employer’s address, why did she travel to the United States, what is the number U.S. senators, how long has she lived at her current address, when is the presidential election, how did you meet your husband, … There were no numbers to the questions, and she answered everything correctly. This also included few questions on a tablet that Pailin read and then wrote her answers. After a while the interviewer said to Pailin, “We don’t have to go on, for you have answered everything correctly, and I can see how much you love your husband and living in the United States,” … yes, my lady was enthusiastic and full of joy with some of her answers … “and I have recommended that you become a United States citizen. You’ll learn the answer soon.”

I took this photo of my happy lady shortly after we returned home from her USCIS appointment on 10mar2020. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2020)

Before the day ended Pailin received notice that her application to become a U.S. citizen had been accepted. The ceremony wherein she would swear an oath to allegiance the U.S was set for March 19. Appropriately just days before she swore her oath of allegiance, the ceremony was postponed due to the novel coronavirus that has been sweeping across the USA (in particular Washington, California, New York, and now also Florida) and the rest of the world. Whenever it is rescheduled you can bet that I’ll be present with a huge smile on my face.

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde or is it …
Dr. Kraft & Mr. Hyde, and a surgery

Some of the classic writers that were prolific in the late nineteenth century or the early twentieth century or both have been some of the writers that I’ve enjoyed over the decades, from Robert Louis Stevenson to H. G. Wells to Edgar Rice Burroughs to Rafael Sabatini.

John Barrymore as Mr. Stevenson’s creations on a video cover (BTW, it’s on Amazon Prime). My mother told me more than once that her father was amazed with the Great Profile’s transformation from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde on the Broadway stage. I have yet to confirm that Barrymore played Jekyll/Hyde on Broadway and think her memory had been off and that her father/my grandfather (who died when I was six) was referring to the 1920 film.

Certainly Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) is a classic. At times I feel that I would be perfect casting to play both roles, and I could make the transition from Dr. Kraft by not getting a shot and nine days of declining pills; that is four pills twice for three days, three pills twice for three days, and two pills twice for three days. By the evening of the fourth day after the pills had ended I would begin to become Mr. Hyde. The transition would be complete by the morning of the fifth day.

The physician treating me (and he is special) and I realized that the only way for me to again become Dr. Kraft would be to administer a shot and begin another cycle of pills (BTW, these pills would differ over time). 

A little LK background before we talk monsters

Actually this is LK, but it is also the warrior/mystic Apache Geronimo and actor/writer Errol Flynn and the pirate Francis Drake and on and on with me listing everyone I have written about. That is, we are all human beings and we will be judged by our actions, our words, and what other people who know/knew us share. My life is totally different from Flynn, Geronimo, and Drake’s and their lives are totally different from mine. … When anyone writes about us or anyone else the goal should be to find the truth, for that is what defines the person—and not what has most often been printed, “goody-two shoe stories” or “an evil as dark as the devil.”

I’m no saint, and lordy knows I’ve been a hellion for a good part of my life. Does this make me a monster, such as Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde as created by Dr. Jekyll?” No. … For me, mass murderers, rapists, butchers of humankind, and out-and-out racists are or could be monsters depending upon how their actions, views, and words play out.

A long time back after completing roughly 12 days at sea on a Navy nuclear helicopter carrier while living at Hotel del Coronado—the historic beachfront hotel in the city of Coronado, just across San Diego Bay from the California city of San Diego—and better, just steps from the harbor. After location filming concluded I returned to LA. On December 14 of that year this image of me was taken while I was in makeup as Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. Other than dealing with death it was a good time for me. (photo © Louis Kraft 1979)

Slipping back in time I was for a short instant a monster, and so was the lady at my side. This slight detour should really be labeled “beauty and the beast,” for she was (and still is) gorgeous, and well, hell, the image of me in makeup is closer to my view of myself.

Yuck! Just nasty!

After years I’ve learned to live with what I look like, but also over this time I have covered my face with all sorts of mustaches, goatees, and beards—at least then I could envision myself as a pirate or a frontiersman. AND NO, I’m not looking for a comment here. I know, “Kraft, that’s a bad attitude.” What can I say, other than it has been present for decades.

In June 2019 during a trip to Tucson, Arizona, to meet with Stuart Rosebrook, editor of True West, to discuss me writing for the magazine, reality crashed into my world and totally upset the apple cart. No longer would I have to avoid mirrors as I didn’t like my mug, for something, and it is still unknown (although my key physician has worked his way down to a few obscure diseases that aren’t contagious), attacked my face. The dreaded mug that I have cursed until I’ve become blue in the face suddenly shocked me into a new reality. “You think that you’re ugly, cowboy? Well, hold onto your saddle, for you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

As I had announced elsewhere on social media I was considering talking about my health but only if I could play around with Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and somehow deal with my ongoing situation in a humorous way. … I had recently reread Stevenson’s 1886 classic work for the first time in decades and enjoyed it even more this time. Alas, what follows won’t be hilarious.

BTW, for those of you who know Flynn’s 1953 swashbuckler, The Master of Ballantrae, Stevenson wrote the novel that it is loosely—very loosely—based upon. The Richard Thomas (Henry Durie), Michael York (James Durie; the Flynn role) and Timothy Dalton (Col. Francis Burke) TV film (1984) is much darker and much closer to the storyline. … I had worked with Richard on the 1980 TV film, Johnny Belinda (1982) with Dennis Quaid and Rosanna Arquette, which updated the classic Jane Wyman and Lew Ayres 1948 film while making the leading player—Thomas—a member of VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). I had been a member of VISTA in 1970. When I told him in detail of how clueless the script was on how the volunteers worked with poor people in the continental USA, he said that he couldn’t get it changed. Still, it stated a friendship that lasted until we drifted apart several years later.

Robert Louis Stevenson (perhaps a year or two after he wrote Jekyll/Hyde).

Mr. Hyde is Dr. Jekyll
At the beginning of Stevenson’s story, Mr. Utterson (a lawyer), who is good friend of Dr. Jekyll’s, and who leads us through a good part of the telling of events, had this to say about Mr, Hyde: “He’s is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point.

And later Dr. Lanyon, upon receiving a letter from Dr. Jekyll, thinks his friend is insane, and yet follows his instructions and meets Mr. Hyde. He also described the gentleman: “This person (who had thus, from the first moment of his entrance, struck in me what I can only describe as a disgustful curiosity), was dressed in a fashion that would have made an ordinary person laughable; his clothes, that is to say, although they were of rich and sober fabric, were enormously too large for him in every measurement—the trousers hanging on his legs and rolled up to to keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat below his haunches and the collar sprawling wide upon his shoulders. Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was far from moving me to laughter. Rather, as there was something abnormal and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature that now faced me …”

Stevenson wanted to explore the two sides of man, good and evil. I could be talking about the evil in Kraft, but I’m not. I’m more interested in what Dr. Jekyll had stumbled upon with his experimentation.

Of course if you do some digging you might find that once I received a 10×13″ envelope with a 8×10″ envelope inside it. On the outside of the smaller envelope SHAME was printed in bold with a red marker. The envelope was filled with long dark hair. My heart missed a number of beats.

That delivery still makes my shiver.

People have asked about my heart and cracking my skull open more than once. The second time I photographed the scene of the crime after returning from the emergency room. Thirteen hours had passed since the incident and the blood had dried. I turned the result of falling on my noggin’ into art and posted it on social media (see above, © Louis Kraft 2017).

To learn more about cracking my skull, which led to an EEG of my brain, and ultimately me continuing to walk Mother Earth, see: Sand Creek Massacre, Errol & Olivia, Louis Kraft, and a perfect storm.

Most of my past, the really bad past is hilarious when I look back. In a time not too far gone I had been in a long relationship with a possessive lady; not the person above who scared the XXXX out of me. We had gone out to dinner; one we should have passed on. Later that night she was in her panties and washing her face in the sink in preparation to showering. I had just finished my shower and stepped to the sink to turn the water off as it was about to overflow. “That’s it!” she screamed. “I’m out of here!” … Nope, I don’t think I’ll share this here. Looking back I often ask myself do I dare present these events in a memoir? That’s a big question and I still don’t have an answer. This said, Mr. Flynn did his memoir the proper way (with a little help from a friend), and most likely will have the deciding vote. … I just need to make damn sure that I’m dancing with angels before it is published. If not, I’m certain that my rear end will be sued from here to kingdom come.

I’m going to focus on the transformation from doctor to mister and back. Again, I’m interested in the transformation and not the evil that Dr. Jekyll created.

I’m not a physician but my father-in-law, who became our family doctor shortly after we migrated to California in 1953, certainly was. Over my early adult years, many acting publicity photos were shot in his medical suite. The B&W image of me is one of them. I’m sitting in my father-in-law’s chair in his office (September 1979). This photo actually had a silent bit on the short lived TV show Tucker’s Witch (12 episodes, 1982-83) with Tim Matherson, Catherine Hicks, and Alfre Woodard. It was turned into a political campaign poster and gave me a nice payday for simply handing 2nd assistant director Pam Grant an 8×10. She was a dark-haired beauty and a sweetheart; I luckily worked with her on numerous projects.

This photo was taken on 4oct2019, the night after the assault returned with a vengeance. it would be nothing when compared to what was to come. (photo Louis Kraft 2019)

An ongoing problem without end
As the cyclic attacks occurred twice a month after the shot and pills ran their course, my problem shot through the months. Although the pill prescriptions changed slightly whatever invaded my facial skin and turned my back into a bumpy mess of itchiness, it did not affect any other part of my body. When I looked like Mr. Hyde I avoided all contact with the public except my physicians.

I saw my go-to physician who has been doing everything possible from obtaining various blood tests, biopsies (I wanted a “Z” cut on my face so that I could say that I crossed swords with Zorro; my doctor simply smiled and shook his head no), and referred me to other doctors for second opinions and/or to do additional testing.

LK with Dejah Thoris, my doberman pincher, in 1978. She was fully grown in this image, and was the kindest animal I’ve ever known. My sweetheart died in 1992, and I’ve never owned another animal since. (photo Louis kraft 1978)

Over three weeks last fall an allergist stuck 260 needles in my arms twice to see what might be attacking me. … Milk products (duh; this has been ongoing for decades). … Dogs and cats (I haven’t had a dog since 1992, … my beloved Dejah Thoris, whom I named after the princess of Mars in Edgar Rice Burroughs’s series of books on John Carter of Mars). After the second session he told me, “I don’t know what is attacking you, and I can’t help you. Good luck.” … AND goodbye.

The problem raced into December. I kept my doctors smiling, as I had as many appointments as five or six per week. Ditto my pharmacy, where I think that I became their No. 1 client. That was my social life. … No big deal, for I had to complete all my work on Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway no later that December 31, 2019, for it to see a spring publication.

I viewed this as do or die. It was that important to me.

At the end of December 2019 another physician took the lead. He discovered that I was bleeding internally, had a terribly low red blood count, and was anemic. To combat this he eliminated the shot and the drugs that controlled my mysterious skin disorder, which he wasn’t interested in, and replaced them with an expanding range of prescriptions—some of which affected my system but not totally in a positive way.

On subsequent visits with him he refused to look at my detailed printouts of my current health situation and would not listen to what I knew was now happening to me. This would cost me big time.

Dr. Kraft becomes Mr. Hyde & here we’re only talking about the transformation of the real me to the monster
The new drugs prescribed at the end of December 2019 were too potent and ongoing for way-too-long. Oh, they would slowly raise my red blood count. They also plugged me up; by the end of January 2020 I had a hernia. No matter what I said about the growing pain, the physician ignored it for I was now set for the first of two procedures that hopefully discover where the internal bleeding was located.

The drugs also did something else. … and somehow prevented the burning attacks upon my face from returning until the beginning of February. When they returned it was like nothing before, for the transformation was horrifying.

This is one of a series of photos that Pailin took on the evening of 3feb2020. It does not do justice to what I then looked like. Here you can see the bulging red puffs under my eyes, the frightening physical change to the structure of my face, and the arrival of wrinkles that are here to stay. I had become Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2020)

The disease had returned with a vengeance, turning my face into a burning infernal. Like the flames that have destroyed a good part of California the past three years, my skin  burned around the clock. When the skin began to peel, the burning continued, creating new layers of peeling skin below the top layers (trust me, this would be difficult to recreate with makeup).

When Pailin returned home at 9:30 on February 3 I was waiting for her with my cell phone in hand. She cringed when she saw my skin for it was much worse than when she had left for work. I got in her face and asked her to snap a few photos. My next appointment with the physician now in charge was set for the seventh and I wanted proof of what was happening.

I can’t begin to tell you what this does to one’s hope for the future, and especially so since it had been ongoing since June 2019. But now, … NOW I had proof to show the physician currently in charge of my health, even if what had happened disappeared before my appointment.

Sometimes my faith in the medical profession is pushed to the limit. … Changes are a comin’.

I need not have worried, for my new look was going nowhere. Kraft had become Hyde and needed another medical concoction to reverse what I now had become. My  subsequent medical appointment on the seventh was ludicrous. The first procedure, which this doctor had not ordered, proved negative and did not identify the location of my internal bleeding. Still his only interest was the second procedure (which he also did not order). … Not that I was stuffed up, had a blossoming inguinal hernia that now burned, and had my skin problem staring him the face. … “You don’t look so hot,” he finally managed to say. “I don’t feel so hot,” I sarcastically mimicked. He wouldn’t even refer a surgeon for the hernia. The appointment had ended, for there was nothing more to say.

I ran to the office of my doctor that I trusted and walked in unannounced. He saw me immediately, gave me a shot and an old prescription. But this was just a stop gap; I would see him on the thirteenth to discus my future.

Another of the photos that Pailin had taken on 3feb2020, but this one is better for it shows that I’m a benevolent monster. This said, I wasn’t much in the mood for socializing (the U.S. government had downplayed the coronavirus to the point that I didn’t know anyone who felt at risk at that time). (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2020)

Throughout all this I remained Mr. Hyde
I obtained a reference for the hernia surgery, didn’t bother to tell my physician, and met the surgeon. The surgery was set for March 13. Would I make it to that date?

The second procedure was scheduled for February 27, but the hernia pain now grew by the hour. I couldn’t sit for more than five minutes, and standing was almost as bad. I frantically searched for answers without success.

Then, quite by accident, I discovered that if I lay on my back with my legs stretched in front of me the pain went away.

By this time the burning pain reached the point wherein I could no longer sit on a chair. I had to work on my iMac standing—and then no longer than five minutes (but even then I was at risk of not getting back to bed, my only sanctuary).

LK’s special doctor and a bed
On the thirteenth I met with the physician who had stuck with me throughout my skin ordeal, and who I have nothing but praise for as he has listened to me as he fought to figure out what is going on. We had already discussed perhaps me moving to the UCLA Medical Center to continue the testing. On this day he talked about obscure diseases that were hit or miss at best. I had another shot  but there would be no pills. He moved me to a non-steroidal cream. As he said, “It was a shot in the dark.” I couldn’t lose.

I took this image of my new office on 29feb2020. The room also serves as a work space for my delivery to the Chávez History Library later this year, as does the living room and my real office. A huge project that the hernia has put on hold. Oh, that’s a cavalry saber on the wall; you don’t duel with cavalry sabers because it is impossible to do so. (photo © Louis Kraft 2020)

The bed became so important that as soon as there was a hint of trouble I used a cane to wobble to it, for no matter painful the hernia became once I was flat on my back the pain would slowly subside. … But until that time (15 minutes? 20 minutes?), I couldn’t touch the area or push the hernia back into my body.

About two weeks before the hernia surgery I stupidly sat at the iMac as the work was so detailed I couldn’t do it standing. Like an idiot I ignored the pain as I frantically tried to finish the task. … As soon as I stood the pain blew out of control and I struggled to inch my way to the bed. I made it to the room and moved past a wooden cabinet (to the left of the above photo). That was it. I could no longer place my right foot on the floor and the cane couldn’t support my awkward balance with all my weight on it. I couldn’t reach back and grab the cabinet and I still had two large steps to get to the bed. It was daytime. I was alone, although the cell phone was in my pocket. I couldn’t move back or forward, and this left me one choice—dive for the bed. I’ve always been a good athlete, but not worth much at the moment. There was one catch; I had to land on my back. “No guts, no glory.” I dove for the bed, flipping as soon as I was in the air. I landed on my back on the bed, but not all of me. My knees were at the edge of the bed and my calves hung to the floor. The pain increased tenfold. Using my hands I slowly pulled myself onto the bed. Over a half hour passed before the pain subsided.

I needed an “after” photo for this blog to show that I no longer look like the “Kraft-Hyde” that I hope never to see again. Today (5apr2020) we enjoyed ourselves in the front yard of Tujunga House while she shot a few images. (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2020)

I shared my heroic performance with my bro, Glen Williams, and he asked if Pailin had been home to film it. I told him that she hadn’t been home, and he said, “Too bad, for it could have gone viral on YouTube.” That was a first class idea. That night when she returned home I told what had happened and of Glen’s suggestion to film it for YouTube. “No,” she replied. “I think it’s a great idea and I want to reenact it tomorrow.” “No.” “I think that it would be a fun thing to do.” “NO!” … I’m not always the boss.

The second procedure found no internal bleeding. The pre-opt for the surgery showed that my red blood count was up to 13. Yes! The inguinal hernia surgery was successful, but was not robotic as anticipated. Scar tissue from a surgery in 2003 prevented this, and it became an old fashioned cut and slice performance. Unfortunately I wasn’t awake, for I would have requested a “Z” (I really don’t have a Zorro complex). Alas, I have pain, but then I won’t be fully recovered until mid-June (meaning no exercise, no yardwork, no heavy lifting, no bending … no bending? Give me a break!).

Best of all: to date the cream has worked wonders on my face. I’m certain that my physician will be as pleased as I am when I see him on April 6.

As the great New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra used to say, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” My heart surgeon, a technician from Boston Scientific (the company that manufactured my pacemaker and the device that sits next to my desk and monitors my heart 24/7), were in the room where I awoke from the hernia surgery testing my pacemaker.*

* This is a story I’ll save for the future.

I’m in my prime

I would  be remiss if I didn’t end this blog with Val Kilmer’s great quote from Tombstone (1993) when he played Doc Holliday, a thin, consumptive, alcoholic who played a large role in the 1881 shootout at the OK Corral and the vendetta waged by Wyatt Earp afterwards.

A card of Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday that artist-actor Buck Taylor, who played Jack Johnson in Tombstone, sent me years back. (art © Buck Taylor)

Shortly after Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) and Doc have arrived in Tombstone and Wyatt has set himself up as a faro dealer, Curly Bill Brocius (Powers Boothe) and Ike Clanton (Stephen Lang) confront him at a gaming table, pushing for a confrontation.

Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) steps up to Doc, who is drunk, shortly after Earp has said that he’s retired: “And you must be Doc Holliday.”

 Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer): “That’s the rumor.”

Johnny Ringo: “You retired too?”

Doc Holliday: “Not me. I’m in my prime.”

And so am I.

Through all this Pailin has been my nurse, my private driver, and an angel.
What more could I want?

Sand Creek Massacre update, SoCal fires, P-64, & Christmas

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


The next blog is tentatively scheduled for late March, and will feature Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway and Errol & Olivia updates. My apologies for moving the LK top 60 film list from this blog but there is still too much study that must be completed before my opinion on these films can go live.

’Tis the time of peace on earth
and goodwill to all

Christmas, like Thanksgiving, are now quiet gatherings with my family. It is a day to count our blessings and cherish each other as we pray for peace on earth and equality for all on the day that represents the birth of Jesus. Pailin and I will welcome in the New Year at the Thai Temple in North Hollywood on the evening of the thirty-first.

Pailin created this Christmas image of us for social media. The photo is from 2016 and it was from the last Christmas party we have hosted. It was mostly in the backyard until everyone moved inside after nightfall. That day was nippy, as was this Christmas. Both wouldn’t have been so cold if the wind hadn’t increased as each hour passed. … Just for the record I’m freezing when temperatures drop into the low 60s (no comment is needed). The last thing that I want to do is live in a winter wonderland. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2016)

I talk to the little boys and girls who live next door. A large hedge along my 80-foot driveway separates us but clipping and removing branches that die during heat spells creates openings wherein we can see each other (and this includes a little boy who lives two doors farther south). They are Latino, but unlike some of their parents they are bi-lingual and speak terrific English. But if not, we’d still be friends. … I walk a lot, often to various stores, and see them in their front yards and when they walk with their parents. I’m almost always around, I have a car they like a lot, they also like my shaggy hair (compliments of yours truly) as theirs is neatly clipped. It matters not if they only had a handful of English for we’d still be able to communicate.

We talk almost daily, and it is enjoyable for us, as we are curious about each other. They had their Christmas tree at least a week and a half before the twenty-fifth. They wanted to know if I had mine. “No.” “When are you going to get it?” “I’m not.” “Why?” “I don’t have any children like you.” “Doesn’t your girlfriend want a Christmas tree?” I chuckled. “She’s my wife, and she’s okay without one. Actually, I haven’t had a tree since my little girl grew up.” “Oh.” There was disappointment in his voice. His simple “Oh” touched me and my memories drifted back to Christmas days long gone but not forgotten.

This card is a major update to a Christmas card that I created in 1992. There were three printed words inside the card: “life … love … peace …” These words are still with me today. May they be with you today, tomorrow, and forever … LK. (image © Louis Kraft 1992, 2018)

I’ve missed giving talks …

Probably the major piece of my life that Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway forced me to walk away from years back were giving talks. They almost always got me on the road, and I love to travel. More important was/is the thrill of doing one-time presentations before audiences while not knowing what was going to come out of my mouth.

LK talking about “Cheyenne Indian Agent Edward Wynkoop’s 1867 Fight to Prevent War” at the Chávez History Library (Santa Fe, N. Mex.) on 15sept2004. BTW, this talk dealt with the destruction of the Southern Cheyenne-Dog Man-Sioux village on the Pawnee Fork in Kansas. It is a key piece in the Sand Creek manuscript Epilogue, which shows “the tragic end of a lifeway.” I shouldn’t say the following, but heck these blogs are for LK publicity (and hopefully offer a little entertainment). … The Chávez houses the Louis Kraft Collection of his work, photos, and correspondence (AC 402 and ACP 010 for the photo archive). Tomas Jaehn created it at the beginning of this century. He has moved on to become the Director,
Special Collections/CSWR University of New Mexico Libraries as well as becoming a great pal of LK. (photo © Louis Kraft 2004)

I’m prepared, always, but I refuse to read or use slides. I know what I’m going to talk about and I do work on it, but the only thing that I attempt to memorize are quotes.

Sometimes quotes walk out the door of my memory at the most inopportune moments. Paraphrasing usually saves the day, but not always. A number of years back I was talking about Errol Flynn’s performance as George Armstrong Custer in They Died with Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941) and comparing the fictional Custer with the real Custer. My favorite scene in the eight films that Flynn made with Olivia de Havilland was at the end of Boots. Olivia, as Elizabeth (Libbie) Custer, helps Flynn pack before he marches to his destiny at the Little Big Horn in Montana Territory on June 25, 1876. During the talk (in Hardin, Montana, in 2011) I used some of the dialogue between them in this scene and of course went blank when I got to my favorite line that Flynn’s Custer said to Olivia’s Libbie—”Walking through life with you, ma’am, has been a very graceful thing.” There’s one thing when you perform live, and that is you keep going. I did but in a different way, I asked the audience for the line and one of the fellows in the front row or near the front row knew it. Think it might have been Gary Leonard, an Indian wars historian from England, whom I met a year later when Custer and the Cheyenne won an award in Oklahoma City, and who has since become a good friend.

Back on focus

Due to the massive undertaking of the Sand Creek story (not to mention The Discovery, 2016, which I wrote to pay for an operation that I didn’t know about until after the fact—money I didn’t have), everything went on hold. As mentioned above, talks were no longer on my schedule. Ditto articles, plays, and believe it or not this year’s blogs (my last one was posted in May).

Talk about a disappearing act. …

LK and Pailin on the evening of 22nov2018 (Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday). We are in the dining room at Tujunga House but due to the glare of lights in widows and mirrors (yes, mirrors—that’s a mirror behind Pailin and not an entry to the dining room) what is behind us is not behind us. Make sense? No? I didn’t think so. … See, I’m not a total outcast; I have a social life with my small family. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2018)

At times it is easy to create an outline or a proposal, but in the Sand Creek manuscript there was a massive problem and it wasn’t the research (but in my case the research doesn’t end until no more changes can be made, and this isn’t a joke). It was the massiveness of the players from all points of view. After mining the facts the question became how do I pull all their stories together seamlessly in a linear way and make it work with the larger picture of what was affecting their lives? This is a hell of a lot easier said than done, and certainly when the scope of the manuscript is huge. For those of you who don’t know I have done everything possible to be in the players point-of-view (POV, a film term) when dealing with them. The reason is simple, I want to show what they did and what they said for this will allow the reader to make their decisions about the Cheyennes and Arapahos, the whites who married into the tribes, their offspring, the whites who coveted Indian land, and those who spoke out against the massacre of people who thought that they were removed from the 1864 Cheyenne war in Colorado Territory.

I know, it’s a mouthful but an exploration that has become a big part of my life. Honestly, I’m one lucky cowboy to have it in my life.

Fire, fire, and more fire, … and which blog goes live

Fire has become the new normal in California and in other western states. Unfortunately it is not going away. The year 2017 was the worst fire year in California history, but 2018 surpassed it by late spring. By fall 2018 destroyed the 2017 figures.

This Los Angeles Times photo (12nov2018) isn’t as dramatic as the multitude of photos that pictured lines and lines of destroyed vehicles that did not escape from Paradise in the Camp fire, but it has massive importance. The San Fernando Valley (SFV) has a population of 1.75 million. If the Woolsey fire had continued east through Calabasas, Bell Canyon, and West Hills the number of destroyed vehicles would have been in the 10s of thousands. I know, this sounds like a ridiculous disaster movie plot, but someday it could become reality. This is the second year in a row when raging fires invaded the SFV. In 2017 fire struck the northeastern and eastern sides of the Valley (and both of those were within five miles of my house), and every effort was put in place to stop them.

Certainly the Woolsey fire in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties (November 2018) has affected me and many other people (and most of them much-much-much worse than me and for many of them their lives will never be as before). … So has my breathing clinic, my Sand Creek manuscript, and my film blog, which preempted this Sand Creek blog, only to get preempted in return (fair is fair). Even though the work on Sand Creek has been ongoing for what seems like a lifetime (read never-ending) things change. …

The Woolsey fire, its devastation, is an example of daily life in California.*

There is a mostly-unpublished fact that has recently come to light
(regarding Northern California). The Camp fire, which wiped
out the town of Paradise (November 2018) and quickly
became the worst and deadliest fire in the Golden
State’s history has a statistic that is frightening.
Between 2003 and 2018 this portion of
Northern California had permits to
build 24,000+ houses. During
this time fire has destroyed
20,000+ homes.

* See https://www.louiskraftwriter.com/2018/01/01/louis-kraft-socal-fires-earthquakes-sand-creek-massacre-an-errol-flynn-tidbit/ for details about the 2017 SoCal fires.

The nightmare is ongoing. A study just released pointed out that over 1.1 million buildings are at fire risk in California, according to the Los Angeles Times (“A million buildings facing fire risk stir cries for action,” 22dec2018; see the map at left and drag it onto your desktop to expand it), that is “roughly 1 in 10 buildings.” The largest number of these buildings are in Los Angeles County: 114,000, “including tens of thousands of Westside and San Fernando Valley houses in the Santa Monica, Santa Susana and San Gabriel mountains”. … The Times went on to state: “The findings follow a fire season of unprecedented destruction—more than 20,000 homes lost, more than 100 people killed—that showed what damage can be done if Californians fail to address a widespread risk.”

The real SoCal

California rainfall season is from October 1 until September 31. For the rainfall season ending on 31sept2018 for Los Angeles the rainfall was 4.74 inches.* … Regardless if SoCal has a lucky year of rainfall as we did between 1oct16 and 31sept17, which was about 18 inches (an anomaly), SoCal suffered through the worse year on record for fire destruction in California in 2017. …

* As of December 26 the rainfall for the season that began on October 1, 2018, is 4.26 inches (three months into the year and we have almost reached last season’s entire output). Fingers are crossed.

Even though the destruction during recent fire seasons has increased this century everyone thought that 2017 was an anomaly. It wasn’t. By late spring 2018 the fire season (which now almost feels like it is year round) surpassed 2017. That year two fires came within five miles of Tujunga House (one from the east and one from the north).* What do you take if you must run? Pailin and I know what documentation is mandatory, and we have more than most people for Pailin has gone through multiple processes to obtain permanent residency, obtain a Social Security number, driver’s license, and of major importance pass the required testing to obtain a certificate that she is one of the top massage therapists in California (it is illegal to work in the state if you don’t have this license and raids are ongoing).

* I would need a large U-haul to get my research to safety (not a comforting thought) or a year to digitize it (not going to happen), and this doesn’t include a lot of artifacts, posters, photos, and books).

As of 17nov2018 over 98,000 acres have burned in the Woolsey fire. … The Griffith Park fire started on the morning of 9nov2018 where Victory Boulevard crosses over the 134 freeway just east of I-5 at the southern entrance to the Los Angeles Zoo and the Autry Museum of the American West. The brush fire was totally extinguished by the next morning with only 30 burnt acres. Luckily there were no Santa Ana winds on the east side of the San Fernando Valley for the cities of Glendale (east and northern border) and Burbank (to the north and northeast) while the town of North Hollywood was northwest (about seven miles to Tujunga House), … all highly populated areas. (To view a larger rendition of the map drag it to your desktop and open it.)

On 7nov18 fires again struck SoCal with an intent to destroy and kill (a day after the Camp fire in Northern California destroyed most of the town of Paradise (population of approximately 26,000). …What has happened during the Camp fire in Butte County (where the town of Paradise once stood) has been an ongoing nightmare. As of 17nov2018 9,800 homes have been destroyed, the death count currently is 71 (this number is now over 100, but it includes some deaths in SoCal) with 1,001 people still missing (this figure has dropped, but they’ll never find all of the missing). I don’t know what you see outside of California but I see it all. The story of Sand Creek and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians is a tragedy; so is the story of the people who once lived in Paradise. Some died in their homes, others died in their cars as they attempted to flee, while even more died after deserting their cars in a last-gasp effort to survive.

This image of Llamas on a beach in Malibu, Calif., on 9nov18 (© Wally Skalij for the Los Angeles Times) is worth 10,000 words for it shows the horror that has become a yearly occurrence in California. The two llamas, Thunder and Luke (called alpacas in a later edition of the Times), and the horse, Gidget, are west of the Santa Monica Mountains and they are as far west as they can go for just beyond them is the Pacific Ocean. They symbolize not only the destruction of property but also the massive loss of animal life (wild and not). Luckily Thunder and Luke were evacuated to Ojai, a gorgeous valley/small city north of the city of Ventura (Ventura County), and Gidget to a stable in Glendale (a city in LA County; I-5 is its western border and the Ca. 134 freeway cuts through it as it begins to climb the mountain on its way to Pasadena).

My time is short, and the fires in California have again become the fires from hell. I don’t have time to keep writing about this ongoing disaster, so perhaps this social media post will give you some indication of the immensity of the threat: Woolsey fire as related to Los Angeles county on 12nov18. The fire that has ravaged Ventura and Los Angeles Counties was contained around November 19. Some 300,000 people were evacuated in California since these fires broke out in early November; 177,000 lived in Los Angeles County. It could have been worse—much worse—if the Woolsey fire had completed its invasion of the San Fernando Valley, it had the possibility of forcing an additional 1.75 million evacuations.* So what’s the big deal? This example should give you an idea. One of my physician’s office is on Ventura Blvd. in Encino. It is a 10 mile drive. To arrive at a nine o’clock appointment on time I need to be on the road by seven-twenty.

* If the SFV was a city it would be the fifth largest in the USA (only NYC, LA, Chicago, and Houston would be larger).

When the Santa Ana winds strike their speeds can quickly grow from 40 mph to 60 to 75 and more. The firefighters, some of whom at times worked 36 hours straight, had to deal with not only the power of the Santa Anas but also the sudden change of direction.

Many people lost everything but their lives. Everything. Already many know that they can’t rebuild for what they had originally paid for their homes is peanuts in today’s market and unfortunately many could not keep increasing their fire insurance.

My house before moving to Tujunga House was in Thousand Oaks. A very safe and gorgeous city in Ventura County (just north of LA County). It was on a hill, had a courtyard, swimming pool (swimming is my favorite individual exercise; I’ve been a fish since elementary school), and a half-block walk into the Santa Monica Mountains. The house survived as the fire was farther south.

An LK reality

Art of LK and his pistol-packing lady that I began several years after I began pitching the idea of bringing Johnny’s novel to the stage (see the paragraph to the left of this image). I’m a chameleon but this is an image that reappears in my life time and again. … Pailin? She is my lady for all time, and as such she is with me in all my incarcerations. She backs me at all times no matter deep I immerse myself in my projects, no matter how far I drop out of society. She is with me and I am with her. (art © Louis Kraft 2015-2018)

My life is what it is, and it has been this for way for a long time. My world is simple: Protecting three women, surviving, and living to see my Sand Creek manuscript published. This doesn’t sound like much but for me it’s a big deal.

The LK reality is the book projects and the people in my life. Relax for this blog will focus on Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway past, present, and future. Long time comin’. … But first I need to get a little personal with the recent past, present, and future. Not that long back I had pitched two friends on me writing a play based on East of the Border, a novel by Johnny D. Boggs, wherein James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok tours the theatre circuit in the East with Buffalo Bill Cody and Texas Jack Omohundro. Wild Bill feels awkward treading the theatrical boards, is bored, hates what he is doing, and is often drunk. He discovers that when he fires his revolver too close to extras playing dead Indians that they leap to life when the blank firing burns them. He loves this. Type casting for LK? Probably. I’ve wanted to play Wild Bill since the first time I read Johnny’s novel.

LK, a former friend, and John Goodwin at a Galaxy Press event in Hollywood, Calif., in June 2010. I designed two of the hats (center and left), the buckskin coat, and moccasins years back.

This desire goes back years, and as I’ve said in previous blogs Lisa Smith, Johnny’s wife, said it would make a great play. Still Johnny had been silent (probably because he didn’t want me to adapt his book for the stage). The other key person in this triangle was Tom Eubanks. He had directed all of the Ned Wynkoop one-man shows in Kansas, California, Colorado, and Oklahoma. He, also, wasn’t interested. Eventually I gave up on what I thought would make a good play, and better a great character for LK to play. They probably thought I’d embarrass myself. … I never get embarrassed, and certainly not when I’m wearing a wide-brimmed hat, buckskins, moccasins, and packing an 1860 Colt. Are you kidding?

See https://www.louiskraftwriter.com/2016/09/17/the-tom-eubanks-louis-kraft-ned-wynkoop-errol-flynn-connection/ for images of the Wynkoop one-man shows and Cheyenne Blood, plus more on Tom Eubanks.

I believe in reaching for the stars, … and if I get lucky and my wish/prayers become reality to reach for another impossible dream—that is many more years with my ladies and perhaps yet another book, and another, and another, … and another. Yep! I’m a greedy ol’ dog.

Since the end of May it has been an ongoing string of Sand Creek edits, dealing with the peer reviews, adding new information, checking and double checking citations, searching for key information that I need in the manuscript, reaching out for help with other experts on my subject (which, believe it or not I’ve been living with since the 1980s). This is always a good time for it is totally creative. It’s also a scramble as the manuscript must now come together and flow smoothly between people and events as the story races toward conclusion.

My great friend George Carmichael took this image while we enjoyed the Pacific Ocean in northern San Diego County in March 2001. I met George at a fiction class at UCLA in 1990. We were both writing western novels: His was traditional, mine was modern day on the Navajo Reservation. We didn’t see eye-to-eye, but somehow became great friends until the end of his life on 2apr2014. He was an engineer turned published fictional short story writer while I focused on becoming a novelist. Although I have two published novels I’m proud of (The Final Showdown, 1992, and The Discovery, w/Robert S. Goodman, 2016), I reached an intersection in the road, yanked the wheel to the left, and became a writer of nonfiction. (photo © Louis Kraft 2001)

Sound like fiction? Maybe. Sound like a film plot? Perhaps. … For LK it is nonfiction with many intricate pieces that must merge in a linear fashion and not jerk all over the place. … Been there and done that. But that doesn’t count for the scope of this manuscript is massive and I must connect all the players and events in a manner that makes the reader turn pages.

That’s right—turn pages. I believe that nonfiction is just like fiction, plays, film, articles, talks, and blogs. It must grab the reader’s (or viewer’s) interest at the beginning and hold it until the end. Will I succeed at this? You’ll have to read Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway to learn the answer.

Ladies and gents, the question of the Sand Creek manuscript being published in my lifetime is now passé. I’m one tired and skinny cowboy but I get up between four and five with a big grin on my face almost seven days each week.

A big grin, for my tablespoon of organic apple cider vinegar in a glass of water and then a cup or three of coffee begins my days of exploration and confirmation and word-crafting and polishing. … This is a golden time for LK and it gets better as the days pass, for this is just the beginning. See below.

The reality of this time

I don’t want to say that it was bad. At the same time I don’t want to say that it was good.

As I floated for months in a no-man’s zone that hovered between success and failure I was totally alive as each day merged into the next and the next and the next. One edit became the next edit and then the next, with each a challenge all its own. I’m social, very social, and get along with all people (two exceptions being racists and sexual predators that hit on me and other people; perhaps I should add habitual liars to the list). I’m also a loner. Although I want a special person in my life at all times I can thrive in a solitary environment. … Although I have many people that are a major part of my literary/creative world (these people are my best friends), and I spend a lot of time with them via the phone, email, social media, as well as in person whenever I get lucky. When it gets down to the writing it is me, my computer, pens, and paper. Zero days pass without work, and this drives me to the next day and the one after. I live and breathe my work.

This is my lady praying at Tujunga House on 9sept2018. We have two different upbringings, two different cultures, two different languages, and two different religions. When we met we took our time and slowly got to know each other, to respect each other, to trust each other, to explore each other’s lives, and to love each other. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft, 2018)

I am with my lady 100 percent of the time day in and day out no matter what our work schedules are. One hundred percent of the time. If someone badmouths her or hints that I should cheat because they have an open relationship I don’t run to the bathroom and vomit. Still you do not want to
hear my opinion of these slimballs for it isn’t printable in this blog or elsewhere. AND I don’t talk about them with friends either. For me
people like this aren’t worthy of mentioning. They are dirt, they mean nothing, and I remove them from my life.

Add racism to the formula, and I can say one thing and it is important—I grew up in a racially-tolerant family at a time when racism was rampant in the USA. Over the years all of us have seen a massive amount of progress to alleviate this hateful and harmful blot on the world. Unfortunately something evil took center stage in 2015 and people embraced a man who has no respect for humankind or women or the truth. This opened a door and racists crashed through it. It is the here and now, but like all evil that has thrown a dark shadow over the world in the past it will be pushed to the side and a humanitarian light will once again shine.

LK (right), Linda Kraft (left, d. 2006), and our mother Doris (center, d. 1980) in 1955 at the Van Nuys trailer park, our first permanent home in Los Angeles after parking the trailer in rural backyards for a long period of time. The car was a 1950 Hudson Commodore and it pulled the 35-foot trailer in the background to California. My dad owned the car from when he bought it in 1950 until 1998, a year before his death (and I had many happy memories driving it). (photo © Louis Kraft 1955)

My first best friend was a Latino (in a time when the word wasn’t used). I was seven and he was five or six. I was Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett and he was my sidekick (actually, he was also Davy Crockett for we were equals, even at that age and time) as we climbed the man-made mountain on the west side of the trailer park where we lived in Van Nuys, California, in 1955. We climbed it and slid down into the wonder of the Los Angeles River that flowed on the other side of what would become the infamous Ca. 405 freeway. We were explorers as we followed the flow of the river on the sandbanks below the trees that lined the water flow. It was a mystical time. Others—not many—also skirted the river; some adults and others younger. Not once were Jesse and I ever threatened. Try to do this in our 2018 world and Jesse Carrera and I would have become easy targets.

A Little about how I write and the Sand Creek peer reviews

Although I write my books from proposals and outlines there are no preconceived directions, and it doesn’t matter what the writing medium is, for I go where the research and the words lead me.

For the record I over-write everything and I don’t care what my subject or genre is. The reason is simple: The more facts, anecdotes, quotes, events, people’s actions the better for when it is time to cut, edit, add, polish, and bring the words together the better chance I have of creating the manuscript that I envision. … At same time I’m totally aware of the contracted word count.

Pailin on the bluffs to the west of the Sand Creek village at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site (NHS) on 3oct2014. Our wonderful friends John and Linda Monnett, whom we had been staying with, drove us there that day. This is one of my favorite images of Pailin, as she is an explorer and as at home in the field as I am. She’s also like me in that she is a little goofball. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft, 2014)

I had begun editing the manuscript in June 2018 in the hope to deliver a polished manuscript by 15sept2018—an impossible deadline, and especially so when I received the two peer reviews in early August. As expected they were professional, well done, and with a lot of good comments and questions. As it turned out neither said a word about the huge word count and both highly recommended publication.

One of the reviewers had the following to say about the Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway manuscript: “Kraft … purposefully devotes nearly two-thirds of his manuscript to that time before conflict [meaning before the Sand Creek Massacre]. That portion of the work is delightfully original and a marvelous setup to the final third of the book, when for the Southern Cheyennes their world changed forever.”

LK with Scott Gillette, chief of interpretation at the Sand Creek Massacre NHS administration building in Eads, Colo., on 3oct2014. Scott has always been open and friendly to me, and he has time and again aided my research. Thank you, Scott. … Oh yeah, they sell Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft, 2014)

He went on to say, “Kraft has a fine way with words. … There are any number of Sand Creek histories, some good, some atrocious. Kraft’s point is not to refight the episode but to use it as a defining moment in the telling of a multi-generational history of the Southern Cheyennes, from their earliest appearances through Sand Creek and slightly beyond to the coming of the reservation era. No other Sand Creek history contextualizes this story as he does. Equally if not more important, this reader is unaware of any comparably detailed history of the Southern Cheyennes told within the same broad timeframe that Kraft embraces. That alone makes this work a gem.” Finally this reviewer said something that blew me away: “Kraft knows this story and its primary and secondary sources intimately. He utilizes his sources soundly, challenges in his notes various source shortcomings, contradictions, and nuances; notes where sources have been misused by others; and in all fashions a story destined to be deemed, I believe, definitive on the subject.”

Whew! …

Heady words, kind words, and I didn’t expect them. I hope that they prove out to be true. Time will tell.

I had miles to walk and thousands upon thousands of words to cut while fine-tuning the story line and polishing.

A return to the Woolsey fire destruction

I can’t walk away from the Woolsey fire and its destruction of film history. In July 2016, I traveled to Lasky Mesa, a massive mountainous and valley area (in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve), an easy 35 minute drive from my house on Victory Boulevard). I met companion at his apartment on that day, and he drove. After parking in the lot where Victory Boulevard dead-ends at to the eastern entry to the Open Space Preserve you have perhaps a two-mile hike around and over hills as you work your way to an open area surrounded by hills and in the distance mountains—Lasky Mesa. Dirt roads and paths meander through the area and down into small canyons. That July there was a lot of dried grass up to my knees.

On 13jul2016 LK stood where Errol Flynn’s Seventh Cavalry rode to their death in They Died with Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941). (photo © Louis Kraft 2016) … For the record three of the eight Flynn-de Havilland films were westerns, and all had back stories that will be dealt with in detail in Errol & Olivia.

This mostly-ignored hilly area has been seen in many major films from the Golden Age of Cinema. This includes Errol Flynn’s glorious death as George Armstrong Custer (They Died with Their Boots On) that was shot in fall 1941. That day I saw the tree near where Errol Flynn and Alan Hale sat upon their horses as the coach with Flynn’s then wife Nora Eddington approached at the end of Adventures of Don Juan (Warner Bros., 1948), … as well as the tree from a famous scene from Gone with the Wind (Selznick International Pictures/MGM, 1939). I have this film on DVD but have not seen it in decades (and never in one complete screening) as the film bores me to tears. However, for Errol & Olivia (and sooner than I now expect) it will become a film that I study in detail while I decide what I’ll say about Olivia de Havilland’s performance.

Hours of 100+ temperatures put me in trouble by the time my research on Lasky Mesa neared conclusion. I had a backpack with a lot of water but the heat soared to 105-106 degrees (as I knew it would). By about three in the afternoon I headed back to the parking lot where the car was parked. One problem. I still had a long walk in front of me. Would I make it was not only on my mind but a true threat. I climbed a hill only to continue to meander to the right and left as I descended, climbed, and worked my way back to the vehicle.

Lasky Mesa is north (or east) of the Ca. 101 freeway as it slices northwest and skirts the Pacific Ocean. Soon after one can exit the 101 and drive west on Kanan Dume Road toward the Santa Monica Mountains until it reaches the Pacific Ocean. To the north of the road as it begins to enter the mountains is/was the Paramount Ranch (a back lot for a major film studio in Los Angeles during days gone by).

Fire devastation beyond human tragedy

But by no means has this been only humankind’s loss. The devastation has been beyond belief throughout California over the last few years, and not just to the families that have lost everything (many of whom won’t be able to rebuild as the cost has become prohibitive), but also for the loss of the trees and grasses and plants that are native to Southern California (actually all of California). And I cannot forget the wild life, many of whom have been forced to share their land with invading humans. I’m certain that this has not been an easy adaptation for them.

Lizards

I have pet lizards. I call them pets as I talk to them and often they listen, but they aren’t pets. I walk carefully when they are present as I don’t want to frighten them for they are wild. … I don’t know their view of me, but I consider them friends.

I took this photo of Tujunga House at 4:41 am on 6feb2018. It is a photo, not art, and it is full frame. There was an early morning fog and I took advantage of it and captured some great images. The foreground light was provided by a telephone pole that is just south of the driveway. The front yard is a good portion of the lizards’ homeland, and it is a wonder to watch them enjoy their environment. (photo © Louis Kraft 2018)

I don’t feed the lizards, but Pailin and I have created a home for them on the north side of the driveway with two pieces of granite near a huge bougainvillea in a plantable area that I cleared except for one white rosebush. The lizards discovered that the granite provided shelter from the elements and they have made the area their home. Tujunga House is surrounded by mostly desert vegetation. I don’t water often, but when I do it is for my lemon trees, bamboo, and roses (Pailin makes rose tea). Every so often I’ll water a plant that needs it, only to give one of the lizards a shower. It darts away, stops, turns and stares at me, almost as if saying, “What the hell are you doing?” … They know that we keep two monsters (a Vette and an M-B), and when they come to life and growl the lizards get off the driveway to where they will be safe and watch until the beasts come to a halt or leave their land. …

How many lizards died in the Woolsey fire? I could never venture a guess, but I know that it was way-too-many.

P-64

Here I’m also talking about an animal that is my favorite as it is so sleek and graceful (more so than wolves or horses or coyotes or doberman pinchers, my other favorite animals). They are sometimes called panthers, but much-more often pumas. They are mountain lions that live in Los Angeles (city and county). When caught, and they are never harmed, they receive a GPS collar, tagged, and given a name designated with a “P-” and a number. They are then returned to their habitat, tracked, observed, but never fed or pampered. If sick, and cameras are set up in areas they frequent, and their condition is captured, they are medically treated and returned to their homeland that ranges through the Santa Monica Mountains that separate downtown Los Angeles, the Westside, and the beaches from the San Fernando Valley (SFV) and the Ca. 101 freeway that connects downtown Los Angeles with the SFV (population of 1.75 million) to Agoura Hills, Malibu, Westlake, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard, Ventura, and onward to Santa Barbara and beyond.

Above is P-64 in the photo (courtesy: National Park Service). He was captured in February 2018 in the Simi Hills, Ventura County (northwest of LA County) and fitted with his collar and tag in his ear. This image shows him exiting a blind culvert that is in total darkness as it zigzags under the Ca. 101 freeway. The day after he was set free he became the second puma to be captured on film crossing the 101 freeway (I don’t believe that it was this image). Since that time he crossed not only the 101 but also the Ca. 118 freeway that slices through the northern portion of the SFV and into Simi Valley. It is not known how many times he crossed these freeways risking death by dodging speeding autos during night hours (unfortunately numerous mountain lions have lost their lives doing this), but he was tracked doing it forty-one times since he received his collar.

P-64 was a pathfinder and adventurer in that he expanded his habitat while trapped inside civilization. This was how it always was for him; the only life he ever knew. Then fire, fire, and more fire that increased time and again over recent years. But this time it wasn’t beyond the next hill—it was all around him. On November 26, and again on the twenty-eighth his GPS tracked him. But Jeff Sikich, a wildlife biologist who tracked the four-year old, said he was caught between the avalanche of blaring sirens, an army of firefighters, and frantic humans, and moved back into the burnt area near Oak Park and the Simi Hills in Ventura County. Glen Williams and I discussed P-64 in detail on December 10 and decided he was terrified and chose the best of his two options.

I believe that this is Jeff Sikich displaying two of P-64’s paws. Sikich located him near a streambed on December 3, 2018, about two or three days after he died. He wasn’t burned by flames but was forced to cross hot embers. The burns were severe, which would have hindered his hunting. It has been surmised that the burns might have led to infection. (photo courtesy: National Park Service)

The pumas have adapted to the massive encroachment upon their homeland. They cross freeways and range north and east and west of the San Fernando Valley. Some are in the San Gabriel Mountains that are on the northern side of the San Gabriel Valley (the next valley to the east of the SFV, where I wrote for software companies for 12 years). Mountain lions are predators and they do live off the land. Thus one must be careful when in their territory.

Our mountain lions are famous and often the Los Angeles Times prints articles of births, status, activity, and accomplishments of those we have come to know (and in my case, and friend Julie McHam) care about. Unfortunately the Times also shares their end of life.

Another piece of Hollywood lost to flames

This is one of the photos that Glen Williams shot at the Paramount Ranch on 25may2012. (photo © Louis Kraft & Glen Williams 2012)

To the north of Kanan Dume Road as it moves west from the Ca. 101 freeway and toward the Santa Monica Mountains is/was the Paramount Ranch (Paramount Pictures was a major film studio in Hollywood during the glory days long gone; so many mergers and purchases have happened I don’t know who owns it now). I worked at the studio in the ’70s and early ’80s; Nice place to work. My bro Glen Williams and I did a photo shoot at the western town on the Paramount Ranch (just building fronts for all interiors would be shot on sound stages) in May 2012. A good day for LK. In the dark ages I earned money as a model. Hated it! But the money paid bills. This modeling with Glen (as was other great excursions with him) was for companionship, as well as photos that might be used for publicity or for artwork. … Sadly the Paramount Ranch no longer exists. It had provided locations for films and now it is a piece of California history.* Just thinking about this brings tears to my eyes.

* Friend Dennis Clark saw in his local newspaper that the western town would be rebuilt within the next 24 months. My fingers are crossed that the article he read is accurate. If yes, Glen, ol’ bro, we need to do a Paramount Ranch photo shoot 2. If yes, I want our ladies to join us and make it a foursome.

Wynkoop and the Sand Creek manuscript

Errol Flynn’s portrayal of George Armstrong Custer (They Died with Their Boots On, Warner Bros., 1941) brought me to Custer, a lot of articles, talks, and Custer and the Cheyenne: George Armstrong Custer’s Winter Campaign on the Southern Plains (see Custer and the Cheyenne wins the Jay D. Smith award for its contribution to the study of Custeriana), Upton and Sons, Publishers, 1995).

LK with Chuck Rankin at the Western History Association convention in Oakland, Calif., on 15oct211. Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek premiered at this event. The poster in the background is now displayed at Tujunga House. (photo © Louis Kraft and Chuck Rankin, 2011)

Mr. Custer brought me to the Cheyennes and a fellow named Ned Wynkoop. When I started writing and talking about Wynkoop in the 1980s (and he had a lot to do with Colorado Territory history in the 1860s) I never dreamed that he would lead me to a major player in my writing life that I didn’t meet until the beginning of this century—Charles (Chuck) Rankin, the former editor-in-Chief of University of Oklahoma Press (OU Press). Chuck played a big part in the development of Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). We spent many years talking about Wynkoop as we developed a proposal that would work for both of us. When we got together in Oklahoma City in 2006 he said to me that the beginning of a manuscript draft I sent him was a little light in content. “… And I’m 15,000 words over my contracted limit,” I replied. “Why don’t we spilt the manuscript into two books?” “Let’s think about this,” he said. During the next month or two he agreed to increase the manuscript from the contracted 90,000 words to 125,000 words.

Shortly before Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011) went into production Chuck asked me if I’d like to write a book about the Sand Creek Massacre. I told him, “No. I write about people and not war.” Chuck refused to walk away and over the next year or so we talked in person, on the phone, and via email. We worked on a proposal that was suitable to both of us. The contracted word count was 125,000-135,000, and I needed the higher number (and more) as the scope was huge to show and not tell what happened.

That was then … this is now

In April of this year I was informed that for the Sand Creek manuscript to be published in 2019 I needed to submit a completed draft for peer review, deal with the peer reviews, and deliver a polished manuscript no later than 15sept2018. As I didn’t have a completed rough first draft … on May 31 I delivered an incomplete but huge draft for review. I don’t gamble with cards or money but I do gamble with my projects. This was a big-time LK gamble for one and certainly two thumbs-down reviews would end my relationship with OU Press.

LK image shot by Pailin on 4aug2018 by request of the OU Press Publicity Department. There were exteriors with a hat and interiors w/o a hat. This photo I like (as I’m happy) but it is slightly out of focus (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2018)

It was an impossible task, and one I knew would never happen. … Still I dug in and pressed forward. In early August I received the two peer reviews. Both were positive and provided first-class comments (which required additional words), and more important neither mentioned that my incomplete manuscript was huge or that I should trim the word count (which was then 204,000+).

Hey Kraft, this mess is your creation.

I know. … and as I said above the more words, events, and character development I have the better it is to cut, add, edit, rewrite, and polish. In other words I am now in LK heaven (or perhaps LK hell). My days and nights merged—became one. Sleep was a delicacy that I no longer had. Days passed and September 15 loomed. Delivering a polished manuscript that was close to the required contracted word limit vanished. Current OU Press Editor-in-Chief Adam Kane upped the word count to 150,000. This was impossible and I told him I needed 160,000 words or more.

On September 14 I emailed Adam and told him that I would not make the 15th deadline (meaning there would be no publication of the book in 2019). A big loss as I don’t want to be like Errol Flynn and have my last book published after my death, a scenario that walks with me more often than desired. Back to the positive, missing that deadline was a godsend.

September 15 came and went, and I pounded the keyboard. A hundred words gone, a thousand words gone, five thousand words gone, and more and more. As I knew it would, the manuscript tightened and flowed.

An example of a long-gone Laser Disc cover of The Time Machine (MGM, 1960) signed by Rod Taylor and supporting player Alan Young. The film  was extraordinary in 1960 but it hasn’t survived time well, mainly because special effects have seen lightyears of improvement since the ’60s. Taylor’s performance was decent, but this film is not close to being in my upcoming top 50 LK films blog (tentatively scheduled for late March 2019), which will also feature Valley CORF (Tarzana, Calif.), a breathing, balance, and strength clinic that has done wonders for LK. … There is a good chance that Taylor will have three films on the list.

It was almost as if I was Rod Taylor in his star-making film The Time Machine (MGM, 1960) as I sat in front of my computer for the days flashed forward at lightening speed and words changed, sometimes to grow while often many disappeared in an ongoing merge of days, weeks, months.

This was my now while it was also my then. A vast desert of sweltering heat that I’ve walked time and again. Familiarity beckons confidence. Been there! Done that! … and I know the outcome. We’re talking about my freelance writing, but we’re also talking about my twenty-plus years writing for the software world. ZOOOOOMMMMMM!!!! I’m Rod Taylor riding his time machine … NO! I’m LK sitting tall in my chair as my fingers dance over the keyboard and my monitor flashes the changes in real time. I’m alive in my world. …

My world! …

Two hundred four thousand plus words fade into history for it has become 197,000, 191,000, 185,000, 179,000, 173,000, 168,000, 165,000 … and counting.

Today’s Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway

The “was” brought me into the “now.” On 15nov18 I delivered my “last” rough Sand Creek draft to Adam Kane. Actually by an email mistake, but that didn’t matter as I had anticipated making the delivery on November 16, which would have been the same draft minus a few files that were meant LK’s eyes only.

I will deliver the maps to cartographer Bill Nelson and Adam on January 7, 2019, and my polished Sand Creek draft to Adam on the fourteenth.

I have been collecting possible events and locations for the maps as I have worked my way through my manuscript polish. At the moment there are a fair amount of choices but most will be eliminated as space is limited. I don’t want to tell you what the selections are but those chosen will be based upon what I consider primary locations and actions during the flow of the text.

As stated elsewhere in this blog I do everything possible to show and not tell in my books. I can’t begin to tell you how important this is—at least to me. When Chuck and I created the 37-page proposal for the Sand Creek manuscript “show and don’t tell” was forever front and center. This takes more words but the extra words are worth their weight in gold a thousand times over when the book is published. This is as it should always be. Words are mandatory but it is the showing that must grab the readers and never let go. If done correctly the reader will turn pages, and more than they anticipate. From my POV this is how all books should be written. … Honestly, any book that puts you or me to sleep after two or three pages is a piece of crap and I don’t give a bleep about its reviews or awards or how many books have sold. In some cases all are valid and well earned. However, sometimes they are not. If you live in LA you would know that we suffer through a film/TV awards season that begins in the early fall and doesn’t end until the last Oscar is presented the following year (next year’s presentation is on 24feb2019). The amount of money spent stuffing “created” contenders down our throats on a daily basis is obscene. You don’t want to hear my views on this for they aren’t printable. It’s a part of the world, … just not my part. Pardon my English, but ass-licking or paying big bucks to win an award is something I refuse to do.

Maps

Until the Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek I had created the maps for my previous books. Believe it or not over the years I improved my skill at creating them.

This map from Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2005) was reprinted in Lt. Col. Paul Fardink’s (USA-Ret.) article, “Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood: Premier Cavalry Soldier of the American West,” in On Point: The Journal of Army History, winter 2014. Paul had interviewed me for the article and had wanted it at the end of his prose. The editor disagreed and moved it into the flow of the text and it worked out fine for Paul and myself. Paul’s article is terrific and I’m proud to be part of it. (map © Louis Kraft 2004)

Two of my maps have been reprinted. The Custer and the Cheyenne (1995) map that illustrated Custer’s attack on Black Kettle’s village on 27nov1868 appeared in Sandy Barnard’s A Hoosier Quaker Goes to War: The Life & Death of Major Joel H. Elliott, 7th Cavalry, 2010). The lone map from Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apace Wars Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2005) illustrated Gatewood’s search for Chiricahua Apaches Geronimo (war leader and mystic) and Naiche (the last hereditary chief of the tribe) and the remnants of their people in Sonora, Mexico, in July-August 1886, and then talked them into returning to the United States and surrendering for the last time.

Chuck Rankin wanted me to use a cartographer for the Wynkoop book and this request began my association with Bill Nelson, whom I hired to create the maps from my rough drafts. The entire creation and review process was a total pleasure, and his maps are first class.

Adam had requested rough drafts of the Sand Creek maps, and all was a go with me supplying them to him and Bill Nelson (who I again contracted) by the end of December, which I have since moved out to January 7, 2019. … On 10dec2018 Adam told me, “We are fans of Bill’s work here so look forward to seeing the new ones for this latest book.”

I’m not going to tell you how I’m prepping the new maps, or what’s going to be in them but if all goes well they will include some locations/actions usually not seen on maps.

This was the rough draft that I submitted to Wild West for my feature on the Chiricahua Apache war leader Geronimo (“Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude,” October 2015). Not to brag but some of the locations had never before been placed on a map. A lot of work, and although the magazine’s cartographer created the final map from my draft Editor Greg Lalire and WW, both of whom have always been kind to me, paid me for this draft. (map © Louis Kraft 2015)

I have been selecting possible locations and actions for the map drafts as I work my way through what will be my polished draft of the Sand Creek manuscript. I had pitched a third map to deal with the Sand Creek village at the time of the massacre. All of the printed maps that deal with the massacre are incomplete at best and misleading at worse. I’m not going to reprint any of them or create a new map based upon them. There is current information that I am not privy to, and if I cannot learn the details that are available but not shared there will be no Sand Creek village map in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. … Not my choice, but I’m not going to print a map based information that I don’t consider valid. If this becomes reality—and I pray not—there will be no third map unless I have a replacement map that I’m not yet completely sold on (but on the plus side it might dip into Old Mexico).

How can this be Louis? Simple; about 8,000 words deal with the massacre, making it a small piece of my Sand Creek story. Not to worry for the SC massacre section is explosive and graphic. The goal here has always been to grab the readers and not let go (we’ll see if I succeeded when the book is published). Still, I want a map with the most up-to-date information about the Sand Creek village circles if indeed they are known, and I don’t think that they are. If so, they are a well-hidden secret. For the record I know the names of 15 Cheyenne chiefs who were present on that tragic day. I have been told that there were 20 Cheyenne chiefs present with no names or documentary proof that I’ve seen. I would love to have this information and the order of the chiefs’ village circles (if it exists).

Photo at right shows Southern Cheyenne Chief Harvey Pratt (left) on 30mar2017 near El Reno, Oklahoma, when he was honored by the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes for his service to the tribal community. He is with his friend Dee Cordry, an historian and former police officer, on the day of the ceremony. Eleven chiefs of the Cheyenne Tribal Council of Forty-four were present, as were the tribal governor and lieutenant governor. (Good friend Dee Cordry shared this image with me.)

Major information that is currently denied LK that must be in the Sand Creek book

I have information from Dee Cordry, who is writing a book that deals with a lot of people I deal with in my manuscript. I’m sorry, but I must remain vague here to protect Dee’s manuscript as well my mine, but what he shared is absolutely mandatory to see print, and Adam Kane totally agrees.Phot

This information when published by Dee and myself will destroy ongoing errors that have been propagated for decades and often reprinted without citations or ones that are error-riddled at best or created simply to disguise what doesn’t exist/never existed or worse create a lie based upon a writer’s premise (which some writers refuse to change regardless of where their research leads).

An example of lies in the real world

Many years back, but soon after Custer and the Cheyenne was published, a preeminent Little Bighorn/Custer historian called me and said he was writing a review of my Custer/Cheyenne book. He read about a quarter of his review (which, when published was over a page and a half in an 8″ x 11″ publication). Great stuff and I loved his words. He got me to talk about the young Cheyenne woman Mo-nahs-e-tah (phonetic spelling of her name); a major mistake by LK, and for all of you who write books when someone calls and states that he/she is writing a review about your work think carefully about who they are and what their motivation is for calling you. If there is just hint of a scam slam your phone down on the receiver. Do it! If you don’t you may regret what follows. … I did.

A year or so later this historian/cum-reviewer and I both spoke at a symposium in SoCal. I called the host and told him that if the historian attacked me verbally that I would retaliate. The historian kept his mouth shut and we actually enjoyed spending time together and talking.

This photo was taken on Christmas day, 2018. Do I look “snarky”? Perhaps, … or maybe I’m simply “cocky.” (photo © Louis Kraft 2018)

Two things that need to be said

Ladies and gents, I want to make something absolutely clear right now—people and archives play major roles in all of my published work. I am forever grateful for their contributions.

I have pointed out errors in books published over the last 50 years. Some of them are heinous but have been reprinted time and again (and often without any documentation). One of my peer reviewers tore into me big time for pointing out published errors; he even stated that I was “snarky.” Snarky? Maybe he’s correct. I don’t care for I’m sick and tired of seeing old errors repeated ad nauseam. This reviewer rightfully stated that I needed to temper my comments (hopefully I’ve been able to follow his suggestion). At this point in time much of my proof of erroneous documentation has been purged from the manuscript. In its place I have inserted notes that mention the errors without pointing the finger at published works, and simply warning readers to be wary of documents that use the previously published errors.* Hopefully historians and readers who read these words heed them.

* Of course a few instances existed where this was impossible to do. I guess I’m still “snarky.” Sorry.

LK writing and life in his world

I don’t view myself as a liar, for sometimes I need a break from almost continuous seven-day weeks for what seems like forever. The blogs are fun for me, while being time intensive. More important they are research for my nonfiction or that memoir I usually ignore when I talk about my writing projects. If ever I finish the memoir, and it is doable as I have a ton of research in house, I will never see it published. Errol Flynn never saw his final book published (My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Putnam and Sons, 1959), and no one was able to sue him for telling what I believe were truthful words about some of the people he knew well. … Let’s carry the LK memoir one step forward. It is completed and placed with a publisher. At that time I will make certain that we are in sync when it can be published, and that time will be right after I’m dancing with angels. Am I joking or am I serious? Be patient for time will give you an answer.

Throughout our early life together I moved Pailin’s car out of our long driveway so that I could use my car; that is moving her car onto the street, moving my car onto the street, moving her car back onto the driveway, and then walking to my car on the street. She suggested parking her car under a carport that we didn’t use as it had been blocked by a fence I installed about 2009 and a huge orange tree that had died about 2013. A great idea! In December 2015 I removed the steel fence, chopped down the tree, removed its root system, filled in the hole, pounded the earth, before the Vette pressed down the earth. This photo was taken in the late afternoon on December 9 after quitting work. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

On 24jun2018 my life took another detour. That Sunday the sole of one of my yard-work moccasins came loose and caught on the small red stones I installed in 2015 for the drive to Pailin’s carport (the Vette lives in the garage), and I took a flying dive forward. There was a pole in front of me—I had to protect the pacemaker—and twisted to my left to avoid a head-on collision or worse, nailing the pacemaker. While knowing that the impact wouldn’t be pretty I had to make a perfect landing. Acting and swashbuckling training provided what I needed to know—that is, how to fall. Still, my flying body was like a biplane crash-landing during WWI. Add deep-deep gashes, huge bruises, and burns along the left side of my body. But it was a good day for my noggin’ didn’t slide along the stones and neither did the pacemaker. Nevertheless I saw my heart specialist pronto. The moccasins were exiled to the black trashcan.

This has been my life for years now, and yet I’m alive. They say that the good die young. If so, what am I? … Evil? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Still, there are some people that will agree with this. For the record there’re not my friends.

I’ve discussed cracked skulls and trips to the emergency room, I’ve detailed the perfect storm that resulted in me continuing walk our earth, and I’m not repeating this here. (If interested see: Louis Kraft perfect storm and the Sand Creek Massacre).

I’m not going to tell about this book, except to say that it is one of the best books I’ve ever written. The reviews have been kind. If you want to see some background on the book, along with a few of the reviews, see: Books 2/The Discovery tab. Believe it or not, a number of the reviews state that it would make a good film or mini-series. This said, beware if you decide to read it for there is extreme violence, as well as sexual intimacy, and a darkness that at times is overwhelming, and would give the story an extreme “R” rating if ever produced as a film (perhaps stronger depending upon the script and director). A good friend, Tom Eubanks, read about 30 pages and stopped. He told me he knew where book was going. All I can say is that he was clueless, for the two leading players are on the book cover and he never met the newborn as an adult, and that is where the medical, judicial, intense character-study thriller begins. Begins. … BTW, the title is misleading while being dead on target. (art and book cover design © Louis Kraft 2016)

This said, my time has been questionable ever since I made a habit of cracking the back of my skull open. Other than a partnership on The Discovery with Robert S. Goodman that began at the time I needed to pay for a surgery that I didn’t know about until after the fact (oh yeah LK has gone from someone with wads of cash in his pockets to someone who picks up bottles on the street). This began in 2012 by my choice. At that time I endured a practice that was totally illegal, totally unethical, and yet a manager I saw only three times in my life not only backed the policy he salivated while supporting it. I doubt that I will ever write about it (although it is well documented; perhaps I should add it to my archive in Santa Fe). Alas, today truth in the USA is a dangerous thing to share. Money almost always wins out.

Regardless, I decided to never again write for the software world, and at that time I was pulling in six figures.

For the record, I believe that writers must move between different genres and push themselves to the limit as they explore and improve their craft.

The Discovery was a detour and at the same time the most important one in my writing life

Bob Goodman has been my physician for almost 30 years, and he along with another five specialists keep me living a good physical life. In 2002 Bob saw something that if not fixed would have led to my death in 2003 or perhaps early 2004. I owe him a lot. Add that I like him a lot, and when he approached me to partner with him to write his terrific story idea (folks, his premise was magnificent). More, as it was an historical piece that spanned over 20 years between the early 1950s and the early 1970s with a huge cast of players (read the Sand Creek story for scope and cast list), and I knew that it could give me what I needed for my nonfiction manuscript—learning how to make a story with many people whose actions are all over the place work in a linear progression. At this time the Sand Creek manuscript didn’t flow forward smoothly. Read that it was hackneyed at best; I’m sorry but that wasn’t acceptable.

A work in progress of LK and Bob Goodman (even though it carries a 2017 copyright). He hasn’t seen it yet. I had hoped to complete it this year and give it to him. Nope! Story of my life: A day late and a dollar short. … I will finish this painting hopefully in 2019 for I will be seeing him then. (art © Louis Kraft 2017)

The Discovery gave me what I needed to pull Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a LIfeway together and become reality. Hell, I’ve been a professional writer for decades and I was having trouble. I still had a massive amount of word crafting of facts and time in front of me to make the tragic end of the Cheyenne and Arapahos’ lifeway move forward in an acceptable manner. But now I was in the driver’s seat. God love you, Bob! I cherish our relationship and our partnership.

The other influences on my writing life

Technical writing had been a terrific experience. It is fast, demanding, and the deadlines are deadly. DEADLY. … When I worked in the film world you worked eight hours. After that it was time and a half and then after 10 hours more dollar bills flowed out of a fountain. On feature films I didn’t experience that much overtime but in TV it was a different story. On the last day of a medical TV pilot (read an hour and a half and shot in 15 or 17 days; can’t remember) the limited shoot (my guess at this late date as I didn’t keep the “call sheets,” which gave you a start time each day and what was being filmed that day) was get what was absolutely necessary and discard the un-shot script pages. That last day and night we worked 23 hours. My eyes turned into dollar signs. Often there were previews; I never saw one for this pilot, never saw the pilot on TV, and it never became a TV show. Not the first time or the last time.

Since we’re dealing with film and TV and that other money-maker I hated but did when I needed money—modeling, let’s touch base with the entertainment world in the 1970s and 1980s.

LK art of Bob Ellenstein. His son, David, also an actor and director, saw it in a blog years back, contacted me, and asked if he could have a copy. Of course; I sent him copies set to print as an 8×10″ and various versions for the internet. It was good catching up with him (he was a little boy when I spent a lot of time with Bob and his mother Lois at their home on the Westside of LA). Bob and Lois also had an in-house bookstore, and they were able to get me all of the classic works published on the pirate Francis Drake in the early 1970s including many that were simply primary-source documents. You can bet that both nonfiction and fictional works dealing with Mr. Drake are a comin’. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

Actually more important is me clarifying what I learned from Bob (Robert) Ellenstein, an actor/director I met in college when he was the professional guest directing professor during my senior year at CSUN. Actually I learned it after graduation when I studied acting with him. This time, beginning in summer 1969 and continuing for a number of years led to a friendship between us that extended long after I stopped studying acting under his guidance. … At one point Bob told the small acting class that I took with him in the early ’70s (between eight and ten people), “Whatever you do, make sure you can live with it.” This was the absolute best advice I have ever received in my life. The absolute best! … And I have lived by it ever since.

This doesn’t mean that I’m a good person; it means that I have never done anything that I could not live with. Put another way, I have never sold my soul or body for money or advancement.

The year 2020 is front and center as long as LK doesn’t mess it up

Although I’ve spent a fair amount of time dealing with writing extra words above I’m totally aware of my contracted word counts. This guarantees that I’ll never place myself in a situation wherein I’m below the word count, need more, but am clueless where to dig for more facts and events simply as a filler as this not a good way to complete a manuscript.

But this isn’t the problem. Actually, it shouldn’t be a problem for when I buy into a project it is for 100 percent. Simply, this means that I’m not just the writer. I have a vision for my print projects, and I do everything possible to insure that the final product is as close to what I originally envisioned. This means that I am present throughout the production process with my input. Sometimes this isn’t appreciated. Too bad. It is my project and my input will happen. What I say, do, or insist upon is not egotistical. Not at all—it is simply to improve what is published.

I originally created this art of Ned Wynkoop for an article of mine (“Ned Wynkoop’s Lonely Walk Between the Races”) in Custer and His Times, Book Five (2008). It has appeared in I think three (perhaps four) additional publications including two (three?) magazines. Originally it was an oval portrait but has also been landscape. This image was last printed in Symphony in the Flint Hills: Field Journal, Volume V (2013), and it provided me with my best payday with this portrait. (art © Louis Kraft 2007)

Often I submit my photos/art for publication. It brings in money (sometimes four or five times when I get lucky and an image is resold). This is good for it helps pay bills. Sometimes my art is used to reduce the cost of the image in university press books wherein I am responsible for assembling all the photos and art for the publication. I negotiate with artists and owners of historical images (often offering a book in exchange for using their art/images). I think that this is fair for I save money, they get a copy of the first edition of the book as well as the publicity.

Regarding using my images in publications, at times I’ve been pinged as some people don’t like writers creating art for their words. Honestly, I don’t understand the reasoning behind this and have refused to respond to these comments.

In the past I have publicized photos and art in consideration for Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. The process has been ongoing for years, and I have been negotiating for a good part of this time with artists, private collections, as well as National Historic Sites.

Jerry Greene and Mr. Scott’s book (OU Press, 2004) is one of the better books published dealing with the massacre. The cover is a cropped version of Robert Lindneux’s Sand Creek Massacre art. The painting is landscape, so almost every book cover that features it has been cropped on one or both sides. This isn’t a problem when it is used in magazine articles. Jerry is a good friend whom I enjoy hanging out with whenever opportunity presents itself.

At the moment I am considering pushing two pieces of art for the cover, but I know as 2019 races toward summer that this number will increase. One thing is certain, the cliché art that has appeared on way-too-many Sand Creek books (some of which have nothing to do with the massacre) will not appear on my dust jacket—including Robert Lindneux’s painting (left), which is housed at History Colorado.

Want to read a terrific book dealing with the Cheyenne wars, read Jerry Greene’s Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869 (OU Press, 2004). While the book and dust jacket design were in production (I saw a proof of the cover art). Anita Donofrio, who kindly volunteered to do sound and lighting for an over-sold-out Wynkoop one-man show at the former Colorado Historical Society that year invited me to stay with her and her son (a totally delightful young man) the following week while I did research. She was/is a good friend of Jerry’s. I told her that if she invited him to dinner one night I’d cook. My reason: I wanted to meet him, and that evening, which went deep into the night, created a friendship.

Regarding LK’s cooking—don’t snicker. I’m a terrific cook, and have been for decades. … Gents, here’s a tip worth its weight in gold: The way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach (and I can prove this).

The here is now, … or is it put up or shut up?

I deliver my polished draft of Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway to Adam in two weeks. If this draft passes review—fingers are always crossed—it is all uphill from here. Meaning: LK will have a Cheshire Cat grin on his face until 2020.*

* Lewis Carroll created this cat and its mischievous grin in his book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865).

This Sun Microsystems badge was the only one I ever bothered to grab, and I had no clue at this late date why I did this. In 2005, when the company purchased Seebeyond Technology Corp., they had over 40,000 employees worldwide. by late 2008 that figure had dropped to 24,000 employees. Poor management had doomed the company, whose stock plummeted to obscene levels when in January 2009 69 percent of the former Seebeyond employees then in Monrovia, Calif., were laid off. Often they talk about loyalty in sports or the lack of. Take a quick look at the technical world and you’ll see that they make the sports world look like amateurs when it comes to eliminating personnel.I participate in all of my projects in every way possible. At times—and this is a major understatement—production teams from art directors to editors and everyone in between would love to lock me in a cell until the book is published. … And I’ve heard the comments (or read them) to know that this is a true statement. They’re professionals, and most of them are very good at what they do.

I participate in all of my projects in every way possible. At times—and this is a major understatement—production teams from art directors to editors and everyone in between would love to lock me in a cell until the book is published. … And I’ve heard the comments (or read them) to know that this is a true statement. They’re professionals, and most of them are very good at what they do.

Alas, so am I, and I have done what they do. I’ve designed books, dust jackets, newsletters (wherein I was the editor and designer), created art, maps, and know that I must pay close attention to what is happening during every step of the production process or things can and might happen that are bad (or worse), and this isn’t on the production team. It’s on me. My name is on the book or article, and that means one thing: If there are errors (anything from a note that is no longer accurate or apropos, inaccurate captions, quoted text blind-edited, whatever) there is only one person to blame—LK. I’ve missed changed captions, notes that no longer deal with what they supposedly confirm, and I cringe when I realize that a quote has been altered. This list is ongoing, including index entries that vanish, even though I thought they were important.

My manuscripts receive two copyedits and they usually take about a month each (but that was back when I wrote for software companies and often had two-plus hours of drive time and overtime almost every day). This is no longer the case. Although the Sand Creek manuscript has a larger word count I think that the copyedits will take only a month each to complete.

LK acceptance of the Wrangler Award for “When Wynkoop was Sheriff” (Wild West, April 2011) at the Western Heritage Awards banquet in Oklahoma City in April 2012. Yeah, Kraft does dress up sometimes. On this evening I was wearing Cheyenne beaded moccasins. For the record, Cheyennes wore low moccasins (unlike the Apaches and the high moccasins shown above). To cover and protect their legs the Cheyennes wore leggings, which are described in detail in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway.

I want to say something here and it is of major importance. … I love my editors and copyeditors. Actually I consider myself one lucky SOB as I have been associated with OU Press and the University of Nebraska Press for they create first-class publications and are the two best Indian wars publishers in the world. In the world!

Unfortunately I think they and their production teams cringe when an LK manuscript arrives on their desks. Folks, I’m a historian, but I’ve also a teller of stories. This means I want character development. This isn’t easy in nonfiction. In the past I’ve had to fight to keep my character development. For example in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011), his wife Louise is alone in their hotel room at La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, when rats enter the room. She steps onto a chair and is still standing on it when Ned enters the room. Of course the rats scattered when he opened the door and he didn’t see them. He chides her, she gets angry and tells him to sit down. He does, and the rats return. Wynkoop leaps onto his chair, yanks out his Colt and begins shooting at the rats. This brings the hotel manager, who quickly moves them to another room. … The scene shows character, but the copyeditor cut it. I reinserted the scene and told her that it stays.

This image of LK was taken on the old Route 66 that sliced through a good portion of the USA back in days long gone. Alas, so are the towns, and some are little more than skeletons of what once was. My bro Glen Williams took this photo in front of a long-abandoned gas station in fall 2011 on the day after he and I delivered an LK archival package to Tomas Jahen (then of the Chávez History Library) and his family in Williams, Az. I really like Glen’s photo as it captured the destruction of a past that will soon vanish if not recorded. Ladies and gents, history will quickly fade into nothing if not recorded—Lost to time. Our grandparents, parents, and children (and that is all the personal history I have) will vanish without a trace if I don’t write about their lives. This is personal, and so is a memoir. (photo © Louis Kraft & Glen Williams 2011)

Many nonfiction books are stuffed with fact upon fact upon fact stringed together in—please forgive me good nonfiction writers for I’m not talking about you—long sterile sentences and paragraphs that can put me to sleep in two pages. I often must suffer through these, … these, … these, … what are they—Oh yeah, pages! Often they offer nothing that I need but I don’t know that until I read the last page. Wasted time? No, for I must know the answer. To borrow from the long departed TV show (which should have been left in peace) The X Files, “The Truth is Out There,” and I need to know it.

Long answer short. Good times are on the horizon for Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is about to move into production (if accepted), a process I love for it is a collaboration of many people working together to make the published book as good as possible. There are many steps, many reviews, many changes, and many suggestions to make the final product of value to those who read it. For me it is a thrilling time.

In closing Global Warming is here to stay

… and it will only get worse if action is not taken during our lifetimes.

It is unbelievable how many nay-sayers there are to this statement. Conspiracy stories abound. I know people who insist that the fires in California and elsewhere in the American West, the hurricanes that assault the East Coast, the Southern Coast, the Caribbean, and Texas, as well as the typhoons in other portions of the world are nothing more that disasters created by the “government.” “The government? Who? Trump?” “No, the government. The Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes.” … Beachfront property in SoCal is losing the war with the Pacific Ocean as the waves increase in velocity and pound the cement barriers that protect these over-priced houses in LA and San Diego Counties. Eventually the sea will destroy them, and the process has already begun.

This image of Pailin and LK doesn’t belong here. This said, I have no images of Climate Control for its future is still unknown. The LK/PSK future is known, and this end of Christmas 2018 photo shows this. We are together and we are one until the end of our time of walking Mother Earth. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2018)

Those that deny the changes of weather conditions, the melting of icepacks, spout vehemently that it is all fake news. Some have even told me that the violence and mass murders across the USA never happened. They claim that it is “government” false news to spread hatred and violence and that these “fictions” are filmed performances using actors. They claim that the reason is to reduce the population and eliminate the middle class. … I agree that the USA is becoming a world of the super rich and the poor (who will soon become homeless—at least in LA, the homeless capital of the USA).

What about the recent report on global warning by the Federal Government? “Fake news!” … Maybe I’m old fashioned, maybe I’m not in line with today’s world, but I have a lot of trouble with slogans—such as Fake News. Don’t believe me see the Los Angeles Times 24nov2018 article “Climate report warns of bleak future”.


Since May and my last blog the following seven months have been a blur.
At times I didn’t know if I was sleeping or awake. I was focused solely on the
Sand Creek manuscript and the health of the ladies in my life. That’s it; that’s all that mattered. I became Rod Taylor as he sped between centuries in H. G. Wells’ novel turned into the classic 1960 film
The Time Machine (which would have blasted the 2002
adaption to kingdom come if it had the special effects capabilities available
during the first decade of the 21st century). Beginning in 2011 I have
been on a joyride without end, a joyride that at times descended
into the depths of Hell, but is not yet complete and won’t be
until 2020 when the book is printed.

There is one LK truism for the upcoming year—There will be more blogs.
The question is when?

A wow day for Louis Kraft

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


The next blog was tentatively scheduled to be in October of this year but will go live in December.

Guess what? … Not quite true as the work load previously shared became more than expected. Much more than expected. It will actually happen in late December and most likely on the thirty-first.

(photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

I haven’t finished writing the Epilogue for Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (a huge understatement for I can’t begin to tell you how large it will be) but have shared the first 30 pages of it to great friend Glen Williams to review on 27may2018.

And better, …

Did I say better? Yes better!! It is 7:38 pm on May 27 and I was about to shut down for the day. … But then I realized something out of the ordinary. I have tinnitus and it is ongoing. The only time it goes on vacation is when my focus is so intense that it delivers a Muhammad Ali knockout punch, a Duke Snider home run, a Johnny Unitas touchdown pass, a Kobe Bryant slam dunk.

This is an early image of my muse on the morn before one of our great explorations. This is one of my favorite photos of Pailin. (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2013)

Guess that tonight I was Muhammad, the Duke, Johnny U., and Kobe all at the same time.

What I’m saying is that at this time, beginning about 7:00 pm LA time (when I realized my condition and continuing through at least 10:25 pm I able to hear like all of you that don’t struggle with this heinous malady. I know that it will only be for a short time, but realize at this moment in time I’m walking on clouds.

The only time this happens for me is when my concentration on what I need to accomplish is so focused that nothing else enters my brain.

Everything in my life is zeroed in on one target—I’m Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood splitting the arrow, I’m Johnny Unitas throwing one last TD bomb to Jimmy Orr in Baltimore, I’m Kobe scoring 60 points in his last NBA game; I’m LK catching a punt and zigzagging my way through eleven defenders. I’m alive and totally focused.

This great image at left was taken by my bro for all time, Glen Williams, at Mission San Fernando Rey de España (San Fernando, California). (photo © Louis Kraft and Glen Williams 2012)

Dear Lord, let me find and grab this zone on a daily basis and your lone cowboy will quietly ride into the sunset without a fight when the time comes.

Regardless of what I said at the end of the my last blog, I’m back, or better … “Here’s Louis!”

On May 31 I will deliver the preface, 15 chapters, and the incomplete epilogue of the Sand Creek manuscript (actually, nothing is close to being complete—there is still a lot of work in front of me before I have a first draft). These words will go out for review.

The last seven years have been pure hell. They have also been the most focused of my life. I have gone from six figures in salary to a pauper, have signed the most important contract of my life (Sand Creek), have written damned good book that wasn’t planned as I needed hard-cold cash to pay bills (The Discovery), have met my muse and the most amazing person I’ll ever know (Pailin), have bashed the hell out of my head way too many times, and have realized that I should be dead (more than once) but due to a lot of events at the midnight hour I’m still walking. … I’m the luckiest guy you know, and let me tell you that my brain still functions (and works in overdrive when necessary).

LK loading a revolver in a image I discovered last year on a roll of negatives from September 1973. (photo © Louis Kraft 1973)

I walk, work out with light weights, stretch, deal with my balance, and swing the sword. I still challenge everything that enters my life that I don’t like (I talked about the most recent incident on other social media, and there is a party next door as I write these words and the music is quiet). More important, I am meeting my Sand Creek writing deadlines, and best I am one with the three people in my life.

These words have taken a little less than an hour to write, but I needed to share them in case the unexpected happens.

Firm Sand Creek delivery date, Louis Kraft massacre views & a future update

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


It’s probably best to start with a little LK fun.

The Loikathong River is celebrated in Thailand every November. Good friend Pete Senoff used it as a backdrop when he created this dancing image of Pailin and myself in 2014. … Without words it is a simplistic entry into our relationship.


The above is a hint to what I cryptically advertised elsewhere on
social media early this year.

Unfortunately I’ve become Mr. Unsociable

I’m a recluse (but luckily I’m not one of the 58,000+ homeless in LA and some I know personally as I talk to them while I walk the streets, or the 139,000 homeless in California, and boy do I have a lot to say here but not in this blog), … actually I prefer “loner” for what I do is a one-man job that takes a lot of research, concentration, and time. I have been working seven days per week since last fall (I did take Thanksgiving off, and most of Christmas). The amount of hours increased big time last December, and I now know that it will continue until September 15. I seldom work less than 10 hours per day but way too often it is closer to 13 or more. … Worse, I know for a fact that the next four and a half months are going to be hell. Pure hell … There will be no room for me to get lazy, for each and every day must push toward September 15.

I saw my pulmonary specialist this week and we discussed a clinic that would be helpful (I’m already a member of a heart clinic). After he shared the benefits and the time commitment, I brought up the drive time. As the clinic is about 12 miles from home; a 9:00 am appointment would mean at least an hour and a half drive, while a 1:00 pm appointment approximately 45 minutes (double those drive times for a round trip). I told him that I’m really interested and he said he’d put through the prescription, but then I told him that I can’t lose those hours until September 15 passes. Yeah, parts of my health are on hold.

Pailin and LK at the one-year anniversary of The Massage Place in Santa Monica, Ca. (and also the birthdays of owner Marut  Manorat and his manager Amber) on 18apr2018. There have been many people that have played major parts in Pailin’s emergence as a successful contractor in Los Angeles. Marut, along with his wife Whitney, are two of these people. Oh yeah, LK does take time off for special occasions with his lady. Pailin made Thai tea for the party (heaven); that’s what we were both drinking in the red cups. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2018)

Unfortunately most of my local relationships are on hold and have been since my last two trips to the emergency room (July and August 2017), but this hold was not because of what I now view as the two luckiest months of my life (July and August 2017), but because of the crimp they put on my Sand Creek delivery deadline.

My lonely road may be costing me friends locally but there is nothing I can do about it other than infrequently touch base with them on social media or the phone. … It’s a two-way street and I need to do my share. Unfortunately I’m not good at this. Once my work begins in the morning (before Pailin gets up and then after she sets out in the AM/if she only has a PM shift after I have made our juice I’ll return to work until we eat together).

I’m not the world’s best husband, but my lady and I have something between us. Call it love, call it craziness, call it what ever you want but we have it, … and it is key to my future (see below).

Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway

This manuscript is the culprit, the villain, perhaps the death of me. It is also the most important book I’ll ever write. I must complete it.

Errol Flynn was a great writer, and I don’t give a bleep what anyone has said about his writing. My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1959) is a masterpiece. I’ve already talked about some of what the envious-baloney cretins have written about his last book, and I’m not going to repeat it here. Flynn saw the galleys, but he never had the pleasure of seeing My Wicked, Wicked Ways in print. … I will see Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway in print?

Simply, LK is moving toward the conclusion of his Sand Creek manuscript. If you accept that this has been a major part of my life for a long time you’ll understand.

A three-fold problem

Paying the bills, health, and completing the Sand Creek manuscript. … There is a lot to say here, and I want to keep it as positive as possible.

Surprise of surprises, my view on most of the leading players have changed (and some of the changes have been massive), as well as my view on the attack on the Cheyenne and Arapaho village on 29nov1864 on the Big Sandy (Sand Creek) in southeastern Colorado Territory. For many years I thought of it as a battle but this changed when I wrote Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek (University of Oklahoma Press, 2011). But the scope of what happened during the lead up to the massacre, the massacre, and the aftermath is what I now consider heinous.*

* I’m talking about decades here.

Pailin with John and Linda Monnett at Bear Lake (Rocky Mountain National Park) on 2oct2014. We had an absolutely wonderful time with them during our visit. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, John Monnett, Linda Monnett, and Louis Kraft 2014).

Recently I updated two terrific Indian war friends—John Monnett and Layton Hooper—of my current status on the manuscript, … including that I had the two final sentences in the epilogue in place and that they would not be cut. And that’s final; they stay, … editorial can cut the rest of the manuscript but the final words stay. John wanted to know the words, but bad friend Kraft didn’t share them or their background.

My view on humankind is simple: You, me, and almost everyone else believe that what we do is right when we do it (it may not be, but we didn’t realize it at the time). This, ladies and gents, was how Chuck Rankin and I agreed on how I would write the manuscript—people-driven. Honestly, this has been the most difficult manuscript that I have ever written.

Sand Creek deliveries …
LK’s schedule for the next four and a half months

On January 31 I delivered the first eleven chapters of Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway to Adam Kane and Chuck Rankin (current and former editors-in-chief at the greatest Indian wars publisher in the world—the University of Oklahoma Press). On April 30 I delivered chapters 12 through 15 to them. … I will deliver the epilogue, updated 15 chapters, and the preface to them by the end of this month.

Adam has updated me on what must happen for the manuscript to make the University of Oklahoma Press Fall 2019 catalog and be printed by the time that the Western History Association meets in Las Vegas that October. … I need to have a reviewed, revised, and final manuscript to the press no later than September 15 of this year. This deadline schedule is huge in scope and it is demanding of my time. It is one that I will make.

I’m done talking about the struggle to complete the manuscript, I’m done talking about the ongoing research, for everything from this day forward will be about delivery.

An LK view: A massacre is a massacre is a massacre …

In Nashville on 1apr1971 a singer who has played a major role in my life since I was a little boy recorded the “Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley.”* The singer was Tex Ritter, and he was extraordinary (someday I’ll do an entire blog about him, and this will be an easy blog to write).

* But this date seems wrong as all hell had broken out when the 5dec1969 issue of Life Magazine hit the newsstands.

When this young LK rode the pony he was already glued to a green TV screen as he watched the heroic Tex Ritter (who did most of his own stunts and that easily included 90+ percent of the riding on White Flash, and there were multiple White Flashes until Tex bought a white horse that would become his White Flash until the end of time). I would meet Tex, and his music and B-western films are still with me. … and they will be until the end of my time.

Tex was religious and loved the USA. At the time that he recorded this song if not the U.S. press at least a major portion of the U.S. population still praised Lt. William Calley, Jr’s victory over the Viet Cong in the foreign war that was seemingly without end. And why not? The lieutenant was a hero, a major hero to many.

A former high school friend Dennis Riley captured this image of LK. He had become a photographer’s mate in the U.S. Navy in the late 1960s, and took this photo in June 1969. It would become a key image in the LK acting and modeling world for years. (photo © Louis Kraft 1969)

I was a villain.

Actually my view on race was firmly in place by the time I exited high school, and it would never waver in the coming years.

Villain? What are you talking about Kraft?

I’m not going to dig into my past, but I was truly a villain in 1970. There was a war going on—a heinous war—and I didn’t volunteer to kill people—civilians—regardless if I did not agree with their country’s politics.

I was a villain. There were many of us across the United States at that time.

When my university days ended in spring 1969 I no longer had a free pass on the mandatory U.S. military draft, and it was just a matter of time before I would be forced to make a decision that would impact the rest of my life. During WW II my father had enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps as he didn’t want to be drafted into the Army. By this time I had college friends who had turned their backs on America and had taken asylum in Canada and elsewhere.

What would I do?

The USA has always been my country. Will it always be my country? That was a million dollar question in 1970 as I had no intention of deserting my homeland. Is it again a million dollar question?

LK’s history world has had a lot of people of interest

I discovered history in elementary school, and I met two people at about the same time—soldier George Armstrong Custer in the fourth grade and the pirate Francis Drake in the fifth grade. Over the course of my life I have learned a lot about both of these men. Like all of us they had faults, they had highs and lows, but that is what makes them interesting. They were also able to step beyond race and hatred of their enemies.

I met Custer on TV when I saw Errol Flynn’s They Died with Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941) for the first time back in the dark ages. Custer would appear in many films, TV shows, one TV series, and documentaries. I saw the pilot and a few of the episodes of the short-lived Custer TV series (17 episodes in 1967 with Wayne Maunder as Custer). You do not want to know my opinion of this TV series, even though Maunder looked great as Custer.

LK art of Errol Flynn as George Armstrong Custer in They Died with Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941). (art © Louis Kraft 2013)

Drake appeared a year later when he was featured in my school history book (words and cool images; I’ll share them someday). To my knowledge Drake appeared in two films, one TV series, and various documentaries (most of which are forgettable). I saw a few of the twenty-six episodes of Sir Francis Drake (1961-62 with Terence Morgan in the lead role …You need a multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view this series in the USA today. I wasn’t impressed (and I’m being kind here, even though I haven’t seen it in decades).

History and times have been fairly kind to Drake over the centuries and much less so with Custer. Two books are planned on Drake (and I have much of the primary source material  in-house) but nothing published to date other than a blog that features him: The pirate Francis Drake and Louis Kraft. Upton and Sons published a book I wrote on Custer in 1995 (Custer and the Cheyenne). There have been numerous articles in such publications as American History, Wild West, Research Review, and talks on Mr. Custer have ranged from Texas to Missouri to Kansas to Montana to Arizona to California. The links on Drake and Custer give you an idea of how I view these two men. BTW, depending upon word count limitations in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (vagueness is golden here), Custer may have a fairly large presence in the epilogue (at least he does at this time).

History got me to Drake and Flynn got me to Custer

… and Drake got me to studying Elizabethan England and piracy while Custer got me to the American Indian wars. Everything was a go beginning with junior high school.

Still, there’s one more piece. Tex Ritter and then Errol Flynn got me to acting. I took acting classes in junior high school, high school, and majored in theater (focused on acting and directing) in college. You know where this is going, and so do I. But then something happened in 1976 when I was doing a summer of dinner theater in Lubbock, Texas; something I would have never guessed in a lifetime. The first play was a generation-gap comedy. Two actors, the director, and I were hired in Los Angeles. The rest of the cast were hired locally. The two other LA actors and the director were also writers.

The Hayloft Dinner Theatre was in the round, which allowed for a fairly large audience while keeping the acting intimate. (photos © Louis Kraft 1976)

Long story short: Texas Tech is in Lubbock, and it was a wild town back in the ’70s. Racism was rampant, drug busts were all over the place, the theater department at the university had two cliques that wanted to kill each other. Add patriotism and by the time I finished the second play I was thrilled to put the Lone Star state behind me.

But, that summer led to me writing screenplays and landing an agent. By the mid-1980s I knew I wanted to write full time. I had parted company with my third screenwriting agent about 1984 and started writing and selling articles. In 1985 I quit the acting world cold turkey and the next year talked my way into a corporate insurance brokerage firm without ever touching a computer. I knew they were the future for writers and I wanted to learn while getting paid to do so. The vice president at Jardine, Emmett, & Chandler liked me, put me in a room with a computer with pay, and told me that if I learned how to use it in two weeks I had the job.

Massacre no. 1

Sand Creek was a massacre, and it will always be the number one massacre in my view. But I didn’t have this view until this century.

The Sand Creek manuscript has become the most difficult assignment I’ve ever had (and that includes everything I wrote in the software world). The days have been long while the progress has been slow. The reason is simple: I’ve focused on using a number of people to propel the story toward conclusion. Yes, there have been health problems (my life should have ended in August 2017), but the ongoing research and the struggle to mix this grouping of people together in a linear way has become the biggest challenge of my life. For the record some have smaller roles than anticipated while some have seen their participation in the events grow.

LK as Ned Wynkoop viewing the hacked-to-pieces remains of the Cheyennes that had been murdered at Sand Creek on 29nov1864 during a dress rehearsal for one of the performances of the Ned Wynkoop one-man shows at the Washita Battlefield NHS in 2008. (photo © Louis Kraft and Johnny D. Boggs, 2008)

After signing the contract with Chuck Rankin in 2013 I knew that this project would push me to the extreme, but I never dreamed what I would face over time. … This said, I’m thrilled that Chuck took the time over several years to bring me on board to write the manuscript. … For me it is the creation process from the beginning of the research through the publication of a book. I know that when I look back on these years that I’ll have fond memories.

Col. John Chivington was a hero. Don’t believe me? Just read the Rocky Mountain News in December 1864, all through 1865, and for years to come. Chivington commanded the 29nov1864 attack on Black Kettle’s village on Sand Creek. Butchery of children, women, and men happened on that day and the next. Butchery of men, women, and children who thought that they were under the protection of the U.S. military until it decided if the 1864 Cheyenne war would end or continue. In Chivington’s two official reports on the massacre he stated that he killed between 500 and 600 Indians. These numbers were inflated. Still, the good colonel, the war hero, was wrong, for easily many more Cheyennes survived his butchery count than died on that bloody ground.

My terrific friend and great Cheyenne Indian wars historian John Monnett took this image at the end of our time (that is his, mine, Linda M, and Pailin’s) on the Sand Creek Massacre NHS on 3oct2014. We had been walking along the bluffs to the west of the village site in southeast Colorado. (photo © Louis Kraft and John Monnett, 2014)

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway when it is published. If you do, I guarantee that you will become ill. If not, you will have a very foul taste in your mouth.

Still, Chivington would years later state: “I stand by Sand Creek.” This quote is now in the manuscript. It took me years to locate it and figure out how to get Chivington’s most famous quote into the manuscript.

The LK view on race

LK speaking about Lt. Charles Gatewood and Geronimo at the Festival of the West in Scottsdale, Arizona. Over four days (18-21mar2004) I spoke about Gatewood and Geronimo twice, Custer and the Cheyennes once. (© Louis Kraft 2oo4).

In 1970 I volunteered to serve in Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), which was like the Peace Corps but in the United States. Early in 1971 President Richard Nixon had a national draft lottery, and on the night that it was televised my eyes were glued to the TV set. I got lucky. My number was 273. This meant that every male of draft age (that is, between the ages of 18 and 35) with a lower number than mine would be drafted before me.

This eliminated me from the draft. … Even so, that June I reported for duty with VISTA. My life and view on race was already in place, but my time in VISTA would confirm what I already knew, … LK was not and is not a racist and accepts all people as human beings.

This statement has played a major part in my life. Both in my view of humankind and what I write about. My first novel dealt with race relations, as have my first four nonfiction books (my Sand Creek manuscript will be my fifth nonfiction book that deals with race relations). The following manuscripts (fiction and nonfiction) will also mostly focus on race relations. I’m a person. You’re a person. Every other person walking our earth is a human being. We’re all equal. Nothing else needs be said.

Back to Lt. Calley and massacre no. 2

I learned, as all of us did in the USA, that Calley’s victory was not a victory—it was a massacre of men, women, and children that were non-combatants. That’s right, they were just like you and me, … people who were not soldiers fighting a war. Five hundred four Vietnamese civilians were murdered, and that included 200 who were less than twelve years old.

This image was reprinted in the Los Angeles Times on 16mar2018. (The photo & copyright credit goes to Ronald L. Haeberle and the Associated Press, 1968) … This image is worth 1000s of words. Make your own decision of what happened on 16mar1968. … Sgt. Ron Haeberle was a photographer for the U.S. Army. The photos that he took for the military were black and white and they were vanilla-flavored. He shot color photos using his personal camera, and these he didn’t hand over to the Army. This image, although printed in black & white in the Times, was originally in color.

Kraft, why are you writing this? … If you don’t know why by now, don’t ask—just move on.

For the record Lt. Calley, and more important Capt. Hugh Thompson (I’ve also seen Thompson listed as a warrant officer), played important parts in my life. Calley for being a hero and then a murderer of innocent people (sound familiar to those of you who know what my Sand Creek massacre manuscript is about?). You bet!

On 16mar1968 Army photographer Sgt. Ron Haeberle had reached the hamlet of My Lai near the northern coast of South Vietnam. He came upon U.S. soldiers who pointed their weapons at mostly women and children. “Guys were about to shoot people,” Haeberle told Life Magazine (5dec1969 issue, p36). “I yelled, ‘Hold it,’ and shot my picture. As I walked away, I heard M16s open up. From the corner of my eye I saw bodies falling, but I didn’t turn to look.” This was the caption for the photo at right, which was on p37. (© Ronald L. Haeberle and the Associated Press, 1968; and Life Magazine, 1969)

But heroes in the USA have always been honored and set upon a pedestal. Lt. Calley initially joined this elite group. A man who was my first hero—a B-western star of the 1930s and 1940s who became one of the main people who made country and western music coast-to-coast in the USA beginning in the 1940s. Over the decades Tex Ritter honored the USA, religion, relationships, and heroes in song, and many of his recordings are classics. As soon as Tex and his producer at Capitol Records realized the truth of what happened the record’s release date was canceled. Without knowing the facts I am certain that the recording session that made Calley a hero has long since been destroyed.

A side story that is major …

You want to know my favorite storyline? Do you? It’s simple: Boy meets girl, girl doesn’t like boy, boy doesn’t give up, eventually boy wins over girl, and they live happily for the rest of their lives. … I’m not joking here.

This is what I want for me and what I want for you. I have it, and I am the luckiest man you know.

This LK art is based upon a photo that was totally useless, while showing that I am a decent cook. The image was also taken after I met the most fantastic person in my entire life. Yes, Pailin. She is unlike anyone I have ever met, and that includes a multitude of people from all walks of life. My meeting her was totally unexpected and it changed my life forever. This Wedgwood stove that dated to the 1950s is gone after years of great service. It is history, like just about everything I write about. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

I have lived my life turning my back on false relationships and charlatans. Not good times for LK. This continued until 15jun2013 when I met Pailin (that day/evening changed my life forever).

LK and his beautiful wife, Pailin, on 2dec2014, just before we boarded the first of two planes on our return flight to California from Bangkok, Thailand. For the record Thailand is in my past and in my future. (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

If you have read any of my blogs you know her. If not, look to the right.

Unfortunately my upbringing guaranteed that I could never write the above storyline. More important this year saw the 50th anniversary of what happened on 16mar1968. Like Sand Creek, we should never forget My Lai.


I know that a lot of you have bad thoughts of California and Los Angeles. How’s this for a sudden change of topic? Other than high taxes, high cost of living, and jealousy of people like me who enjoy great weather year round, I’m clueless why? Let’s talk about Los Angeles. There are more languages spoken in LA than any other city in the USA, there are more American Indians in LA than any other city in the USA, and there are more Thai people in LA than all of the rest of the USA put together. I live in the melting pot of the USA—I have it all; museums, theater, music, art, any food you want to eat, any film you want to see (and that includes numerous Errol Flynn films on the big screen every year), and most important any race, religion, and culture you may want to mingle with.

Flight commander Hugh Thompson’s actions

Helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, and his two-man crew (which included Glenn Andreotta, his crew chief, and Lawrence Colburn, his door gunner), supported the USA attack on 16mar1968. However, this day would not be as he assumed, for when his helicopter swooped low over enemy lines he saw wounded children, women, and men spread across the ground. After marking their position, he called for medics, and returned to base to refuel.

This Associated Press © 1971 image of Thompson was published in the LA Times on 16mar2018.

When Thompson returned to the war zone he again flew the helicopter in low over the scene of the wounded civilians. They were no longer wounded; they were dead. Worse, it was obvious that they were not the Vietcong, they were not soldiers standing firm against an American assault on their homeland. No. They were civilians, simply people trying to flee while their country’s soldiers confronted an invasion of their land.

Thompson then saw a group of mostly women and children running from U.S. soldiers. He acted immediately—WITHOUT ORDERS (sound familiar with Wynkoop and my 1864 writing?)—for he saw what he needed to do. Act, now, or watch the murder of women, children, and men who were non-combatants. He landed the helicopter between the advancing soldiers and the fleeing Vietnamese. He told Colburn and Andreotta that if the soldiers didn’t halt or shot him to shoot them. He stepped from the ‘copter and confronted a portion of actually Capt. Ernest Medina’s Charlie Company (1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Infantry Brigade), to whom Lt. Calley reported.

If Thompson did this on 29nov1864 he probably would have become a casualty of friendly fire or he would have cashiered out of the military, … not to mention major racial hatred directed at him. Luckily the USA—our country, my country, your country—has progressed to the point that it recognized murder (at least with the My Lai massacre and hopefully more and more with the Sand Creek massacre as we age).

Actually my wish list on this subject is quite large.


Hugh Thompson’s name is right there with Gatewood and Wynkoop, as well as Capt. Silas Soule and Lt. Joseph Cramer. His actions mimics theirs. This is not an overstatement; it is fact. He was an American hero, as they were. For the record Thompson, Andreotta (posthumously), and Colburn received the “Soldier’s Medal for acts of extraordinary bravery not involving contact with the enemy” twenty years later.

Also for the record, William Calley apologized for his actions against the Vietnamese people in August 2009; Something that John Chivington was incapable of doing.

I live a simple life of fun and goofiness

If you have followed these blogs you know that Pailin and I are gunslingers … with our fingers, and that at times we attempt to surprise each other. This is pure fun. For us it is being five years old, or six, or seven again. Maybe older.

On one night when Pailin returned home after a long day of massages I didn’t open the back door, which forced her to enter the house through the front door. Immediately she focused on where I was. In a closet? Hiding behind a door? In the bathroom hidden behind the shower curtain? She cautiously searched the house.

No LK. It was after ten that evening, and suddenly the game became one of concern.

Not for yours truly, for I sat under the dinning room table. It had a table cloth, which cloaked my hiding spot. No notes, which I usually leave if I’m not home or are already in bed. Pailin entered the kitchen, which leads into the dinning room. She set her massage bag down and prepared to relax. I pushed the chair to the side and appeared from under the table. At the same time I fired a bullet from my finger gun. “BANG! BANG!” I yelled. She grabbed her midriff as she sank to the kitchen floor, laughing all the way down. I stepped from under the table, and, also laughing, crossed to her and pulled her to her feet. Point LK! We hugged.

Pailin is my lady, my love, my life. … And we do play games, as they keep our lives fluid and alive.

Pailin is as different from me as I am from her, and yet our interests and views on life (and remember that she is Thai and I’m American) are night and day. Somehow, without consciously attempting to create a world for Pailin and LK, … we have done just that.

We have connected between race and culture and created our own world that thrives in two worlds, two religions, two cultures.

Our world also includes an openness to just being ourselves. She and I have learned who we are in this mixing of culture and religion and lifeway. I met Pailin on 15jun2013 at a dinner party I hosted for five people; two couples and myself. One of the ladies insisted that she bring a coworker for me as I had been at that time girlfriend-less for two years. I refused. The lady—Pailin—also refused, but eventually we both gave in.

What happened was quiet magic, for I found a beautiful woman who knew few English words but was totally alert to what was happening around her. Before the day/evening ended I knew that I wanted her in my life.

This is my lady in the front yard of Tujunga House. (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna 2013)

Much has happened. Her first visit to my world, our marriage, her first Green Card, her first Indian wars talk, and the following year her first Indian wars trip and meeting my friends, my first visit to Thailand and her family (who are now my family), her California drivers license (no easy task as the written test is in English), her passing the California Massage Council massage therapy test and receiving her license (this English test was 10 times tougher), her becoming a massage therapist in major demand on the Westside of Los Angeles (and this is an understatement as she could work 15 hours a day ten days a week if she desired as she is in that much demand), her receiving her 10-year Green Card extension, and now in place to obtain her U.S. citizenship. This is a mouthful, but I thought that you needed to know who my lady is. Bottom line: She is special, and I haven’t mentioned any of her personal traits that far outweigh her professional life.

Sadness and my future … a future never imagined

This is the first announcement of this (although I did hint elsewhere on social media that a large change was coming, even offering 100-1 odds that no one would guess it). Pailin returned to Thailand this February due to the death of a special person in her life. Her brother, my brother-in-law, who she loved with all her heart and a brother I thought the world of. I couldn’t go due to an overdue Sand Creek manuscript delivery and a physical problem that, honestly, made me fearful of flying. Palin totally understood.

Pailin shared this video that she taped on 27feb2018 early during her trip, and I believe often. It increased my fame, or infamy, in Thailand. Anyway, everyone saw it and commented, and I think it indirectly helped what was about to happen. … I say “rich” in it, but I don’t mean rich in dollars; rather rich in knowledge.

It seems silly to describe LK wearing black shorts and a T-shirt while dancing to a tune without music,
but the video’s coding will not allow the image to appear in a PDF file and a description is needed.

Pailin and I video-talked almost every day (6:00 am LA time/9:00 pm Thai time). I knew a lot of our relatives, but not all. No matter. Magical minutes for LK and his lady, but also pure gold for me as I was able to connect in real time with my extended family. These calls made me realize how much a part of my life they were and are. During this time I met a colonel in the Thai Army and his beautiful wife (I had known about them since 2014, but had never met them). At different times during Pailin’s trips she has spent great time with them and her brother and sister-in-law. This led to my introduction to them, cemented a friendship, and opened the door to an offer I never expected.

Last year the colonel and his wife (a dentist who has three offices) shared with Pailin (and I believe they have been close for a long time), a wonderful piece of information—their first children will enter the world in the future. During our California/Thailand video time the officer and his lady decided to approach me with a proposal. And through Pailin they did, they asked me if I’d consider teaching their still unborn children English as a first language.

LK’s office in Uttaradit, Thailand, on 26nov2014. Pailin and I spent a lot of time at her sister and brother-in-law’s home, and Not and Font have certainly become my sister and brother. Great memories, and good work on my last Geronimo article for Wild West as well as making decent progress on my book projects. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

Wow! A magnificent offer I never expected. Believe it or not, my brain still functions and quickly when necessary. I replied positively; at the same time I made it clear that all my Sand Creek deadlines would have to be made. They shared an approximate starting date, and as of today I think that this is doable. The basics are in place; the what, where, when, and how are still to come (but won’t be shared).

This is Font Subanna and LK on his 27nov2014 birthday. This man is my brother, and so much more, … he is one of my best friends on this earth. I had met him after my arrival in Langpang, Thailand, but our friendship didn’t begin until days later when he picked Pailin and I up and drove us to his home in Uttaradit. During the drive he told Pailin, “I don’t know what to say to him.” My mastery of the Thai language and his of the English language isn’t very good, but over many great days we had no trouble communicating. During one of our joint dinners at his home he said to Pailin, “Why don’t you teach him Thai so I can talk to him?” Everyone laughed. At another dinner a few nights later, and again at his home, opportunity presented itself. I said to Pailin, “Why don’t you teach him English so I can talk to him.” Everyone laughed. Some of the best days in my life. (art © Louis Kraft 2016)

I already know that I can work in Thailand, for I wrote almost daily in 2014. This said, and with proper preparation I can work on nonfiction, fiction, articles, and talks (if not a thing of my past). While in Thailand my focus will be the children; when not with them my writing, research, and spending time with family and friends.

A neighbor’s 2017 Harley Davidson. (photo © Louis Kraft 2017)

I had broached the subject of buying a Vette in Thailand. “Are you crazy?” Pailin asked. “They cost more in Thailand than in the U.S.!” Oops! I suppose a Harley Davidson Sportster, which I have been considering buying in the USA, is also out of scope. BTW, Thailand is a motorcycle wonderland. Alas, easily 95 percent of them are small.

Actually much of what I saw of the Thai people is similar to the Cheyenne people, who are totally separate for they, even though they also originated in Asia, migrated south and then west into a land that would become Southern Europe. Their aimless wanderings continued north and then west and resulted in them crossing an ice-packed tundra and reaching what would eventually become North America. Carrying this thought farther, I compare the Thai and Cheyenne people in the Sand Creek manuscript to make a major point that impacted the Called Out People (Cheyennes) and Cloud People (Arapahos) in a major way.

This is Phraya Phichai Dub Hak. It is a small bronze of the huge statue of him in Uttaradit, Thailand. It originally belonged to my brother Font Subanna, but he sent it home with Pailin in 2016 as he was very aware of my interest in this great man. Phraya Phichai joins me at work every day as he guards my computer. (photo © Louis Kraft 2018)

When I visited Thailand in 2014, I first stayed at Pailin’s sister’s house (she had retired as a colonel from the Thai Army). After days Daranee Kostin, who is a special lady, finally said to Pailin, “When are you going to tell him I’m not your sister?” If you know anything about the Cheyennes you know where I’m going. … Daranee and Pailin are childhood, school, and adult friends (to this day).

Sitting on the top of a small cabinet near the front door of Daranee’s house was a bronze statue of Phraya Phichai Dub Hak (the soldier with the broken sword; actually he was a general). He intrigued me, grabbed my attention, and eventually I asked about him. What I learned about him was mind-boggling. My brother Sophon and niece Lek introduced him to me in Uttaradit, and Font, although not present, was front and center with this world of discovery (see the above caption). … Phraya Phichai was close to his king in a major time of woe, for Burma was invading Siam. The enemy was winning. During a major battle, and like George Armstrong Custer, he was at the front of his troops in battle. The sword in his right hand was broken by an attacker, but instead of retreating he charged forward. He and his soldiers won the battle, and eventually the invasion of Siam ended.

There is much more to Phraya Phichai Dub Hak. I have seen a handful of pages here, paragraphs there, and they all say basically the same thing—and as far as I’m concerned none of it is confirmed. I am certain that there is a ton of primary research in Thailand that is available and I want to see it. … Obviously my translator will become a close friend.

My future is before me and it is mine

I am in good shape with Errol & Olivia and can complete the manuscript anywhere in the world. The first Kit Carson book will be a novel and I can also complete it anywhere.* There is also going to be a nonfiction book on Kit, but I have more research to complete (this will happen before year’s end). Both books are major for me; so much so that if I don’t find enough primary source material to write the nonfiction manuscript, I will merge that information with another portion of his life. As said above there will be two books on the pirate Francis Drake; one nonfiction and one fiction. I began a novel on El Draque in the mid-1970s when I had an acting manager, and it is my intention to complete it. There is also a Chinese/western novel set in Monterey, California, waiting in the wings (researched and outlined), as well as a modern-day story that deals with the Anasazi and cannibalism in the American Southwest (this will be based upon one of my screenplays, and it will be a thriller). Once Errol & Olivia is published I will ramp up my research on the second nonfiction Flynn book (this can only be done in the USA). (There had been hope for a partnership on a Flynn book but this is no more—LK’s loss, and perhaps yours).

* The novel will deal with Kit Carson and the Diné (the Navajos). I have a draft that was agented and contracted but then the publisher decided to eliminate their western line. It was genre, meaning 65,000 words; I plan to expand it and make it into an historical novel. Like The Final Showdown (1992), most of the characters actually lived, but the two leading Navajos will be fictional: an old warrior and his granddaughter.

That’s about it in a nutshell. …. Yikes! Actually it’s a mouthful.

 

Louis Kraft, SoCal fires, earthquakes, Sand Creek Massacre, & an Errol Flynn tidbit

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


For starters Pailin and I hope that the day we celebrated Jesus Christ’s birth was a peaceful and loving one for you with your family and friends. … Also that you had a safe and uneventful New Year’s Eve. Ours was at Wat Thai (Thai Temple of Los Angeles in North Hollywood) praying and seeing some friends as we welcomed in 2018.

On 20dec2017 Mimi took this image of us at Jantana (pronounced Jan-ta-na) and Richard’s (pronounced Ri-chard’s) apartment in Northridge, California. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft and Louis Kraft 2017)

The year 2017, more than any other, has made me realize how
fragile life really is. For the record, I have a family of four—three ladies
and yours truly. I’ve survived some horrific car crashes, I’ve had guns
pointed at me, a knife at my throat, I’ve taken a motorcycle over a
a cliff, I’ve been knocked cold (I don’t know if this counts), and
I’ve survived cracking my skull open more than once as
well as surgeries that had to succeed or I would I have
been dancing with Angels long before now.

My view: I love walking on Mother Earth.

Fire, wind, more fire, & more wind … a SoCal story

Elsewhere I’ve documented the frightening Los Angeles and Ventura County fires of December 2017. It’s rough when you can watch flames billow into ever-growing puffs of brown smoke that obliterate the sky. You know that property is being destroyed and animals are dying.

This image in the Los Angele Times dates to December 6, 2017, and is of a man attempting to calm a horse during the Sylmar/Creek fire. These fires in SoCal were absolutely devastating on horses and over livestock. My great friend and Apache scouts expert Layton Hooper commented numerous times about this image (as he also cares about animals). I couldn’t agree more with Layton’s views on horses and how they are innocent bystanders to man’s destruction of our world.

But often the men and women who combat these horrific Santa Ana winds that range upwards to 80 MPH and fuel the fires that ravage SoCal year-in-and-year-out fall under the radar. These people, these heroes, risk their lives on a daily basis. During the recent Sylmar/Canyon fire in the San Fernando Valley that put Pailin and I at risk (a December 6 LA government text read: Strong winds over night creating extreme fire danger. Stay alert. Listen to authorities.”), they worked 24-hour shifts to combat an enemy (wind and fire) that is a hundred times more devastating than the earthquakes that are associated with SoCal. These brave human beings deserve all our respect and thanks. Believe it or not, they aren’t alone for volunteers joined them along with fire fighters from other states as well as people serving jail time in California.

All of them are magnificent!!! Perhaps some of these heroes serving jail time should see the remainder of their sentences commuted.

… and the Thomas fire continues to burn (as of 30dec17).

I have favorite animals. Just five: Mountain lions (pumas), horses, wolves, coyotes, and doberman pinchers, The last are dogs, and they are the most gentle animals I have ever known. The Pumas are beyond belief, and they are a major part of my life as I follow their struggle to remain free in SoCal. Today, tomorrow, and always. These photos are from an article in the 27Dec2017 issue of the LA Times. This young Puma was burned while attempting to flee from the Thomas fire. It has been rescued and is on its way to recovery.

Ye-ough!!! (a sound) … For California 2018 will be back to normal if what the LA Times just published is accurate, mainly that this winter would be one of the driest in California history. If true next year’s fires will again ravish the Golden State. Pailin’s and my home was at fire risk twice in 2017 (June and October).

This image of a condor (left) and its chick was on the front page of the LA Times on 1jan2018, as it featured a story on endangered species chick no. 871, who should have left its cave and flew for the first time in December. It didn’t as the Thomas Fire ravished the Los Padres Sespe Condor Sanctuary. Scientists have recently seen its parents near the cave and hope that the chick has survived.

If fires attack Los Angeles in 2018 it is not going to be 1,000 homes destroyed, it is not going to be 2,000 homes destroyed, … it will be thousands upon thousands of homes destroyed. The homeless count in LA is currently 55,000 (how large is the city you live in?). If, and I pray God this never becomes reality, … if the 2018 fires destroy the San Fernando Valley (one of numerous valleys in the county of Los Angeles) 1.3 million people will become homeless; the threat was ominous in 2017. … Will it become reality in 2018?

Earthquakes? What are they? Fire is the numeral uno enemy to the Golden State.

Oh, I forgot to mention that global warming is little more than fiction. My view on this: Everyone who thinks global warning is little more than a left wing piece of baloney have got their fingers firmly stuffed somewhere.

The year 2017 is one for the California record books

It is official, 2017 has been the hottest year on record for California. It has also been the worst fire year on record, and the Thomas Fire that started in Ventura County (which borders Los Angeles County) and has raged north and into Santa Barbara County is the largest fire in California since they began keeping accurate records in the early 1930s. This fire began on December 4; it was still burning on December 30 (but although it is supposedly 65 percent contained … homes are still threatened).

Something needs to be said about earthquakes

I have lived through the last two major earthquakes in SoCal: 1971 and 1994. I can’t tell you how often I have been quizzed about the horror of an earthquake when outside California. People I have met when giving talks or performances or on research trips are forever interested (some of them are terrified of experiencing one). … Let’s start this conversation with LK isn’t keen on living through a hurricane or a tornado.

I guess it’s all about perspective.

Let’s start with tornados. In 1974 I flew to Missouri to buy a 1951 Hudson Hornet, a great automobile that ruled NASCAR racing during the first half of the 1950s (I even wrote a screenplay about them cleaning up at the racetrack called Hornet; unfortunately my agent couldn’t sell it).

The Missourian picked me up at the airport. After checking out the Hornet and taking it for a test drive I bought the car. Tornado warnings were live on Missouri TV that morning. He and his family didn’t want me to leave. I ate his wife’s homemade ice cream and then allowed the family to show me the house where future U.S. president Harry Truman was born. I am a patient and polite cowboy. During this time I had visions of Judy Garland’s classic film The Wizard of Oz (1939) dancing around in my brain. If you don’t know the film, a tornado transports Judy’s character to the land of Oz. It was 1974 and I was picturing me and the 1951 Hudson Hornet being transported to the land of Oz.* Honestly, this was a living nightmare for me. When the seller’s family finally gave me a tearful goodbye about eight-thirty that morning I pushed the Hornet’s accelerator pad to the floor, … and hightailed it out of Kansas as quickly as I could.

Time is short, and this blog is about four months late. Thus this old collage. This picture of the Hudson that came from Missouri was taken in the still-rural Northridge in the San Fernando Valley. The photo of the Camaro was taken overlooking the Pacific Ocean in northern San Diego County. … BTW, bets were out that I wouldn’t make a wedding in Tucson, Arizona, which was a little over a week after I bought the car. I covered the bets and won.

From left: Hattie McDaniel, OdeH, and Vivian Leigh in Gone with the Wind. Olivia was nominated for a supporting Oscar in this film. She didn’t win. At first she was angry, but later was thrilled for Hattie’s win. I couldn’t agree more with her view. (photo in LK personal collection)

* The Wizard of Oz should have won the Oscar for best film of 1939 (I know, heresy). Gone with the Wind did. I have a large connection with Gone with the Wind due to Ms. Olivia de Havilland. Writing about her connection with this film will take up quite a number of pages in Errol & Olivia, and these words have and will flow speedily forward on the keyboard. Her story here is good stuff. No-no-no; it’s great stuff! All I want to say here is The Wizard of Oz, which took me decades to accept and like, is a great film, while Gone with the Wind, which I’ve hated since the first time I attempted to see it is not. For the record, I have never seen this film completely in one screening (and that includes seeing it in a movie theater; I walked out before falling asleep). I doubt this is a high recommendation.

Let’s get back to earthquakes. On February 8, 1971, I needed a place to sleep. My then girlfriend. Joan McGirr, was living with her father. I parked my motorcycle next to her car in the apartment building’s underground parking lot and slept in it that night.

This image of LK was taken just months before the 9feb1971 earthquake. I’m sitting in my office just north of the apartment building where my then-girlfriend lived with her father. (photo © Louis Kraft 1970)

The next morning I was awake and reading the newspaper in her car when the earthquake struck. I was out of that parking structure in a flash and as far as I could be from the surrounding apartments. In front of me was a large swimming pool with tidal waves pounding the sides. The surrounding complex consisted of three-story apartments. They looked like old-time cartoons as they swayed back and forth in rhythm with the pool’s pounding waves.

The 1994 Northridge earthquake caught me asleep in bed in North Hollywood. It struck about four-thirty in the morning on January 17. Let me say one thing here. When a fairly large earthquake hits there is no guesswork. You know immediately what is happening. Get away from windows and anything that can collapse or fall on you.

Earthquakes don’t last long. One minute, two minutes, maybe three minutes and it’s over. There are after shocks that can go on for days.

Front and center in an unbelievable story

LK image choices are now being selected for Sand Creek and the Tragic
End of a Lifeway, and they will add great value to the book.

Pailin took this photo of me relaxing at home with guests on 13sept2017. This is one of the last images of me as I looked like this. A joke? I wish, but alas, no. (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2017)

I know, I know, I’ve always known (nothing new here). For the record I’m working on the Sand Creek manuscript seven days a week until I deliver a first rough draft to the great editor-in-chief of the University of Oklahoma Press, Chuck Rankin at the end of January. He has always been my friend since we met years back. By that I mean that he has done everything possible to see that my manuscripts saw publication, … and this was long before we signed the Wynkoop contract. Folks, in case you don’t know, OU Press is the largest and best publisher of Indian wars books in the world. In the world! They are my publisher, which makes me one of the luckiest guys in the world.

At times events happen and they affect all of our hearts in different ways. …
31dec2017 was one of those days, but with life there’s always hope.
Pain over the loss of a cherished person is always private. … Life
can be fickle. One day we’re here and healthy, but there is
no guarantee for tomorrow (I’m not talking about me).

A bashed-face and worse … that’s me!!!

Ouch! … for it is worse, and I hate to say it but this is the story of my life.

Christopher Juarez at the central Los Angeles Public Library in downtown on 19nov2017. I cannot begin to tell how much this young man helped me during my two days at the library studying the Nancy Morton microfilm from the Nebraska State Historical Society. (photo © Louis Kraft 2017)

On 11nov2017 I took the subway from the North Hollywood hub (the Red line) to the main LA Public Library. My bad from the beginning, but it was worse than that for good ol’ LK got lost. What should have been three miles of total walking turned into six + miles of walking. Huh??? Take one guess. LK was clueless and got lost. If you know downtown LA there are good places and there are bad places and I got to see all of them, including a male urinating in pure daylight (I know, this is not a major selling point for Los Angeles). When I finally reached the library I was in for a shock. It was November 11—Hello cowboy! … Veteran’s Day—and the library had shut down Friday, the 10th, through Sunday, the 12th, for the Veteran’s Day weekend. What can I say other than keep your views to yourself. That’s right, I don’t want to hear them.

My day excursion, which began at nine in the morning ended at 12:25 in the afternoon with roughly two and a half hours spent as LK walked as fast as he could. Again, and by my calculations, it was over six miles. … You do not want to know what my feet felt like that afternoon, for all you’ll get from me is a bunch of XXXs and !!!s.

See below for the continuation of this story. …

The creation of history

If I chose to list all the historians who have shaped history in their image you would be shocked. I know a very good Indian wars historian who once told me that he wanted to turn history upside down. Say what? Basically this person wanted to push Indian wars history to the extreme.

That’s right, and more often than you would ever guess historians do this. Facts don’t drive what they write, sensationalization does. Most of the time they choose people who are no longer with us as you can’t be charged with defaming the dead in the USA. This is not hard to do when you write about the American Indian wars or the Golden Age of the Cinema.

LK at Tujunga House on 5mar2017. (photo © Louis Kraft 2017)

This blog, as most in the near future, features events that led to the attack by Colorado Volunteers on people who thought that they were under the protection of the U.S. military on 29nov1864.

For the record I’ve been giving talks based upon reality for thirty years, since 1987. These are talks wherein I know my subject matter and I don’t read. At the moment I’m on self-imposed sabbatical. The reason is simple: I have a book to complete that is of major importance to me.

Believe it or not, I have been persona non-grata for more years than I’d like to count. You do not want to know about people who turn their back to me when I walk past them. What’s their problem? Hell, I don’t know. I’ll say this, they ain’t my friends.

Barbara Hershey and a film I like

What can I say about Ms. Hershey other than I’d like to know her well enough that we could share our views on the world, living, and creativity. Given decent parts in film or class TV productions she has time and again proven how good of an actress she is.

Last of the Dogmen

Barbara Hershey played an anthropologist whose expertise was the Cheyenne Indians in Last of the Dogmen (Savoy Pictures, 1995). In this film, which always makes my top 50 (now 60) film list had a great quote that Barbara said. But first she had to deal with a modern-day bounty hunter played by Tom Berenger.

As stated some of Barbara Hershey’s performances are top-notch, and certainly  in Last of the Dogmen and Defenseless. Also she is someone that I wish I knew. This, in the Kraft world, is a high recommendation for more reasons than one. (photo in LK collection)

Berenger had found evidence that points to Cheyenne Indians from a time long gone killing escaped criminals, and he’s trying to learn if people from the mid-nineteenth century could have survived undiscovered into the mid-1990s. Hershey finds his quest ludicrous. And it is, but it opens a door to explore race relations between people from a time dear to my heart with those living in the mid-1990s. From the get-go the film is fantasy for the simple reason that there were few Cheyenne Dog Men (whites called them Dog Soldiers) at the November 29, 1864, massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians on Sand Creek, Colorado Territory, an attack that saw children used for target practice, an unborn child cut from its dead mother’s womb and scalped, … it gets worse, much-much worse. … Before the story can take off Hershey gives Berenger a history lesson on the Cheyennes along with their struggle to retain their freedom, land, and lifeway before again making it clear that Dog Men could not and did not murder the escaped convicts as there were no “Dog Men” from the 1860s living as they had in 1864 in modern times. Lordy-lordy, you have got to love this premise as it is a good one. Barbara’s quote in the film was great, but you’re not going to read these words in this blog. See the film, … and when Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is published read the book. Here’s a big hint: Barbara’s quote is the final two sentences in the book.

Sand Creek players have been pounded time and again …

Certainly Ned Wynkoop has been labeled a “traitor” to his race, and an Indian-lover. This pounding centers on his acting without orders (not cool when you are in the military) to save white prisoners and bring seven Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs to Denver to discuss ending the 1864 Cheyenne war with John Evans, the second territorial governor of Colorado. One premise holds that the massacre at Sand Creek would have never happened if he had not done this.

LK as Ned Wynkoop in an one-man show seeing the sexually dismembered bodies of the Southern Cheyennes months after the butchery at Sand Creek on 29nov1864. (photo: Johnny D. Boggs during a dress rehearsal for performances at a Washita Battlefield National Historic Site symposium in 2008).

Really? All I’ll say here is that illogic follows and stampedes its way into the foreground.

This isn’t worth talking about, other than to say there were many participants in the events that led up to the attack on a Cheyenne and Arapaho village on Sand Creek in November 1864. It was not just one player, it was a combination of multiple players and all their actions. People make choices. You make choices; I make choices. So did Evans, Wynkoop, Colonel John Chivington, Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle, Arapaho Chief Left Hand, and on and on.

The tragedy of Sand Creek is much more than an officer (Wynkoop) acting without orders to rescue four white children and bring seven Indian leaders to Denver to discuss ending a war. If illogical thinking rules the day, why not say that the Sand Creek village was “easy prey,” like some of those hunting estates where macho men with big guns can hunt big game that can’t escape as they are trapped within the preserve?

These people had their vaginas cut out, their penises hacked off. Their children had their skulls bashed in. The term “war crime,” didn’t exist in 1864, but it does now. What happened in 1864 was a war crime regardless of what it might have been called then. Pure and simple. You do this today, and you happen to be an American soldier, you will be tried for war crimes. … I’m not certain when this came to pass but it was certainly in place at the end of World War II when Nazis were charged with heinous crimes of genocide against the Jewish people. BTW, “genocide” became a word in 1945.

These crimes live into the twenty-first century when on March 12, 2006, an American soldier (Specialist James Barker) raped and murdered a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl, Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. He and five soldiers with him then murdered her father, mother, and six-year-old sister in Mahmoudiya, twenty miles south of Baghdad. They burned the bodies in an attempt to cover up their crime.

… and the Cheyennes?

For starters there were a number of Southern Cheyenne bands trusting Chief Black Kettle’s efforts to remove them from the on-going war. Unfortunately their approximate location was known, making them an easy target. Chivington’s goal was never to fight Cheyenne Dog Men and Lakotas who rode the war trail farther north. Instead, he wanted a target that never expected to be attacked. That’s right, he wanted “easy prey.” Chivington would claim a lopsided victory with a huge death count that perhaps exceeded the total number of people that could have possibly been living in this Sand Creek village, and for a short time became a great Indian fighter.

From left: Leo Oliva, LK, and Fort Larned Chief Historian George Elmore. We are walking the on the parade ground, and we are heading toward the building that Wynkoop rented for his headquarters when he was a U.S. Indian agent, which was just outside the perimeter of the post. Good friends Leo and George have helped me oh-so many times over the years. Both have been instrumental in getting me to Kansas time and again to speak and perform, as well as aiding my research. … I can’t begin to tell you how much George has aided my Sand Creek research. This photo was taken on 20sept2012. Two days later Leo and I spoke on the now protected Cheyenne-Dog Man-Lakota village that Major General Winfield Hancock destroyed in April 1867. … This part of Kansas is in my blood. It is one of my homes away from home.

What can I say. My Sand Creek proposal was 37 pages long. I presented a detailed outline of what I thought the final manuscript should include. It also stated that nothing was set in stone, that my research would define the flow of the manuscript. … Boy, is this a true statement.

Actually Chivington is going to have a smaller role than planned. Such is life. This said, his impact on the story is huge.

On 24apr1999 Cheyenne Peace Chiefs Gordon Yellowman (kneeling) and Lawrence Hart (standing right-center) blessed the Pawnee Fork village site. The lady with the robe wrapped around her is Connie Yellowman, Gordon’s wife. This was the first time that I spoke at Fort Larned. That’s George Elmore in the sergeant’s uniform at the left of the image. (photo © Louis Kraft 1999)

Fort Larned plays an important role in the Sand Creek story. Black Kettle, Neva, Left Hand, Little Raven, William Bent, George Bent, John Smith, and Wynkoop all spent time there. The destruction of the Pawnee Fork village (about 35 miles west of the post) was a continuation of what began in the early 1860s.

Territorial governor John Evans has been pounded

But should he have been? I’m not so sure, and although I hate to admit this, I don’t totally agree with the University of Denver’s study of Evans, and his part in the disaster. Still, they uncovered key information regarding the governor ducking the issue while in Washington D.C., and he didn’t return to Denver until spring 1865.

As I didn’t use an image of John Evans in the Wynkoop book, and have not decided what image(s) of him that I’m going to use in Sand Creek, this color portrait of Black Kettle is good here. The chief and the governor met at Camp Weld on 28sept1864, and both walked away from that meeting with totally different views upon what had been decided. For all the chief’s efforts to avoid or end war he has been pounded as hard as the governor. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

Let’s be up front, some of John Evans’ words and actions led to his downfall (which has been frighteningly similar to the racist backlash we have seen against the Southern states fight to remove themselves from the United States of America in the 1860s. Yikes!!!! How can the USA banish and remove one of the most important pieces of our history, the war between the states? Without a doubt slavery was (and is) heinous, and it has always been so. Owning another human being and playing god with his or her life is evil (but I’m talking from a modern POV). Times have changed in regards to racism for the better, but from what we have seen in 2017 we still have a long way to go.

Some of Evans’ proclamations are damaging. However, his attempts to avoid or end war were something he tried to do. More important, he left for the east on November 10, that was nineteen days prior to Chivington’s massacre of men, women, and children, and he didn’t learn of the battle until days afterwards. Evans wanted war and wanted the Cheyennes and Arapahos removed from the territory but he had no clue that this would happen to the people who tried to end the war.

Art of Mr. Carson dating to about 1845. (LK personal collection)

Evans’ fall from grace is similar to Kit Carson’s. … Folks, Kit was a good friend to the American Indians. He spoke seven languages: English, Spanish, and five native languages. If he were the butcher that modern times attempts to label him, why would he speak (at least partially) the words of the Navajos, Mescalero Apaches, Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Utes? Oh, I forgot to mention that he had three wives: Arapaho, Cheyenne, and a Latina of Spanish decent. One more fact, he converted to Catholicism to marry his Spanish wife. Does this sound like a racist? I think not. … Pray God I live long enough to complete two books that deal with Carson and his relationship with American Indians. … One fiction; one nonfiction.

John Evans has become an evil person. … Really? Guess what? John Evans was a human being who thought he was doing right when he did it. I’m not going to tell you that he was a good person or an evil one. If I do my job his words and actions will allow you to make your own decision of who he was.

Ditto everyone else, and this includes John Chivington. BTW, he will be the last piece of the manuscript to be completed. Oh, he has a presence now, but it is not close to being finished. Like Evans and everyone else, it is my job is to show what he said and what he did. There is nothing worse than an author (history or fiction, it matters not) who has a preconceived premise on an historical personage and will stay the course regardless of how much discovery disproves their premise. God forbid they shy away from their damnation of a human being because they see facts that shoots arrows into their task of destroying a person’s life. And especially people who are gone and cannot defend themselves. Yep, folks you can defame the dead in the USA (but be careful if you attempt to defame the living, for then you might set yourself up to join the homeless wandering the streets of LA).

Back to the reality of our times

Is it ethical to sell out truth for greater book sales? Honestly, you don’t want to know my opinion on this. Many writers have done this over the years, and it isn’t confined to the Indian wars. The most infamous—in my opinion—was Charles Higham. Higham, a film biographer, printed despicable lies about two of his subjects (see below), for the simple reason that he wanted to sell books. Other biographers and historians in modern times have mimicked Higham’s practice of creating false facts that bleed red for the same reason, to pocket as many greenbacks as possible. There’s one difference, these hacks of recent times (that is post 1980) stoop so low with their fictional creations that they are little more than cockroaches that run rampant in their readers’ minds as they spread filth that has no basis in reality.

In his 1980 best-selling piece of slop called Errol Flynn: The Untold Story, without proof Higham wrote that Flynn was both homosexual and a Nazi spy. Over the years real historians have debunked all of Higham’s falsehoods. Still the general public, if they remember anything about Flynn, it is that he was homosexual Nazi spy. Hell, the media still sells this as there is nothing better than trashing a star’s name for the simple reason that the public gobbles it up. As said above there is no punishment for defaming the dead in the USA. Not so in Canada; Higham’s book was also published in the land of our neighbors to the north. Flynn’s daughters Deidre and Rory went after Higham in Canada. To avoid going to court and potential prosecution Higham never set foot in Canada for the rest of his life. … I can’t speak about Higham’s other film biographies save one—Sisters: The Story of Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine (1984). I presented Olivia with a lot of questions about this book in letters and in person. Olivia made one reply in writing in which she dismissed Higham with three words (and none were profane). In person the only thing she said about him and his book on her and Joan was that he never contacted her, never asked her one question.

Was Higham a charlatan? Are other historians charlatans? I believe in challenging history. I also believe that it must be done ethically and not by presenting outrageous statements that are fiction-based on preconceived premises with the lone goal of destruction.

Another story

He was flesh and blood, had a deep baritone voice, was a college professor, had lived through the revolution of the 1960s, had evolved into the 1970s, and when I met him in the 1980s he had fine-tuned his persona. Oh, I forgot, he was also a writer. Charm oozed from him. He instantly became a friend (think 1989 in San Diego).

Years passed. It was now 1995 and we were at the Western Writers of America (WWA) convention in Cheyenne, Wyoming (I’m foggy on the location but think the timing was with the publication of Custer and the Cheyenne).

I’m going to pull from a major lesson I learned from Errol Flynn’s magnificent memoir, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, which was published shortly after his death in 1959. Mainly, that at times one must remain vague to protect friends, former lovers, and yours truly. I hope that what I share here is okay. I’m back to the writer that evolved from 1960s to the 1980s. He was working on a book wherein he claimed his subject—Billy the Kid—outlived his death by decades. “Do you believe he wasn’t murdered?” I asked. He honestly replied that he did believe that the Kid was murdered. “Why are you writing this manuscript?” He again honestly answered that it would sell books. This author’s name was W. C. Jameson.

Kudos to him for his honesty. At the same time his words now mimic the truth of today’s world. If the truth gets in the way of your preconceived premise, dismiss it. If someone confronts you on your lie, one-up them and call them “little Billy,” or “bullshitting Johnny,” or “sex stalker Alex,” or “lying Donald.” The new key words here are: “Fake News.” Point your finger at them, scream, and if possible see that your hateful rants explode all over social media.

Luckily for me the Dennis the Menace cartoons continue to live in the Los Angeles Times (this cartoon appeared in the 22nov17 edition of the paper). Although cartoonist Hank Ketcham is long gone, his wonderful creation continues to live at dennisthemeance.com and in various newspapers. The North America Synd. holds the 2017 copyright.

Good Lord, is this really today’s world? If yes, I need say no more.

The struggle to bring the Tsistsistas (Cheyennes) into their new world

Ladies and gents, separating myth and fiction from fact is an hellacious task, and one I’ve struggled with for years now. Also, unfortunately, no one is ever going to get all the facts straight. It is an impossible task.

Believe it or not the Cheyennes have been mostly painted as villains throughout their history. Their views and their facts have been almost totally ignored as little more than lies. There’s an adage, and it is that the conqueror writes the history books. … The vanquished are savages or worse and the winners are heroes who have saved mankind.

… and this includes some mixed-blood Cheyennes

I’ll mention two here: Julia Bent and her step brother Charles (Charley) Bent. Their father was trader William Bent, who plays a fairly large role in my Sand Creek manuscript, but surprisingly wasn’t as I expected him to be (this statement should have a few exclamation points as the William Bent I now know is not the William Bent I thought I knew). … I can’t begin to tell how many hours I’ve spent on Julia and Charley. I know them somewhat, but I wish more. She is little more than a beautiful image that appears and disappears during the tumultuous times of the 1860s while Charles has been pounded to hell as little more than a vicious killer.

George Bent was Julia’s older brother and Charley’s older step-brother. He lived well into the twentieth century and left a wealth of information for anyone willing to dig into and understand, and by that I mean cross-reference and closely check what he wrote.

If you believe just half of the recordings of supposed Cheyenne raids between 1864 and 1867, Charley Bent was named way-too-many times as a traitorous leader of perhaps thirty percent of these raids, and yet when he died he had not yet reached his twentieth year, and this is an easy fact to prove regardless of David Lavender’s fanciful words without a drop of proof in Bent’s Fort (1954) or Halaas & Masich’s tons of research citations in Halfbreed (2004), which simply muddies the water while providing little support for important text in their biography of George Bent.

I don’t have much on either Julia or Charles, but what I do have will be in the book for both were exceptional young people during a time of death and destruction. I won’t come close to sharing who they really were, but I will present them to you in an honest way while at the same time destroying some of the undocumented baloney that has been printed and reprinted about them ad nauseam.

There is Sand Creek Massacre research coming that will open some eyes

The misinformation and out-and-out fabrications of reality in the Sand Creek story is mind-boggling. These ongoing fabrications range from Laura Roper becoming Black Kettle’s sexual object to Isabelle Eubanks being five when the Cheyennes gave her to Wynkoop on September 12, 1864 (a date that is erroneously documented easily sixty percent of the time).

A wonderful research surprise in Downtown LA

A young wife was captured one day after the Cheyenne raid that captured Isabelle, her mother, younger brother, a relative, and Laura Roper. This young woman, like those taken with Isabelle, also plays a key if small role in the story. I had seen most if not all of the published documentation about her. Her name was Nancy Morton. During an horrendous string of a few days mostly along the Platte River Route she, along with many other whites, survived while seeing her family murdered and hacked to pieces. Traveling settlers, ranchers, station employees were attacked, many murdered, while a small number of whites were taken prisoner. There is an old cliché, “Save the last bullet for yourself,” as death or captivity by Indians was not something anyone wanted to experience. … Nancy and a boy named Daniel Marble survived the attack on their wagon train.

I have spent a lot of good time with Marty Vestecka Miller, of the Nebraska State Historical Society, who secured the interlibrary loan of a microfilm reel on Nancy Morton for me. As the only library in the 100-library system of Los Angeles that still had microfilm readers that could also print was the central library in downtown Los Angeles I had to set up the loan there as the microfilm could not leave the library.

The west entry to the Central LA Public Library in downtown Los Angeles on 18nov2017. The library is a treasure, both inside and outside. (photo © Louis Kraft 2017)

On November 18 I got wise and looked at a map of the subway exit and the downtown library. They looked shockingly close to each other. On this day I used the Hope Street exit from the subway, looked to my left and could see the library two and a half blocks distant. On this day I worked closely with Christopher Juarez (pictured above), who not only got me set up on the microfilm machine but made me aware that I didn’t have to pay for printouts of the pages, but could scan them and email them to myself free of charge. Folks, when you are looking at over 250 images this is a pretty cool savings. Christopher worked closely with me on this day and then the next day as he ensured that I obtained every image that I needed. I have nothing but kudos to say about Christopher. The city of Los Angeles should give this young man a pay raise, and I’m not joking here. Los Angeles is lucky to employ him. Good work needs to be rewarded. Mayor Eric Garcetti, if you see this post or if you hear of this post, know one thing: Christopher Juarez is an extraordinary employee and the city is lucky to have him.

LK’s workstation at the Central Los Angeles Public Library in the History Department on 19nov2017. Cool times for LK. (photo ©  Louis Kraft 2017)

The people of Sand Creek

The major players range from the second territorial governor of Colorado Territory, the chief editor and co-partner of the most successful newspaper in Denver during the 1860s and beyond, the commanding colonel of the District of Colorado, the official U.S. interpreter for all four major treaties with the Cheyenne Indians between 1851 and 1867, a major partner of the most successful trading post who married into the Cheyenne tribe, one of his mixed-blood sons, and the one man who dared to act for he thought was for the good of mankind and has since been termed a traitor to his own race. They were ambitious, had views of success in their dreams, but like you and I had to survive in a world beyond their control.

I know. Where’s Cheyennes Black Kettle, Lean Bear, or Bull Bear; and Arapahos Left Hand, Neva, and Little Raven? Trust me, for they are a comin’ to life, … I want them to be surprises; I want them to explode off the pages. Actually Black Kettle and Little Raven will surprise you, but unfortunately I simply don’t have enough on the others to allow them to also dominate. Still Left Hand was a person I wish I could have known in life.

More important, and like most of us, they thought that what they did was right when they did it. … What I’ve learned is not what I wanted to know. I’m writing the manuscript as a biography through the eyes of (currently) nine people. I’m doing everything I can to be in their point-of-view (POV), a film term.

This is my lady, Pailin, on the bluffs to the west of the 1864 Sand Creek battlefield. Our terrific friends John and Linda Monnett took us to the isolated site in 2014. You want to read good history pick up some of John’s books that deal with the Cheyennes. … Pailin and I are totally different in all phases of our lives, and yet she supports everything that I do. I pray to my God that I am capable of supporting everything that she does. Life and love is a two-way street. You won’t believe what is in our future. (photo © Louis Kraft & Palin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

Where the hell am I? Simply, I’m treading water in the middle of pure hell. Does this sound negative? Probably, but it shouldn’t be as I’m inching closer to completing perhaps the most important manuscript of my life. If true, I must see Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway through to print. Folks, I can’t see this happening before 2019. This means I need to live another two years. Doable? I think so, … I hope so. Time will tell.

This is the OU Press dust jacket for the Wynkoop book; I’ve had some great covers over the years but this jacket is by far my favorite. It was an image that I requested, and the art director turned it into a terrific duotone.

Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway has 37 contracted images. Three will be maps; that leaves 34 photos or art. Good times for LK to fill in the blanks. At this moment I have chosen 16 (as I don’t own the rights to all these images the process to purchase and determine the use fees is under way. Actually several have already been procured, and all that needs to happen is working out the publishing details and paying the use fees. I hate to say it but at this point in time I must become secretive. Of the 16 I’ve previously used six of them. This is more than I hoped to use, but the images that will again be used are mandatory to telling the story of the events that led up to the Sand Creek attack and its aftermath.

For the record Chuck Rankin had requested I place as many women in the manuscript as possible. My research leading to the creation of the proposal and its acceptance was less than sparkling, meaning that there were no women who would be in the manuscript. Over the last three years of research this view has changed. I mentioned a couple of young ladies above. This is, for me, great news. Hopefully they will come to life when the book is published, even if their presence is small, for they are oh-so important to the Sand Creek story.

A small repetition

My Sand Creek proposal was a very-detailed thirty-seven pages, but it also included a “get out of jail” pass. This simply means that as a writer-historian I track all the usual suspects and try to follow where the trail leads. That is, the documentable facts. Actions and words define character. My job is not to create villains and heroes; rather it is to present people to you. If I do my job correctly you will make your own decisions of who they were and what happened.

As said above, this is a seven-day-a-week job. I’m up between four and four-thirty and often don’t get to bed until nine, ten, or later. … You guessed it. Sometimes I have to crash. But even on these days I must research and/or add word count.

I love what I do.

An Errol Flynn tidbit

I want to go off course here while still tiptoeing the straight and narrow. Thank you, Mr. Flynn. I’m not being sarcastic here, for Flynn’s My Wicked, Wicked Ways is the best book that I’ve ever read. His book dealt with time and memory, it dealt with good and bad, success and failure, and protecting the innocent in more ways than one (for example: Not saying much about a person or event, changing a key fact or two, or names of people that Mr. Flynn did not want to hurt, or perhaps because he did not want to be hurt). But sometimes it also included that his memory failed him, or worse a publisher changed facts or names.

The Flynn photo used on the dust jacket for the first printing of My Wicked, Wicked Ways. (photo © Esquire, Inc. 1958)

For the record, a successful writer named Earl Conrad was hired by Flynn’s publisher (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) to spend time with him at his home in Jamaica. Flynn had received a good advance to write his memoir, but he was almost at the end of his time on earth, was having trouble completing the manuscript, and needed help. Flynn was self taught, literate, and well published. He always had a story to tell, forever stood firm for what he believed, and never shied away from anything in his life. Without checking, and perhaps it is in Conrad’s memoir of his time with Flynn or in Thomas McNulty’s Errol Flynn: The Life and Career (by far the best biography on Flynn), but I think Flynn shared about 200,000 words during a handful of weeks with his guest Conrad. Flynn would see and sign-off on the galleys of his memoir but then died before seeing his last book published. (I’ll deal with this in my third book on Flynn; perhaps my second if I get lucky and something I want to do happens.)

My friends, … those of you who fear that I’ll never complete the first book
on Errol Flynn (and Olivia de Havilland), relax, for that book is closer
to publication than you think. Moreover, the two other planned
books on Mr. Flynn will happen. The second or third
books—there is no order here—will blow you
away in many ways.

Closing thoughts

There are pieces of my life, and luckily they didn’t deal with life and death on a major scale or decisions that would affect hundreds and thousands of people. Luckily I’ve lived in the shadows of time. Honestly, I think that this is a better place to be … for if I lived in earlier times when I would have had a target on my back as I would not have stepped in line and said, “Yes sir!” Luckily I didn’t live in the 1860s, for if I had, I’m certain that I would have been murdered on the streets of Denver as Captain Silas Soule was.

Still things have happened and they have affected my life in more ways than I’ll ever admit. During those times I wasn’t smiling. Looking back I can’t stop chuckling.

The little angel sitting on my right shoulder just whacked me in the face. The little devil sitting on my left shoulder simply snickered and said, “You wimp, you deserved that!”

What it all comes down to is life—my life.
My view is simply that you and I have different views of
our lives. … I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sand Creek Massacre, Errol & Olivia, Louis Kraft, and a perfect storm

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


Rod Taylor, Michael Parks, Sam Shepard. OUCH!
Three actors who have played roles in my life are
all gone in one godawful 2017.
Who’s next? Me?

Parks* and Taylor have been favorite actors since I discovered them, and this has continued throughout my life even though some of their films and appearances on TV weren’t in top-notch productions.

In LK personal collection.

Still, fully ninety percent of their performances that I saw shined.

Michael Parks also has the distinction of being my favorite singer of all time.

* Kevin Smith directed Red State (2011), a film in which Michael Parks delivered one of my favorite performances of all time. If you don’t know anything about Parks see Kevin Smith’s memory of Michael Parks. Warning: There are some foul words, but the interview is from the heart of a director who viewed Michael Parks as a good person and an acting genius—something I agree with. Better, Parks’ performance shows how a person can play evil on screen while being charming, charismatic, and certain that everything he does is absolutely for the good when he does it.

I haven’t seen all that many of Shepard’s films and I don’t think I’ve seen any of his TV work. Still he always adds intense credibility to every performance that I’ve seen.**

** All three have films on my top 60 film list.

**********

Time moves forward at lightening speed, and as the years have passed I have had a few-too-many encounters with the grim reaper.

As the body grows frailer, and as it is harder and harder to swing a blade with deadly intent I have come to cherish life. Shockingly, this is new to me as I have always been “charge forward with guns blazing.”

Two projects that are a long time coming

  • Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway
    I plan on delivering a first rough draft to my editor, Chuck Rankin (OU Press), in December or January 2018, and the final draft in 2019.
  • Errol & Olivia
    Research is continuous, and every so often when I have a few spare minutes I open the draft and add information. Right now I’m trying to confirm if Flynn’s first wife, Lili Damita, earlier had married the great film director Michael Curtiz or not. This must be confirmed without a doubt.

Below is an update on both.

Wandering through a life rife with change

High school friend Dennis Riley, then a photographer’s mate in the U.S. Navy, took this image a few days after my last final at SFVSC (now CSUN) in June 1969. That day was my first acting publicity shoot, and this image represented how I often dressed while earning my BA. I had picked up the god-awful nickname of “Tex” in college as I often wore a cowboy hat. “Tex”? Yee-ough! (a sound; not a word) (photo © Louis Kraft 1969)

I’ve been walking between the races since 1970 (but really it had been earlier as my parents had an open door policy no matter what a person’s race was). That year I joined Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), which is/was like a continental Peace Corps. I had wanted to work with American Indians (even at that age), and the two other possibilities were African Americans (Blacks back then) and Latinos (Chicanos then). There was a lot of training at the University of Texas in Austin, … and afterwards we—the other candidates and I—partied. Big time. We were housed in tall a dorm (ladies on one floor and guys on another), and the celebrations went deep into the night in various dormitory rooms (two rooms that shared a bathroom).

One night in the wee hours I said something to a married couple that they enjoyed but a Chicano who would eventually select people to work with Latinos didn’t like. Suddenly I had a knife at my throat as he grabbed me from behind. I was scared to death but had my wits and kept calm. In between his bursts of rage I pointed out that he had fifteen and perhaps twenty witnesses. Did he intend to kill them too? I also pointed out that if he killed me his cause was DOA (dead on arrival).

He let go of me, and let me tell you that I was one happy cowboy to see the sun rise that morning. Surprisingly at breakfast, which began at six, I had become a celebrity. This was stupid, and I hated it. From my view I was damned lucky to be alive. … A few weeks later the American Indian, Black, and Chicano group leaders chose their candidates a la choosing a sandlot football team. I was chosen early by a Black group from Oklahoma. A week of living with a Black family in Sapulpa (Oklahoma), more training in Austin, back to Sapulpa, and back to Texas before being assigned to Oklahoma City. My supervisor in OK City, Cheetah Gates, told me to ditch the cowboy boots when he saw them. I asked why. “The brothers don’t like cowboys,” he said. “If you want to live don’t wear the boots.” I took him at his word.

During the summer of 1976 girlfriend Kitty Moore (and she was one of the most gorgeous ladies I’ve ever known) was playing one of the leads in a Texas Tech theater department play (Lubbock, Texas). She was about to begin her junior year in college. … What I saw that summer was an eye opener. Lubbock was a mass of racial inequality and hatred, it struggled with what appeared to be a drug culture that grew by the day, and a theater department that was split by two different cliques. Some of my not so-good  experiences in Lubbock initiated the writing of my first screenplay, and surprisingly it landed me my first screenwriting agent. I based the female lead on what I viewed as the essence of who Kitty Moore was (she eventually read a draft of Laird Francis and liked it). … All I can say about Kitty is that she was an exceptional human being and that I was lucky to have known her. I wish that our relationship could have continued. It couldn’t, and all I have are my memories.

This was just the beginning. By the mid-1970s I was writing screenplays and a number of them dealt was race (this came about after a summer of dinner theater in Lubbock, Texas, a place I was lucky to put in my rearview mirror without being tarred and feathered as racism in the city and factionalism in the Texas Tech theater department was rampant at that time). Most of my screen plays were current day, or at least historically based in the 1970s. The two exceptions included 1) Wonderboat, an epic tragedy that dealt with U-boats during WWII, and 2) Corsair, which dealt with the Englishman John Ward who became a feared Tunis pirate during the early seventeenth century.* By the mid-1980s I was writing and selling baseball articles, but soon changed focus to the American Indian wars (writing for periodicals and speaking at symposiums).

* Drafts of my screenplays are housed in the Louis Kraft Collection at the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library (Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe). For more information about Wonderboat see Louis Kraft’s top 13 Errol Flynn films … a personal view.

In 1999 I wrote for a space industry firm that had one customer: Hughes. My major deliveries usually consisted of about 1,000 pages of documentation (and you would choke if I told you what Hughes paid for it). My editor worked in the company’s headquarters in Herndon, Virginia, as did my manager. Most of the documentation department was in Herndon except for one writer in Colorado, one in Northern California, and yours truly in the South Bay of Los Angeles County. That summer all of us attended week-long (wrapped between two weekends) demonstrations at headquarters that dealt with using code-based software to create documentation that could be delivered to multiple types of output while discussing the difficulty of such a massive change while still making our deliveries on deadline.*

* This didn’t happen during my time in the space industry, but I later experienced moving from WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) book design to code-based production tools that could deliver documentation in various formats at the now defunct Sun Microsystems and later at Oracle.

The editor and I had a great long-distance working relationship before my nine days in Herndon. During the evenings after code-based software demos she became my tour guide, dinner companion, and more. On one day when we got off early she drove me to Leesburg where I spent time with Wild West editor Greg Lalire at Primedia’s headquarters (they then published a great grouping of about 12 history magazines). Greg and I have been friends for decades.

This editor, Jeanne Dodge-Allen, played an important part in my life—ranging from friend, lover, and a nightmare beyond belief. If I ever write my memoir she’ll be in it.

While Primedia’s headquarters I verbally pitched and sold an article on Ned Wynkoop and the Cheyennes to the then editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History (it was published as “Between the Army and the Cheyennes” in the Winter 2002 issue).

Being so close to Washington D.C. I had negotiated remaining in the lodging provided for me over the weekend and not flying home until Sunday. That Saturday Jeanne and I took the subway system from Herndon to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and we worked together on Indian wars research. She was petite while perfectly formed, with a great mind that connected with mine, but also soft and caring. Everything seemed perfect. I thought. Unfortunately she had a dual-personality that I didn’t know about until later. She had told me about the “good ol’ boys” at headquarters, and what they were supposedly doing to her. The truth? What she told me, even if only partially true, was horrifying. I’ll never know. Shortly after I flew back to Los Angeles I became one of the “good ol’ boys.” I think that this was all in her head, but that doesn’t matter. She began calling my home phone but her voice was no longer soft and friendly. It had turned demonic and threatening. Eventually I received and unmarked package. Inside was an oversized mailing envelope with one word written on it in bold red ink: SHAME (there was long dark hair inside the envelope).

Creepy. I kept it for DNA evidence.

My father Louis Sr. (left), brother Lee, and me. I’m on a 1970 Triumph Trophy 500. The bike survived both accidents described below, although the collision with the girl that outweighed me turned me into a gimp for a couple of months and the Triumph required a lot of work to fix. For the record I was wearing a helmet during both crashes. (photo © Louis Kraft, 1972)

While racing around turns on a narrow mountain dirt trail, the motorcycle in front of me suddenly stopped when the path ended. To avoid ramming the motorcyclist I attempted to slide around him as I braked. I almost pulled it off, but instead took my Triumph over a cliff. On another occasion an oversized girl who was running hit me broadside as I exited a driveway at low speed. My hand jerked the accelerator, the Triumph shot into the street, jumped a curb, and left me knocked out and hanging from a chainlink fence. Car wise, the worse was hitting the center divider of the CA 134 freeway headfirst at high speed, the car spun and took out the left side on the center divider, spun in the opposite direction and destroyed the rear end, and this is where the car stopped. Shockingly I walked away from the crash (what helped was that it was two days before Christmas 2010 and traffic was light).

Being vague has become a way of life to protect numero uno—yours truly

LK and Pailin on 2sept2016. It was just minutes before I would be prepped for throat surgery. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2016)

I’ve been coy, or rather vague, elsewhere on social media. That’s just me, but the horror of an end stares me in the face, and for multiple reasons. … I have three ladies to protect, three lives to see long into their futures. You know one of the ladies but the other two will remain unknown. I also have multiple books to complete. This is a massive task but I have every intention of completing it. Unfortunately there are pointers that hint that the future may not be as I envision it.

Actually I’m staring at something that I cannot possibly complete today as the story is ongoing and without end (unless …?). This leads me to a place that I have ignored, been vague, or worse I have refused to discuss. I’m going to try and do that in this blog, and hopefully with a minimal number of words while still talking about Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway and Errol & Olivia status.

LK joking while waiting to be prepped for throat surgery on 2sept2016. I was relaxed and enjoying myself. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2016)

In September 2016 I had my second operation that year (both were in my ear, nose, and throat specialist’s surgery center in Northridge, California). It was the twentieth surgery to date and was a throat operation (in April I had my second sinus surgery there). As advertised it would improve my breathing. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprising as I had been warned that the recovery would not be fun, it easily took two weeks of pure hell as the drugs to mellow the pain flat out didn’t work.

Two previous operations had eliminated cancer, and if they had not happened I would have long ago begun dancing with angels. One removed a portion of my spine, and if this didn’t happen I would have stopped walking fourteen years ago. … I have other problems now, for earlier this year breathing again reared its ugly head, but this time he brought his pals with him. Walking had been making great strides between late September 2016 and the beginning of June 2017 as I averaged fourteen miles per week. … The phrase, “all things must pass,” has been around forever, but for me this couldn’t happen soon enough as it began to get scary in mid-spring 2017. By this time isolated incidents slowly began to become ongoing events to the point of concern. Worse, I hadn’t been able to figure out why this was happening and neither could my specialists.

I know … still vague! Sorry, but I have to ease into this.

I’m a fighter. I have three aforementioned ladies to protect,
I have books to write, and I have every intention of willing myself to do this.

A quest for truth

Many books contain errors that have been perpetrated for decades or longer. Sometimes this is because the “so-called” fact has been printed so often that it is accepted as truth. Other times it is because of laziness, or worse because it propels a writer’s story forward even though he or she knows that the fact is fictitious. This leads directly to writers who ignore proven facts simply because it blows holes in their set-in-stone premise. And it gets worse than this, for sometimes writers create facts and quotations and cite obscure material figuring that most readers don’t have the source, and the handful that might have the documentation won’t bother to check the citation. … The above is a mouthful, but not my point. Like medicine, history is not an exact methodology and the reason has always been in place. Simply stated, if five people participate in a specific event there is a good chance that their views on what happened differ. Sometimes slightly but at times considerably. Occasionally a known fact can confirm truth in a documented event while at other times deciding upon what really happened is not an easy task.

A couple examples follow:

LK speaking about Errol Flynn, Olivia Havilland, and the Santa Fe Trail (1940) at the Festival of the West, Scottsdale, Arizona, on 19mar2005. (photo by Johnny D. Boggs)

Olivia de Havilland is a good case in point. Fortunate enough to spend time with her I know firsthand that she is a warm, kind, and caring person. She is also charming and very intelligent, and can easily shift from topic to topic without hesitation, such as moving from being cast in Gone with the Wind to Jack Warner to modern-day USA politics. To be precise she specifically told me how well she knew Warner (great stuff here, but not in agreement with what has been published). In regards to Gone with the Wind, she had a “take no prisoners” stance. On the visit wherein we talked about her landing the role of Melanie I was well prepared for the conversation. By that I had notes with me relating to her landing the role including the points-of-view of fired director George Cukor and producer David O. Selznick, along with additional storylines. She listened intently to what I shared, and then proceeded to inform me what really happened. Like most primary sources—and I don’t care if it is 1860s Colorado Territory or 1930s Hollywood—everything must be considered in an attempt to piece together what happened. At times I have placed conflicting, but just as valid, points of view of an event in my notes. I’ll give you one guess of what is going to happen here.

Edmund Guerrier and Julia Bent were two mixed-blood Cheyennes who were young at the time of the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado Territory on 29nov1864. They were both in the village on that tragic day, but luckily both escaped death and sexual dismemberment. Some books have them married on that tragic day, but without any proof. Actually they weren’t married, and wouldn’t be for many years in the future (and I can prove this).

An Active Person am I

Always! I learned how to duel with a foil with the great Ralph Faulkner, who won the World Amateur Sabre Championship in 1928, and represented the USA at the Olympics that year and in 1932. He had come to Hollywood to become an actor in the early 1920s (even playing Woodrow Wilson in a silent film) but soon began his great career as a stunt double and as a choreographer of duels for decades, as well as having has own Falcon Studios on Hollywood Boulevard where he taught fencing for over fifty years.

My partner parries an LK slashing sabre lunge to her midriff at North Hollywood Park in December 1981. Although mostly cropped, our coach and the cameraman dominate the foreground of this image as they taped the workout. (photo © Louis Kraft 1981)

I grew up with a pool, swam in the Pacific, and up until early 2013 swam (the last years in 24-Hour Fitness pools, which are great!). A lot of sandlot football, and this resulted in my first real injury in the late 1960s. Ditto sandlot baseball (my parents refused me playing on a Little League team), but between 1980 and 1990 I played ten years of year-round softball (for the Kool-Aid Kids), but this ended in early 1990 with a knee operation and my brother’s sudden death (the most shocking event of my life then and it still is today). At that time I had also been running since the late 1970s, usually doing three and a half miles or seven miles per day. Let me tell you that running and swimming (and I was doing thirty-plus laps at 24-Hour Fitness without a break when I ran out of time) keep you in shape. Think the 24-Hour Fitness pools are Olympic sized (they were certainly the same size as the pool that I used in college). Oh, I also learned swashbuckling, or stage dueling, in the early 1980s ( and fought and choreographed duels for the stage), and I still work out with a blade when all is well.

A change of pace

In fall 2015 I redid the front yard during my spare time (I had previously removed the grass and already had a lot of drought-resistant vegetation growing in the yard). I leveled the ground, put in walkways of rock and stones and wood chips, and created a maze of cactus, aloe vera, and other plants that provide beauty (at least to my eyes). Every time I stand or sit in the front yard I feel as if I am in New Mexico or Arizona or the original SoCal. This was easy work and I never broke a sweat.

Still, a lot of the work was on my knees, and this is where I discovered a problem for in this position I began to huff and puff. I completed the work about the second week of December but the breathing problem bothered me. I began searching for answers, and the only one I came up with of pointed to my heart.

My heart has always skipped a beat and my cardiologist and I have tracked it for decades without any problems. Early in January 2016 I visited him (he’s also my internist), and he ran all the usual tests and everything came up negative.

How? Why? Something was going on. … Finally he had me blow into a breathalyzer. I failed—twice. He prescribed an inhaler and pills to control blood pressure, which he felt would climb (my blood pressure had always been good, but soon it would become a challenge).

Final LK art of my internist/cardiologist of over twenty years, and writing partner on The Discovery. (art © Louis Kraft 2017). If I ever complete The Discovery page on my website I intend to use this image on it.

Late on January 16 while using the inhaler for the night dose I fell backwards into the bathtub and cracked the top of my skull open. Blood flowed onto the wall and into the tub. My legs were hooked over the side of the tub, my ass was in the tub, and my back and head propped against the back of the tub and the wall. The blood was slippery and it continued to flow. I couldn’t get a firm grip with my hands and had become a turtle stuck on his back. Pailin, who had had just gone to bed, heard the crash, and rushed to help me get out of the tub. Afterwards she cleaned me up and I cleaned the bathroom. She asked if should go to the ER. … I shook my head. My brain functioned and I had performed a few simplistic concussion tests. I felt I okay, but told her I’d go to the internist/cardiologist in the AM. Before going to bed I called my PPO’s nurse line, and she recommended a night in the ER. … Pailin had a long day in front of her and I didn’t think the injury was that bad.

The following morning in my doctor’s office the nurse cleaned the wound as well as possible. She told me that I’d need staples. After checking me over the doctor asked if I was dizzy, felt faint, or had passed out before I fell. I told him no, that I was wide awake when I hit. He confirmed the nurse’s view, I walked across the driveway that separated the medical building from Providence Tarzana Medical Center, and checked into the ER. … The wound required six staples.

Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway

Pailin took this image of LK and Chuck Rankin at the Western History Association Conference in Newport Beach, California, on 17oct2014. (photo © Louis Kraft & Chuck Rankin 2015)

Folks, this manuscript dominates my days. As said above a delivery is due to my editor in December 2016 or January 2017. Alas, the word count grows and grows and grows. This is similar to the situation I had with the Wynkoop book contract. I luckily had then Editor-in-Chief Chuck Rankin behind me then, and he was again responsible for the Sand Creek contract. Actually Chuck pitched the story to me. I refused, but he refused to accept “no” for an answer. It took us two years to work out a proposal that was acceptable to both of us. … It is still acceptable to me, but this story has been pure hell to write. The research is ongoing, and as I’ve said elsewhere I put in about eight hours of research to about two hours of writing. And this is probably an understatement on the research side.

Pailin studying David Mann’s painting, “First of Five Thousand,” at the then Autry National Center on 7mar2015. Unfortunately the Plains Indians are not identified, something that I would have liked. The painting’s story is about a raid that is returning home to Canada with horses stolen in Mexico. Two thoughts: 1) That was one hell of a raid, and 2) That was a long trek to complete and return to their village safely with 5,000 horses. Considering that unknown Indians have successfully driven 5,000 horses from Mexico to Canada sounds like a movie plot and not reality, I like this painting. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

Although Chuck Rankin was pleased with the Sand Creek fight that was in the 37-page book proposal years back, it too has changed considerably as I know more now. Better, a lot of people are coming to life in what is currently chapter 13 as the fight turns into a scramble of single events that merge together to create the whole. …

Right after I learned of Sam Shepard’s death I again watched his and Barbara Hershey’s film, Defenseless (1991). It has been on my top 60 film list, off it, back on it, and off it ad nauseam. When you have a chance, do yourself a favor and see this film. Nice performances by Hershey and Shepard.

The DVD cover for Thunderheart (1992), another film I watch often.

I can’t begin to tell you how much I learn by studying film that I respect. For one thing, and this is important to Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, as decent film constantly provides ideas on how to smoothly move from one event to the next.

Val Kilmer, Graham Greene, Shelia Tousey, Ted Thin Elk, John Trudell, Fred Ward, and Shepard are the key players in Thunderheart, a thriller that deals with a murder on a Sioux reservation around the time of the 1973 takeover of the town of Wounded Knee (27feb1973-8may1973) and the standoff with the U.S. government. For the record, and in stark contrast to Defenseless, this film has constantly been in my top five. On Thursday, 17aug2017, I asked Pailin if she’d like to join me in the Kraft Theatre and watch Thunderheart with me. She accepted and was glued to the screen.

For the record, the Cheyenne storyline is now jumping forward in leaps and bounds. John Chivington and John Evans move forward at a good clip. As do Black Kettle and Arapaho Little Raven. These two chiefs are coming to life through their actions and words. But these four aren’t the only ones: Ned Wynkoop, Rocky Mountain News owner and editor William Byers, and John Smith are also beginning to shine. Alas, William Bent is a little behind schedule, but this should end soon.

Earlier this year the manuscript lost a chapter when I decided merge chapters 1 and 2 together. The reason was simple: The manuscript is people driven regardless if they are major players, supporting players, or simply players who appear and then are never seen again. Too much time was being spent before I introduced a Cheyenne who emerged from the mists of time. Unfortunately his life ended tragically. And of course I’m struggling to confirm his presence at an early meeting with William Bent or reject it.

As in the past I take my time and challenge what I write and what I consider required for the manuscript. And time is ticking, … tick, tick, tick. It is time to walk the walk, that is it is time to put up or shut up.

Better, the Cheyennes and Arapahos are moving forward. We’re talking about raids and treaties and death and peace. We’re talking about a people who were led by chiefs that stood firmly for peace to save their people from murder as well as chiefs that stood firm for freedom at any cost.

Back to the healthy world of Kraft

This heading sounds facetious, or at best a big fat lie, … but this isn’t so. I have taken good care of myself over the years, and even more so after the cancer and spinal surgeries. As stated the first cancer surgery was to keep me among the living and the spine surgery (some four and a half months later) to hopefully keep me walking.

Dejah Thoris (named after the princess of Mars in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter/Martian novels). Fully grown in this 1978 photo, she was the kindest and sweetest animal I have ever known. (photo © Louis Kraft 1978)

After I fainted the morning after this cancer surgery when three nurses attempted to help me to a chair by the window all hell broke out. A neurologist at the hospital (not one of mine) thoroughly examined me and afterwards proclaimed that I would not walk in the near future … to which I told him to F-himself and get out. Additional testing continued deep into the night, and without checking I remained in the hospital nine days.

Not all was well when I returned home from the cancer surgery on a Saturday for on the next evening the catheter fell out of position and required a trip to the Encino Hospital Medical Center. The ER doctor told me he didn’t know how to put the catheter back in place. I told him to look it up in a medical book, which didn’t please him. Too bad! I then insisted he call my surgeon (who is also my urologist, who I’ve seen every three months since fall 2002) and he replaced it in less than a minute. The catheter was finally removed twenty-one days after the surgery. No fun.

There would be additional surgeries over the coming years, including an implant of animal tissue. I never asked, but have since hoped that it was Doberman tissue and not rat tissue.

The next biggie …

My sister, Linda Kraft-Morgon, lived in Lake Arrowhead with her husband Greg. They were supposed to come to my house for Christmas 2005 but I was under the weather and Linda’s immune system could not be put at risk. The second week of January Linda called and told me that she would soon die of the cancer that she had been fighting for several years. On the fifteenth I drove to Lake Arrowhead and we celebrated Christmas. On that day she told me that she had six more weeks to live.

Sunday, January 15, 2006, was a day that I’ll never forget. (photo © Louis Kraft 2006)

Sudeshna Ghosh, my documentation manager at Sun Microsystems, did one of the kindest things anyone has ever done—something I’ll never forget—for she allowed me to take a few hours off to drive to Lake Arrowhead two-three times a week during weekdays to see Linda, which gave me three to four days each during the remaining weeks with my sister. Sudesha’s compassion gave me a lot of memories captured in a handful of stolen hours, and they will be forever cherished.

During drives up the mountain to see Linda a sharp pain in my head became so intense that on numerous occasions I had to pull to the side of the road until it subsided. I didn’t think much about it as I figured that it was stress. … It wasn’t, for after Linda died on March 1 it continued in Los Angeles. That April I had my first sinus surgery, and I was lucky I did for if not I would have been heading for big trouble. Greg was right there for me, as was Diane Moon, my former girlfriend and her son.

The years continued

I swam laps at 24-Hour Fitness, worked out with sabres, wrote for companies (Yahoo! and Oracle), did my research in the field as well as in archives, spoke about the Cheyenne and Apache Indian wars as well as Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, saw articles published, finished a book (Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek), and signed a new contract (Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway).

March, Pailin’s good friend Daranee’s son, took this image just before we went through security at the Thailand International Airport on 1dec2014. We had spent the previous evening with Pailin’s great friends (Noi and Wichen) in Bangkok. Two of her brothers Pum and Mana, and Mana’s wife Pen, who had taken care of me during the wee hours before dawn when I arrived in Thailand weeks before and made sure I made my next flight, also joined us (along with other friends). Mana, Pen, and Pum took us to the airport the next morning.

Life was good. …

And on June 15, 2013, it got better. On that day I hosted a dinner party for five at Tujunga House. I invited a good friend and Errol Flynn expert and his beautiful wife (Robert and Annette Florczak) and another twosome. The other couple brought a lady for me. She was petite, pretty, quiet, and yet totally aware of her surroundings. Oh yeah, she was born in Thailand. Before that afternoon and evening ended I knew that I wanted her in my life. Yes, “That Lucky Old Sun” (my favorite rendition was Frankie Laine’s, released for the first time in 1949) is about long days and struggle while the sun shines. I find this very positive. Soon Pailin Subanna entered my life permanently—making me the luckiest guy in the world. And this feeling has easily quadrupled over the years.

Errol & Olivia is reality

I know that by now many of you think that my book on Flynn and de Havilland is little more than a pipe dream. Not so. I’ve been researching Errol & Olivia since 1996. The research is ongoing although the writing is light (but that is only because of what has been going on in my life and the major task of completing Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway).

In spring 2013 I spoke about Ned Wynkoop at the Order of Indian Wars symposium in Centennial, Colorado. I think that the trip was eleven days, and most of them I spent with Layton and Vicki Hooper in their then Fort Collins home (it was my pleasure, although most of the time we were snowed in). Before the symposium I enjoyed a great morning, lunch, and afternoon with Mike and Dee Koury. Before leaving I pitched Mike on a Gatewood/Geronimo talk in Tucson for the OIW’s 34th Annual Assembly, and he kindly said yes. This image was taken in Tucson on 26sept2013. This was Pailin’s first Indian wars event (and to date her last).

For the record my last article, “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude,” was published in the October 2015 issue of Wild West. At that time I informed editor Greg Lalire that there would be no more articles until the Sand Creek manuscript was in production. In September 2013 I delivered my last talk, “Gatewood’s Assignment: Geronimo,” before the 34th Annual Assembly of the Order of the Indian Wars in Tucson, Arizona. Again, this is related to the writing that I must complete (Sand Creek and E&O).

You’ve waited this long, a little while longer will only build your anticipation and that might be good. I can’t begin to tell you what I have found about Flynn and Livvie (Flynn’s pet name for Olivia) over the decades but it is massive. When Errol & Olivia is finally published it will be an eye-opener for numerous reasons (and this is not braggadocio). There is a lot of new information to present, there are egregious errors that need to be corrected, and the presentation will not be like any book you have read about either of them before.

This is a publicity shot for They Died with Their Boots On (1941). It won’t make into Errol & Olivia.

Hint: If you have read one or more of my biographies you have an idea of what is coming. Continuing this thought, if you have read any of my nonfiction books you know that I don’t just tell one side of a story. While saying this, I must add that I don’t take on long-term projects (Charles Gatewood, Geronimo, and the Apaches as well as Wynkoop, Cheyennes, and Sand Creek) without being 100 percent behind my topics. By that I mean that I do not explore major players in my writing without a deep commitment to write the best book possible. Also, I never write a book or article with the intention of trashing someone. As far as I’m concerned just about everyone (and there are exceptions, such as Charles Manson or Ted Bundy—both of whom were mass murderers) believes that they were right when the did something. Sometimes events overwhelm them and they act rashly, but this isn’t often.

A staff artist for American Classic Screen, John Tibbetts, created the art of Flynn and de Havilland in Captain Blood in 1978, and it graced the cover of the Jan/Feb 1979 issue of the journal (right). Tibbetts’ art grabbed my attention decades ago. However, as the journal is long gone it might be difficult to track down who currently owns the rights to the painting or more important obtain a good digital copy of the original art.

If you’ve missed it, Errol & Olivia deals with their arrival in Hollywood, landing the leading roles in Captain Blood (1935), their life and times during their eight films together (1935-1941), and an epilogue. Like my Indian wars research I question a lot of what is generally considered fact for way-too-often information that has been sold as truth for decades is taken as truth, when in fact it isn’t. Ten, twenty, even a hundred printings of a supposed fact doesn’t guarantee anything if the source is unknown. Heck, it could have originated in a Daffy Duck cartoon. … I’ve seen numerous photos and a handful of paintings that feature Flynn and de Havilland together that would work for the cover of the book. Currently I’m leaning toward images dating to the 1940s.

For the record two other books are planned on Flynn. I already have the art that I want for the cover of one of these books.

A year of uncertainty—2017

The year began as any other, and for the most part I felt good. Walking the fourteen or so miles each week had done wonders for me. I even had different routes (half mile, mile, mile and a half, two miles, two and half miles, and three miles), and with this range I could take care of a lot of errands from grocery shopping to needed items at the drug store to dealing with the post office and the public library.

And this includes Sand Creek progress

Research and writing of Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway has made decent progress. Actually it finally started to have a life of its own as certain historical personages began driving the manuscript. I let them take control and followed leads until they revealed events and more important certain players’ roles in these events in ways I never imagined. But sometimes the leads led to dead ends, but this is always good as it lets me know what I thought happened never did. I can’t begin to tell you how valuable this is to know.

But for me there’s always that bleepin’ BUT

I stopped walking two or three days before July 5, 2017, as my left heel hurt. Worse, during the last handful or so of walks I often began to breathe heavily. At times I felt dizzy. Each time I halted until my breathing returned to normal. Also, if there was still a hint of dizziness or lightheadedness I remained stationary until it also passed.

As July 4th fell on a Tuesday our trash pickup was the following day. The first trashcan was picked up about 6:30 but I didn’t retrieve it immediately for on this day I felt dizzy and was wobbly on my feet after taking my one medication and using the prescribed inhaler. This had happened before (but sometimes it was later in the day). At these times I sat down until the feeling passed (sometimes at the computer). By seven that morning I felt great, and went outside to put the trashcan away. When the trashcan was in place I let go of it and looked west toward the garage. Without warning I fell over backwards, crashed onto the driveway, and cracked the back of my skull open.

I took the photo that I based this art on nine hours after the fall. I was only a handful of inches from a huge prickly pear cactus that a friend gave me in 1992. I shudder when I think about landing on that cactus. (art © Louis Kraft 2017)

I had difficulty rolling onto my stomach. Luckily Pailin had taken the day off as it was her birthday. Hoping  that she was still relaxing in the dining room I called for her. She heard me, rushed to help me roll onto my stomach, stand up, and into the house. A bloody trail followed us all the way to the bathroom, where she cleaned the wound. Without her I’m certain that it would have been a struggle for me to get off the asphalt. Nervous, she called my daughter and ex-wife, and the three of them took me to the Providence Tarzana Medical Center emergency room.

This is how I felt when admitted to the ER. This photo of me was taken on 14dec1979 while in makeup at Universal Studios. (photo © Louis Kraft 1979)

Surprisingly, and certainly after a holiday where firecrackers and other nasty things light up the sky deep into the night, there was no waiting line. The wound continued to seep and I quickly stained the sheet behind my head. After I was cleaned up more, the ER doctor examined the damage while she asked all the usual questions: Did I feel faint, dizzy, or light-headed before the fall. I didn’t feel anything before the fall, absolutely nothing. This was just the beginning as hours would pass while tests were performed and studied. The doctor finally returned and informed me that the test results (including a CAT Scan) were good. She left and my scalp was cleaned yet again. The doctor reappeared and inserted three staples into my head. I was released, but before leaving I asked the attending nurse to clean my scalp and wrap my head. “Why?” I held up my right hand; my fingers were red with fresh blood. “So I don’t ruin the car seat.” She did as requested.

It was pushing three in the afternoon when I was released from the ER. No one had yet eaten, and everyone asked if I was up to a food break on the way home—something quick? “As long as it isn’t McDonald’s, Carl’s Jr., or something similar, I’m okay.” We settled on Sharky’s Woodfire Mexican Grill. Until seeing this image by my ex-wife I didn’t realize how red I was at that time. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2017)

The head healed slowly, but the dizziness increased and the blood continued to seep. Over the next week or so I saw my internist/cardiologist and my pulmonary specialist and presented them with detailed notes and told them the highlights. My pulmonologist told me that my one medication could cause dizziness (I already knew this per the prescription’s documentation but was happy to have a verbal confirmation) but my internist/cardiologist would have to change the prescription. The inhaler was his and he told me that it didn’t cause dizziness. “What about the potency of it?” When I had tested several inhalers in May they had a higher dosage. Since I already had another appointment with him early in September he suggested we discuss it in more detail then. I agreed. … My internist/cardiologist didn’t think that the medication caused my dizziness.

I still didn’t know what was going on, but I knew that I wouldn’t be doing any walking in the near future, and that my six-plus hours of yard work would be less. … On the plus side I had more time to research and write.

The Sand Creek tragedy is in my blood

Oh yeah, you can bet it is! Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and now forever. I’ve known Ned Wynkoop intimately for decades. This meant that I knew something about Black Kettle, Little Raven, John Evans, John Smith, George Bent, John Chivington, Bull Bear, Left Hand, Silas Soule, and on and on, but not as much as I would have liked as I had previously focused on their connections to Wynkoop. This is no longer the case, for now I need to know them as much as I possible. Some of this has been easier said than accomplished.

In this “hunting party” image Rocky Mountain News editor William Byers is standing at the right (as printed in “When Wynkoop was Sheriff,” Wild West, April 2011). From the moment I saw the photo during a research trip I have liked it. Alas, Byers is the only person in the photo that has been identified to my knowledge. I had suggested the image to Editor Greg Lalire, but then had second thoughts about using it as at the time I was considering it for the Sand Creek book. When more room was required at the beginning of the article for a portrait that I had done of Ned Wynkoop that was smaller than I felt it should be and suggested to Greg that he cut the “hunting party,” he emphatically said,”No.” “Why not?” “Because I like it.” I could understand his view as I still like it. However, I have decided that it isn’t for Sand Creek as it dates to the mid-1870s (which is interesting as Byers looks younger here than in the 1860s).

At one time the word “survival” was in the title of this blog. It no longer is as it appeared to relate just to me. Nothing could have been further from my intension. For most of the leading players, including everyone listed above, and a good number of the supporting players in the Sand Creek story, dealt with survival often. For the Cheyennes and the Arapahos it was a part of their daily life, be it food, the weather or tribal enemies, such as the Pawnees. When the white man—the vi’ho’ i—came they were presented with an even greater danger to their survival. It was no easier for the Anglo Americans who were lured to their world by the dream of golden riches, or those who followed and discovered a magnificent land. They too, were at risk, but not only from the people whose territory they craved, but each other while experiencing the same daily problems as the people they wanted to eliminate (food, weather, and so on). Doubt not that those who survived in the land that became Colorado Territory were strong, focused, and had no intention of ignoring what they saw as their future.

Byron Strom, custodian of the Anne E. Hemphill Collection, graciously allowed me to use this image of Captain Silas Soule on 1apr1865 (his wedding day) in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. Actually he had given me permission to use two images, but the other I failed to restore in a timely manner. My skills have improved over the years and with Byron’s permission I plan on taking another attempt at an image that is terrific although terribly deteriorated.

The Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway contract states that the book will contain 37 images. Three will be maps and I’ll deal with them when the manuscript is in production. I’ve been looking for images for the book for years now. I prefer to use images that date to the time period of the manuscript. Hopefully there are photographs that will support the text, but in some cases I have used them in Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. I really don’t want to duplicate many of these images but know that some will be reprinted as they are key to the storyline unless I can locate similar images. At this time there are four photos that I’ll probably reprint, including the great portrait of John Chivington.

I’ve often used art (woodcuts, paintings, or line drawings). Also I have no problem with creating collages, as they count as one image. … I’ve been looking at the work of Cheyenne artists, and some of their work is descriptive and tells a story. If I decide to approach any of them, they will have to understand that I’m just a writer who would like to use their art and that I will provide them with a first edition of the book.

The cover for the October 2015 issue of Wild West. Really nice work by the art director.

There’s a story here (there’s always a story). I did two books on Lt. Charles Gatewood (Sixth U.S. Cavalry), Geronimo, and the Chiricahua Apaches’ struggle to remain free in the 1880s over a ten-year period. During a longer spread of time Wild West printed two stories of mine dealing with this subject. One of Gatewood finding Geronimo in Sonora, Mexico, and talking him, Naiche, the last hereditary Chiricahua chief, and the remnants of their people into returning to the United States and surrendering (“Assignment Geronimo,” October 1999) and Geronimo’s struggle to remain free (“Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude,” October 2015). Both magazines featured the great painting by Howard Terpning (“Legend of Geronimo”) on the cover.

Guy Manning’s Geronimo painting (El Prado Galleries, Sedona, Arizona).

For both articles I recommended Guy Manning’s terrific oil painting of an alert and squatting Geronimo as he watches for trouble in a night scene with blue dominating the painting. Both times either Editor Greg Lalire or the art director went with my suggestion. … The point of this story is that I contacted El Prado Galleries in Sedona, Arizona, and inquired about using Manning’s Geronimo art in Lt. Charles Gatewood & HIs Apache Wars Memoir. “Sure,” the person I spoke with said. “The cost is $2,000.00.” “No thank you,” I replied as I chuckled. … The above image is from the 1999 Wild West article. Unfortunately the text bled through from the following page. The presentation in the 2015 issue of Wild West was terrific but it took up the first two pages of the article (and I didn’t feel like taking the magazine apart to scan the image).

Images already in place for Sand Creek

I have several images long in public domain that I own and they will be in the book when published. I also intend to use two images of white captives, and one of a Cheyenne girl captured at Sand Creek. I’ve also seen an earlier portrait of John Chivington that I might use. … In regards to large art there is a painting of the Battle of the Washita (27nov1868), that although stiff in presentation, features Black Kettle and Medicine Woman Later attempting to escape death.* I plan on looking into the rights to use it but only if it can be printed as a detail as the entire painting is way-too large to be of any use in the Sand Creek book.

Chief Yellowman (left) and Southern Cheyenne Peace Chief Harvey Pratt near the battlefield overlook during the first day of the Washita Battlefield NHS 2011 Symposium on November 11. On this day Gordon blessed the sacred ground and Harvey spoke about what it was like to be a Cheyenne warrior in the 1860s and to fight on foreign battlefields in modern times. (photo © Louis Kraft 2011)

The Battle of the Washita is in the scope of the Sand Creek as the manuscript concludes at the end of the 1860s.

There will also be a new portrait of Black Kettle. A good friend of mine is Jeroen Vogtschmidt, an artist and historian who lives in the Netherlands. He specializes in American Indians. He does a lot of portraits of especially the Plains tribes, and he has written books that also deal with them. Unfortunately they are in Dutch, although he told me that he is trying to get one of his books translated into English. Earlier this year he asked some of his friends which Indian portrait they would like to see him paint next. Motor-mouth Kraft jumped at this: “Black Kettle!” Jeroen liked the idea and completed the portrait. I liked his art, especially BK’s eyes which are focused on someone who is slightly to his left. Not shy I pitched him on allowing me to use the image in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway. Jeroen immediately agreed. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of Jeroen, and I need to rectify this.

Those of you that have read my Sand Creek blogs know that I like a painting that Southern Cheyenne Peace Chief Gordon Yellowman painted years back (a framed print is displayed in one of the rooms in Tujunga House). When the manuscript nears production I plan on sharing it along with other paintings for the book cover (to date only Chief Yellowman’s art on the list, and honestly I don’t think that this is going to change) with Chuck Rankin and current OU Press Editor-in-Chief Adam Kane to hear their thoughts on the painting.

A perfect storm

I saw my neurologist near the end of July 2017. As the CAT Scan had been negative at the Providence Tarzana Medical Center on 5jul2017 and a Brain MRI and X-rays of my lungs had been negative in May, he remained concerned and ordered a Brain EEG. After the EEG test on August 8 (in the medical building across the drive from the medical center) the technician told me that my brain looked fine. He then called me to his monitoring device and showed me that my heart rate was low. It ranged between mostly 35 and 36, and at times it dropped as low 30 while never reaching 40.

For the record, this was the first time I was aware that I might have a heart problem.

Knowing that my neurologist wouldn’t see the results for two or three days I took the elevator up to my cardiologist’s office and told him the Brain EEG results. His nurse did an EKG (my heart rate was 39), and then attached a device on me that would record my heart rate for the next 24 hours. The next day when I returned it I was told to call the following morning for the results.

After the surgery, and until just before I was released, my vitals were watched closely. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2017)

The next four images
precede the flow of text but
do not ruin the telling of what
has recently impacted my life.

I had heart problems, but my cardiologist was totally in the dark.

About 11:30 AM on August 10 I called for the test results, but there were none yet. I called back at 11:55 AM. “You have severe heart blockage, and need to get to the ER immediately,” my cardiologist said. “Do not drive.” He also told me the name of my surgeon. My surgeon?

Why didn’t he call me as soon as he had the results?

As Pailin was en route to West LA, I called my daughter and ex-wife. They didn’t answer but returned my phone call within minutes. They arrived at Tujunga House at one and drove me to Providence Tarzana Medical Center ER. … In the ER my heart rate remained low while my blood pressure shot off the charts (for me) hovering around 240 and sometimes reaching 250 or more. After about two hours of the ER doctor studying my medical records and speaking to at least one of my specialists I was admitted to the hospital.

About 4:30 I met Dr. Dave Kim, who would be my heart surgeon. He showed me the printout of the 24-hour heart study. … My heart rate was skipping three and four and five heart beats at a time, and these were not isolated instances. The hospital had been monitoring my heart rate and blood pressure since my admittance, and I’m certain that the gap between these two readings increased considerably.

Pailin took this image of me holding the device that captures and displays my heart rate in realtime early on the morning of 12aug2017. At that moment it was 74. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2017)

Through all of my surgeries I had been calm and collected except for two cancer surgeries, and they frightened me. The calmness has mainly been because I have always had full trust in my surgeons and surgical crews. I’m forever curious with everything that happens as events move quickly toward the anesthesia entering me. Knowing that when everything is over I’ll wake up, … or perhaps not. Surprisingly this is soothing to me.

If not, I’ll never know what happened. Trust me for I am aware of potential disaster as Dr. Robin Cook’s medical thrillers scare the hell of me (am currently reading Charlatans, which was just published). Still he is my favorite novelist. … We can now add a third surgery to my nervous list as I had entered the unknown world of the heart—my heart.

Pailin, who visited me at ten the previous night was back at seven on the morning of the eleventh. She had taken the day off. Her company was a godsend. As the day dragged by with uncertainty, my heart rate remained low, and the thought of my heart continuing to miss three and four beats at a time kept my blood pressure out of sight. … The unbearable sluggishness continued. I was supposed to be in surgery at four, but an hour passed without a peep out of anyone. I rang for the day nurse and asked for an update. She left but returned shortly and told me that the surgeries before mine proceeded slower than anticipated.

Breakfast with my lady on the morning of 12aug2017. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2017)

Long story short I was wheeled to surgery a little after six and my procedure began around six-thirty but moved slowly as my blood pressure remained high (I was not told what my heart rate was while under the knife). A bi-ventricular pacemaker was attached to my heart.

I had never seen what a pacemaker looked like until Pailin brought me home on August 12. Not a pretty sight but a thousand times better than the alternative. Pailin took this image of the pacemaker and scar above it as sunlight blasted through a bay window early on 27aug2017. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2017)

Like the previous night I barely slept as the night nurse kept on top of my vitals. Again, a device that read my heart was attached to me (the same one as the previous two days) and it was plugged in as soon as my bed/gurney was back in place. The intravenous line was again attached and I was again put on air. My blood pressure remained high until four-thirty on the morning of the twelfth, and from that point on it slowly returned to normal. The monitoring continued all day, but I was finally released at four-thirty. Like the day of surgery—and it was a terribly long day for Pailin—she was back with me at seven on Saturday morning. On this day, which she again didn’t work, she informed her various managers that she would be taking the next six days off.

Free at last, and with hopefully a new outlook on life. Although I didn’t realize I was in big trouble until August 10, I am absolutely thrilled that a perfect storm set me in motion to get the pacemaker before something terrifying happened. I’m one lucky fellow.

The future?

Mine is now.

LK on the morning of 27aug2017. I’m getting a little stir crazy, and there’s weeks more of this, but I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2017)

I had met with my heart surgeon (Dr. Dave Kim) on 18aug2017 and had a lengthy description of what had happened between August 10 and 12, and what I had experienced since. The bi-ventricular pacemaker is currently set to 60, meaning that ideally it will trigger my heart to function whenever the heart rate drops below 60. However, I have atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart beat. As I had shared that I had some chest pain and slight lightheadedness, he told me to use Aspirin to thin my blood and that I would probably be put on a blood thinner. The mild chest pain continues off and on, at times my heart races*, and my breathing is heavy, but the lightheadedness is gone. The next two weeks will be key.

* My heart surgeon is mainly concerned about my lower heart chambers not having a regular rhythm and beating faster than they should, which could cause clot-related blood flow problems. Honestly, so am I.

Dr. Kim has become my heart specialist. On September 14 I’ll enroll in a heart monitoring clinic at his office. Once set up, the clinic will be able to monitor my heart 24/7 when I’m at home.

My neurologist (Peter-Brian Andersson), who I have a sparkling relationship with (medically, life interests, and personally), has kept up with what is going on with me via the phone (he has the surgeon and hospital records). I also see him in early September.


Will I live to see our future, our country’s future? My friends, the answer is yes!
On May 31 I told my pulmonary specialist that I planned to live to 130.
He chuckled and said that he did, too.

Green Card 2016 … Two lives since September 2014

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blog

This blog continues with our lives since Pailin received her
first Green Card in September 2014. You will again travel to the
American West, you will travel to Thailand, and you will be introduced
to the special people in our lives while seeing a glimpse of our
cultures, work (Green Day Spa & LK’s writing), and how it
relates to who we are and the love that we share.

On 9Sept2014 Pailin, our lawyer, interpreter, and I met with the Immigration officer who interviewed us in downtown Los Angeles.

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Pailin and LK with our lawyer, Priscilla Tasanont, on 9Sept2014. We were across the street from the Federal building in Los Angeles. It is about 15 minutes after Pailin had been told that she would receive her Green Card, and we were two happy people. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

It was a good day. We passed and Pailin would soon receive her first Green Card, but as it was only good for two years we are again preparing for our next meeting which will be in late summer or early fall. As we had in 2014 we are creating a photo album and this blog, which will share some of the highlights from our lives.

To see the blog that I created for this meeting with U.S. Immigration, and which I
delivered as a printout to the official who interviewed us see:

https://www.louiskraftwriter.com/2014/08/10/pailin-lk-and-an-upcoming-date-with-our-future/

The 2014 blog deals with when we met in June 2013, the beginning of our relationship,
Pailin’s introduction to the Southwest and a part of my world,
our marriage, and some of our friends.


Colorado, New Mexico, & Texas here we come!

As both of us are positive and work at what we want to accomplish we felt that Pailin would obtain her Green Card in 2014, … I set up a research trip to the West to give her a taste to my writing world and introduce her to some of my good friends. The trip began on 28sept2014 with our first destination Lafayete, Colorado.

John Monnett and Sand Creek massacre research

Good friend and great Indian wars writer-historian John Monnett, and his pretty wife Linda, invited us to stay at their house while John aided my research for Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (under contract with University of Oklahoma Press).

It was a long two-day drive from North Hollywood (a town in Los Angeles), California, to Lafayette, Colorado. During the first day we detoured to The Valley of Fire, which is north of Las Vegas, Nevada, and off I-15.

valley_ofFireCollage_28sept2014_diffFONT_wsOnce we got out of Nevada the landscape improved. Utah is gorgeous. The second day started out nicely in Utah, and again the landscape was beautiful to behold. But soon the climate changed. It started out with showers mixed with sunshine as we cruised through the eastern side of Utah and closed on Colorado. At Grand Junction, Colorado, it turned cold and we drove through a three-hour downpour. It was downhill from there, and looked like a repeat of the last two or three times I had visited Colorado. After we closed on the Rocky Mountains the temperature dropped to 37, 36, 35, 34, and then 33 degrees.

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Pailin’s photos remind me of James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s nocturnes. He and Vincent van Gogh are my favorite artists.

Thirty-two degrees. Ouch! Snow began to fall and traffic slowed to a halt. I called John Monnett and left a message that we wouldn’t arrive until evening.

COLO_29sept2014_apr2013_psk&lkCollage_diffFONT_wsIt started to look up when the snow returned with a vengeance. Visibility dropped to perhaps 20 feet or less, … and I hate to admit it, but I don’t know how to drive on ice. Apache wars historian and good friend Layton Hooper told me what to do, but knowing and doing are two different things and I had Pailin with me. Caution and driving safely were the only things on my mind. … We arrived at John and Linda’s at six o’clock that night without a mishap. Linda prepared a great dinner and we enjoyed our time together.

Research with John and Linda

The next day we began the Sand Creek tragedy research with John.

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While I dawdled Pailin discovered my book, Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek, in the museum. John suggested that I sign the Boulder History Museum’s copies of the books and they agreed. This was just the beginning of what John shared with Pailin and LK on this day.

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John Monnett with Pailin and LK a the “Chief Niwot Legend & Legacy” exhibit at the Boulder History Museum. Niwot (called “Left Hand” in English) died from wounds he suffered during the tragic attack on the Sand Creek village on 29nov1864).

This visit to the Boulder History Museum was Pailin’s introduction to research. Over the coming days I wore her out with what I requested she do, and she came through admirably.

psk_jMonnett_FtChambers_BoulderMontage_diffFONT_wsJohn took us to other historical sites and to museums, and on October 1, Pailin lived through her first day of doing archival research at the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library (DPL). Almost everything I looked at was pulled from the DPL’s vault and she served as my official photographer with her iPad as it couldn’t be photocopied. The day was long, but Pailin seemed to enjoy it. I told her that this was just the beginning, and she said, “I’m good as long as I’m with you.”

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Pailin with John & Linda Monnett at Bear Lake in the Rocky Mountain National Park on 2oct2014. It was chilly but we had a good time. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft, John & Linda Monnett 2014)

By Thursday, October 2, the archival and museum research work in Colorado had ended. John and Linda Monnett drove us to the Rocky Mountain National Park, which was a short drive from their home. Beautiful vistas and landscapes.

John had hoped to get us above the snow line but the roads were closed. There were remnants of a recent snow on the ground at Bear Lake.

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(photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

As Linda, Pailin, and I snapped photos John rolled a snowball for me. I wound up a la Sandy Koufax (the greatest baseball pitcher I have ever had the pleasure to watch perform in person and on TV) and went through the motion of flinging a fastball while John and Pailin snapped away.

The next day John and Linda drove us to that tragic and yet now holy land that is a long-long drive into the middle of nowhere Colorado—the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site (NHS).

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I don’t remember what John was saying at this moment, but my guess is that he was pitching my Sand Creek manuscript. Pailin took this image on 3oct2014 just outside the Sand Creek Massacre NHS visitor center. (photo © John Monnett, Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

This is perhaps the most important of all the Plains Indian war sites for what happened there paved the way for the conscious destruction of American Indian people and their lifeway. What has come to be known as the “Sand Creek Massacre” created a searing wound in the Cheyennes and the Arapahos that will never heal, while at the same time made it clear that greed, prejudice, right, wrong, and conscience really have a major impact on history and that it defines the participants. This location—and I don’t care if it is in the middle of Neverland, USA—this sacred ground is magnificent, and along the bluffs that skirt the western perimeter of the property present a marvelous view of the massiveness of the ground on which the November 29, 1864, attack on a peaceful Cheyenne-Arapaho village took place.

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My lady on the bluffs above the Sand Creek village site on 3oct2014. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

To gain an understanding of all the parties involved in the massive project of purchasing the land, creating the NHS, and then piecing together all the historical events has been a joint project with many factions involved, read Ari Kelman’s book A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek (Harvard University Press, 2013).

Although Kelman’s prose is a page-turner, especially when dealing with the events in the last 30 or 40 years as he brings the modern-day Sand Creek story together—and it was a fight for the Cheyennes, Arapahos, U.S. government, land owners, historians, would-be historians, and National Park Service to create this historic site, but be wary of his information related to the battle and the events surrounding it.

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Pailin on the bluffs above the Sand Creek village site on 3oct2014. Don’t know if you can see it, but as I photographed her, her sunglass lenses captured me. She is an explorer in the mode of frontiersman Kit Carson. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

Although Kelman used, at least his notes claim he used, primary source material, there are many errors. Why? I don’t know why. Perhaps there was a poor understanding of the primary source material, not checking facts, or a rush to go to print. There is a warning here: While in modern times and dealing with the fight, and it was a fight, to create this much-needed NHS that protects this oh-so-sacred ground, Kelman’s book is a wonder. However, if writing about the participants and events of that horrific time during the 1860s be careful or you will repeat his errors.

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The four of us are at the second and final bench on the walk skirting the village site. John is checking the brochure, which has a small map and I’m asking Pailin what she is doing. “Taking a photo” (with her iPad). (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft, Linda & John Monnett 2014)

The attack had been a running fight. When you walk the bluffs above the grounds you easily see the immensity of the village site and the open expanse on which the butchery took place. As Johnny Boggs’ quoted me in his terrific article, “Trail of Tragedy” (True West, November 2014, page 53), “War doesn’t give soldiers the right to murder, rape, and butcher. Not yesterday, not today, and not ever.”

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Dinner at The Fort. I wanted to use a photo that I took of John, Linda, and Pailin but there was a problem with the image. Linda took this photo with Pailin’s cell phone. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft)

On our last night we went to dinner at The Fort in Morrison, Colorado. I always enjoy going there, and I think that John and Linda do also. This was a first for Pailin. My lady and I had duck (a first for me), while Linda enjoyed quail and John, I think, had a steak. Pailin and I often share, as she is small and I don’t want her to grow larger (always more than enough food for both of us). I like buffalo and would have loved to have had shared buffalo with her but many years ago she swore off eating any large animals (buffalo, venison, elk, beef, and so on). I’m good with honoring her wishes when we share, and on this night we did. Loved the chile and orange duck!

For those of you that aren’t familiar with The Fort, it was built to represent one the trading posts that William Bent and company built in the early half of the 19th century to the east of the Rocky Mountains in the land that would become Colorado.

Tomas Jaehn, Santa Fe, the Louis Kraft Collection, Taos, Kit Carson & Pailin doing more research

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The Lensic Theatre, which is just off the Santa Fe Plaza, in the early evening of 5oct2014. In the previous decade Tomas Jaehn (you’ll meet him below) attempted to get the Wynkoop one-man show into the Lensic but (if memory serves me) the cost was too high to rent this historic and gorgeous theater. A shame; I drooled when I saw the interior of the Lensic. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

We arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the afternoon of 5oct2014. After unpacking at our lodging, Pailin and I drove to the historic district and ate at the Blue Corn Café. Afterwards I led her the short distance to the Santa Fe Plaza, showed her the exterior of the Palace of the Governors, and finally the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library, which for years has housed the Louis Kraft Collection. While walking back to the car I pointed out the Lensic Theatre to Pailin. For one night in December 1940 it played a large role in the lives of the people of Santa Fe and surrounding areas when the Errol Flynn-Olivia de Havilland film Santa Fe Trail premiered in Santa Fe (actually in three theaters).

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We are in front of the New Mexico Museum Art Shop, which is just off the Santa Fe Plaza and near the original entry to the Chávez on Washington Street (the entry for the Chávez is now through the recently completed museum and auditorium complex) on 5oct2014. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

Santa Fe is home to me. Our visit was to introduce Pailin to Tomas, make a delivery to the LK Collection at the Chávez, do research, and let her explore the city, the culture, the mix of people, and the land. We both love Los Angeles and Pailin has a wonderful family of Thai friends living there (LA has the largest Thai population in the U.S., and better there are over 200 languages spoken in Los Angeles, also the largest in the U.S., according to the LA Times), which means that living in LA is very important to her. She is also aware that the City of the Angels is a very expensive location to call home, and the prices continuously climb.

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Pailin, Tomas Jaehn, and me enjoying coffee at his favorite coffee shop on the morning of 6oct2014. (photo by Pailin and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Louis Kraft, and Tomas Jaehn 2014)

On 6oct2014 Pailin and I met Tomas Jaehn at the entry to the New Mexico History Museum. In the early part of this century Tomas approached me about creating the Louis Kraft Collection at the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library. I liked the idea but it took a year for me to make a delivery and sign the contract. Over the years Tomas and his family have become good friends. On this day Pailin entered a new world, … my world of culture, race, and history.

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Currently the Louis Kraft Collection has 20 boxes (20 linear feet) that are available for researchers to view plus one of photos and art. In this 6oct2014 photo I am touching the 18th box (a portion of a 2012 delivery, this delivery, and three magazines that I gave Tomas in April of this year when he visited LA were catalogued in April 2016). I can’t begin to tell you how much Tomas has done for my writing career over the years. He’s a great friend. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft; © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Louis Kraft, and Tomas Jaehn 2014)

After completing the delivery Pailin and I did research in the Chávez archives. We were looking for subjects for magazine articles as well as additional information on the Sand Creek tragedy.

I must add that although Pailin had done a lot of work in Colorado both in archives and in the field, in Santa Fe the research was demanding. Click Louis Kraft Collection to see a listing of its contents.

There was nary a complaint as Pailin smoothly completed each research task I asked of her, and as they related to her photographic capabilities she never had a chance to rest.

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Pailin took this self portrait on her iPad on 6oct2014 (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014) in the Chávez History Library after we spent more prime time with Tomas but before we focused on Ned Wynkoop’s scrapbook of documents and news clippings, especially those related to Sand Creek and Kit Carson. Tomas’s office is behind Pailin’s left shoulder, and yes, the time on the clock is correct (only a little after nine in the morning; we still had the entire day in front of us).

Note: The Wynkoop scrapbook has been robbed of at least one document and it is fragile. Tomas has talked about professionally photographing it as it is an important piece of Americana as related to Wynkoop’s life, early Colorado, and the Indian wars. I hope and pray that this becomes reality.

Before moving  on, I want to announce that my great friend Tomas Jaehn is now the director of Special Collections/CSWR, University of New Mexico Libraries as of 1jul2016. I couldn’t be more thrilled for him. Congratulations Tomas.

When we finished at the Chávez and said goodbye to Tomas, Pailin visited with the Indian traders on the portico of the Palace of the Governors (including the interior of the building), took a closer look at the Plaza, walked through the narrow streets of Santa Fe with her camera constantly clicking. Images for her and for me.

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Pailin loves art, and Santa Fe is the third largest art market in the U.S. after New York City and Los Angeles. Santa Fe has art on the streets and in the galleries in the downtown area, and in galleries that surround the historic district. Unfortunately we didn’t have time for her to explore even a portion of all the roads that are lined with galleries. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft and Louis Kraft 2014)

Afterwards I took her to Tia Sophia’s. We ate chicken and green chile stew especially prepared for us by the chef as the only green chile stew they made that day had beef. Good for me; a little warm for Pailin.

On the seventh Lisa Smith, my long-time friend and real estate agent in Eldorado (a housing development Santa Fe), showed us two adobe-style homes on an acre plus of land.

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Actually, Pailin said: “Why? Why?” I replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Why all these big beautiful houses (Monnett’s, Williams’, and the houses in Eldorado) and ours is small?” I explained to her that the cost of homes in Los Angeles is high and that if we moved away from LA we could buy a larger house for less money with or without acreage (I prefer acreage). We saw this house on 7oct2014.

Santa Fe has four Thai restaurants that I know of and another that serves Thai food once a week. That said I failed to learn the size of the Thai population in Santa Fe. It will be small, but I know that the chef and owner of Thai Vegan (a great restaurant) is Thai, so that means that at least one Thai person lives in Santa Fe. Pailin would make two.

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Yes, Pailin fit right in with the International Museum of Folk Art. LK photo on 7oct2014. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

After we said goodbye to Lisa we headed to a destination that I had seen only once (in 1987 I think). I had been bored to tears decades ago but thought Pailin would love it.

I don’t remember the other museums on Museum Hill but they could have been there in the 1980s. Certainly the exteriors and everything now in place didn’t look like I remembered it, and this is good.

ps_Intl_Museum_ofFoldArt2_7oct14_wsPailin fell in love with the Museum of International Folk Art the moment she started to explore it. And you know what? So did I. Like good wine, the folk art from around the world sparkled with life and color. “Multiple Visions: A Common Bond,” which has been on display since 1982 is a marvel of culture and art. This is the exhibit that bored me in the dark ages. All I can say now—other than what I said above—is that I must have been blind when I was younger.

Taos and Kit Carson’s home

Next up was Taos and Kit Carson’s home, which has always been primary on my list (for upcoming writing projects). Taos was another example of a city with adobe and adobe-style buildings and an artistic aura, which I wanted Pailin to experience.

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By now you know that Pailin is my sole mate and lady. She is like no one I have ever known in the past. I’m lucky. She’s an adventurer and open to anything; my kind of person. I took this close-up is of her sitting in front of the Kit Carson House on 8oct2014. Although the building has been stuccoed and its exterior is no longer an adobe structure, the look and feel is close to what Kit and his family lived in more than 150 years ago. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

The Kit Carson House has changed ownership and this has affected the size of the historic site (to the better) and the interior appearance (again to the better). I believe the last time I had been to his house was about a decade earlier. This was my fourth or fifth visit; the first was in 1987.

If you’ve visited the Kit Carson House you know that the front three rooms were the rooms in which Kit, his wife Josefa, and their children lived in during the time that they called Taos home. Two rooms were added later, with the larger of the two being added in the early 20th century (a stable); it is now the entrance and gift shop of this historic site.

Yes, Mr. Carson has been with me for a long time. After Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is published, Kit will take center stage in my nonfiction Indian wars writing world. I have already begun a slow, very slow, conversation with Chuck Rankin, the editor-in-chief at OU Press, regarding making my next nonfiction Indian wars book deal with Carson.

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This is the middle of the three rooms that Kit and family lived in during the 20+ years that he and they lived in Taos. While walking these three rooms I tried to focus on the size of the rooms and their layout. Reason: I think a lot of what is in these rooms now are not current to the Carson family tenure (certainly there are Carson portraits that date to after his moving away; they should be in the small museum section of the building). This room served as the kitchen and eating room for the Carsons, and their guests, which included numerous Native Americans from a handful of Indian tribes that considered Carson their friend. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

The quiet adobe pueblo of Taos dates way back, perhaps as early as 1615 with Spanish colonization. When the Mexican-American war ended with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) Mexico ceded a large section of land to the United States and this included Taos and the area that became New Mexico Territory.

psk_TaosPlaza_8oct14_collage_diffFONT_wsKit Carson’s presence dated to the early 1840s, and Taos has been a favorite destination of mine since 1987. It was during that time that I became hooked on the real Kit Carson.

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This is a portion of the Taos Plaza as it looked on 8oct2014. Pailin took some images of the plaza area but I can’t find any of them. The plaza was most-likely dirt with scattered adobe buildings surrounding it during Kit’s time. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

The shops enclosing the plaza (and the plaza) grabbed Pailin’s interest and she looked at some of the merchandise (but didn’t purchase anything as she isn’t a spontaneous buyer). She focused on the plaza, enjoying its serenity of the late morning, and listened to my telling of Carson rescuing the American flag when malcontents threatened to burn it. I’m certain that at times she thinks that I’m a motor mouth.

Taos Pueblo

Next we drove to the Taos Pueblo, and here Pailin enjoyed meeting the Taos people and seeing a little of their life and culture.

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La Hacienda de los Martinez

Finally, on Linda Monnett’s recommendation, I wanted both of us to see La Hacienda de los Martinez for the first time.

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Pailin leans against the archway that separates the first courtyard from the second at the Martinez Hacienda. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

A drive into the country to the southwest of Taos, and I think closer to the Río Grande Gorge but not on the road that crosses this magnificent river, a narrow street wrapped in almost a horseshoe to this cool building that the Martinez family occupied from roughly 1804 (their arrival in Taos) until the 1930s. I’m going by memory here, but I believe it was in the 1950s when two gentlemen borrowed money on their homes to ensure that the hacienda would be not only restored but would become protected and made into a museum. There weren’t enough signs and those we saw were small, and at times we wondered if we had made a wrong turn. At one point I continued straight but luckily Pailin saw that I should have turned right. … A U-turn, then a left and we were back on course.

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LK leans against the same archway that separates the first courtyard from the second at the Martinez Hacienda. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

La Hacienda de los Martinez is off the beaten path and we almost had it to ourselves. As you drive into the dirt parking lot you get the feeling that it was built as a fortress. There are no exterior windows, and only one exterior door and one large double gate for wagon and livestock entry at the front of the building (and one double gate for entry into the second courtyard). At the top of the structure, which has two courtyards is a surrounding wall with notches for defending the structure if need be from attack. Rooms are at the base of the rectangular fortress enclosure and again slicing through the middle of the structure, which creates the two courtyards. The rooms are decorated and furnished in a manner that represents how it might have looked during the hacienda’s heyday. Lighting in the rooms makes it easy to study and enjoy them.

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This is the first of the two courtyards at the Martinez Hacienda. The second is dirt, as are all the rooms, which encompass the hacienda. … Not sure about the grass during the hacienda’s heyday. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

The Martinez family certainly predated Kit Carson’s arrival in Taos and choosing it as his home. What we saw has been restored and decorated to represent 1820 (or later, as it took time to build), but it also provides a great insight into how the Spanish families (and employees and slaves) lived before and probably up to the time that Kit’s tenure in the area began.

Pailin and I took our time as we explored every nook and cranny of the hacienda. I could picture myself living there in the early 1800s. When we entered and before we left we spent time with the lady who greeted the handful of visitors, and I learned a lot from what she told us. Our western states could use more of this type of preservation as it allows those of us that want to step back in time and get the feel of what it might have been like to live as our ancestors did.

The Bosque Redondo & Kit Carson

For those of you who don’t know what the Bosque Redondo (eastern New Mexico) was, General James Carleton, who in 1852 saw the land and thought it would be good for farming, decided to turn it in an Indian reservation in the 1860s. Fort Sumner was constructed and beginning with the 1863 Mescalero Apache campaign and then the 1863-64 Navajo campaign it would now provide the perfect location to incarcerate the defeated Indians.

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This is a detail from one of the placards at the Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner. It deals with Carson accepting the Mescalero Apache campaign (with Carleton). The artwork at this memorial is exceptional.

One of his commanders, Colonel Kit Carson, had quickly forced the Mescaleros onto Carleton’s reservation. They lived south of the Pecos River. After Carson forced the mighty Navajos to capitulate by waging a burnt-earth campaign with very few deaths (with any other commander the death count could have easily grown into the hundreds or more). He didn’t participate in the Long Walk of the Diné, as the Navajos call themselves, to the land that would become hell on earth. Actually he didn’t want anything to do with the Bosque Redondo. Carleton refused to listen to him and ordered him to command the reservation that was anything but a garden place. Winds blew, nothing grew, the Mescaleros and Navajos didn’t get along, Comanches raided, and people died in large numbers from disease and hunger. Carleton provided nothing Carson requested and, frustrated, Carson resigned his military commission. Carleton refused to honor it. The third time Cason submitted his resignation Carleton again refused but did transfer his unhappy subordinate.

I didn’t know what to expect, but a wonderful visitor center/museum has been built (replacing the smaller and earlier structure next to the remnants of Fort Sumner). The museum isn’t complete, but judging by what the Bosque Redondo Memorial currently has in place it is going to be impressive. There is a lot of land to walk but Pailin and I didn’t have time to spend a day or longer at this important piece of Mescalero and Diné memory.

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Pailin took this image of us while we were at Navajo Treaty Rock, which has a Diné prayer attached to it. The Navajo Treaty (signed on 1jun1868) is a short distance southeast from the Rock. The treaty freed the Diné and allowed them to return to their homeland. Oh yes, there was a harsh sun on that 9oct2014 day. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

There is also a nature trail with plush vegetation (natural to the area?) that obscures and skirts the Pecos River. This area is as perhaps Carleton envisioned it, as the Bosque Redondo and the surrounding area looks to be good farmland today. Alas, for the Diné and the Mescaleros it was just a land of death and desolation. During their deadly occupation of the Bosque Redondo their crops mostly died from insects, drought, and perhaps bad luck, which included bad water and a failure of the U.S. government to supply them adequate supplies.

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Pailin in the former visitor center of the Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner. Photo by LK on 9oct2014. It is now furnished to represent soldier barracks. Pailin, like myself, avoids the sun. On this day the sun blazed and the wind whistled (although not as much as I’ve encountered in this portion of the U.S. in the past). At times she looked like a Bedouin mounted on a camel roaming the sandy deserts of the Mideast in times long past. This is to protect her face. I call her my “Bedouin.” I also call her “Chiquita.” (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

Sound familiar? A resounding yes! “Shameful” is a word that accurately sums up what happened during the 1860s and throughout the American conquest of the Indian people.

By this point of the trip Pailin knew exactly what I wanted from her and at the Bosque Redondo and at the remnants of Fort Sumner she split away from me to capture what hopefully will provide a good basis for understanding what this land—so barren when the Mescaleros and Navajos were imprisoned here—looked like … minus the vegetation that now thrives. My lady is in her element and it’s a joy to watch her work.

Texas with Glen & Ellen Williams (and Glen’s sister Linda)

Glen and Ellen Williams have been my friends since the early 1990s when we began socializing outside the workplace (Infonet Services Corporation, El Segundo, Calif., where I had been hired as a technical writer and Glen was in a management position). Over the years my relationship with Glen grew, until he became my bro for all time. He and Ellen moved from Torrance, California, to Denton, Texas, in 2012. The visit with John & Linda Monnett and Sand Creek and the delivery and research with Tomas Jaehn in Santa Fe moved to Texas and Ellen and Glen on 10oct2014 (it was great to finally meet Glen’s sister Linda). Our visit had the added bonus that Glen, Ellen, and Linda welcomed Pailin with open arms. They talked with her, hugged her, and she immediately responded and became a welcome a member of their household. Better yet she joked and laughed and felt a little more comfortable in joining the conversations.

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In earlier blogs I have said: “Who says they don’t raise cowgirls in Thailand?” In Justin’s Pailin and Linda looked at clothing while Glen and I looked at hats. I told him that Barron Hats in Burbank, Calif., which makes many of the hats currently seen in film, makes mine for me. Before we left Pailin wanted to see the hats. As I led her through the aisles she liked this one and tried on her size. “Do you want it?” “Yes.” “Let me snap a picture.” More proof that Thai cowgirls really do exist. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

The next day Glen drove Ellen and her mother, Judy, to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. Pailin rested, I did some work. Later that day Pailin, Linda, Glen, and I enjoyed talking in the living room, which is like a great room in an adobe-style house in the Southwest. Glen and I never run out of subjects to talk about, and he and Linda included Pailin at all times.

On Sunday (12oct14) Linda, Pailin, Glen, and I visited one of the Justin Boot Stores (boots, hats, clothing, and so on) in Justin, Texas. Pailin likes hats and has more than I (actually she wears two cowboy hats that I previously gave her). Lunchtime arrived, and the four of us went to Mom’s in Justin. This was a funky place with cool and long-gone stuff on the the walls, including Elvis.

Good times. Yeah, this is social time with my longtime bud, his sweet sister, and my lady, and let me tell you it is as important as the Sand Creek and Kit Carson research, and the LK Collection delivery. Tomas Jaehn is also a long-time business associate and friend. John M. is a friend, and now Pailin and I consider his wife Linda a friend. People are what our world is all about. People are our lives. Some are forever (some aren’t), but without people we have no lives.

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From left: Glen Williams, LK, Pailin, and Linda Williams at Mom’s in Justin, Texas, on 12oct2014.

Sorry, but I need to repeat the following: No matter what I think about my research and writing and no matter how much importance I place upon it, without Pailin, Glen, Ellen, Linda W., Tomas, Linda M., and John my life is empty—nothing. They, and others like them, are key to my and Pailin’s lives, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

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Glen took this great candid of LK and Pailin in front of the entry to the courtyard of his and Ellen’s home in Denton, Texas, on 12oct2014, and Pailin is wearing the hat she found and liked at the Justin Boot Store. My bro Glen Williams has taken many great photos of me, but this is one of my favorites. For the record, Pailin and I have a good time laughing together. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft, and Glen Williams 2014)

Glen and Linda relaxed (Linda also prepared to return home) while I worked and Pailin corresponded with her family and friends in Thailand and California.

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The lady in the light blouse is Linda Williams, Glen’s sister. Pailin is holding Sophie, Linda’s dog. My lady has made great strides in her command of the English language, but still she holds back (except with me) as she is conscious of her pronunciation of the words and of her sentence structure (both of which she continues to improve). That said, she gets along with animals fabulously (perhaps as there isn’t a language barrier). That’s Glen w/Linda & Pailin in the left image. These images were taken just before Linda returned to her home on 12oct14. Left image is by LK and the right image is by Glen. (photos © Glen & Linda Williams and Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

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Soon after Linda left for home the three of us drove to the grocery store for supplies, including celery, parsley, carrots, and lemons to make juice. Like the previous day, we enjoyed each other’s company, rested, and got some work done until we went to the Blue Ginger, a Japanese restaurant in Denton. Good food.

Ellen & Glen Williams (left) have been my great friends for decades. As you can see Ellen is petite. She is bright, funny, open, and kind. She is also gorgeous. It was terrific seeing her again, and it was also good to see her effort to befriend Pailin, which gave my lady the confidence to open up some. (photo by Pailin Subanna-Kraft and © Ellen & Glen Williams and Pailin Subanna-Kraft, 2014)

Ellen returned home, and I’m glad she did in time to be with us, and especially Pailin. After dinner, Ellen, who was beat, went to bed early, and so did Pailin. This allowed Glen and I to talk deep into the night. Recently Pailin called Glen my brother, and I told him this he said yes, “we’re ‘bros.'”

On 14oct2014 we said goodbye to Ellen and Glen and began the long trek back to Los Angeles. The drive was boring, but we had each other and this made the miles pass quickly.

Gallup, New Mexico, and Pailin’s research introduction to Errol Flynn

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This is supposedly the room that Flynn slept in during the Rocky Mountain location shooting in New Mexico.

I’ve been passing through and sometimes staying in Gallup for a week or longer while using it as a base for Kit Carson and Navajo research. This is not my favorite town and I’m not crazy over the food served in the restaurants. Love the red rocks, and at the same time this gorgeous area always makes me sad. Errol Flynn’s last western film, Rocky Mountain (Warner Bros., 1950), was basically a location shoot (not entirely, but close) and a good part of it was shot in the area near Gallup. Flynn, the other actors, and the film crew stayed at the El Rancho Hotel, which is now a national historic site. So why am I sad? The film was shot in black and white. With the red rocks the centerpiece to the film, and they are something to behold—the film should have been shot in color. Warner Bros. was cutting back on film budgets as it continued to end its relationship with its major stars, Flynn included. Too bad, as Rocky Mountain is a decent film.

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Unfortunately you can’t see the EF signature on the Flynn photo at the El Rancho Hotel. It is not only a fraud, but the person who signed Flynn’s signature had no clue of the spelling of his name. Flynn’s Name is “Errol” Flynn but the forger signed it “Earl” Flynn. This crap is all over the place when dealing with signatures. If you buy signatures be careful. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

In the past I’ve explored the El Rancho Hotel’s expansive entry and upper floor that is open to the main floor as well as photograph the exterior. On 15oct2014 this would change as I felt it would be time to expand the physical research, which in turn would be right up Pailin’s alley. It was and she gleefully took requested photos along with ones that she wanted. After exploring we shared a salad in the hotel’s restaurant (it was decent) but afterwards we weren’t able to see the bar, as it didn’t open until 5:00 PM. I told them I was a writer doing research for a book, that I didn’t want a drink and just wanted to see the bar. This opened conversations about Flynn’s time in Gallup but it didn’t open the bar, which was locked—Some other time.

Since leaving Glen and Ellen we had covered roughly half of the 1400+ miles needed to get home. …

Pailin, Thailand, & the opening of a new world and people to me

On October 31 Pailin flew to Thailand, and on November 12 I followed her to her homeland.

Put mildly my flight to Bangkok was a nightmare. The plane boarded an hour and 20 minutes after the anticipated take off; which meant I should have missed my transfer in Taipei, China. Instead of reaching Bangkok at 12:15 AM Thai time (15 hours ahead of California time), the plane landed at 1:45 AM. There were long lines to get through immigration and when I finally did get through the lines it was a little before 3:00 AM. The baggage claim conveyer belt had shut down and my luggage was missing, but luckily I found my suitcase. I managed one email to Pailin. She was awake and worried as I had warned her from LAX that I’d be late.

The beginning of my entry into the Thai world

Pum and Mana Subanna (two of Pailin’s brothers) and Pen Saelee (Mana’s wife) were to meet me at the airport at 1:45 AM. As the time inched toward 3:30 only a handful of people still worked, and I couldn’t find them. I tried to email Pailin again—no internet. The phone number she gave me didn’t work. … I wandered the airport.

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It was about 5:30 AM when I took this photo of Pum (left), Pen, and Mana at the Bangkok Airport. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

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LK in the Bangkok Airport (cool airport; I like it). It was about 6:30 when Pen took this picture with my camera. She also made the necklace of welcome flowers for me. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

One of the support ladies was concerned about me and suggested I go to a cheap hotel where there would be internet access. I refused. My relatives were in the airport and I wasn’t about to stand them up.

About 4:00 AM Mana, Pen, Pum, and I found each other, and had a great time for the next three hours. Using a pidgin English-Thai we were able to communicate somewhat, and better we were able to share images and ideas with our phones, Mana’s iPad, and my computer. Before it was time to go through security for my next flight I was one tired cowboy as I hadn’t slept in over 25 hours (sleeping while sitting in a cramped plane seat is an impossible task for me).

Lampang (a city in the north)

My flight landed in Lampang about 9:30 that morning.

Pailin had given me explicit directions on how to exit the baggage claim, go downstairs, exit the airport, walk to a raised railroad track, pass under the railroad bridge, and she would be waiting for me. I fell for her directions hook, line, and sinker. …

When I stepped from the baggage area, Pailin and some her family and friends surrounded me (I love a good joke, especially when I’m the target). I met Not and Font Subanna (her sister and brother-in-law), Somnuck and Noi Subanna (her brother and sister-in-law), as well as Daranee Konsin (her sister, or so I thought) and others at this time. Pailin later told me that they were happy and excited to meet me. I spent most of the day sleeping at a resort we spent one night in while Pailin ran errands. In late afternoon Daranee picked me up and drove to a mall. Here we joined Pailin and some of her key relatives for dinner. The next morning (Friday, 14nov14 in LA/Saturday, 15nov14 in Thailand) Daranee arrived and we ate breakfast at the resort.

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Pailin and Daranee Konsin look at what is displayed in the outdoor eating area after we enjoyed sweet crackers, sweet bread, and strong coffee. For the record, when I was young I was a “cookie monster.” Back 20 or 30 years ago I stopped eating sweets; I liked cookies and pie, but never cakes or candies (I love ice cream but it doesn’t like me). I cheated and enjoyed a few cookies, which were good, and so was the coffee. (photo by Louis Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Daranee Konsin, and Louis Kraft 2014)

After we checked out Daranee drove us to her house, where we stayed in Lampang. She is a retired colonel (Thai Army), and is bright, open, fun, and caring. We quickly became friends. Her English is much better than she thinks and we had little problem understanding each other. She is a sweetheart and now she’s my “sister,” but not as I originally thought (more later).

Several things about the Thai people became obvious immediately: 1) Religion plays a huge roll in their lives, 2) The King is honored and treasured, and 3) Thai people are open and friendly.

Later that morning (15nov14) we drove to a house in Lampang. Not and Font were there as were Somnuck and Noi, and many others. They ate and talked and joked. Not told some hilarious stories and held everyone in stitches. She is open and lively.

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Pailin as LK’s interpreter on 15nov14. As said in the flow of the text, I wanted Pailin to share my views on our relationship. I spoke words and she translated them to what appeared to be a captive audience. This is my Thai cowgirl in action and I enjoyed watching. (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

I was the welcomed stranger and I asked Pailin to translate for me as I wanted to share Pailin’s and my relationship and gain a knowledge of what was being said about us.

I said words and she translated. Not and others spoke and she translated. How good was Pailin’s translation of our conversation? I don’t know. Knowing that her mastery of the English language was limited at that time I’m certain that what everyone heard was not exactly what I said, and also that what she translated for me also wasn’t as originally stated. (This brings me to white and Cheyenne negotiations during the 1860s Indian wars and makes me totally aware of how easily mistakes and misrepresentations can happen when words are translated.)

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The pig’s head and other assorted piggy pieces, along with the chicken and whiskey on the table would soon become offerings to God. Yes, Pailin is having a heck of a good time at my expense. Others also had fun with my problem with this gorgeous pig’s head. That is Tim sitting next to Pailin. She is Font’s sister. Over the coming days I would see a lot of her. BTW cowgirls like to have fun, and especially at their hubby’s expense; all fun and games as I began my relationship with the Thai people and their culture. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

All this time a pig’s head had been staring at me on the table under a cover that sheltered the front yard of the house where everyone gathered. The pig’s head was so pristine that I thought that it was plastic. Of course I asked about the head and learned that no, it was real and would be an offering to God. Time now moved quickly toward an event that I didn’t realize would soon happen. But of course, first Pailin and others needed to enjoy themselves at Kraft’s expense. I’m okay with this. Actually I like it and feel no ill-will toward anyone who can chuckle over things that don’t quite fit into my life and which make me feel uneasy.

Every time I looked at the pig’s head it seemed to glare at me, causing me to look away. Of course this generated more chuckles of delight.

Pailin told stories about us (I hope that they were sexy ones—Whack! LK is a bad boy.), and next she shared images on her iPad.

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Before the prayers began, Pailin shared some images of our life together with Not Subanna (left), Font Subanna, Pua (wearing glasses), who owned the house, and two unidentified neighbors. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

On the street a table had been set with the pig’s head, chicken, and other offerings. Incense was lighted and candles lit. The Thai people prayed—Not, Font, Daranee, Pailin, and many of the others. Even though I’m Christian I have prayed at Wat Thai of Los Angeles in North Hollywood many times, but at this time I watched and photographed the prayers.

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After chatting and everyone getting acquainted with LK, those who would soon go to Wat Thai of Lampang prayed (others would soon arrive to join the caravan). I photographed the prayers, as did Daranee. From left: Unknown neighbor, Tim (Font’s sister), Noi, Somnuck, Not, Pailin, and behind Pailin Font (purple shirt), and Pua. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

After the prayers ended, Font took the lead as everyone prepared to caravan to Wat Thai of Lampang. To this point in time he had been someone I saw and observed but hadn’t connected with. I liked what I saw for he was a special human being, and this would grow in the coming days.

Wat Thai of Lampang is gorgeous. In front of the temple they have begun to build another building, and everyone on this day came to donate for the completion of the building. Soon after we stepped from the autos people began to sing and dance as we moved toward the temple entrance. I joined in immediately.

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As soon as Not, Pailin, and others began to sing and dance toward the temple, I joined them. This was a cultural event and one I could take part in and experience. To this point in time I had been an observer. No more. I think to this point in time people looked at me with quizzical eyes. If there had been a turning point in my introduction to Thailand, these few moments may have been it. (photo by Daranee Konsin, and © Daranee Konsin, Not Subanna, Louis Kraft, & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

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After the prayers completed and everyone prepared for the donation (and I photographed part of this), I saw that the Monk Sak sat and quietly and waited. I stepped to him and using a pidgin English/Thai we communicated. I told him that I wasn’t Buddhist, but now visited Thailand with my Thai wife. He was pleased that I took part in the prayers. I asked if I could photograph him, and he agreed. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

To date I hadn’t had much of a connection to the Thai people in their homeland but suddenly I had an entry into their lives and culture (that was different than in Los Angeles). This wasn’t manipulative on my part; rather it was the joy of participation.

The interior of this temple is a wonder to behold, and it is my favorite of all the temples I would see in Thailand and back in Los Angeles. Regardless of me not being a Buddhist, I have always felt welcome in Buddhist temples. Always. Moreover I’ve always been at ease with monks for they have been open and kind.

My Thai companions came to pray and donate to the temple. I was the outsider and yet wasn’t a creature rejected. What I saw was communal. This word, “communal,” is key to what I would soon realize in my historical writing of the Cheyenne Indians. It was also something that hasn’t been a part of my life since my early years growing up in Reseda, California. This youthful experience—communal—vanished soon after I reached manhood, but on three later occasions it returned: My mother’s death in 1980, my brother’s death in 1990, and my father’s death in 1999. During those three days, when people celebrated their lives and mourned their passing, the communal days of my early life returned. In Thailand, and on one occasion in North Hollywood years later I observed and experienced this first hand.

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Sak at Wat Thai of Lampang, Thailand when everyone prepared to leave. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

I had just begun to experience the communal world of Thailand. … After the initial prayers with Sak everyone participated in preparing the donation to the temple.

A short while later, and after the donation had been made by Font, and everyone began to exit. Sak stood and moved so that he could watch. I again approached him and we again spoke for a few minutes. Pailin saw that we talked and rushed to us. She then knelt down next to Sak, and told me that when in the presence of monks I should kneel (I had  in Los Angeles, but no one had told me that it was mandatory and that I should).

I had again photographed Sak (including with Pailin kneeling next to him) before departing. My last view of Sak was of him standing at the entrance to the temple and watching everyone’s departure, and I captured a long shot of him and the temple. I don’t know what he thought of me, but I liked him. Will we meet again? Time will tell.

During our time in Lampang, Daranee, Pailin, and I were a threesome as the two ladies introduced me to what I requested and to other locations that they thought I’d enjoy seeing.

We saw temples (one was very old), an extraordinary open-air grocery store, and an elephant preserve. I listened, I observed, and I learned. …The Thai Elephant Conservation Center was special as we spent a lot of time up close with a cow and her calf.

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Pailin was just like a little girl on 15nov14 as she fed both an elephant cow and her calf. It was fun to watch her and the elephants react to each other. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

On 16nov14 Daranee, Pailin, and I went to the Thai Army Base in Lampang as I wanted to see the three restaurants that Pailin owned and operated before she left Thailand.

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Pailin’s visit to the Thai Army Base in Lampang was special as she not only relived some of the events in her life when she owned and ran restaurants, but also got to see some people who were special in her life. From left: Tun, Pailin, LK, and Daranee. Second Lieutenant (and now Captain) Nanta Homkanchan took this image with Pailin’s phone in her office. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

Visiting the Thai Army Base and seeing the two buildings that were still restaurants was certainly one of my highlights. Better yet, seeing the people light up with smiles while they gave Pailin big hugs. Certainly seeing Bunjob (see below montage), who was and still is Pailin’s “brother,” and let me tell you that his eyes filled with joy when he saw her.

16nov14_GolfREST_bunjob_Montage2a_wsA major road, Phahonyotin Boulevard (which is like a highway in the USA), splits the Thai Army Base in Lampang from the army hospital and golf course (which are across the street. Pailin’s first restaurant (1987) was in a cool old wooden building; it served everyone, the snooker room (also everyone), and a huge ballroom (only officers). In 1990 she added the restaurant on the Thai Army golf course, and finally her restaurant in the army hospital (2002), which no longer exists.

Our time in Lampang finished way-too quickly and before we knew it we were celebrating our last night with Daranee at the Riverfront Restaurant in Lampang, which is on the Wang (pronounced “Wong”) River. The next day Font would pick Pailin and I up and drive us to Uttaradit.

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Pailin and Daranee Konsin at The Riverfront Restaurant in Lampang (late afternoon on 17nov2014). (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

Pailin and Daranee have known each other since they were both young and living in Uttaradit, which means that they aren’t sisters by birth but are “sisters” because of a close friendship (Cheyenne Indians often call those close to them brothers and sisters during the 1860s and today). With the truth finally revealed to me, and as Daranee and I had bonded when we first met, she is now my sister for all time.

wangRiver_LampangI took this photo (right) of a bridge crossing the Wang River through a window to Daranee’s left shoulder in the Riverfront Restaurant (above photo)  just before darkness arrived. … I took more pictures like this (landscapes, buildings, traffic, etc.), but during my introduction to Thailand I was mostly interested in the people in Pailin’s life. I decided to share this image as I loved the colored lights on the bridge and the reverse image that the water captured of the bridge. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

Early on our last morning with Daranee a retired nurse who had worked in the hospital on the Thai Army Base in Lampang drove 50 U.S. miles to see Pailin.

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LK, Pailin, and Sue Lyn at Daranee’s home just before Font Subanna arrived on 17nov2014. (Daranee took this image with LK’s camera)

She was quiet but open and a good listener. Sue Lyn, her Thai nickname, was a person I liked a lot.

Around nine Font Subanna arrived to drive us to Uttaradit.  Before setting out the five of us went out for brunch at a cool two-story restaurant on the Wang River. As always the food was good with a total cost of about $20.00 U.S. As it turned out, this meal would also be our dinner.

Uttaradit, two brothers, a niece & a special lady who lives forever in my heart

During the trip Pailin sat with Font in the front of his car while I sat in the rear. Pailin’s and my baggage took up most of the back seat and all of the rear of the auto. I had hoped to sleep. Fat chance!

The drive seemed endless. At one point Font said to Pailin, “I don’t know what to say to him.” (Pailin told me this later.) From the opposite point-of-view I had no clue what I should say to Font. … They chatted until we reached a magnificent temple. Font asked if we’d like to visit it. You bet!!!!

Suddenly it was three people exploring the temple, its grounds, and museum. My camera went belly up as the batteries had died. … Daranee had a statue of the “soldier with the broken sword” in her living room. I had asked about him and learned a little. The museum had the same statue of this soldier. Pailin translated as Font and I tried to talk about this special man. I learned a little more.

Font made two stops when we arrived in Uttaradit—one at a mall where he bought batteries for my camera, and then at his daughter’s (and her husband, Sophon’s) food and juice shop. It was here that I met Lek Subanna for the first time (she is Sabrina’s sister, who you’ll see a lot of below).

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On 18nov14 an unexpected moment took me by surprise. Luckily I had loaded my camera with the batteries that Font had just bought. From left: Unknown woman, Font, Pailin, and Lek Subanna in Lek and Sophon’s restaurant. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

It was shortly before dark when we reached Font and Not’s home. We settled into our room and shortly after dark Lek, Sophon, Mind (their daughter) and Ford (Sabrina’s son) arrived and I met them, never dreaming that I had just met my extended family. Mind and Ford studied English in school, and both Sophon and Lek had a terrific comprehension of the English language. As I had first learned with Daranee, then with Font on the drive to Uttaradit, I now realized that I could communicate with Thai people mixing English and Thai words with hand and body movements and facial expressions.

Without missing a beat Not and Font welcomed Pailin and me into their home, into their world, and into their lives.

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My loving wife is one of the most generous people that I have ever known. Back in her dark ages a tragic event happened and it destroyed her. It took her years to recover and if wasn’t for her mother, Daranee, and other magnificent people in her life, she wouldn’t have made it. At the time of the tragedy she owned and ran three restaurants mentioned above, she owned a home, and by any standard she was successful. Everything ended. In this 20nov14 image she is relaxing in Not & Font’s home in Uttaradit, and sitting upon a magnificent chair that she gave to her sister and brother-in-law when she left her homeland to roam the world. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

Unknown to me and to my initial displeasure when I learned this, Pailin had shared my ailments with Not in Lampang. … I had not traveled to Thailand to improve my health. No! I had traveled to Thailand to experience Pailin’s homeland with her. That said, what Not had told Pailin that she would do for me was unbelievable, but Pailin had to convince me to accept the treatments, which included detoxing, mineral baths, special juices, and deep tissue massages. … I’m not going to go into detail of the physical problem that I’ve had since the 1990s, but words below will give you a hint of what I’ve had to deal with.

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Pailin and LK during our two-hour bath in mineral water on 21nov14. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

Not and Font’s home was also Not’s medical center: She was a master of deep tissue massage combined with juices, minerals, medicinal pastes, and other healing techniques I had not seen practiced. Not had many licenses and certificates to back up what I just said, and people traveled long distances to become her patients. As Not had said in Lampang, she took me under her wing, and Pailin too. We became front and center of Not’s healing and massage practice.

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Pailin after her bath in mineral water on 21nov14. Later that day she rubbed healing paste onto her skin. (photos © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

But our time in Not’s clinic was not only to improve our physical health but to also give us ideas on how to continue bettering our health after we returned to the USA.

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Not teaches Pailin how to make her honey-lime (read honey-lemon) drink on 21nov14. (photo © Louis Kraft, Not Subanna, and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

It also included Pailin learning new massage techniques (she watched and studied while Not worked on me (and Not allowed me to watch while she worked on Pailin). And the training went well beyond types of massage and health techniques for it also included learning of a special juice that is beneficial to our health.

Not improved our physical lives. For me, and after my second full treatment, I would begin to see and feel an improvement.

I think that I should say something here that I have hinted at to friends on my blogs and other social media—mainly that I struggle to walk (every step is pure pain) and sleep at night is non-existent at times. This has been ongoing for two and pushing three decades. Over all of these years I have done everything possible to walk pain free and to get a good night’s sleep. Recently, that is now in 2016, the bar of what I need to do has increased yet again. Major testing has again begun; will it obtain the answers that I need to continue protecting and cherishing Pailin? Don’t know. That said, … I’ve got at least 30 years still in front of me, and they will happen.

Trip to Chiang Mai (city in the north)

On 23nov2014 Lek and Sophon picked us up and we drove to Chiang Mai. … A long drive to see Nat Rongkun, the White Temple. Artist Chalermchai Kositpipat conceived his religious grounds as a tourist attraction, and it is. That said, it is much more for the entire layout of the grounds that he designed is extraordinary in both conception and execution. The environment that he created is a joy to explore, and I believe at the time that Lek and Sophon took us to the White Temple the project had been ongoing for over 10 years (with how much more work still to come?).

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As Pailin and I chatted with Chalermchai Kositpipat under a blazing sun Sophon called out that he was taking a photo. I think that only Pailin found him in the crowd and looked toward him. The cement work in question (in the paragraph below) is directly behind us. (photo by Sophon Yamsavai 2014)

While we were there we passed by Chalermchai Kositpipat as he gave instructions to a couple of his cement artists that were creating a walking area near his art gallery. We stopped and watched as Chalermchai made clear what he wanted done with the wet cement. When he finished speaking with his workers Pailin and I stepped to him and he graciously spoke with us for a few minutes.

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Sophon and Lek at the White Temple on 23nov16. They are filling out ornaments with Pailin’s and my name that will hang forever on the trees of life. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

The White Temple (which was then not complete inside; actually artists painted the walls while we enjoyed the sacred and religious milieu) and art gallery and tourist attraction were amazing. We couldn’t use a camera in the temple (totally understandable) or in the gallery that displayed Chalermchai Kositpipat’s art. I should have used a flash to fill in shadows on everyone’s faces in the harsh sunlight when they stood before the temple but didn’t. (I think that the two-shot portrait of Lek and Sophon is perfect for this blog’s storyline.)

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I took this image of Pailin outside the perimeter of the King’s Garden in Chiang Mai. I took a lot of photos and many were decent of everyone (two- and three-shots), but I especially like this image of Pailin. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

Our agenda didn’t end after we left the White Temple for now we needed to meet up with Natapron Subanna. Pong (her nickname) is another of Pailin’s nieces and Somnuck and Kulab’s (nickname Rose) her daughters, … Anuchat Sanganit is her husband (sorry as I don’t know his nickname)—both are lawyers. They met us at a shopping area and we followed them to their absolutely gorgeous home. We were to spend the night there (a surprise to me). After we chatted and settled in Natapron/Pong joined us on a trip to the King of Thailand’s Garden.

Unfortunately the King’s Garden had already closed for the day when we arrived but we were able to explore the garden outside of the gated land that looked magnificent from a small hill on the exterior grounds that we climbed.

Afterwards we drove to a great restaurant in Chiang Mai, called Im Plapao that featured seafood.

psk_pong_ImPlapaoREST_group_24nov14_Collage2a_wsAnuchat, with his and Natapron’s son, joined us shortly after we arrived.

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I shot a number of images of the performance. The fellow with the white mustache and bikini had just lost his clothing that had been pulled from him. He appeared to be the “bad guy” of the play. It was a hoot, and I think I’d enjoy doing street theater (something I’ve never done) but, alas, not wearing a bikini for my costume. LK may have been on the wild side in the dark past but he is considerably more conservative with the image he presents to the world now. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

After eating at the restaurant Natapron, Anuchat, and their son drove back to their house while Lek, Sophon, Pailin, and I followed in their pickup. After driving through a portion of Chiang Mai we passed an outdoor theater performance that was just off the street. Sophon saw that it had captured my interest and asked if I’d like to stop. Yes! After parking we walked to the back of the audience, which extended almost to the street, and watched for five or ten minutes. I totally enjoyed myself (think Pailin did too).

The next day we explored the temple ruins in the “Old Town” area of Chiang Mai that are called “Wiang Khum Kham.” We were a group of five: Pong (that is Natapron, but I knew her as Pong), Lek, Sophon, Pailin, and myself.

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The temple ruins were amazing, and although not like the Indian temple ruins in the Americas they were surprisingly similar. There were underground tunnels that connected all of the many temples. Wish we could have experienced the tunnels but this wasn’t allowed. Pailin took the photo of me hamming it up like Wynkoop or Booth and I took the image of the ruins. (photos © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

We then drove to doiSuthep the hillside area above Chiang Mai that had a cool and ongoing bazaar and yet another temple that looked down upon the city of Chiang Mai far below.

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As we slowly worked our we through the bazaar in doiSuthep on 24nov2014 I hustled forward to capture this image. From left: Lek Subanna, Sophon Yamasvai, Ko Subanna (Pailin’s brother), Pong, and Pailin. This was an absolutely fun time for me. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

We only experienced a portion of the bazaar when we crossed the street where Lek and Sophon bought tickets for us step aboard an ancient elevator on a hook that slowly took us to the top of the hill where there was a huge temple grounds that we explored.

psk&somkid_Temple_above_doiSuthep_24nov14montage_wsDuring our wanderings Ko watched out for me, and whenever I fell behind as I wanted to experience and capture what I saw he slowed his pace to ensure that I didn’t get lost or left behind. I enjoyed my time with him.

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Pailin was looking at jewelry after we left the temple and returned to the bazaar in doiSuthep. From left: Pong (Natapron), Pailin, and an unnamed woman. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

I love to wander through bazaars and chat with the sellers. I’m not good at bartering, but as I’m mostly a “lookie loo” it’s a lot of fun. I purchased (actually, I should say that Pailin “purchased” for me) a couple of gifts for my daughter and her mother.

After we returned to our autos Ko gave Pong a ride back to her home while Sophon, Lek, Pailin, and I began our return to Uttaradit. But first we had a short detour in Chaing Mai to an area called Tawai, where we looked at first class art, furniture, gift, and jewelry shops.

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This is Sophon’s Isuzu in Tawai on 24nov14 just before we started the long drive back to Uttaradit. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

Night arrived quickly and Sophon handled all the driving, much of which was on dark one-lane mountain roads. … As Sophon reached a curve we could see headlights peeking around it. As he moved through the turn suddenly a stalled pickup with everyone in it blocked the road right front of us. Sohpon couldn’t swerve to the right (Thai roads are like Great Britain’s and the opposite of the USA) as the oncoming vehicle was too close. Without any chance to brake (even though he couldn’t have been going any faster than 20 MPH U.S. speed) he swung to the left and off the road and around the small pickup that was a disaster waiting to happen. Ladies and gents, I’ve been in a lot of tight scrapes with vehicles, including taking a motorcycle over a cliff and living through the destruction of a Corvette at high speed, but let me tell you that Sophon’s driving on that night was the best that I have ever seen. Thank you, my brother, for you saved everyone from major injury or worse.

24nov14_dinner_uttaradit_collage2_wsThat night after our arrival in Uttaradit, we shared meal as we talked and joked and enjoyed each other’s company. It was on this night that Font looked at Pailin while he pointed at me and said: “When are you going to teach him the Thai language so that I can talk to him?” Everyone laughed. Wow! What an opening for a little more fun. About an hour later I looked at Pailin while I pointed at Font and said: “When are you going to teach him the English language so that I can talk to him?” Everyone laughed again. Good times!

Beginning of the end of our trip to Thailand

Days of preparation wrapped up early on 27nov2014, a day that would be huge at Not and Font’s home in Uttaradit.

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On 27nov14 Not and Font hosted two ceremonies, the first was religious and the second honored Font’s birthday. Left to right: Boy (the minister who performed the ceremonies) and Not. Directly behind Not is Ann (the religious woman, who with her sister and Boy, created most of the decorations. Centered between Boy and Ann are Kai Subanna (Lek and Sabrina’s brother) and his wife Cat. Pailin can be seen in the background at the right side of the image. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

On this day they hosted two ceremonies. Both were religious, but the second honored Font’s birthday.

If my memory is good there were two full days of preparation (making the decorations from flowers). When it was time for the religious ceremony to begin, Sophon and I sat beside the holy structures at the front of the house and faced everyone who took part in the prayers (we photographed the religious ceremonies).

There was a renewal and hugging and tears as those closest to Not and Font lined up to share their views of these two special people. I missed most of this as I didn’t realize it would happen. Actually on this day I was more of an observer than a participant and a lot of what I saw was mysterious.

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After the ceremonies were completed, chairs were set in front of the holy decorations and loved ones of Not and Font came before them and shared their thoughts (Sophon and Lek are also pictured). Although I couldn’t understand the words, they were touching for often I saw tears. (photo Louis Kraft 2014)

 

 

 

 

There were a number of amazing things going on, and Font and Not allowed me to photograph them, and that they, and all the other Thai people allowed me to participate in/or watch the Buddhist ceremonies when I don’t practice their religion. This was one of the best things that I experienced in Thailand.

Shortly after some group photos were taken.

After the ceremonies people danced in the front yard. I like dancing and certainly enjoyed seeing my lady easily move to the music.
pskDance_27nov14_montage_wsI mistakenly thought that the day would revert back to normal, but without massages. This would have been good for me, as I could get in some writing, relax, and chat with family and friends. No.

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After the ceremonies (27nov2014) a number of photos were taken, including this one by Sophon Yamsavai  using LK’s camera. Left to right: Ann (the holy woman, who is partially hidden), her sister (I don’t know her name), Lek, Font, Not, Pailin, LK, Tim (Font’s sister), and “Doctor Na,” who spoke English (Pailin told me that she was a neighbor; we talked, and I enjoyed knowing her, if only for a short time). (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

The major event(s) had ended and Sophon and Lek invited us to go out for lunch and then to explore a little of Uttaradit.

I had no clue of what was to come. …

We enjoyed soup (Tom Yam) at Guay Teaw Pakmo, and it was the best that I enjoyed in Thailand, a land where all the soups were extraordinary. Lek told me that the bowls of soup cost $1.00 in U.S. money.

uttaradit_GuayTeawPakmo_REST_27nov14_montage_wsAfter eating Sophon and Lek introduced us to some of the sights of Uttaradit, all of which Pailin and I hadn’t seen as almost all of our time had been spent at Not and Font’s home, while she used her amazing skills to improve our health.

On this day I saw portion of Uttaradit that I never imagined existed.

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LK’s office in Uttaradit on 26nov14. I enjoyed and drank Thai coffee. The empty mug held the juice that Not had made for me that morning.  (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

A glimpse of a portion of LK’s days in Thailand. I had brought work with me: The Sand Creek manuscript (only editing what I already had as I couldn’t bring research), The Discovery, and “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude,” which would become an October 2015 cover story for Wild West magazine (again, only rewriting as I didn’t bring research material). During those days and nights I wasn’t anti-social. While working on my projects I was completely open to spending time with Font and Not’s friends who visited and with Not, Font, Ford, Mind, Lek, and Sophon. Believe it or not, I actually lived in the perfect environment for a writer to function on all cylinders. I had found a home that wasn’t my home, but was (if that makes any sense).

I had seen the statue of Phraya Phichai Dab Hak (“Dab Hak” means “broken sword”) at Daranee Konsin’s home in Lampang. When Font drove us from Lampang to Uttaradit and we had stopped at a huge temple complex I again saw the statue of Phraya Phichai Dab Hak, and I had mentioned him to Sophon and Lek. They told me basically what I had already found on the internet in English. As a historian I knew what I had learned was totally unusable to create a magazine article or book, but still it made my interest in him grow.

We saw a lot that afternoon, but two locations will remain with me forever, and if I am ever able to collect primary documentation about Phraya Phichai Dab Hak in Thai and have it translated to English, I do believe that he will become an important project for me.

Two of our stops on that afternoon of 27nov14 were major to me: 1) The Uttaradit Folk Museum and Wat Pratansilaart (the Thai temple in Uttaradit), and 2) The city hall complex of the province of Uttaradit.

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The entry to the Uttaradit Folk Museum, which shared the same huge parking lot with Wat Pratansilaart. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

Sophon and Lek had a definite reason for taking us to the Folk Museum, which had a lot artifacts that dated deep into Thailand’s past. It was a wonder to explore.

It didn’t take long for me to discover why I wandered the aisles … a painting of Phraya Phichai Dab Hak by Dr. Prakujputmanjrak, who was also a monk at Wat Pratansilaart. (Actually he had created three paintings of Phraya Phichai Dab Hak.) It almost appeared as if the artist might have been familiar with Frank Frazetta’s fantasy art that has adorned 100s of book covers, many film posters, and are displayed in museums, the Galaxy Press (Hollywood, Calif.), and private homes in the USA.

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The statue of Phraya Phichai Dab Hak was in deep shade as the sun was at the back of this major hero of Siam’s fight for freedom when I took the photo at the Uttaradit city hall complex. As I couldn’t see his face, Lek bought the 3×5″ photo of the statue for me (lower left). The art is a detail of one of Dr. Prakujputmanjrak’s paintings of Phraya Phichai Dab Hak (lower right). (photo of Phraya Phichai statue © Louis Kraft 2014)

After praying in and viewing Wat Pratansilaart, which, by the way, also had paintings of Thailand’s history by Dr. Prakujputmanjrak adorning the walls, I remembered seeing a monk talking with a man with a German accent in the Folk Museum. Sophon and I returned to the museum and indeed it was Dr. Prakujputmanjrak. The German fellow spoke English and he translated for the doctor and myself while we talked about Phraya Phichai Dab Hak.

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There was also a cool Sword Museum on the city hall grounds of Uttaradit. Those of you that know me know that I can’t resist swords—love them. Other than swimming, there is no sport I like as much as stage combat (swashbuckling) or competition dueling with sabres. There was a mirror behind the two-handed swords dating back (I think) to the time of Siam. I need to take lessons when next I travel to Thailand. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

Our next stop was the city hall complex of the governor of the province of Uttaradit, but it wasn’t to see the impressive building. Rather it was to see the statue of Phraya Phichai Dab Hak (see above montage). When Thailand was still Siam, a boy named Choi eventually came to the attention of King Taksin as Thong Di when he won a boxing match. This eventually led to him becoming a general under the king and leading guerrilla warfare against Burma, which occupied much of Siam. He became known as the “soldier with the broken sword” when he fought in front of his army with two two-handed swords and one broke. Instead of retreating he continued to fight. Eventually the Burmese army was driven from Siam. From then on he was known as Phraya Phichai Dab Hak.

On this day I experienced a wonderful moment, and it didn’t matter if it happened in Thailand, the USA, Spain, or Costa Rica. After seeing us, a group of school kids raced to Pailin and myself and surrounded us. …

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The little boy to the right of LK (left in the image) clung to me from the moment that we met. He didn’t understand a word that I said and I didn’t understand a word that he said, but we connected. We had a golden five minutes or perhaps more. In the inset (above) I’m pointing toward Sophon and trying to make him understand that I want him to look toward the camera. He understood, but unfortunately the little girl standing in front of him blocked Sophon from capturing a good image of him.

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LK sitting in Sophon and Lek’s living room at the end of a special day in Uttaradit. (photo  © Louis Kraft and Sophon Yamsavai 2014)

Pailin and I stayed at Lek and Sophon’s home for the first time on this night.

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Good company and good food at Lek and Sophon’s home on 27nov2014. Left to right: Pailin, Sophon, Mind, and Lek. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

As daylight faded into darkness that evening we ate outside at Lek and Sophon’s (we had moved there to make room for Kai and Cat at Not and Font’s for the religious ceremonies). Pailin and I enjoyed our time with Font, Not, Kai, Cat, Ford, Mind, Lek, and Sophon.

The next morning (28nov14) we detoxed and drank honey and lime juice. Afterwards we walked to Not and Font’s home. Pailin and I spent two hours in the mineral waters but there were no treatments on this day. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to work on the medical novel on this day, and to date only had little over 40 new pages from scratch (I had hoped for 90 pages of brand new prose but was happy with what I had). Actually I wanted to spend time with family members and guests as I knew that my time in Uttaradit was coming to an end.

The next day (29nov14) would be our last day in Uttaradit. It was on this day that Pailin and I enjoyed our final treatments in Not’s health clinic.

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The front of Not and Font’s home in Uttaradit. You can still see the decorations on the right side of the image, along with one of the two permanent religious buildings in the front yard. From Left: Ann’s sister, the holy woman Ann (Tanakarn; don’t know her last name and in Thailand the ladies’ last names often remain their maiden names), Somchit Sawaddee (a police officer and Ann’s husband), LK, Ford (Sabrina’s son), Pailin, Font, and Not on 29nov2014. Ann, her sister, and Boy, the minister at the ceremonies created most of the decorations. Somchit is a gentleman, a good friend of Font’s, and often visited (I enjoyed all of my time with him). Good times were nearing an end; a happy and yet sad time for LK. (photo on LK’s camera and © Louis Kraft 2014)

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This image was taken just before we began our goodbye dinner at the P.N. House Resort restaurant (29nov14). Left to right: Pailin, LK, Ford, Font, Not, Mind, Lek, and Sophon. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

Our last day in Uttaradit ended with a meal with Pailin’s and now my family at the P.N. House Resort Restaurant. The group photo of my extended family (above image) marked the end of a key piece in my life, a part of me that I’ll never forget (and hope that I’ll revisit).

After dinner, we again spent the night at Lek and Sophon’s house. The next morning Font and Not arrived at four in the morning and we began our trip south to Bangkok in Sophon’s extended pickup (pictured above). We arrived at Phichit, the city of Pailin’s birth, which is still in the north, while it was still dark.

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After a quick stop to see some of Pailin’s relatives, we went to the crocodile preserve and got to see these marvelous creatures just as they were waking up, and as close as the preserve allowed us to get (it was tempting to jump down to them, but it didn’t look as if I’d be able to climb back up onto the bridgework if they decided that I’d make a tasty breakfast and started chasing me). Afterwards we returned to Sophon’s pickup and Not served us juice she had made that morning.

Phichit is a special city to Not and Font also, and it was with sadness that we left.

lk_pig_30nov14_wsWe still had many miles to travel before we reached the land to the north of Bangkok. The time passed quickly as Pailin, Not, and Font chatted in Thai and I watched everything that we passed (and sometimes asked questions).

During the drive Font pulled off the main road and we stopped for breakfast. Of course I was interested in soup and fish, and they were the major portion of our breakfast.

Before continuing our trip, I sat on a small pig and Pailin took a photo with her iPad. What can I say, other than, “Once a cowboy, always a cowboy.” (photo © Louis Kraft and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

On the outskirts of Bangkok (middle Thailand)

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Pailin entering Buengchawark Underwater Sea Paradise on 30nov2014. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

When we reached the Supanburi province Font (and all of us needed a break and he took us on a side trip into the countryside to see a special amusement/science park, which was on Bung Chawak (Chawak Lake). I’m talking about the Buengchawark Underwater Sea Paradise. It was large, and unfortunately our time was limited for we had a set time to hopefully meet up with Mana Subanna and Pen Saelee, who were to connect with us at a predefined location on a major street somewhere (Yep, LK had no clue where we would meet them).

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Pailin and Not leaving Buengchawark Underwater Sea Paradise on 30nov2014. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Not Subanna, & Louis Kraft 2014)

This marine world was cool, and I wish we could have seen more than the crocodile show with the trainers in the water with their star attractions. Great show, and happily the trainers and their pets completed their demonstration without nary an incident. (I wonder if everyone could enjoy a show with Great White Sharks off the coast of SoCal with their trainers and no one got hurt; I hope so, for these fabulous creatures need to survive into the World’s future, and they are protected off California’s coast). The Great Whites are not predators of humankind, and only seldom attack swimmers and surfers who enter their domain. Yes, they are sharks, and can be deadly, but they are also one of the truly magnificent creatures whose domain is the oceans of our great earth.

After meeting up with Mana and Pen, Pailin and I rode with them and Not and Font followed us to a great restaurant (Chaitung) where the chef cooked the fish on a spike in the ground with a metal cylinder covering the fish while flames did the rest.

After snapping the below image I wandered the restaurant grounds. Of course I stood out with my wide-brimmed hat and employees (some on break) spoke with me. I returned to our table. Almost everyone was ready to go. I grabbed Pailin and told her I was taking her to meet the cook, whom I had already met. That’s right, I wanted her to translate for the cook and myself as I wanted to understand the cooking process. … I would get more than I asked for, and luckily I was able to photograph how the fish were cooked.

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At the Chaitung Restaurant from left: Pailin, Not, Font, Pen, and Mana. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

greatRestaurant_psk_howCookFish_30nov14_collage_wsIn Thailand my best moments were with the key people in Pailin’s life. But I was extremely lucky in that I was able to spend prime time with people that my lady didn’t know, such as the school children in the Sword Museum and the cook on the northern outskirts of Bangkok.

Bangkok (central Thailand)

Afterwards Mana and Pen introduced me and reintroduced Pailin to Bangkok traffic, and where little motorcycles are like buzzing flies (by that I mean that they are all over the place). If you think that Los Angeles, California, is large, over-populated, and has a horrendous traffic problem I’ve got news for you—Bangkok knocks LA out by 100 country miles (and that’s an understatement).

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When Mana stopped for a light there were no motorcycles in sight. That didn’t last long, for suddenly we were surrounded, including both sides and the rear of his SUV. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

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Mana has a great Chevrolet SUV. The ladies sat in the back seat and chatted until we drove by an area where both Mana and Pen talked about what we saw. I luckily got to ride shotgun. (photo © Louis Kraft & Mana Subanna 2014)

We spent that night in a hotel where Pum worked. The next morning Pailin and I hugged Not and Font as we exchanged an emotional goodbye.

Mana and Pen then spent the day showing us the sights in Bangkok, which is a marvelous city, and bustles with activity (including tourism).

As Mana maneuvered through downtown Bangkok (heck, all of the city felt like “downtown”), I mentioned the major homeless problem in Los Angeles and he informed me that the homeless problem in Bangkok was also huge. No more than five or seven minutes passed before Mana alerted me that we would soon pass a major homeless city in Bangkok.

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If my memory is decent this homeless city is a long block (and I’m not certain how wide it is). I’m not going to preach about Los Angeles, but this is a gigantic problem in the city that Pailin and I call home. (photo © Louis Kraft 2014)

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Photo at left: Pen, Pailin, and LK standing in front of the King’s Palace in Bangkok on 1dec2014 (photo by Mana Subanna using LK’s camera, and © Pen Saelee, Mana Subanna, Pailin Subanna-Kraft, and Louis Kraft 2014)

We drove by the King’s Palace a number of times as we moved about the city. There is a great statue of pink elephants in an area where cars circle to move in different directions.

We did stop to view the King’s Palace, and I wondered about the huge crowds that have gathered where we then stood over the decades.

We saw a lot—too much to document with words or pictures, but there was one last area that we visited that I want to mention—Chinatown.

Chinatown! A city within a city that thrives (unlike the Chinatown in Los Angeles, which in recent years struggles to survive; that said Pailin and some of her friends often go to Chinatown in LA to buy herbs, food, and other supplies).

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While the ladies shopped in Chinatown, Mana and I crossed the street and entered a mall to use the restroom. Afterwards we enjoyed coffee at a small shop on the street in front of the mall entry. Soon Pen and Pailin joined us. I took these photos in order and both are full frame. (photos © Mana Subanna, Pen Saelee, Pailin Subanna-Kraft, & Louis Kraft 2014)

It is in Chinatown where Pen works, and it is a bustling area full of life. Whew! It took my breath away.

While hoping not to be repetitive, I’ve never seen a city like Bangkok, and I need to return again to experience it. The city was alive and thriving, it featured the old and the new, rich and poor, and certainly portions of it reeked of money. Mana and Pen shared their home city with us and it reminded me of Los Angeles.

Our last night in Bangkok, special friends, and …

After our tour completed, Mana and Pen drove us to Noi and Wichan Tawon’s home in Bangkok, which is marvelous and has an interior that represents what living in Thailand is like. Unfortunately, Wichan, who is an engineer, wouldn’t join us for hours as he had a four-hour drive one way. (Yes, his commute makes those in Los Angeles little more than a stroll in the park.)

After making Pailin and me feel welcome, Noi prepared a great meal with the help of her houseboy. Pailin is close friends with Noi and Wichan, and she stayed with her friend while Pen, Mana, and I relaxed on the second floor balcony.

After eating the five of us chatted and laughed. Before night arrived Wichan, who knew English arrived, and the gathering morphed into a party atmosphere. We had a lot in common due to me writing for software companies for way too-many years, and hit it off.

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Just before preparing for bed on 1dec2014, this photo was taken of Pailin, Noi, and myself on the second-story balcony, which is a great place to entertain. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

It began to get late and everyone called it a night.

The next morning Pen, Pum, and Mana joined us for breakfast at Noi and Wichan’s.

Of course numerous photos were taken. I have a great one of Wichan and myself on my camera, but I wanted to use an image off of Pailin’s iPad as I wanted a photo of the four of us together.

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As stated above, this is a four-shot of us. These are two people that I have known for less than a day in person, but they have become my friends for all time. Noi is currently a friend with me on social media, but unfortunately it took our return to the USA before I realized how much Pailin loves Noi and Wichan. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

Another photo was captured that morning off of Pailin’s phone, and I like it.

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Mana, Pailin, LK, and Pum are on Noi and Wichan’s second story balcony on 2dec2014. Suddenly our time is speeding toward an end (not something I wanted). (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2014)

After a long goodbye (and why not, for we had plenty of time … or so I thought) we packed Mana’s SUV with our belongings and set out for the airport.

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Pailin and LK shortly before we said goodbye to everyone and went through security. March took the image (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

As soon as we entered the main street the traffic came to a complete halt. Pedestrians and then more pedestrians walked past the cars that didn’t move. “Are we going to get to the airport,” I nervously asked Mana. “Don’t worry, for we’ll be off this road in half and hour or so,” he said (my understanding of his words). “We’ll then have clear sailing to the airport.” He was right.

Our time at the airport was bittersweet as the minutes rushed past in nanoseconds.

Another friend of Pailin’s, Daranee Thamtaranon, and her son March, came to the airport to see us off. March had a great digital camera and he took some images.

We went through security and soon the never-ending flight home began.

For the record, Not’s marvelous treatments gave me four
weeks of walking pain free and sleeping at night.

Christmas 2014

Pailin and I chose to spend Christmas day with each other. We didn’t take many photos on this day, but several mean a lot to me.

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I’m used to getting up early, including on this oh-so special holiday in my life—the birth of Jesus Christ. I’m up early to get the turkey prepped and into the oven, and Pailin wanted join me, help, and learn.

We have drunk homemade juice since the beginning of our relationship, and on this Christmas morning it was no different. For the record, Pailin loves being one of Santa Claus’s helpers.

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Like LK, Pailin knows how to have fun and enjoy the moment. (photos © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft (2014)

Our 2014 was about to end, but first we had an impromptu encounter (it follows); our last hours of 2014 are in the next section.

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LK massaging Pailin on 26dec2014. For the record, I’m not very good (although I try). Pailin depends upon Sabrina to massage her when she hurts and needs a massage (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2014)

The end of 2014 was private; a special time for us while Pailin worked for Kobie at the Lily Pad Thai Spa & Massage and for Nina and Pete at Nina’s Tong Thai Spa, and LK worked on The DiscoverySand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, and a cover feature for Wild West magazine, “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude.” During this time we continued to redesign Tujunga House and make it both Pailin’s and my home.

Pailin was about to end a great year. She had her Green Card; had met some of my good friends and major Indian wars companions John Monnett, Tomas Jaehn, and Glen Williams; and had obtained her California driver’s license. But we still had to deal with our health and moving forward in an economy that was huge in comparison to a big portion of the United States. One quick example: According to the Los Angeles Times, the price of a gallon of gasoline is over $1.00 more than the average cost of gasoline for the rest of the USA. This isn’t a lone example, and it is something that we must deal with on a daily and monthly basis.

The end of 2014 and early 2015

December 2014 ended quickly after our quiet Christmas and before we knew it the 31st of the month had arrived. I would spend the evening with Pailin and Sabrina at Wat Thai of Los Angeles in North Hollywood. Good time for LK.

I believe the following introduces you to Sabrina Subanna in this blog (if you follow my blogs you know who she is), and I need a quick introduction of her. She is Pailin’s niece and only relative in the USA (you’ll learn about their relationship below).

psk_sabrina_lk_montage_31dec14_1jan2015_wsI don’t celebrate New Year’s Eve and haven’t for decades—too much drinking and firecrackers and guns … with very little police activity. This is not the LA Police Department or the LA County Sheriff’s Department’s fault, for they are underpaid and understaffed for a city and county the size of Los Angeles. I prefer peace, quiet, and safety, … and more law enforcement officers should be hired.

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Minutes after the arrival of 2015. The building at the right and center background is the temple at Wat Thai of Los Angeles. I snapped the image from the second floor of the room where we had prayed with the monks. The darkness at the lower portion of the image is where there is a staircase heading downstairs (below ground level) where there is a courtyard and a large room for meetings and meals. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

After the prayers ended Pailin, Sabrina, and I mingled with the crowd as we worked our way down the staircase.

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Left to right: Sabrina Subanna, LK, and Pailin Subanna-Kraft at Wat Thai of Los Angeles (North Hollywood, Calif.) during the early minutes of 2015. (photo © Sabrina Subanna, Pailin Subanna-Kraft, & Louis Kraft 2015).

Pailin, Sabrina, and I welcomed in the new year at Wat Thai of Los Angeles in North Hollywood. The evening began chilly but the room where everyone prayed with the monks was warm. Afterwards, when we reached the main level of the Thai center where booths were set up and people moved about as they welcomed in 2015 we realized how much the temperature had dropped while we had prayed.

 

 

Encino Chamber of Commerce visits Nina’s Tong Thai Spa

On 28jan2015 Pete Senoff* hosted a large event at his and his wife Nina’s shop, Nina’s Tong Thai Spa, in Encino. A large number of people attended; there were speeches and documents welcoming Nina’s Tong Thai Spa as a member of the Encino Chamber of Commerce.

* Pete had gone to high school with me and we got along, although we lost contact after graduation. He located me in 2012, and our friendship began anew.

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(Group photo © Pete Senoff 2015. … Pete & Nina Senoff photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

During the event, attendees were treated to Thai food that included Pailin’s soup and other selections of food catered by Siri Thai Cuisine of Burbank, California.

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(photos © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2015)

The Autry National Center Masters of Art Exhibit

The Autry National Center (now the Autry Museum of the American West; ouch, for I can’t keep up with the name changes over the years) hosts an art exhibit that begins in late January and ends in March. These art shows are first class in both the art exhibited and the presentation.

autryMastersArt_7mar2015_driveMontage_wsOver the years the Autry has drawn some of the best western artists to their competition,, and the reason why is evidentthe possibility of a huge payday.

To realize how important the Autry’s Masters of the American West exhibit and sale was, we need to return to Howard Terpning, whose “The Patrol—1877” was displayed on the post card advertisement for the exhibit. Although Terpning doesn’t name participants, per a conversation I had elsewhere on social media re-enactors posed for his painting, and several of them represented real people. Terpning stated that he based his painting upon an incident that he had read about during the Sioux wars. BTW, Terpning is an Autry favorite and often his work has the key location in the exhibitions and wins major awards. “The Patrol—1877” was listed at $950,000 but sold at auction for $1.3 million. I first discovered Terpning in the 1970s in Scottsdale, Arizona, and then his mostly Apache wars paintings listed for $10,000 to $18,000. (Talk about missing an investment opportunity.)

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Pailin stands in front of John Coleman’s magnificent bronze (image at left), “Honeymoon at Crow Fair” (which I assume is in Montana, for that is the only Crow Fair that I know of). Apparently Coleman created five of the bronzes and one was for sale/auction—it sold for $175,000, and it was well worth every dollar. It was my favorite piece of art in the show. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

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David Mann, “First of Five Thousand.” Unfortunately the Plains Indians are not identified, something that I would like. Also, here the painting’s story is about a raid that is returning home to Canada with horses stolen in Mexico. One problem for me: I don’t know of any Plains Indian raids the resulted in obtaining 5,000 horses, and worse that is one long journey with 5,000 stolen animals. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2015)

 

 

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While talking about bleeding art or photos across pages in books or magazines, this is something that the Wild West magazine’s art director needs to realize—bleeding an image across pages ruins the impact of the image.

There was a lot of wonderful artistic works to see. We took our time and enjoyed the show, returning to pieces that we especially liked on numerous occasions.

Late spring into early fall 2015

A mix of gunfighters, hide & seek, and Wild Bill Hickok
plus a special gift from my beautiful wife

Since the cataract surgeries earlier in 2015 my eyes have become very sensitive to the sun and bright lights.

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(photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2015)

LK leans against the archway that leads into the kitchen at Tujunga House in spring 2015. Pailin gave these sun glasses to me for my birthday (they are not the glasses that I wore to the Autry National Center in March; I know, it is now the Autry Museum of the American West, but it wasn’t back then). I wear the sun glasses often. Beyond protecting my eyes from harmful rays they provide me with the feeling of being “cool.” At my age being cool is a good thing, for it lets me feel as I if I still contribute writing that is valid, and, other than loving and cherishing Pailin and my daughter, have a reason for living.

Sometime in late spring Pailin and I began reverting back to younger days.

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At times when we play a fun game one of us has at times captured an image, such as this photo that Pailin took on 18jun2015. The photo of Pailin on the desk was taken the first time that I photographed her wearing a cowboy hat. At that time I began calling her a “Thai cowgirl.” (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2015)

It was along the line of hide and seek but with the gunfighters of the Wild West thrown in; that is, which one of us could come out of hiding and shoot quicker with our finger guns (as I did as a child).

This began one time when Pailin returned home to Tujunga House and entered the front door. I waited in hiding until she was well within the house. I then jumped from my hiding spot and shot her with my finger. She clutched her stomach as she slumped to the floor. It was minutes before she could get up as she laughed and laughed. Pailin loved it, and suddenly we had a game that mimicked our youth and at the same time was pure fun.

psk_lk_fingerColtMontage_4jun15_wsIt has been so much fun that when one of us returns home (or even when both of us are home) we at times engage in our game. When young I had cap guns and holsters and cowboy hats, and so did my friends. Where I lived in the San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles, Calif.) was rural with lots of open spaces for wanna-be gunslingers to hide and at the right moment have a showdown with a friend. I was often Tex Ritter and some of my pals were Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, or someone else.

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Pailin sneaking out of a hallway at Tujunga House, as our fun continued on 17jun2016. (photo © Palin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

At times it has gotten elaborate. By that I mean both of us have done whatever possible to gain the upper hand in a potential shootout. I’m by far the worst at this as I write at home, which gives me an incredible advantage. For example, one night I made certain that all the interior lights that were normally on were on. I then hid under the dinning room table. Pailin entered, placed her gear where she usually did, including an item or two in the dinning room. But at that point she wasn’t looking for me. Now she was and I could hear her carefully move through the house. She didn’t find me, and unsure what was happening, she returned to the kitchen and turned on the light. I pushed the chair from the table and finger-shot her. She slumped to the floor. I crossed to her as she stood. “You are a bad boy,” Pailin said as we hugged and kissed.

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Pailin and I took some publicity shots in early September 2015, but most were not two-shots. This one I liked, but unfortunately sunlight blasted us from behind and I couldn’t bring our images into focus. On 12sept2015 I used the faded and out-of-focus photo as the basis for a painting. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

The scout, lawman, and gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok is in this section for as soon as I read Johnny D. Boggs’ great novel about Hickok joining Buffalo Bill Cody’s theatrical troop on a tour of the East in the early 1870s (East of the Border, 2004), I knew that I wanted to play Hickok on the stage. I have given a copy of the book to my friend and director Tom Eubanks, who, if he likes it will buy in (He has directed all of my Ned Wynkoop one-man shows and Cheyenne Blood). Alas, Boggs has remained silent (even though his wife and my friend, Lisa Smith, thinks that it is a good idea to turn his novel into a play).

July 4, 2015

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Pailin with Nina and Sabrina in the Tujunga House dining room shortly after our 4jul15 get together began in the late afternoon. For the record Pailin is drinking cranberry juice and Sabrina is drinking honey, lemon, and water (which is a major drink in Pailin’s and LK’s lives). The soup is Thai Miso soup, with broth by Pailin and the ingredients by her and Nina. … Sabrina wanted to enjoy an “American” dinner and this is always something that I like to provide. The dinner would be simple: A salad with a special dressing that I make, sautéed vegetables, roasted potatoes, and salmon. Pailin requested an image of the salmon.

Vee, Saul, and a special evening w/good friends

A number of years back my great friend Veronica (Vee) von Bernarth Morra found me and we resumed our friendship that began during our college years in the dark ages.

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Vee, Pailin, and Saul, at the dinner table in Saul’s great town home in Los Angeles on 8jul2015. There were just the four of us and Vee and Saul sat across the table from Pailin and myself. I had asked them to come together on this side of the table so that I could photograph them. You can see the happiness and joy on Vee and Pailin’s faces, and the contentment on Saul’s face. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

This lady—Vee—is easily one of my best friends of all time, and I’m lucky to know her. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for her) she lives on the East Coast of our great country—the United States of America. Luckily for me, she is able to travel to the West Coast to see her good friend Saul Salodow (who studied theater with me in college; he went on to having a great career as a film editor in Los Angeles). When Vee visited Saul in summer in 2015, Saul invited us to his home. He’s a terrific cook, and better the four of us enjoyed another great late afternoon and evening. I do hope that our four-way relationship continues for Pailin and I love it. BTW, Vee has become one of Pailin’s best friends in America—no small statement.

A wasted trip to the Autry in July

The Autry National Center had announced what sounded like a great exhibit and Pailin and I looked forward to seeing it.

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The oversized poster at the entry to the exhibit promised something special. It wasn’t, and I place the blame on research and conception. We spent no more than 15 or 20 minutes looking at it. (photo © Palin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

Once we were inside the main building of the Autry we realized that no cameras were allowed in the exhibit, and thought that it was because there were a lot of short video clips with voice overs. Perhaps. All I can say is that we didn’t stay long, and the reason was simple—the exhibit reeked of money but failed to deliver what it proclaimed. Worse, it added information to the exhibit that really didn’t belong in it other than certain celebrities had name value—such as George Armstrong Custer, who spent his entire Civil War career fighting for the North in the East. Although he wouldn’t travel to the western frontier until 1866 and not deal with American Indians until 1867, the Autry thought his demise at the battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 was directly connected to the Civil War. I totally disagree. But hey, his name sells tickets.

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We had parked across the street from the Autry on 15jul2015, and after we crossed the street I asked Pailin to pose next to my favorite bush with the Autry National Center in the background. For the record I originally had two of these bushes that were rescued next to railroad tracks in Duarte, Calif., and now have six. (photo © Palin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

The exhibit had a great title, “Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West.” It opened on 25apr2015, and was a total disappointment. … I often wonder how much information that I read is inaccurate (read: error-riddled by lazy “so-called” historians who don’t do real research and repeat previously printed errors or create fiction—read “invented” history—to sell a point of view or conception). I know a fair amount about Kit Carson, the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864, and George Custer, so if something is out of place or wrong it stands out like a red flag. For example, Kit had reddish-blond hair, but the Autry decided to use a painting of him on horseback at full gallop. Two problems here: The rider didn’t look like Kit and his hair was pitch black (none of which were mentioned). … I wonder how many people now think that Carson had black hair. The Sand Creek exhibit had numerous errors, obvious errors corrected decades ago, and so bad, that I didn’t bother to take any notes. Actually there is a recent Custer book that won a Pulitzer Prize (to date I’ve read two pages, and both featured major errors). There is also an Apache wars book that places a person who wasn’t with Geronimo at the last surrender in 1886, something that was proven without a doubt in From Cochise to Geronimo, 2010, which the author listed in his bibliography but then ignored the facts. … As too many “so-called” historians have said to me: “I don’t care about truth; I care about selling books.” I hate to say it, but a good portion of the American Indian wars and the Golden Age of Cinema history stuffed down the reading public’s throats is little more than lies, deceit, and bullshit.

Pailin and the a2zheath.net Massage Schools

In mid-August 2015 Pailin began attending a school that would dominate her time until mid-March 2016. It was something that she excelled at as she was already a superb massage therapist, but she had to spend a lot of time translating the assigned books into Thai so that she could comprehend what the words meant (and this was ongoing during the class).

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From left: Pailin, Sylvia, and Jessica in the room where they performed massages as they learned. I believe that this image was taken by their instructor. (8sept2015).

Pailin enjoyed the classes, both lecture and the hands-on training, with the instructors and the other students. During the hands-on training the students took turns being the client.

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This image is of Pailin, Mimi (Pailin’s friend, and the sister of Kobie, who owns the Lily Pad Thai Massage & Spa in Sherman Oaks, Calif.), and Dr. Ben Drillings, who is the owner of the a2zhealth.net Massage Schools (Reseda and Thousand Oaks, Calif.). They were at a 14may16 street expo hosted by the city of Simi Valley. Pailin and Mimi provided free massages to people who lined up to receive them.

After completing 550 hours of training and studies Pailin participated in a number of Expos that were either sponsored by a2zhealth.net Massage Schools or by other organizations, such as the city of Simi Valley, which is in Simi Valley and to the to west of the northern portion of the San Fernando Valley (Chatsworth). When I was young there was a narrow road that wound through the Santa Susana Pass (called the Old Santa Susana Pass Road now) and allowed access between the two valleys. Great for motorcycle rides, …  and many western films had location shoots in the general area of the Simi Hills and the Santa Susana Mountains (including Errol Flynn’s great 1941 film, They Died with Their Boots On). There is also infamy attached to the pass for in the late 1960s mass-murderer Charles Manson and his followers lived at the Spahn Ranch (a stop on the road, and I spent numerous hours there). Now access between the valleys is via California State Route 118, later named the Ronald Reagan Freeway (as Simi Valley is the home of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library).

LK is responsible for keeping his fans

The above heading is one of the most important statements that I have ever made. The LK website/blog was created to function as my publicity, for I have no publicity manager, and to help sell magazine article pitches, book pitches, books after they become reality, and hopefully to keep the fans of LK’s writing and presentations aware of his current and future projects. … I don’t sell on the website/blog as I’m not a salesman. That said, the goal has always been to keep those interested in my work aware of what I am doing at all times.

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This publicity photo of LK was taken in the front of Tujunga House on 17sept2015. Obviously the image is a piece of acting as I’m blowing imaginary smoke from an 1860 Army Colt revolver replica that has never been loaded or fired. That’s right, the revolver is a stage prop that I have used every time that I played Ned Wynkoop in one-man shows and when I played Wynkoop in Cheyenne Blood. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

I do this with prose, commentary, images, and art. And believe me keeping the website/blog alive is no easy task. If I told you how many hours I spend to keep those interested in what I am up to, you would be shocked. That said, the website/blog has easily become one of the most important work-related tasks that I perform.

Grover Cleveland High School 50-year reunion

A couple of my friends, Pete Senoff and Gloria Watts, played a large role (with others) for making the Grover Cleveland High School (GCHS) reunion a special event. Pailin met Pete and Nina early on in our relationship, and it was at Nina’s Tong Thai Spa that she first met Gloria.

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Pailin and LK on the Red Carpet that led to the check in for the event (17oct2015). Although I didn’t recognize him, the fellow with the mask is Milt Rouse. Soon after he had removed it and I remembered him immediately. I asked about the lady in the white dress. He said, “I don’t know who she is; she was standing in front of me in line.”

The GCHS reunion took place at the Sheraton Agoura Hills  Hotel (Agoura Hills, Calif.) on 17oct2015.

After leaving high school I really didn’t spend much time keeping up with school mates, and wasn’t sure what would happen. I’m certain that Pailin was a little on edge as she didn’t know anyone other than Nina, Pete, and Gloria.

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Pailin and LK on the red carpet entry to the GCHS event.

Nina and Pete are our friends, and they were two major pluses for Pailin on this night. And of course we sat with them.

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Pailin with Kirk Lamb and Christine Van Laar Burgoyne at the GCHS reunion on 17oct2015. I met Kirk in seventh grade and Christine in the fifth grade (photo by Louis Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Kirk Lamb, Christine Van Laar Burgoyne & Louis Kraft 2015)

The night before I had joined a gathering of people at the hotel, and was able to spend good time with Pete (Nina and Pailin weren’t available to join us) and Gloria, and some friends that I hadn’t seen since high school. One was a thrill for me to see, Christine Van Laar Burgoyne. Pete had created a terrific short video that highlighted eight people who had taken their lives in unique directions; Christine, Gloria, and I were among the highlighted.

Pailin, although nervous at first, mixed in nicely with some of my friends from high school.

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Pailin at the GCHS reunion on 17oct2015. She is with Judy Clover (left) and Sharon Lockwood. Judy and Sharon took acting classes with me, and both are still actively acting. … Judy and I reunited at a GCHS birthday party in 2012 and have become friends on social media. (photo by Louis Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Judy Clover, Sharon Lockwood & Louis Kraft 2015)

The end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016

With the beginning of 2015 I had no more time, for major writing deadlines stared me in the face. That said, I always found time for those I love—special days at Tujunga House with my beautiful lady Pailin and the people dear to our lives (along with some special days not at home).

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Our family from left: LK, Pailin, Carlos, and Sabrina. Standing between Carlos and Sabrina is Alexandra (Alex), an exchange student from Belgium who was then staying with them. Alex began her college career at home in 2016, with her major focusing upon becoming a film director. … We are in the Tujunga House dinning room just before we prayed and ate. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2015)

Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving 2015 was a small affair, as usual. It is great to be able to hang out with our guests as we want to enjoy their company. As in the recent past, our Thanksgiving was a mix of Thai food and traditional American food (with Pailin cooking the Thai food and LK cooking the American food).

 

Christmas 2015

I cherish and love Jesus Christ and this is a major day in my life. I walk with Jesus and God every day and I talk to them every day. This is who I am. … You should know that I hate the commercialization of this sacred time that represents his birth.

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The early morning sunlight shoots through the dinning room into the kitchen as Pailin prepares beans for Christmas that will begin in late morning and will last into the night. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

As said above we love hosting small parties at Tujunga House, and these days are a large portion of our social life. For those of you that aren’t aware of it, SoCal has great winters (as a boy I was always able to play football with my friends on Christmas afternoons in 70-degree weather and under blue skies).

 

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The turkey is cooking on the barbecue and the ladies (left to right): Pailin, Nina Senoff, and Sabrina Subanna) are enjoying themselves. Soup has been served (and if I haven’t said it, Pailin’s soup is out of this world). (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

By the morn of the 25th all our cleaning was done, and all we had to do was prepare for the day. … Again our guest list was small so we could spend time with everyone.

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Front: LK and Sabrina Subanna. Back: Carlos Castillo, Pete Senoff, and Nina Senoff. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2015)As the sun began to set in the west the temperatures dropped big time.

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The sun still blasts us from the west, but the temperatures have suddenly gotten a lot colder than a normal Christmas day. We added coats and I wrapped the scarf that Sabrina and Carlos had given me, to block the coming cold. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2015)

The day dawned beautifully, but there was a breeze which was unusual at this time of year. Sabrina and Carlos arrived in late morning and helped setting up Christmas decorations in the backyard at Tujunga House.

Pete and Nina Senoff joined us in late afternoon (my daughter and her mother joined us after dark).

This was not something that we expected but it had become reality. Light clothing no longer kept anyone warm. Both Pailin and I increased our wardrobe accordingly, as did everyone else.

To this point in time, other than adding extra clothing, everyone had had a good time. As said above, Christmas day is special for me. At the same time I can accept people of other races and religions. Pailin is Buddhist, and I am good with this as shown above.

Spring 2016

A special birthday …

Sabrina Subanna told me that we are family in 2015. She was talking about Pailin and myself, she and Carlos, and hers and Pailin’s family in Thailand (and my daughter and her mother). You should know that although Pailin is “aunt” and Sabrina is “niece,” they are really like “sisters.”

sabrina_earlyBD_2may16_TH_2014_DiscoveryCollage_wsEvery time that Sabrina and Carlos visit is a special time, and Pailin and I are always good with socializing in the morning.

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Carlos Castillo brought the cake for Sabrina’s birthday at Tujunga House on 2may2016. Left to right: Pailin, Sabrina, and Carlos. (photo by Louis Kraft and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Sabrina Subanna, Carlos Castillo, & Louis Kraft 2016)

For the record, Carlos and I hit it off when we first met. He’s a bright fellow, and like me not racial. We can talk about anything. … This brings me back to Pailin, for she, like me, has no racial prejudices. She is good and open with all people regardless of their color, race, or religion. She is a godsend into my life, making me the luckiest guy in the world.

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Sabrina’s BD party at Khao Tom in Hollywood, Calif., on 4may2016. Left to right: Carlos Castillo, Jasmine Koomroongroj, Sabrina Subanna, and Pailin Subanna-Kraft. A fun night. (photo © Louis Kraft 2016)

Sabrina’s birthday is actually on 4may2016, and on that night we celebrated her birthday at Khao Tom in Hollywood, California.

I hate to say it but the lonely road that this writer wanders has a lot to do with my immediate family, for other than my daughter none of them still walk this earth. Sabrina confirmed what I felt in Thailand and instantly felt at the end of 2014 when Pailin and I returned home from Thailand, for at that time I had been in a country that I didn’t know but with people who in a flash of time became my brothers and sisters. I had never experienced this before.

Pailin, lemons, & peanuts at Tujunga House in mid-May

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(photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2016)

Pailin in the back yard of Tujunga House on 16may2016. This is one of my favorite images of her. She is pulling a lemon from one of our lemon trees. Lemons are major in our lives. We cook with them, drink water with them, Pailin uses them in the Salsa Verde that she creates, and most important they are a major part of the honey-lemon drink that we enjoy daily. … She had just cooked the peanuts and was outside to shuck the dark covering off them. The birds enjoy the nuts that also fly off the pan.

The Green Day Spa

Jasmine Koomroongroj, who already owned and operated the Green Day Spa, had an opening for a new partner as her then partner wanted to leave the company. Earlier this year she approached Pailin.

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I’m a little out of my linear progression here as Pailin became partners with Jasmine earlier in the year, but the pictures that I want to share here are more recent. … Almost immediately the Green Day Spa became a major piece in Pailin’s life. This was an absolutely great decision by Pailin for Jasmine is a wonderful person, and I can’t think of a better person for her to work with and call “partner.”

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I really like this image of Pailin and Jasmine, and even though it was taken at Khao Tom in Hollywood on Sabrina’s birthday I wanted to use it here. (photo © Louis Kraft, Jasmine Koomroongroj, and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2016)

Even better for Pailin, the Green Day Spa is about a 10 minute drive from Tujunga House, and when you consider working and driving in Los Angeles this is an amazing plus. When I wrote for software companies in Los Angeles, other than Yahoo! (about 2½ miles), my shortest drive was 26 miles one way.

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Jasmine and Pailin are in the lobby of the Green Day Spa on 14jun2016. (photo © Louis Kraft, Jasmine Koomroongroj, and Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2016)

What is also great is that Sabrina works with Jasmine and Pailin, and from what I’ve seen these ladies really like each other, … they look after each other and take care of each other. As Pailin recently told me, and I’ve known this as I’ve seen it: “We share our meals, … and we give before we receive. It’s our culture.” (Another similarity with the Cheyenne Indians.)

Also good for Pailin is that she is still able to work for Kobie at Lily Pad Thai Massage & Spa, which is a great place to work for there is no bullshit or double standards.

Gifts & food for the monks at Wat Thai of Los Angeles

On Sunday, 22may2016 Thai people celebrated the death of Buddha. Sabrina and Carlos were going to pray, provide gifts, and to feed the monks; Pailin and I joined them.

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This photo was taken with LK’s iPhone. Nam Maradei (left), Carlos Castillo, Pailin, Sabrina Subanna, and LK are standing at the bottom of the staircase that leads to the west entrance to the temple at Wat Thai of Los Angeles. (photo © Louis Kraft, Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Sabrina Subanna, Carlos Castillo 2016)

When we arrived we had the exterior to ourselves, as we didn’t know that Sabrina and Carlos were praying in the temple. We wandered about and chatted, and eventually Pailin chose the table location where she wanted to hand her gifts to the monks (including a great packet of Chinese coffee with ginseng that I love) with plenty of room for Sabrina. Sabrina and Carlos appeared and joined us.

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The little girl had been watching me from about 10 yards away. When she saw that I was alone she ran to me to say hello. We talked for about five minutes while her mother called for her to stop bothering me. She wasn’t, and I enjoyed her company. After she returned to her mother I stepped back to Pailin. She held up the coffee and I took the second image in the montage. (photos © Louis Kraft 2016)

After snapping the image of Pailin holding the coffee I didn’t rejoin our group. Instead I returned to the temple and stepped onto a ramp that also leads to the west entry into the temple.

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I relaxed while Nam, Sabrina, and Pailin, along with Greg and Carlos waited to share the ladies gifts as the monks approached. Pailin captured this image of me as I watched her on 22may2016. (photo © Louis Kraft & Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2016)

Over the years I have spent a lot of time visiting Wat Thai of Los Angeles. Always to support Pailin, but there is much more to my presence. First I need to say that the monks have always made me feel welcome at Wat Thai of Los Angeles, and often they have been concerned about my welfare. Secondly, I have been able to spend prime time with people I care about—Pailin, Sabrina and Carlos, Nina and Pete, Nam and Greg. Although I am a Christian I have seen a lot about Buddhism that is good and real and more important I have seen how it not only affects people that I care about and love, but how it provides them with a positive attitude on living in our world. What I’m trying to say here is that I see a lot of peace and acceptance of the world that surrounds them. Moreover, they can open their arms to people, such as I, who are different from them and embrace them as human beings. I see no racial hatred or persecution, … just kindness, friendship, and with Pailin and Sabrina a love without end. This gives me strength to walk through our world of woe that is engulfed by religious and racial hatred, and terrorism without end.

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Pailin (right in wide-brimmed black hat) gives a gift to the first monk to reach her on 22may2016. To her right are Carlos and Sabrina. (photo © Louis Kraft 2016)

Nam was my friend, who back in 2013 asked if she could bring a coworker—Pailin—to a dinner party for five that I hosted (two couples plus myself) on June 15. Although at first both Pailin and I said no, Nam was persistent and we gave into her request. Nam and her husband brought Pailin to the dinner party. Although we didn’t know it then, this day would change Pailin’s and my life (see the blog listed at the top of this blog for details about this meeting).

Bottom line: LK is the luckiest guy walking this earth for Pailin is my lady—today, tomorrow, and forever.

The monks reached Sabrina and Pailin, and my best image from the staircase happened with the first monk.

After the gifts were passed out Pailin and Sabrina stepped inside the temple to pray while Carlos and I found a shaded area to sit under and talk.

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From left: Nam Maradei, Pailin, and Sabrina Subanna. This photo was shot using Pailin’s iPhone while the three of them were inside Wat Thai of Los Angeles to pray.

When the noon hour neared the ladies prepared the food that they had cooked for the monks in a large room downstairs in one of the numerous buildings at the complex.

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I captured this image of Pailin as she prepared her food for the monks, who hadn’t appeared yet. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 0216)

We accompanied our wives and observed and helped them out when possible.

After the feast was set up the monks slowly began to enter the room, and after blessings began to eat at the tables set up for them. As usual everyone else would eat after the monks had finished eating. This was taking a long time, and Sabrina, Carlos, Pailin, and I had work we needed to do and as we couldn’t wait we left an hour later.

A big-time birthday for the top monk in Los Angeles

I hate to say it but every day is a work day for me, and this Sunday of 12jun2016 was no different. Although I knew that going to Wat Thai of Los Angeles on this day would cost me hours of lost work time I joined Pailin, Carlos, and Sabrina at this wonderful temple in North Hollywood.

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This event was too big to have the gift giving surrounding Wat Thai and it was moved to the northern parking lot. From right: Pailin, Sabrina, and two unidentified women (think photo by Carlos on Pailin’s iPhone and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2016)

Many monks joined the celebration (I think 79), and as always the celebration had an aura of holiness and festivity. We had arrived near the start time and yet had to park blocks away from the temple. Once we entered the grounds we headed for the northern portion of the property where offerings were being made to the long line of monks. Pailin found Sabrina and Carlos and joined them in the line, while I rested under a covered table area near where the various food vendors set up for the events. A short while later Carlos found me and we chatted until we decided to join our ladies. Our timing wasn’t timely for the gift presentation had ended. We returned to the tabes and sat to talk. Without warning a procession of monks, followers, and musicians turned the corner of Wat Thai and began to pass us. Pailin and Sabrina raced to join the procession while Pailin called to me to take a photo, No camera today, and by the time the procession had passed I still hadn’t turned on my phone (I guess that I now have another nickname: “Klutz Kraft”).

Unfortunately the marching participants didn’t make a second pass around Wat Thai, and I had missed a photo op I wish I had made (I should have turned into a paparazzi photographer and ran after the parade—alas, I hate playing a slimeball).

Time passed quickly, and soon it was time to move to the building that has an entry one floor below street level. While Sabrina and Pailin placed the food that they had prepared on plates for the monks to enjoy, I suddenly had exceeded my time limit and needed to return to Tujunga House and work.

Father’s Day (and the last day of spring)

In the morning Sabrina, with Pailin assisting, gave me a complete deep tissue massage at the Green Day Spa. My feet hurt for the rest of the day but then were good for about two weeks. As always we enjoyed ourselves with Sabrina and Carlos (who received a massage after me).

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After my massage on 19jun16 Pailin captured this image of the four of us just before we left. Right to left: LK, Pailin, Sabrina Subanna, and Carlos Castillo. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2016)

Pailin dropped me off at home and then drove to Nina’s Tong Thai Spa, where she worked late into the night as she and Nina were busy.

A little after six my daughter and her mother visited to wish me a happy Father’s Day and we enjoyed an easy three-hour conversation about health. A good day for me, and perhaps my best Father’s Day in a long time, as I had stopped celebrating this day after my father had died on 14feb1999.

Summer 2016

Another 4th of July w/360 degrees of illegal explosions + Pailin’s BD

Moving forward there hasn’t been much to document. The 4th of July is not my favorite holiday for I often spend the night watching for fire in my yard. That’s right, even though fireworks are totally illegal in Los Angeles we had lived in a war zone for the past two plus weeks before the big show went live.

As Sabrina and Carlos wanted to celebrate Pailin’s birthday (which is on the fifth) we made it an affair with salmon, salad, corn, a hot Thai salad for Sabrina and Pailin, and birthday cake that Carlos and Sabrina brought on the hideous day/night of July 4. As always good times for us. We talked seriously and joked and enjoyed each other’s company. Although last year’s 4th of July celebration went into the night with everyone inside, on this night I warned Carlos and Sabrina that they’d be climbing an extension ladder to the roof top of the Tujunga House garage (which is not connected to the house) to experience a local fireworks show gone wild; that’s right, nothing would be shut down, there would be no police presence, and certainly no sirens. Basically a free-for-all display of illegal fireworks to the east, north, west, and south.

They arrived at four-thirty in the afternoon.

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Pailin and I had been working seven days per week, and other than some of the religious functions at Wat Thai of Los Angeles we really hadn’t done much in 2016. This day was special, as it was one day before Pailin’s birthday, both Sabrina and Carlos had the day off, and it would be prime time for the four of us. (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft 2016)

Soon after their arrival we celebrated Pailin’s birthday, Sabrina and Carlos gave her gifts and a magnificent cake. I had a bite, as I don’t eat this type of food (and it was delicious). … The sun was still high in the west, but no matter for explosions began to surround Tujunga House. …

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Pailin holding a cool glass horse that Sabrina and Carlos gave her on her birthday. This is my favorite photo off my camera. It is sometime before five, and we still have great light coming in the dinning room from the east, southeast, and northeast windows. (photo © Louis Kraft, Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Sabrina Subanna, and Carlos Castillo 2016)

After enjoying each-other’s company and celebrating my beautiful wife’s birthday I began cooking the salmon on the barbecue.

Earlier in the day I had set the extension ladder against the garage and had placed chairs on the roof top. My neighbors to the south were hosting a large party and already they had begun to ignite fireworks. They waved to me and I said hello and I told them of my plans.

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Pailin on the Tujunga House garage roof shortly before night on 4jul2016 (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft & Louis Kraft 2016)

When darkness neared Pailin was first on the garage roof as she was excited for the night to begin. I soon followed her, and both of us attempted to capture our southern neighbors’ fireworks party. No-no-no!!! For they didn’t like this, stopped igniting fireworks, and quickly left the backyard only to move their massive holiday extravaganza of explosions to the front yard. (I made it clear to everyone that we wouldn’t follow them as it might anger them). Believe it or not, back in the 1970s had I learned to live with people that carried knives and revolvers, and could explode at a moment’s notice.

Yes, the 4th of July is surround-sound explosions and brilliant colors streaking across the skies in all directions. These are not fireworks shot off at local parks, rather they are illegal; many of which I clean up in my yard on July 5th.

I knew that once night had fallen (and Pailin knew this too) that the sky would explode in light and color as bombs and guns exploded around us. We also knew from past experience that LA’s finest (headquartered about a mile and a half from Tujunga House) would not make an appearance on this night. There were would be no police cars, no sirens, no officers telling people to stop and desist, and there would be no arrests. For the record, the explosions would continue well after the midnight hour.

4jul16_weirdFireworks_color_collage_wsGood news: Our drought resistant vegetation (and Tujunga House) survived yet another invasion. The 4th of July is about American independence and yet for us it is about survival. Something’s wrong here.

pskBD_5jul16_collage_wsThe next morning I celebrated Pailin’s birthday. Although I couldn’t take her to a film—The Legend of Tarzan—on her special day I did the following day. Other than Errol Flynn’s The Roots of Heaven (1958), this was the first American film that I had taken Pailin to see. As with the Flynn film, which dealt with saving elephants from extinction in Africa, the new Tarzan film dealt with saving Africa from the rape of its resources (and more important it dealt with race relations). She liked the film.

A final few words

Who I am and what I do

I am a writer/historian who writes all sorts of documents. Simply put I try to write readable prose with accurate facts (something many writers don’t do).

The search for truth and words that people can read and understand is ongoing, and will be until my final breath.

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LK on Lasky Mesa, which is in the hills at the west end of the San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles, Calif., and for the record the city of Agoura Hills is in the county of Los Angeles, roughly 10 miles outside the city limits of Los Angeles). I am standing in front of the area where Errol Flynn, who played George Armstrong Custer in They Died with Their Boots On (1941), led the Seventh U.S. Cavalry toward their deaths at the battle of the Little Bighorn on 25jun1876. On 13jul16 a man who knew this land showed me some of the various film locations on Lasky Mesa; he took this photo using my camera. (photo © Louis Kraft 2016)

Who Pailin is, and that part of her life which is now part of my life

I hope that what I have shared has given you an insight into my life with my lady, best friend, confidant, wife, and the person who I cherish above all others. I have talked about religion: Christianity and Buddhism, and I hope that I have made it clear that both can exist in the same household.

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I wanted to share these images of Pailin praying with more detailed photos of her sacred areas in Tujunga House as they show that our home is a mix of cultures (those are posters of Errol Flynn’s classic swashbuckling films on the wall in the living room). More important, our cultures and religions can coexist together in harmony and with love.

Pailin is my life, and as my writing world coexists with her life, I have created this blog as a document for U.S. Immigration and Homeland Security to confirm that the above is true. I hope and pray that it removes any doubt that Pailin and I married for love (and not for any other reason).

The song remembers when …

The song remembers when …
Posted on February 9, 2016

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020
Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs

My apologies for the long delay.
Much has happened since the last blog (on Errol Flynn),
including my work load, running out of physical
space on my website, deadlines and more
deadlines, and health issues.

Warning: This blog will wander in and out of my mind.

Songs and memories

I think the best place to start is with Tricia Yearwood’s song.

songRemembersWhen_wsYep, you guessed it: Her hit song, The Song Remembers When. It was released on an album that used it as its title in 1993. When I first heard the song on the radio, I said, “Yes! Yes, songs do remember when.”

I’m not a big fan of Trisha’s music, but her song (written by Hugh Prestwood) was dead-center with its focus and meaning. At least for me. Songs have always connected with me and my life. They have made me cry and laugh, they have made me contemplate who I am, they have been a call to action, and they have been melancholy. More important, they drive my life, and this isn’t a vacant comment for each day music and other impetus drives me toward my goals, which might range from spending time with my daughter to writing prose that at least I think is important to holding my lady.

That was then, … the following is now

My life has always been a juggle. … What is the next book or article or talk or play? I hate lists, but this type of list has always been with me. Always.

For the record, although I assume most of you realize that the blogs have been twofold: Publicity for Kraft projects and research for the LK memoir. Without pounding my chest, I’ve exceeded my hopes for both reasons of creating a blog. Instead of my world shrinking, which it has in real life, it has grown in the world of my writing. The people that have found me have blown me away. They, and you, have given me reason for living and pursuing what I do.

Male influences in my life …

This I can almost count the influential people in my life on my fingers. The pirate Francis Drake, actor Errol Flynn, soldier George Armstrong Custer, actor and singer Michael Parks, singer and songwriter John Lennon, along with my father Louis J. Kraft and my brother Lee Kraft. I think that these fellows sum it up, for they are responsible for who I have become (along with living life, which meanders all over the place). Oh, there are some late comers, such as Charles Gatewood, Geronimo, and the Apache Indians; Ned Wynkoop, Black Kettle, and the Cheyenne Indians. When I add my walk through life with people of all colors, races, religions, and politics … I guess that all I’m talking about here is that we are all people, and that if we cannot coexist perhaps someday there won’t be any people.

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I won’t live to see this (and I’m glad that I won’t).

LK as Wild Bill Hickok (left); someone I really want to play on the stage. Time will tell. But first I must deal with taxes, see the publication of The Discovery, prepare for Pailin’s and my second (and final) Green Card interview, and deliver a 135,000 word Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway manuscript to my publisher on October 1, 2016. My days are long now, and they are getting longer. (photo © Louis Kraft 2015)

I’m drifting from music, but not far. At the end of the 1960s the pilot for Then Came Bronson aired on U.S. television. In it, loner Michael Parks and runaway bride Bonnie Bedelia sang Wayfarin’ Stranger while various film angles watched them ride a Harley Davidson over the open expanse of the American West. It instantly became my favorite song, eclipsing everything by Tex Ritter, Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, Frankie Laine, or Elvis Presley. And it still is today. There are only two singers that I listen to more than Parks, and they are John Lennon and Alan Jackson.

Enter Ry Cooder’s magnificent film score for Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), and I had an instrumental version of Wayfarin’ Stranger. These two versions of one song will be with me until the end (and beyond).

LK’s music scope swells and shrinks as time passes

The singers that I like ranges from those mentioned above to Waylon Jennings to Janis Ian to Dido to Laura Branigan to Kris Kristofferson to Bob Dylan to Norah Jones to Johnny Cash to George Harrison to Rihanna and Rhiannon Giddens.

sukay_summit_wsThere are other types of music that I also like and often listen to while working. Sukay was a group that performed what they call Andean music using instruments native to the Andes Mountains (I have a fair selection of Andean music by them and others). I love Sukay as their sound—instrumental or instrumental and vocal—is the most alive music that I’ve ever heard. Alas, I never got to see them perform in the USA.

Ry Cooder also sings (many of his vocals don’t impress me, but I cherish his Cuban music). I’ve mentioned Cooder’s Geronimo: An American Legend above, but I certainly need to name other film composers such as Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and the recently deceased James Horner (who tragically died in 2015). I believe that the composers of film scores are the classical composers of our time (at least to me). Of the classical composers, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is by far my favorite.

nakai_island_ofBows_borderIt goes without saying that I cherish Native American flute music; my favorite is N. Carlos Nakai, and I have seen him perform in concert. When he performs traditional or original music or mixes traditional Native music with another culture, such as Japanese, I’m in heaven (but I’m not fond of his Jazz).

Chinese flute has always been a favorite of mine, as has been traditional Thai (recently discovered due to a very special person named Pailin), and mid-Eastern and African music. I can’t tell you how often someone has visited Tujunga House and demanded that I stop playing ethnic music. The soundtrack for the offbeat 1998 Kate Winslet film Hideous Kinky was one such instance. The story took place mostly in Morocco and had a mix of rock (such as Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit and Richie Havens’ version of George Harrison’s great Here Comes the Sun) to Moroccan and indigenous music from North Africa. I turned off the album, but struggled to keep my mouth shut. (You don’t need to hear my comment about this; perhaps in a future blog.)

There isn’t enough space in this blog to talk about all of the mentioned creative artists below. The plan is to focus on songs and scores that have had an impact on my life and memories.

The baritone from Texas

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I grew up on music, loud music on 78 RPM records. Patty Paige, Doris Day, Frankie Laine, and country singers Eddie Arnold and Jack Guthrie, some Gene Autry, but no Roy Rogers. Years later my mother told me that she and all her girlfriends swooned over Frank Sinatra during WWII. I don’t remember any of Frank’s 78s but Bing Crosby was big time in our house while I was young.

I’ll tell you who was king … Tex Ritter.

His music, which dated back to when my parents were young, includes some of my favorites: Rye WhiskyBoll Weevil. and Rounded Up In Glory. Years would go by before I realized how great his Blood on the Saddle was. During those early days we had a small TV set that played its programming on a green screen. I was glued to it, and loved Tex’s singing cowboy films. When I was about five my mother asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. “I want to be like Tex and ride a white horse and shoot bad guys.” She quickly spoiled my ambition, telling me that he was an actor and didn’t shoot anyone, that it was just make believe.

This revelation didn’t spoil Tex for me. Actually his impact on me had just begun.

A short diversion …

This is necessary to give you an idea of where I’m headed.

I grew up on Tex Ritter music. Many of his songs hit home with me when I was a boy and they still do decades after his death in 1972. There are only a handful of singers who grab my inner soul with their music. Tex was, and still is, one, as are Parks, Lennon, Jackson, Cline, Jennings, Kristofferson, Cash, Branigan, Ian, and Nelson, among others.

Michael will be with me until I die; so will be John and Alan but for different reasons that are close.

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While in junior high school a good friend my family, Lucille Ricks, obtained two signed photos of Tex dedicated to me. I’ve already posted one of the images on a blog. Here’s the other.

Back to Tex

I’ve talked about Tex Ritter in other blogs, but I didn’t really deal with his music. There is one song, The Cookson Hills, that was only released on a 45 rpm record. Hopefully I’ll fix this, as the time since I last heard the song is so long in the past that I don’t know why this song still grips me. Honestly, I don’t remember the tune or the lyrics (other than they were haunting). Yes, I have a quest to again hear this song.

Almost all of the cuts from Ritter’s great album, “Songs from the Western Screen,” including Remember the Alamo, The Searchers, The Bandit (of Brazil), and Wichita are treasures. One of my all time favorites is Cielito Lindo, which Tex included on an album that he sang completely in Spanish called “Border Affair.” Believe it or not, he also did a country-Jazz album with Stan Kenton.

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LK as a gunslinger in 1973 (a year after Ritter’s death). Certainly Tex influenced me, but so did Errol Flynn and some of the other westerners from the golden age of cinema. Looking at this image, Clint Eastwood and his spaghetti westerns (and what came later) also did. Heck, what goes around comes around; my hair today looks like it did in this image. (photo © Louis Kraft 1973)

Tex’s music added love and loneliness, heroism and tragic defeat, life and death to my early life.

I was lucky to see him perform at the famed Palomino Club (North Hollywood, Calif.) around 1969 (and then about two years later at Disneyland). My father, mother, future wife, and I had a table on the dance floor at the Palomino. It was perhaps fifteen feet from the tiny stage where Tex and his band performed.* The entire environment  was intimate (past tense, for this great club is long gone as the cost of bringing in top-notch performers became cost-prohibitive when salaries skyrocketed). I danced a few feet from where Tex sang. When he took breaks I was able to shake his hand and chat with him.

* I also saw Waylon Jennings and Charlie Pride perform at the Palomino.

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This modeling image was shot in 1974, not too long after Ritter’s death. The knit cap and leather jacket were mine, showing that I’ve been equal opportunity with hats and clothing that I’ve worn through the years. Yeah, the photographer and I were selling sex. It was in vogue back then, and it is rampant today. I guess that our culture has evolved. (photo © Louis Kraft 1974)

Tex’s deep baritone moved me from my childhood to the reality of my acting life in college (and beyond). They were boyhood dreams that never faded. His songs are with me today as they were in a long forgotten past, and best, they affect me as they did when I was young. … I hate to say it, but at times in college some of my pals in the theater department called me “Tex.” Why? I have no clue for none of them knew that I listened to Ritter’s music. My guess is that the wide-brimmed hats that I wore at the time (actually throughout my life) were the culprit.

Tex Ritter’s songs have given me a childhood life, a youthful life, and they still hang out with me as I walk into the sunset. (I’ll always have Michael and Alan; but although their music pulled from the past as it moved into the future while retaining traditional country tones, they can never recapture Tex Ritter and what he gave my world).

Songs can be favorites or ones that I’m not crazy about. More important is that
they can generate a multitude of images in my memory.

Note that the timeline in this blog is not linear.

Two songs plus one

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Doris and Louis Kraft Sr. during happy times at their Reseda, California, home in 1972 (photo © Louis Kraft 1972)

At the end of 1979 I was filming on location in the Pacific Ocean. At four each morning we boarded small craft at Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, California, for a two-plus hour ride to naval vessels before cruising another two to three hours (that is until the California coast was no longer visible). All of this was on the clock, and when you considered the return trip to Hotel del Coronado I had 10 hours on the clock without working a minute (Ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching … money, money, money). And better, plenty of time to hang out and explore the nuclear helicopter carrier.

During the first week of location work my mother entered a hospital, and as we were filming six days a week I asked for that first Saturday off to fly home and see her. Granted, but she had returned home before I reached her. I returned to San Diego Sunday evening and six days later we completed the location work. The week before Christmas we shot pickup shots at the studio and that marked the end of principal shooting. Two days later I celebrated Christmas with my mother, father, and brother. My sister was present (but not there, if that makes any sense). The next day (26dec1979) my mother entered the hospital for the last time. Her death (on 4jan1980) gave my father and I a relationship for we spent every minute of our waking hours during this time together until the end (and every day went deep into the night). In our loss we found a friendship that would grow to love.

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Lee Kraft at LK’s house in Encino, Calif., on Christmas 1988. This image will hang in my house for as long as I am alive. (photo © Louis Kraft 1988)

My brother Lee had been injecting the experimental medications that would hopefully save our mother; they didn’t and this affected the rest of his life. My father had turned into the perfect husband during his wife’s last years (and she told me just before the end that these were the best years of her life). … When I asked my sister why she wasn’t around, she told me that she didn’t know that her mother was dying.

Ten years later I had a knee operation which marked the end of my baseball career. At the time I managed the Kool Aid Kids (see below). Two months later, on March 6, 1990, my brother Lee died in an auto crash (he was a passenger). My mother’s death had destroyed me as we were very close (I was a mama’s boy), but Lee’s death hit me like a sledge hammer to my head. I was a wreck, and still haven’t recovered from his passing. We worked together, fought together, played together, hung out together, partied together, loved each other, and were close.

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This is a two-CD album that was released long after Kris, Waylon, Johnny, and Willie stopped performing and recording together (Waylon died in 2002 and Johnny in 2003). I like the cover a lot better than their 1985 “Highwayman” album cover.

My sister (who didn’t know her brother) and brother-in-law wanted to use the Jimmy Webb composition that Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson recorded in 1985, Highwayman, at Lee’s service. That year they released an album that used the song for the cover title. I liked the song and didn’t object. Actually I have a lot of music by all four of them (I saw Willie perform at the Hollywood Bowl a few years back; Kris was present, but he didn’t sing). Lee’s service was so large that over half of the people that attended it couldn’t fit into the hall. The song, Highwayman, is about a bandit who died only to be reborn as a sailor who would die and yet again be reborn “around and around and around” within me (and I’m certain in others who also loved him deeply).

sarahMcLachlan_surfacing_wsNine years later my father died on Valentine’s Day (14feb1999). I had been taking care of him for years. I was a wreck, but insisted upon talking at his service. My sister didn’t think that I was capable, but I told her that I was (that is, I had been delivering talks for years and it was work). She and my brother-in-law wanted to play Tex Ritter’s religious song, The Deck of Cards (although my sister had already retired as an investigator from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office while in her forties, she had previously stolen an album of mine with this recording; she eventually returned it to me). I said: “Absolutely not!” This shocked her. “Why?” “He hated the song, and so do I.” “So what do you want?” she asked sarcastically. “I want Sarah McLachlan’s Angel.” I played the song for her and she was good with the choice.

reba_greatestHits2_wsAt this time Linda had been studying the ministry, which she hoped to go into, long distance. She lived in Lake Arrowhead, California, but only had to attend classes in person in the Santa Clarita Valley, north of the San Fernando Valley, for one or two weeks each year. During these times she stayed at Tujunga House. A year plus had passed since our father’s death. On one of the nights during the every-other weeks that my daughter spent with me the three of us made ourselves comfortable on the living room floor. I played another song for her, a song that also could have worked for our father’s service—Reba McEntire’s The Greatest Man I Never Knew (written by Richard Leigh and Laying Martine, Jr.) with lyrics, “I never really knew him. … The man I thought could never die has been dead almost a year. … He never said he loved me; I guess he thought I knew.” I’m not sure how my sister reacted as her face was passive and she didn’t say anything. Hell, she wasn’t close to our mother, brother, father … or me. This is something that I deal with daily for I loved her and must find a peace between us.

My father and I were at each other’s throats until his wife/my mother died. Her death gave us a relationship that became close until his death. He said “I love you” to me for the first time the night before he died. Reba’s song tears me apart every time I hear it, and it gives me everything bad and good in my relationship with him.

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Linda Kraft-Morgon was gorgeous, but unfortunately this image doesn’t confirm this. The reason is simple: For over 10 years I took pictures with throw-away cameras that I bought at drug stores, as a real camera wasn’t in the budget. The little one in my family shot this candid while my sis and I enjoyed a moment (15may1993). At this time she was five years away from retiring as an investigator for the LA County District Attorney’s Office. I have a huge photo archive, and not too long back decided that I wanted to use this image even though the print was small and out of focus and full spots and scratches (none of this was my daughter’s fault; it was the camera and the cheap development/printing). We are on the patio at our father’s Reseda home, and it was party time. I can’t begin to remember all the dinners and parties at Dad’s. His home was always open to everyone, no matter what your race, color, religion was (and that included Lee and I). (photo © Louis Kraft 1993)

My sister was gorgeous, and she lived her life. I’m good with that. Unfortunately she died young in 2006 from the same cancer that killed our mother. I was there for her during the last two months of her life  (thanks to Sudeshna Ghosh, who was then my manager at Sun Microsystems and is now my good friend). Days after Linda’s death Lake Arrowhead was clobbered with a snowstorm. Deserted autos littered the roads almost totally hidden by snow. Visibility was probably no more than five feet as the snow continued to fall. It was ghostly, almost unreal, and yet it couldn’t have been a better setting to say goodbye. I delivered a positive telling of my time with Linda with words that were from my heart. They were full of happiness and life, and they affected people. … I need to bring resolution to the talk, to her life, and to mine. This has not been simple and there are no easy answers. Linda is with me every day, and not one hour passes that I don’t think of her. Hurt and anger are present, but I know that she loved me in her way. Someday we will meet again and that meeting will be for all time.

A beautiful lady w/No future in LK’s life

I can tell a story, a short story of a beautiful blonde woman.

lynnAnderson_b&w_wsI was fortunate and won a Western Heritage Wrangler award in 2012 (for “When Wynkoop was Sheriff,” an April 2011 Wild West article). It was a big shindig in Oklahoma City, a gathering of award recipients, presenters, rich donors, and adoring public. LK enjoyed his time in cowboy heaven.

This image of the blonde lady (left) was taken only a handful of years back, and although this is a publicity shot you can see the fun and life in her. I was lucky and got to spend time with her, if only for a little while. Looking back it was way too short.

A special lady that the Western Heritage Wrangler shindig allowed me to visit

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Dr. Henrietta Mann, speaking on the last night of the 2008 Washita Battlefield NHS symposium. (photo © Leroy Livesay 2008)

Every minute was gold during that April 2012 visit to Oklahoma City, and I added to mine by driving to Weatherford to visit Dr. Henrietta Mann, whom I met in 2008 when I played Ned Wynkoop on stage a number of times and then both of us spoke on the last day of a Washita Battlefield NHS symposium. Henri’s resume would knock you for a loop. What she has accomplished during her life is extraordinary, but I’m certain that she’d say that the highlight of her life is being one of the founders of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College in Weatherford, Oklahoma. Yes, she is Cheyenne. … The round-trip drive was long, but it was worth it as I got to hang out with her and talk about this and that. We shared gifts, and although the future was in front of both of us we didn’t talk too much about our projects. We talked of good and bad and hope.

Back to the Western Heritage Wrangler happenings

I arrived on Thursday as I had a lot to do, including seeing Henri.

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Ernest Borgnine and Nick Vallelonga, who produced Yellow Rock, the Wrangler winner for best western film of 2011. Ernie was full of life at the event, but unfortunately died three months later (he was 95 years old). (photo © Ownbey Photography 2012)

Upon my arrival in OK City I met Dean Smith, a retired stunt man, Debbie, his beautiful wife, and their young son (unfortunately I can’t remember his name). They took the time to make me feel welcome (and this was just about every time I saw them).

Ernest Borgnine MC’d and presented (along with others that I knew and didn’t know, including Dean and the blonde lady). On that first night, Thursday, two of Borgnine’s great friends who had flown in from Florida to hang out with him ate at the same time that I did in the hotel’s restaurant. We almost had the place to ourselves. They introduced themselves, and on Friday when Ernie arrived they introduced me to him. I’ve seen a lot of Borgnine’s films, and he can be sympathetic and he can be menacing. In person he was kind, open, and a giving fellow. I enjoyed every minute I spent with him. You know what, Ernie wasn’t as large as he looked on film.

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Art of Paul and Connie Hedren based upon a photo I took of them on April 20, 2012. (art © Louis Kraft 2016)

There were a lot of events on that Friday (20apr2012), a book signing with finger food that was open to the public. There was energy all over the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Museum, which the Autry Museum of the American West (recently the Autry National Center; the name changes so often that my head spins) could learn a lot from if it only it swallowed its pride and took a gander. At the signing I had luckily been placed next to Paul Hedren, an Indian wars writer friend.

After the signing time ended I wandered the halls of the classy museum and saw the pretty blonde lady for the first time. She was petite, wore a great cowboy hat, and was exquisitely dressed in fancy cowgirl attire.

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Minoma Littlehawk and her husband Ivan.

As we passed I tipped my hat to her. She smiled, and I smiled back.

The day’s events on Friday ended before night arrived. We were bussed back to the hotel to get ready for a big party at a mansion. That is the award winners, the presenters, and the key donors of the Western Heritage Museum, and their guests.

Another special Cheyenne in my life is Minoma Littlehawk; I cannot ever thank her enough for the help she provided me on the pronunciation and spelling of the Tsistsistas’ (Cheyenne’s) language for Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. She is married to a special man, Ivan Sills, but he decided not to attend a party at a rich donor’s mansion on Friday, but was good with Minoma being my guest (she would dress in traditional Cheyenne attire). But it wasn’t to be for something attacked Minoma’s health and she was rushed to the hospital. Luckily she would fully recover. Ivan, who had been so gracious to allow her to accompany me, was right there for her every minute of the way. Bless him.

lAnderstonART7oval3_wsThe award winners, presenters, and their guests were transported the mansion in mini vans for the private party somewhere in Oklahoma City. Debbie and Dean arrived, and she was knock-out gorgeous. The petite blonde lady that I had seen earlier in the day was with them, and she was beautiful. After Debbie and I hugged, she introduced me to the person who I didn’t know but said hello to every time I passed her in the hallway. She had a wonderful smile, and I wanted to know her. That night at the mansion party my fantasy became reality.

When we met, I asked her name. “Lynn Anderson,” she said.

“Are you the singer?” I stupidly asked.

“Yes.”

This petite blonde lady standing before me was famous and had huge country-western hit songs. My brain went dead. All I could think of was, You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden, which was a mega country hit in the late 1960s. I didn’t like the song, but I certainly knew it. Kraft may be brain dead, but he is not totally stupid. “Can I hug and kiss you?” I asked.

She smiled.  “Yes.”

I did. But, as way too often in Kraft’s life, what could have been, what should have been, could never be. I enjoyed my short time with Lynn, but life is short and we never know when it will end. Her days were limited, and what I would have liked to have happened never had a chance.

Later that night I sat at a table eating veggies, salad, salmon, and shrimp (delicious). Western hall of fame acting inductee Bruce Boxleitner sat down across from me with a plate of food, and said: “I know you.”

He did, for we had met I think in 2007 before a private screening of a live-action British documentary about the battle of the Little Bighorn in Sherman Oaks, California. The BBC documentary was quite good. After everyone ate and socialized Bruce and I sat together while we watched the film which featured Maggie Smith’s second son, Toby Stephens (of current Black Sails TV fame), who played George Armstrong Custer (the documentary was shot in 2006).

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LK with Bruce Boxleitner (21apr2012), after he was interviewed at the Western Heritage Museum. At this time we talked about his youngest son, who was at the awards, the museum, his win (his second) and Ned Wynkoop. (photo © Ownbey Photography 2012)

At the Friday evening mansion party Bruce and I talked about the Indian wars. A woman sat down next to me with her food and immediately joined the conversation. The first thing out of her mouth was that Custer was a butcher and racist. No matter what Bruce or I said, she refused to listen. Bruce got fed up with her before I did and let her have it on the Indian wars and her stupidity. I thought that steam would erupt from her nose, but before it did she grabbed her plate and stormed away. “Well, we got rid of her,” Bruce said as he grinned.

Hedren’s After Custer won the Wrangler award for best nonfiction book; Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek was the runner-up (and I have this from insider and good friend Chuck Rankin). The Wynkoop book would also be the finalist for the WWA Spur Award. … That’s life and I’m good with it.

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From left: Retired stunt man Dean Smith, Lynn Anderson, and actor Bruce Boxleitner at the April 2012 Wrangler Awards in Oklahoma City. On the evening of the twenty-first Bruce was inducted into the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum acting hall of fame. (photo © Ownbey Photography 2012)

Back to Lynn: Over the course of the next day and a half we saw each other briefly time and again and always they were good minutes. Nothing happened, and regardless of what some people think of me, I’m a gentleman.

I’ve always been a gentleman, so please disregard all the stories that in times long gone used to float on the wind that I have screwed hundreds of women, men, horses, mules, dogs, elephants, and even a cockroach or two. I’ve been guilty of a lot of things, but nearly everything that I’ve been accused of is fiction—and bad fiction at that, and with no redeeming words for the slimy creatures that have spread these stories. All I can say about these “stories” is that they hurt. After a while I stopped denying the stories. Why waste time and words on “people” (and I use this word sarcastically) who refuse to listen to truth or reason.

Cockroaches? Give me a break! I know what a pretty woman looks like, and it isn’t close to a cockroach.

Initially I had hoped to again see Lynn Anderson. When a man walks a lonely road he has lots of hopes and dreams. And I always take my time, but this time I took too long. … Lynn Anderson died on 30jul2015, something that I didn’t know until the Los Angeles Times published her obituary. I learned about the lady, her ups and her downs—yes, she was a human being and had all the frailties that most of us have. I’m certain that this petite lady that I briefly met was someone worth knowing. The Western Heritage Museum knew this, for in 2012 they featured all of her music in their gift shop (and some of my work too, which was nice). … A hug and a kiss, a handful of minutes, and perhaps a friendship or more that could never be—the song remembers when, … You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden.

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The following is my acceptance talk on April 21, 2012, at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum Wrangler Awards ceremony—a cool-cool tuxedoed event that was filmed in a massive banquet hall that sits 1500 people. After being introduced by actor Brad Johnson and shaking his hand I walked past the podium and picked up my bronze Wrangler from a pedestal and carried it to the podium—I was the only person to hold the award—guess the others were nervous over the weight, somewhere around 18 pounds.                                                                                                                                                                                                   “National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, thank you for inviting Steve* and myself to your shindig. We’re having a great time. (* Steve is Steve Mauro, who was an associate editor at Wild West magazine; he has since moved to Japan. He was introduced with me.) Some of my best friends are editors, and one of my good-good-good friends has been working with me since the late 1980s. His name is Greg Lalire, and he’s my editor at Wild West magazine. Wild West is one of a slew of great history magazines published by the Weider History Group (LK: Weider was bought by the World History Group in 2015). Over the years we’ve gone back and forth with a give and take relationship as we try to make the stories error free while also trying to make them page turners. I need to tell you something: If it wasn’t for Greg, I wouldn’t be standing here tonight. … I hope that by now some of you have heard of a fellow named Ned Wynkoop. He was just like you and me. He had a family he loved with all his heart. He had successes and he he had failures, and like some of us he struggled to survive. But there’s one thing that Ned Wynkoop had more than most of us—certainly more than me … guts. Guts to take a look at his world, a world of war and hatred and Cheyennes and Arapahos. He looked at his world and challenged it. He dared to reach out to people that were different from him and accept them as human beings. (Big applause, which I enjoyed.) Thank you. (I lifted the Wrangler award and kissed the cowboy.) Never thought I’d kiss a cowboy. (Silence, and I stopped breathing—I guess that the audience couldn’t believe what I had just done and said. Luckily, they eventually laughed; a big laugh.) National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum … Wild West magazine, Greg Lalire, Steve, and the magazine’s staff, along with myself—We’re honored. Thank you.”

All of the above said, LK had a great time at the Western Heritage Awards event. Good people, open people, … I met and enjoyed my time with co-winners (certainly Wild West’s Steven Mauro, who I hit it off with when I met him), Oklahomans including Chuck Rankin, my editor at the University of Oklahoma Press, and much of the press’s staff that I had never met in person before, including their great art director (Tony Roberts) and their marvelous production manager (Steven Baker*).

* Steven Baker is an absolute delight to work with; he is friendly, open to all suggestions (and demands), and he makes things happen during the production process (and long after). OU Press is lucky to have him.

I have written a lot of material for publication over the years and at times I have become public enemy No. 1 with my publishers. They claim that I overstep my position, that is, as a writer, and meaning that I am responsible for the words and nothing else. NO! No-no-no! I don’t care who the artist is—a painter, a singer, a composer, an actor, a writer … they, we, I, must push for the best product possible. If they, we, or I don’t, and the product is inferior they, we, or I cannot complain for we didn’t participate in the process—and the creative process is everything. As artists it is our job to do everything possible to make our work shine.

Yes, I am a demanding person who often oversteps the bounds of what is expected or desired from me as a writer. That said, everything I write has a vision and it is my job to ensure that my article, book, or blog (plays and talks are similar and yet different) is as true to my visualization as possible (this includes photos, maps, artwork, book covers and the text on those covers).

A lot of working relationships (and that includes writers, actors, and directors) in my past ended as I refused to deal with BS, lies, or verbal or written attacks upon me. … Yikes!!!!! I never would have guessed that the passing of a petite lady who had a good singing career led to the above tirade. I’m sorry, and yet I’m glad that my short amount of time in her presence initiated these strong feelings in me.

Enter my personal world and music that dominates it

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Pailin Subanna-Kraft and Louis Kraft at a Grover Cleveland High School reunion in October 2015.

Some 14 months after the Wrangler Awards I met a lady named Pailin Subanna. She was frail and hurt beyond belief, and she was beautiful. It was an instant attraction, something that I don’t think I have ever experienced before. On one of our first times together, we sat in a darkened screening room at the (then named) Autry National Center as a silent film played. Tears dripped down her cheeks. “I need time,” she whispered, “lots of time.” I knew then that I could wait for her as long as she needed.

Film scores, and selected compositions from them, are my favorite music. I know: What? ‘Tis true. Perhaps my favorite is Max Steiner’s The Final Goodbye from the 1941 Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland They Died with Their Boots On film score. Here Steiner mixes military trumpet calls with George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry’s theme song, Garryowen, and with the film’s love theme for Custer and his wife Libbie. For me it is terribly sad, and certainly doesn’t represent Pailin’s and my life. But then again, perhaps it does as it is very meaningful for me and represents love until the end of time.

tdwtbo_filmScore_wsErich Wolfgang Korngold’s score for Flynn’s The Sea Hawk (1940) contains the most romantic music that I’ve ever heard. It is included in a symphony that merges the film’s score but isn’t in the full score of the film that I have (why?). This is the music in garden after Flynn’s Captain Geoffrey Thorpe has been publicly chastised in court by Queen Elizabeth I of England (Flora Robson) for sinking a Spanish ship in the 1580s. After Flynn, in private, interests Robson in a piratical raid on the Spanish-held Panama peninsula he encounters Doña Maria (Brenda Marshall), in a rose garden. He had captured her when he sunk the Spanish ship, but here he calls her “My lady of the flowers.” This short scene is marvelous in how it deals with forgiveness and unsaid feelings. The music is intimate and caring and full of hope. There is one other Korngold film score that has a romantic love theme that I like a lot: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). After Maid Marian (de Havilland) is instrumental in planning Robin Hood’s (Flynn) escape just before being hung for treason, Flynn climbs the wall to Olivia’s private chamber. Again, Korngold’s score (for the Love Scene) hits the mark dead center, as if arrows shot from Robin Hood’s bow. Not violent, but instead sensual and tender.

geronimo_anAmericanLegend_wsThe Steiner and Korngold compositions represent my feelings for Pailin. But they are not alone, for Ry Cooder’s great score for the film Geronimo: An American Legend is loaded with a combination of music from the time period (American Indian wars; roughly 1860-1890) as well as his magnificent compositions that are totally in tune with the storyline and Geronimo’s life. One piece, La Visita, which features the guitar, is used in a cantina when Lt. Charles Gatewood, who is searching for Geronimo in Mexico, confronts scalp hunters. The scene turns bloody while the music remains melodic and peaceful. It is ethnic (something that Cooder excels at when he moves south of the U.S. border for his compositions). Pailin and I have totally different backgrounds, and even though the sound of La Visita isn’t American or Thai, it represents both of us (certainly me; more below).

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Stay

I’m a button pusher on the car radio, and have always been one. If I don’t like the song—adios. I hate to say it, but easily 70 percent of the songs I that hear I don’t like. Also, I’m not loyal to radio stations (two exceptions being two sports stations in Los Angeles). Colin Cowherd, who left ESPN to produce his own show on Fox and move himself and his family to LA, is an extraordinary interviewer and is as sharp as they come at getting to the core of a subject.

Shortly before I met Pailin on the afternoon and evening of June 15, 2013, at a dinner party at Tujunga House (looking back, perhaps one of the most important days of my life), I had scrolled between FM radio stations and came upon 97.1 AMP Radio in Los Angeles. It featured mostly new music (pop, hip-hop, and so on) and the sounds were alive. One was Stay by Rihanna (from her 2012 “Unapologetic” album). At that time Stay was dominating the airwaves. The first time I heard the song I was hooked. I still am, and as far as I’m concerned AMP Radio is the number one FM music radio station in LA. … I like a lot of the new sounds, for they have life and a heartbeat. … The word “stay” was certainly on my mind at the beginning of Pailin’s my time together, and it will be so for all time. Rihanna’s Stay is a song that I never tire hearing.

Sad SongsI Feel so Bad, and alley ways

My father used to tell me of his days of growing up in New York and walking miles through snow to get to school. The good old days? Hell, I have my own good old days when I walked 30 miles to school in torrential downpours with water up to my knees. ‘Tis true, except for the distance. … After some eight to twelve elementary schools I was able to settle into two steady years in one school for the 5th and 6th grades. But after graduation a handful of us were separated and yet again I found myself in a new world with few familiar faces. Sutter Junior High School in Canoga Park, California, was a three and a half mile walk or bike ride (a car ride if rain pounded mother earth before it was time for me set out for school). Mostly I walked, and I learned the alley ways that were empty and yet full of music that blasted from open windows in the early morning.

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It was at the beginning of my junior high years in 1961 that I heard Sue Thompson’s song Sad Movies (Make Me Cry) for the first time. She sang of a lost boyfriend, and although I was years away from having a girlfriend or any understanding of what love might offer, it touched something inside me.

Walking down the long alley brought me pleasure for many houses blasted their radios. Sue’s Sad Movies introduced me to Rock n’ Roll. It still gets air time at Tujunga House, and it certainly brings back memories of a car chase that had disaster written all over it.

Sad movies still affect me to this day, and there is no set reason why they tear my heart up, but they do. Some of Errol Flynn’s films and more recently Quigley Down Under (1990), Titanic (1997), The Bridges of Madison County (2000), and Blood Diamond (2006).

Soon after I heard my first Elvis Presley song, I Feel so Bad (also 1961). The song’s blues grabbed my soul and it has never let go. There’s something that drives me, and this has often made me a recluse. This is strange for I’m social and I like being around people, but for most of my life I’ve been a loner. … These two songs pushed me to ask for a radio in my bedroom so that I could hear rock ‘n roll and country music at my beck and call. I didn’t get a new radio, but instead the one that had been in my parents’ bedroom. … I was in heaven.

The walks continued to be long, as was the alley.

I was just a boy with visions of Duke Snider (the great Brooklyn Dodgers and Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder making glorious catches in the outfield and drilling home runs to right field), and of course toy pirates, cowboys, and Indians.

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A photo of LK taking practice swings before the seventh game of the first season of the Kool Aid Kids at Winnetka Park in the San Fernando Valley (8dec1980). The first three or four years we played in a city league and always played different teams. During our fourth or fifth year we joined the Chatsworth Park League. They had two leagues with playoffs and then a championship game with the winner of the other league. This was cool because of the playoff system, but also because we played the same teams in our league two or three times each season (there were three seasons each year). Good times for LK, my brother Lee, Tony Graham, and a great group of guys (and their ladies). We practiced together, played together, and partied together. (photo © Louis Kraft 1980)

The “Duke” ruled my world and influenced my immediate future like no other sports star of my early years with but one exception, “Mr. Quarterback,” Johnny U (Johnny Unitas) of the Baltimore Colts, who almost singlehandedly set the National Football League on pace to become “the” American sport of today. I met and spoke with the Duke numerous times but unfortunately I never met Johnny U. I’ve had articles published about the Duke (but have never written about Johnny), and even though I pitched the Duke on a biography, he was already under contract for what would be published as The Duke of Flatbush (1988; written with Bill Gilbert), and he had to turn me down.

There’s one thing about me; if I want something I go for it. Regardless of my success rate, I have never shied away. You can’t strike out in baseball unless you come to the plate and swing the bat, … you cannot hit a home run in baseball unless you come to the plate and swing the bat. I have never shied away from coming to the plate. Success has good stories, but often failure has better stories. … Just look at the people that I write about. … They stood for equality and human rights, and they had the shit kicked out of them by the U.S. government, the military, the press, and the American population on the frontier, but this didn’t prevent them from doing what they thought was right.

What I’m really talking about here …

Although I didn’t know it, there would be a lot of Sad Movies in my life. Here I’m talking landing acting contracts, publishing contracts, and my relationships with people. My life has been a long and winding road, and because of this my relationships have surged and fizzled (some friends are forever while others are for a piece of time). I cherish my real friends (and it is just like yesterday when we see each other, talk on the phone, or connect on social media). The others? Glad I knew you. Vaya con Dios.

Early on in my professional life I did everything I could to land an acting or writing contract. I quickly learned not to whip myself if I didn’t land the gig or the assignment while realizing that constructive criticism was one of my best friends and that I should never allow my ego to block or ignore it.

My personal life has been a different story. My success with women is probably no better than my success rate with acting and writing. However, with the ladies, the failures always hurt. What could have been, what I wanted, and what could never be has always remained with me. There have been ladies in my life that have never been part of it, for they have been in it for only for a flash of time. … Good, bad, or indifferent my memories—be them acting, writing, or personal—are always with me. They are in black ink and painted in blues and browns and lighter shades of color. They are in my writing—fiction and nonfiction (yesterday, today, and tomorrow). They are my past and my future. They, along with my lady and my daughter, are my life.

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This image was taken with my Brownie Kodak camera in summer 1965, shortly after Dennis Riley (right) and I graduated from high school. The little fellow in the background is my brother Lee. Dennis and I became friends in high school, but our relationship began when we attended different junior high schools but often found ourselves rivals in sandlot sports. (photo © Louis Kraft 1965)

Back to that alley that I walked through come rain or shine

One night in the late 1960s I drove to Dave Pittaway’s parents’ home in Reseda, California, and we went to pick up Dennis Riley at his parents’ house (also in Reseda) in Dave’s car to have a night on the town (they attended Pierce Junior College and I went to San Fernando Valley State College, which would soon become California State University, Northridge).

This was shortly before Dennis enlisted in the Navy. Dave ran a stop sign and cut a car off. Dennis was in the back seat, and when the other driver honked he leaned out an open window and flipped the bird. Suddenly the driver trail-gated us. “Is he crazy?” Dave or Dennis asked. “There’s three of us and one of him.” The race through the streets heated up, and it didn’t take us long to realize that there was another car behind the first and it was well occupied. As we sped west on Sherman Way Dave ran a red light and yanked the car north onto Corbin Avenue (one lane each way). The other two cars were right behind us as we entered the town of Winnetka. The speed had to have been close to 60 mph. I knew where we were, for this was just south of where I walked into the alley and heard Sue Thompson’s Sad Movies and Elvis’s I Feel So Bad. The first car sped by us and now had us sandwiched between our pursuers. We rushed toward the next intersection with a light (Corbin and Saticoy Street). “Dave,” I yelled, “just before we reach Saticoy there is an alley to our left. When we reach it turn into it and almost immediately turn left into another alley!”

The light at the intersection turned green and the first car flew across Saticoy as Dave yanked the wheel to the left and swerved into the alley. The second car, that now tailgated us, had no chance to stop and flew past us and through the intersection.

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LK’s office in Woodland Hills, Calif., in 1970. Not the best location (the property is worth a fortune today), but I didn’t have to pay rent. … I chose this image as it shows how I looked at the time of this infamous memory. Unfortunately I don’t have any images of Dave Pittaway or another that I can find of Dennis Riley (I should have few of him somewhere). And, alas, there are no images of the chase or of us hiding in the bushes. (photo © Louis Kraft 1970)

“Turn off your lights!” I ordered as Dave braked and fishtailed into the second alley. He turned off the lights as he sped down the pitch-dark and narrow asphalt. If an animal or person stepped in front of us, … it, he, or she would have been roadkill. Dennis and I watched our tail as Dave pressed the gas pedal; our pursuers probably got caught by a red light once they were able to turn around.

“When we reach the end of the alley,” I yelled, “turn right!”

Dave missed this order and the car blindly shot across a residential street and into the rear entry of an apartment building (luckily we weren’t broadsided). Before crashing into a staircase David yanked the steering wheel to the left and then to the right and swung into a vacant parking spot. He was slow with the brakes and the car crashed into the apartment building. Not much damage, but the impact sounded like a bomb. All three of us were out of the car in a flash and out of the complex and into nearby bushes.

Hours passed, and we saw and heard nothing. We ventured back into the apartment’s parking lot. All was quiet; it didn’t even look as if anyone had noticed a strange auto. Luckily our evening had ended on the bright side. That is, we didn’t have to engage in a brawl.

One of the greatest albums ever …

I liked Johnny Cash a lot at the time of his primetime TV variety show that aired between June 1969 and March 1971 (Michael Parks was a guest at the time of my favorite TV show of all time, Then Came Bronson (1969-1970)—more on Parks below). At that time Big John released a slew of impressive albums, but best I loved his duets with his wife June Carter Cash on TV (I could see the fun in their love, for it transcended whatever problems they struggled with throughout their lives together).

bitterTears_cash_wsEarlier Johnny had cut an album that was obscure, and yet he sang the songs with power and passion. It dealt with American Indians from their point-of-view (POV). Not a popular POV in the 1960s or unfortunately still in the 21st century. There are eight cuts on the album and seven of them are extraordinary. The album was called “Bitter Tears.”* This album grabbed my soul, and it has never let go of it. … Especially As Long As The Grass Shall Grow, Apache Tears, Drums, White Girl, and The Vanishing Race. Johnny had written Apache Tears and The Talking Leaves while folksinger and song writer Peter La Farge wrote five songs, and Johnny Horton wrote The Vanishing Race.

* In 2014 an album was released called “Look Again to the Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited,” with various artists including Kris Kristofferson, who sang The Ballad of Ira Hays, recreated Cash’s original recordings. Perhaps I’m too-closely attached to Johnny’s album, for even though I play this album fairly often I find it lacking passion and weak in comparison. Rhiannon Giddens wrote additional lyrics for The Vanishing Race, arranged and sang the song, and her performance is by far the best on the album. There is one additional song, Look Again To The Wind (written by Peter La Farge).

In the 1960s I had no idea that I’d become a writer, much less a writer about the American Indian wars. I had no idea that I would come to realize that the Indians (Cheyennes, Apaches, Navajos, and many-many-many other tribes) fought for their loved ones, their homeland, their religion, their culture, their freedom, their lifeway, and their lives). John’s voice was (and still is) alive, vibrant and, his POV on the album is clear.

Rhiannon brings back memories of Patsy

I first heard Rhiannon Giddens on the “Look Again to the Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited” album, and liked what I heard. I searched for her on Amazon and found that she was the lead singer for the Carolina Chocolate Drops. I listened to a lot of the short cuts from the group’s music (it goes back in time, and is alive with rhythms and emotions), but before making a decision to purchase one of the Carolina Chocolate Drops albums, Rhiannon’s first solo album was released in 2015 and I purchased it after listening to partial cuts.

patsyCline&rhiannonGiddensCollage1_wsRhiannon’s music has range and diversity. She also sang one of my all-time favorite pop songs from the early 1960s—She’s Got You—on her solo album. I loved this song the first time that I heard Patsy Cline (who tragically died in a plane crash on 5mar1963) sing it.

Patsy has always been my favorite female singer of all time, and Rhiannon has already become one of my favorites. If you don’t know these ladies’ music, you should.

Linda Ronstadt, cars, and Lee

Linda Ronstadt was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, and justifiably so. In 1974 my brother Lee (18 at the time) worked at a car dealership in the San Fernando Valley (if I ever want to talk about bullshit, I can certainly do it here). I was an actor looking for employment (read attempting to bring in money when not acting).

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This photo was taken at California State University, Northridge, and it is what I looked like when I drove American Motors autos, and later worked in the dealership’s auto body (where I was almost executed; the manager’s quick action saved me when he killed all the power in the shop and I dropped to the ground). (photo © Louis Kraft 1973)

Linda’s You’re No Good sizzled on the radio. Regardless of what you think about me I do like to eat, and I’ve always provided for people in my life. Lee landed me a job at the dealership. At the time American Motors was limping down a dead-end road but the company hadn’t realized it yet (or maybe they did). The only car they produced worth anything was the Javelin, a fast pony car. The job was simple. Drive new cars to LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) rental lots or newly painted police cars to their destinations (these were Matadors), and yes, I pushed those beasts to the limit w/o cracking up a one—hell, I had to ensure that the LAPD were getting cars that could fly. Good times with Lee, and within six years we would start a softball team with friends. Lee and I would play ball year round for the next 10 years. Ten great years until his untimely end.

We’ve all seen a lot of death, and I know that it is hard on all of us. The death of my sister in 2006 marked the end of my entire immediate family except for my daughter. Luckily I still have her, and my lady.

I’ve always been good with people. All races, all religions, all colors. I thank my parents for this, but until 1970 I never had an inking of the trail that my life would follow.

Enter two men whose music blows me away to this day

As said above singer/songwriters are front and center in my life, but there is one singer that stands before them—Michael Parks. That means that he, along with Alan Jackson and John Lennon are the major players in my musical vocal life.

Alan Jackson

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An early signed concert photo of Alan Jackson. (LK collection)

I was aware of Alan’s work early in his career; at that time Los Angeles radio stations still played decent country music. His sound is traditional, honky tonk, with a touch of blues. Unlike many performers he has again and again branched into other genres from blue grass to religious while remaining true to his roots.

In 1992 a divorce was final and my daughter and I moved into an apartment in Woodland Hills, California (I had her every other week, the result of a costly negotiation but worth every penny). At this time Alan had a major hit on the radio, Midnight in Montgomery (w/Don Sampson). Some of the lyrics are: “It’s midnight in Montgomery … Just hear that whippoorwill … See the stars light up the purple sky … Feel that lonesome chill … When the wind is right you’ll hear a song … Smell whiskey in the air … Midnight in Montgomery … He’s always singing there.” He is the legendary Hank Williams. This song grabbed me and has never let go.

alanJackson_angels&alcohol_wsMy daughter and I had a used mattress on the floor, a love seat, and folding chairs. I had my computer, two large book cases, and my books and research. Here I wrote a contracted novel about Kit Carson that would never see print. The publisher dropped their western line and when I threatened to sue, my agent talked me out of it. Tragedy? No! For I had my daughter and soon a contract with friend Dick Upton (Upton and Sons, Publishers) to write and design a nonfiction book on Custer’s peaceful roundup of the warring Cheyennes and Arapahos on the southern plains in 1869. … This time, this short time, in Woodland Hills (April 1992-January 1993), was, and still is, a major piece of my life. … Every time I hear Alan’s Midnight in Montgomery, it brings me right back to nine plus glorious months in my life.

Alan Jackson’s songs from I’ll Go On Loving You (by Kieran Kane) to Gone Country to Don’t Rock the Jukebox (w/Roger Murrah and Keith Stegall) to She’s Got the Rhythm (I Got the Blues) w/Randy Travis to (his song that deals with 9/11) Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) to Remember When (my favorite of all time) to Angels and Alcohol).

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Alan Jackson announces his “Keepin’ It Country” tour in 2016.

Alan returns to SoCal for a concert this year. I had seen him several years back in Orange County (a great concert). He’ll be at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, on April 16. I prefer close seats, and prices have gone up since last I saw Alan (high $200s to low $300s per ticket for good seats). Doable? Doubtful. But Pailin likes his music. November, December, and January have been disasters money wise. February will be also. Still? …

Although I hate lists, I could easily come up with a top 10 songs of all time list. Ladies and gents, this list is totally personal. Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down would make the list, as would Michael Park’s rendition of Wayfarin’ Stranger. Definitely Tex Ritter’s The Cookson Hills and most likely Patsy Cline’s & Rhiannon Giddens’ renditions of She’s Not You (two for one here). I can’t forget Rihanna’s Stay. That leaves John Lennon and Alan Jackson. Certainly Lennon’s Imagine and Jackson’s Remember When are on the list. (John and Alan will claim the final three spots, and this won’t be easy). … Ladies and gents, I always remember when.

John Lennon

That’s right, John Lennon! He is major in my life, but surprisingly he was a late entry for me mainly because I didn’t much care for the Beetles. Oh, they had some great songs, such as George Harrison’s My Guitar Gently Weeps and the Sun’s Going to Shine. But for me the greatest Beetles song was Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s A Day in the Life. This song was an eye-opener—then and now. It grabs me every time I hear it. The shock of the tragedy is stunning, and it refuses to let go of me. After our brother Lee died, my sister and her husband wanted to use Highwayman at his service and I agreed, but it may not have been the correct choice. Looking back, I believe that the song should have been A Day in the Life.

jLennon9_border_wsIt was a cold night in December 1980 when the Kool Aid Kids had a softball practice at Winnetka Park in the San Fernando Valley. Lennon’s joint album with his wife Yoko Ono had recently been released and some of the songs had play time on the radio. I had heard one or two of the songs, which were different in that they focused on a relationship between a man and a woman (something that Alan Jackson has excelled at) and I liked them. Moreover, Lennon’s single Imagine, which he created after the Beetles’ demise, had never been a button pusher on the car radio, for I always listened to it. I was roughly 10 years older than most of the fellows on the ball team that Lee, his great friend Tony Graham, I, and others had created. It was just a night of practice late in the team’s first year of existence. One of the fellows mentioned that John Lennon had been shot and killed at the entry to his apartment in Manhattan, New York City. Most of the team didn’t react, didn’t care. I did. I was shocked. Death and murder always shocks me, and I suppose that is why most on my writing has focused on people who put their lives at risk to prevent or end war (and all the heinous crimes that accompany it).

Believe it or not more than a few people actually turn their backs to me when I am present at events as a writer or speaker. This always gives me lift, and sometimes a thrill, as I mind-play going for a walk with them down a dark and lonely road so that we can discuss their problems. … Alas, those days of mine are long gone and have faded into my past. My rebel rousing days are simply memories now. If in the presence of a racist in LA today I will verbally confront them. … I think that the last time this happened was at a late-night dinner after I was a guest interviewee on an hour-long local Los Angeles radio station in 2010. When the radio show’s host and I decided to go for dinner another radio show host wormed his way into joining us. During the evening his words (the other radio host) became more and more racial, so much so that they weren’t worth a comment. I started to grin, and this unnerved him. “What’s your problem?” he snarled across the table. “You,” I replied, “you’re a racist.” I don’t say words like this unless I am prepared to back them up. On this evening I felt combative, for the—the I don’t know what to call this person—the “something” had leaped to his feet as he verbally defended himself and attacked what I had said. I smiled, my best Clint Eastwood smile. This unnerved him and he sat down. The rest of the evening rushed toward conclusion without nary another comment from my new acquaintance. After we paid, he leaped to his feet and while keeping his distance from me he ran for the exit. As the radio host and I left the restaurant I apologized for what had happened. He accepted my words, adding that I had been correct.

Maybe, but although he told me that night that I’d again be a guest on his show I’ve never been invited back.

doubleFantasy_wsJohn’s murder pushed me to explore his music, beginning with his newly released album with Yoko Ono, Double Fantasy. At first I wasn’t certain how I felt about this album other than it was different and was from the heart (two hearts; John’s and Yoko’s). This album changed my view of music, and certainly of Lennon (and Yoko). Country ballads and straight rock ‘n’ roll suddenly needed a reason to exist. This immediately gave value to Kris Kristofferson’s songs and opened the door for me to listen to Alan Jackson’s great songwriting (see above). John’s music had range and power and focus, and when you add in his values such as antiwar and peace, women equality, love, and his work grabbed me like no others before or after. Alan’s songwriting is close, for he has certainly focused on the human condition and has touched upon our world of yesterday and today—his Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) is extraordinary—and he is often dead-on with his subject matter, but John took his views to the next level (and this was before Alan’s time).

US_vsJohnLennon_wsA former girlfriend (Diane Moon) latched onto Lennon and Jackson’s music and liked it. Later she would say that both had “tinny” voices. Correct, but it is the words and the performance and not the magnificence of the voice. Her voice was extraordinary. At the Methodist Church in Burbank, California, the members couldn’t believe the sounds coming from her when she sang at Sunday services. She had studied music in her native country, was a great piano player (and taught piano), but her voice was God-given. It had the power and intimacy of Adele’s in the current hit Hello.

Lennon, more than most people I have known or have respected, put his life at risk and pushed the envelope. President Richard Nixon had him on his hit list for Lennon dared to speak out and sing about peace and the end of the Vietnam war. God bless Mr. Lennon for daring to stand firm for what he believed. In a small way I have attempted to change attitudes towards the human experience in history, but John touched a nation (the USA), a good portion of the world, and perhaps even his homeland (Great Britain). His music affected me in 1980 and still does today. He, along with Alan, will be with me forever.

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The Final Showdown was published in 1992. This image was taken in the entry to my former home in Thousand Oaks. Afterward the photographer and I finished the photo session on a hill just south of the 101 freeway in Ventura County. (photo © Ventura News Chronicle 1992; used by permission)

A book sale and Quittin’ Time

The acting had been gone since 1985, but the years drifted forward at an alarming pace. The best thing I had going for me was the freelance writing. I had morphed into a publications manager and freelance writer for pay. Years passed and the year 1990 started poorly. It began with a knee operation (I used to run 3 ½ or 7 miles per day; I have one recommendation—don’t do it). Next I received a great review from the editor-in-chief where I was publication manager only to be told that I would receive an $8,000 pay cut (yeah, times were tough back then too—so much for the good ol’ days). I quit and within a couple of weeks I landed a technical writing job based upon my freelance writing and publishing background. But before I started my brother died in an auto wreck. A handful of days over two months into 1990 and I had begun to wonder if I would survive the year.

“The times, they are a changin’,” to quote Bob Dylan.

That summer my former wife and I bought a house in Thousand Oaks, California, without selling our home in Encino. The house was a half block walk into the Santa Monica Mountains. It had a pool (I had grown up a fish and swimming has always been a part of my life) but I didn’t live in Wonderland and this new round of swimming wouldn’t last.

anderson_quitinTime_wsBut this went right by me.

It was still 1990 when a verbal pitch landed a contract for The Final Showdown. Life couldn’t be better.

I’ve always enjoyed entertaining, and the summer of 1990 was terrific.

At least on the surface, … I lived in a great new home, swam, had a book contract, and friends and family visited on the weekends. That summer  of 1990 was one I’ll never forget as my daughter learned to swim, and Dejah Thoris (a Doberman named after the princess of Mars, and the kindest and most loving animal I’ve ever known) also learned that she could swim.

… But the seeds were in place.

By the summer of 1991 things had changed. Pool parties and barbecues had become mostly a one-man show. When people came over to hang out, eat, and enjoy the pool, my then wife was mostly a no-show. When asked where she was I didn’t tell the truth, but simply said that she didn’t feel well.

At this time John Anderson’s Quittin’ Time, off his great 1987 “Blue Skies Again” album, got a lot of playing time in Thousand Oaks.

The 1982 Jerry Reed song She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft) summed up what would soon happen.

The divorce became final in April 1992. I remember feeling a release while driving my 1982 Ford F-150 pickup that day.

For the record, my former wife and I have done everything
possible to befriend each other and to make our daughter’s
life as good as possible. I don’t know of a song that
deals with this. If there aren’t any, there should be,
for salvaged relationships are important.

Michael Parks and his music

I had seen some of Michael Parks’ early films and I had been impressed.parks_HarleyPoster In 1969 a TV show premiered. It was called Then Came Bronson, and it affected my life more than any film or TV series has before or after it. Parks was the lone recurring character as every episode had different players. In the pilot, with Bonnie Bedelia, Parks, accompanied by Bedelia, sang Wayfarin’ Stranger. It is a religious song, and it became my favorite song of all time the first time I heard it in the pilot (unfortunately the duet version with Bedelia has never been placed on a record or CD).

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Ad in LK collection.

The producers followed up with what they presented in the pilot, and that is Parks sang songs—mostly country leaning toward country blues with some that were almost pop. This of course led to an album, Closing the Gap. Every cut on this album is classic, but my all time favorite (other than Wayfarin’ Stranger) is Oklahoma Hills, which certainly dates back to at least Jack Guthrie and 78 rpm records).

In 1995 Custer and the Cheyenne was published by Upton and Sons, and I had a major talk on George Armstrong Custer’s peaceful roundup of the Cheyennes and Arapahos in 1869 after the  battle of the Washita which resulted in Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle’s death in November 1868. My daughter accompanied me on the trip; first to Taos, New Mexico, where we hung out while I tried to figure out what I’d say, and then to Amarillo, Texas, for the talk. In Amarillo, a city I’m not thrilled about, there is a cool steak house, which is also a tourist trap as it is right off I-40. She and I had eaten there about three years earlier, when we tracked Custer, the battle of the Washita, and then his pursuit of the Arapahos and Cheyennes onto the Staked Plains of Texas. My memory of Amarillo is of wind and more wind. If you are going to wear a broad-brimmed hat you had better hold onto it or it will end up in the next county. On our first visit two strolling cowboy singers with guitars stopped at our table and asked if we’d like to request a song. I said,”Oklahoma Hills.” The two singers sang it without missing a beat (a nice job)  and my daughter was impressed (so was I). Every time I hear Parks’s version of this song, he brings me right to my daughter and all of our road trips over the years (so many that I can’t count them all). Every one of these trips has been a highlight in my life.

If I’m sounding a little melancholy here, my apologies. Sometimes things don’t go as you want and hope. I’m in one of those zones right now.

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LK art of Michael Parks in concert at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on May 22, 1970. I had purchased expensive tickets but we were seated about midway in the auditorium. B.S.!!! I talked it over with my then wife, who was a photographer, and we decided to move to the front of the stage and kneel down in front of the first row of seats. She had her camera and clicked away, and best, no one bothered us. This image, blasted from both high and low stage lights, and was unusable. I turned it into artwork. … Michael Parks is by far the best singer I have ever listened to perform (on records/CDs or in person), and this includes Tex Ritter, Elvis Presley, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and the great Alan Jackson. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

Years later I worked on a pilot called Turnover Smith, a proposed TV series with William Conrad playing the leading character, a detective, and Belinda J. Montgomery, a young actress that I personally knew at that time due to her family being my father-in-law’s patients (he was one of the leading general practitioners in Los Angeles at that time) played Conrad’s assistant. Parks was a detective in the pilot. I lucked out and got to work on the pilot. I hung out with Belinda, spent good time with Conrad, and best for me I hit it off with Parks. We spent a lot of time together over the course of three weeks; maybe four.

He was working on an album that he called “My Horse Came Back,” and asked if I had a tape recorder as he’d lend me a tape of the cuts in their current status. I didn’t have a tape recorder at that time and never heard the songs. Michael had four albums (plus a “best of” album) that dated from Then Came Bronson years and the aftermath. All were country and country blues and they are my favorite albums of all time.

Decades passed, before he released an album that I only heard for the first time in 2015. It was jazz (not my kind of music, but Michael’s), and in 1998 he released his final album (to date), “Coolin’ Soup.” It is mostly jazz, but there are two country blues cuts that I really like.

Back to Wayfarin’ Stranger …

I’m evil, and I will live a long time. I’m front and center in what I need to do to make this happen, and I work at it every day. There are two reasons, and  both are of major importance to me.

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“Nuch” is Pailin. (photos © Louis Kraft 2012 & 2013)

1) I need to ensure that my lady and daughter survive in a harsh world. They are both innocents and need someone to watch over their shoulders, to protect them, and to keep them safe. To do this I need another 40 or more years.

2) I have a stack of books I want to complete and see published.

Ladies and gents, the above is my life.

Of course the end will come. When it does, I want Michael Parks’ rendition of Wayfain’ Stranger to play at my service (if there is one). I also want Ry Cooder’s instrumental version of Wayfarin’ Stranger from his Geronimo: An American Legend film score, as well as his La Visita. These three pieces and no others. … Not to worry. This is a long way off in my future.

Six staples are about to be removed from my head.
Life is good, and I’m enjoying every minute.

A Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway update

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


 You should know that when I write blogs I’m not writing plays,
articles, talks, or books. When drafting a blog I function as a journalist.
I have points to make. Sometimes I deal with the past but often I deal with
the present. The goal is to present an opinion on events (past and present) while getting my facts straight. When I deal with the past I’m researching an LK memoir or I’m trying to understand historical people from Black Kettle to George Bent to
John Chivington to Olivia de Havilland to Errol Flynn and on and on. When I
deal with the present I’m focused on events that affect my life, and I talk
about them as they are important to me. Regardless if I write about
the past or the present the goal is to inform and entertain you.


The times are boiling …

One of my best friends of all time went under the knife on September 23. A wonderful friend of mine in Thailand has just lost her brother. …

An anticipated call did come on September 23 from a
wonderful lady who is my best friend’s sister.

A language translator totally messed up reality
as to my Thai friend’s brother’s situation
and tragically he died.

Life is precious and I make an effort every day to cherish the time I still have.

As promised in a previous blog I’m keeping my Sand Creek project up front with status updates. Ideally these will be shorter blogs (and not books, as my friend Vee has often reminded me about many of my posts). What follows will mostly deal with the trials and tribulations of LK attempting to make progress on an Indian wars book that dominates his life. All I have to do is complete the manuscript and then work closely with my publisher to ensure that the printed book is as good as we can make it.

You should know that when I draft a document I
have an idea of what I hope to present. When I write fiction
the characters take over and move the plot, but in the blogs
it is the subject matter that controls the flow of the text.

A return to Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway

During 12 days in June 2014 I performed intensive primary Cheyenne research at the Braun Research Library at the former Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, California. I had been promised my extensive photocopy request in September 2014. And don’t ignore the word “extensive,” for it was. Read a massive amount of work for Research Services Assistant Manola Madrid, who had worked with me closely on previous visits to the Braun. There would be a delay, but this was not Manola’s fault, and I truly believe that the delay was not caused by the Braun. …

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The Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, Calif. (art © Louis Kraft 2014)

Changes at the Autry National Center, to which the Southwest Museum merged with in 2003, were about to become reality. In July 2014 people that had landed research grants (if that is the correct term) would dominate the Braun staff’s time, and then the reality of the closure of the Braun and ultimately the final closure of the Southwest Museum (which still hasn’t happened as it is still open on Saturdays for people to visit).WestResearchTripMontage_sept-oct2014_wsSeptember 2014 came and went. Actually the rest of 2014 came and went; great times for LK as I was able to take Pailin on her first research trip to the West in the Vette. Almost 4,000 miles in 19 days. She researched Sand Creek in Colorado with my good friend and great Cheyenne wars historian John Monnett and his wife Linda (they kindly welcomed us into their home). In Santa Fe, New Mexico, she got to hang out with my wonderful friend Tomas Jaehn, who is responsible for creating the Louis Kraft Collection at the Chávez History Library, which is part of the New Mexico History Museum (if you saw the historic artifacts that the history museum has hidden away you’d faint). Pailin was again put to work at the Chávez and then locating the last place that Ned Wynkoop lived at in Santa Fe (this last thanks to Tomas’s right-on tips on how to find the building), and again came through with flying colors. We next headed for Texas to see my great friends Glen and Ellen Williams (and Glen’s pretty sister LInda), and like Mr. and Mrs. Monnett, the Williams opened their home to us.

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This is a detail of a painting that is one of many placards at the Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner in southeast New Mexico (unfortunately I don’t know the name of the person that created the art). Here Col. Christopher “Kit” Carson (right) is agreeing to command Gen. James Carleton’s (left) Mescalero Apache campaign in 1863. The Mescaleros would be removed to the Bosque Redondo before Carson’s burnt earth campaign against the Navajos began later that year. BTW, the Bosque Redondo Memorial is magnificent. If you have any interest in the Apaches or the Navajos’ forced confinement in a deadly environment a visit to the memorial is well worth your time. If you are a Mescalero Apache or Navajo cultural or Indian wars historian-writer it is mandatory that you visit. … BTW, Kit Carson was not the racist-butcher that so many uninformed people stuff down our throats. For starters he had an Arapaho wife, a Cheyenne wife, and a Spanish wife. He also spoke six or seven languages: English, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Spanish, Ute, Mescalero Apache dialect, and I believe Navajo. Not bad for a person who is now often slandered and libeled as a butcher and racist by people with their thumbs stuck where the sun doesn’t shine.

On the way to Texas we visited the Bosque Redondo in southeast New Mexico where the Navajos were incarcerated after the “Long Walk” in 1864 when they surrendered to Kit Carson’s burnt earth campaign that had few fatal casualties (I believe under 30 deaths). This area now thrives but in the 1860s it was a land of pestilence and death. This was must see for my next nonfiction Indian wars book will feature Carson’s relationship with Indians (but most likely not the Navajo campaign or its aftermath).

Yeah, I’m up to my usual evasion tricks. Sorry.

Back to my line of thought. January 2015 arrived and I still didn’t have any of my Cheyenne research that I had been promised in September 2014. If you know me well you know that in the past (actually my dark past) I had a short fuse. Time has mellowed me, but at the beginning of this year I needed to calm the rest of me down (not a small task).

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Liza Posas, who is archivist and head librarian of the Braun Research Library, played a major role in my 2014 research time within the George Bird Grinnell Papers held by the Southwest Museum. She is professional, open, helpful, and kind. I have enjoyed every moment working with her, and look forward to when we again work together. In this image of her on 20jun2014 she is showing me the scope of the George Bird Grinnell Collection. (photo © Louis Kraft & Liza Posas 2014)

On August 6, 2015 (13½ months after I made the request), I picked up photocopies for what amounted to a little over a third of my order at the Autry National Center (a short surface-street drive as opposed to a three-freeway potential nightmare). Email communication at that time stated that the rest of my research had been digitized. I was quoted a page cost for the digital pages and told that I would hear more in a week. The week passed. Actually over a month passed. Believe it or not I have deadlines, but worse it takes me at least five times as long to write a page of nonfiction than it does a page of fiction (to be honest, I believe that this is an understatement for I’m thrilled when I get a full page of Sand Creek text written in a day (granted that day may only be five or eight hours, but heck sometimes I can crank out two or three pages of fiction in an hour). Remember that none of this writing is polished for I’m only talking about rough drafts. That said, nonfiction polishing easily takes a lot longer than fiction polishing as I’m again concentrating on facts and dates and making sure that a polish doesn’t turn the nonfiction into fiction.

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This image of Pailin and LK is now from a time long gone (although the art is based upon a photo taken a handful of days ago). I’m playing with it and trying to use it to figure out how I’ll create a piece of art that is required. It is an ongoing search for me to figure out what I need to do to create artwork in the very near future (and believe me it has nothing to do with gunfighters or frontiersmen). I’m a firm believer in doing plenty of research before a word is written, or in this case playing with color, line, and technique before doing anything (other than researching the subject) before attempting to create art for a book cover. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

The Sand Creek manuscript deals with five types of people: Whites that saw an opportunity in a new land (Colorado Territory) and did what they could to secure the land and their fortunes at the cost of the American Indians that claimed the land as theirs; the Cheyennes and Arapahos who called this land theirs; the whites that married into the tribes; the mixed-bloods that walked between two races; and the whites that dared to speak out against the butchery of Cheyennes and Arapahos who thought that they were under the protection of the U.S. military. … Add females whenever I have enough information to bring them to life. … Oh, I should add that racism was rampant in the 1860s.

Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is not an easy manuscript to write. The research is massive, and worse I have to bring the leading and major supporting players to life with a minimal amount of primary information. And just as important I need to make the text flow seamlessly between the various people groups and their actions, while at the same time attempting to keep all the players’ points of view (POV) in focus. The goal is to have the reader make their decision on all the players’ actions.

Doable? You bet! Can I do it? I don’t know, but I hope that I can.

For the story to work the people must be real. They must live and breathe and have objectives as they react to their life and times.

Back to the immediate present

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Manola Madrid working on the first floor of the Braun Research Library for LK in June 2014. She’s a hard worker, very knowledgeable on the subject matter, and most important an absolute delight to know and call friend. For what it is worth, Manola and I can talk about anything. That’s a real nice feeling, and worth keeping. With all the massive changes that the Southwest and the Autry are undergoing she has chosen to walk away and retire in mid-October 2015. I’m thrilled for her, … my lone hope is that our relationship can continue and that someday I’ll meet her husband and that she’ll meet Pailin. (photo © Louis Kraft & Manola Madrid 2014)

In mid-September my fear threshold began to reach its eruption peak. The Sand Creek manuscript is due at OU Press on October 1, 2016. Hell, I’m light years away from completing a rough first draft, a first draft that I’m still collecting primary source material to complete (again, I did my research at the Braun in June 2014).

LK is thrilled (and angry) but thrilled is the bottom word. I’m writing a book about the end of the Southern Cheyenne lifeway. This primary research; useable or not is mandatory by me. There was so much to see in just one archive that there was no way I could get through all of it in 12 days. Thus my costly research request, which—and to repeat myself—was due in September 2014. September 17, 2015, arrived and I again complained. I was told that my complaint was confusing. Confusing? Well maybe, but I wasn’t obscure. More important my complaint garnered results for on September 21 I picked up a CD with the remainder of my research request of June 2014.

This was a joyous occasion for I got to spend two hours with Manola Madrid, a long-time research service assistant at the Braun Research Library at the former Southwest Museum in Los Angeles.

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Marva Felchin, director of libraries and archives at the Autry National Center. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

I also spent prime time with Marva Felchin, director of libraries and archives at the Autry National Center. I met Marva while researching obscure and yet mandatory primary source material for Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. She would attend an Errol Flynn talk locally in Burbank, Calif., soon after (I think in 2008). On September 21 I delivered a promised Geronimo magazine article, as well as two Ned Wynkoop articles that I knew that the Autry didn’t have to Marva for the Autry Resources Center (ARC). I believe that the ARC, a 105,000 square-foot research center that will house the former Southwest Museum archive and research material (over 500,000 artworks and artifacts + archival material) and the Autry’s library and archive (not sure how large this is). Although the private opening might be in late 2016 most likely the public opening won’t happen until 2017. On this day Marva told me that if needed I could perform research before the ARC opens.

That was very kind of Marva. I don’t think I’ll need to do any research before the opening, but it is good to know that the door will be open to me if I need to do additional research. This is a good feeling. Thank you, Marva (unfortunately I have no images of Marva to share).

Autry National Center is magnificent … almost

The Autry National Center is magnificent, but it doesn’t compare to similar facilities, such as National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Not too many years back when the Autry decided to merge with the Southwest Museum, this action opened the door to major respectability. Do not under estimate this, for the Southwest’s holdings are a major coup for the Autry.

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Over the years the Autry National Center has had many names (Why? I have no clue why, but can guess that the rich and famous continued to spout their view and progressively have worked to remove not only the westering experience from the museum’s name but also—God forbid—have tried to push the legendary Gene Autry, who is responsible for the museum, into the dark shadows of a long-gone time). I’m not a fan of Gene’s one-hour B-westerns, his 1950s TV show, or his singing. That said, he was a major influence on his world and if it wasn’t for him there would be no Autry National Center. The “Inventing Custer: Legends of the Little Bighorn” exhibit was brilliant and was by far the best exhibit that I have ever seen at the Autry (or elsewhere). It ranged from Custer and his times (artifacts, including his hair, which his wife Libbie had clipped prior to an expedition on the Plains and BTW he was a strawberry blond and nowhere close to being “Yellow Hair,” to photos, to Custer in afterlife, which included film, toys, and memorabilia). As already stated I have never been a fan of Mr. Autry, but more recently (22Jun2007 through 13Jan2008) the Autry presented a marvelous exhibit that focused exclusively on “the Singing Cowboy’s” life and times (“Gene Autry and the Twentieth-Century West: The Centennial Exhibition, 1907-2007”). Unfortunately I have inside information that confirms that many of the elite members of the Autry were unhappy with the exhibit and refused to support it. SHAME ON THEM! This was by far the second best exhibit I have ever seen at the Autry, and in the future it should be repeated! Unfortunately “Inventing Custer” was pieced together with artifacts, photos, toys, books, and film memorabilia from multiple archives and private collections (and would be almost impossible to bring back for an encore). (photo of “Inventing Custer” banner © Louis Kraft 1996)

Still you need to realize that people who light their cigarettes with $1,000 dollar bills, shall I call them the “major” Autry donors, bitched. As far as they were concerned money counts, such as their designer clothes, their $10,000 necklaces, the glitter of the Autry … I used to attend 2nd (or was it 3rd) tier openings at the Autry. Those days are history. You want to attend an opening, fork up $1,700 or perhaps $1,800. I wouldn’t call these openings ones that the general public can attend. What can I say? You get the picture, other than these elite people don’t give a bleep that the Southwest goldmine is now part of the Autry. … American Indian culture and artifacts mean little to them. “Why are we wasting our money on an institution that was dying?” (this is a quote based upon words that I recently heard but wasn’t able to jot down exactly for prosperity). Lucky them! Bottom line, they don’t give a bleep about the wondrous treasure that the Southwest (and its now dead and gone Braun Research Library) once was.

You want to know the truth? The Southwest Museum (which includes the Braun) was special. The Autry has always reeked of money, and the facility has always been gorgeous. Unfortunately when compared to other institutions of a similar type it can’t compare. Now it can, for regardless of rich bitching it now controls the massive collection of American Indian artifacts and research that the Southwest once owned. Ladies and gentlemen I have been off and on (at the moment off) a proud member of the Autry. To quote one of only three TV series that I have liked (The X-Files), “The truth is out there.” And it is for the Autry National Center.

The Autry National Center is poised to claim its position as one of the great western history and cultural museums in the United States. I certainly believe that the person leading the way, President and CEO W. Richard (Rick) West, Jr., will ensure that this happens.

Some views; wanted or not …

Los Angeles is currently divided between the extremely rich and everyone else, who struggle to pay bills.* The middle class? What’s that? Actually it is a name that represents a dead and departed race of people that has ceased to exist and that is the middle class. Worse, and I’m not talking about racism; rather I’m talking about the future that has, alas, arrived. Specifically to the Autry’s major donors, the extraordinary and exceptional artifacts housed at the Southwest don’t count. What is at risk here is the American western experience, which includes the Plains Indians, Southwest Indians, Pacific Coast Indians, Alaskan Indians, and the massive conquest of their homelands and destruction of their cultures.

* This statement is simplistic at best. What isn’t simplistic or overstated is that the city of Los Angeles (North Hollywood is a town in LA)  is quickly becoming a modern-day Tombstone, Arizona. Los Angeles had a confirmed murder count of 39 in August (LA Times, “Deadliest August in Los Angeles in 8 years,” 4Sept2015). This past weekend (September 26-27) 19 people were shot and five died (LA Times, “19 Shootings, A Call for Help: LAPD appeals to community after new bloodshed,” 30sept2015). Although I have had guns pointed at me I have yet to witness shootings in North Hollywood. That said, I no longer walk at night for violence often stalks the streets of NoHo.

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I don’t have an image of Kevin Tighe as Miles (damn!!!). Tighe, along with Wes Studi (who was at least 30 years too young to play Geronimo) were the two outstanding performances in Geronimo: An American Legend. I don’t know either man but shortly after the release of Dances with Wolves (1990) I spent good time with Studi in an American Indian shop in Tarzana, Calif. Unfortunately the shop is long gone and I never met Studi again. My guess, both men did their homework, … something Bob Duvall (who I worked closely with for about four months in the 1980s) didn’t do. This image of Miles is in the LK personal collection and was published first in 1886. It has since been published in Lt. Charles Gatewood & His Apache Wars Memoir (2005) and in “Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude” (Wild West, October 2015).

This is America and it must not be forgotten! American Indian lifeways count, and so do the racial interactions between invading whites and the people that initially welcomed their presence. During this time very few whites accepted American Indians as human beings, and those that dared to are American heroes; not those that stole, incarcerated, and if need be butchered people that they felt were below them on the evolution scale. … If I am even close in my opinion I am predicting a “Pandora’s Box” that when it is opened will initiate the end of America’s heritage. As Kevin Tighe, who played General Nelson Miles, says to Matt Damon’s Lieutenant Britton Davis (who BTW had resigned his military commission in 1885 and lived in Mexico at the time of Geronimo’s and Naiche’s surrender in September 1886) near the end of Geronimo: An American Legend (Columbia Pictures, 1993): “Lieutenant, you’re more worried about keeping your word to a savage than to fulfilling your duties to the citizens of this country. We won and that’s what counts. It’s over with Geronimo, the Apache, and the whole history of the West, except for being a farmer.”

You want my opinion? Honestly, you don’t want to hear my opinion for much of it isn’t printable.

I’ve been cramming on the digital files from the September 2015 Braun delivery since I’ve received the CD from Manola. I’m looking at the files to ensure that they are readable. I’m also spot reading and searching for primary information that might be included in the Sand Creek manuscript. Let me tell you that this is slow going.

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This is Black Kettle, and for the record I constantly attempt to create portraits of him; this image will not appear in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (and you can take this to the bank). … It looks like Black Kettle, Little Raven, John Chivington, John Evans, William Byers, Ned Wynkoop, William Bent, William Bent, and George Bent are my leading players. Left Hand is also but no images of him exist (my loss). There are other Cheyenne and Arapaho players who could become leading players such as Bull Bear and Tall Bull (and I hope that they can; alas, no images exist of Tall Bull). … Back to Black Kettle. Folks, he was not an elderly fellow that dropped out of the most important time of his life or his people’s lives. He was up front and center, and he had more guts and courage than any of the Cheyenne warriors that fought the overwhelming might of the United States. His life was always at risk, by both his own people and the invading whites. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

However, when I do find a jewel I’m right into the manuscript and adding the information. The other day I found pure gold on Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle that I had no idea existed. Honestly, this is what I’m looking for as Black Kettle is one of the leading players in the Sand Creek manuscript and I’m desperately trying to find events that happened in his life to fill in the gaps. This is directly related to my view that actions define who people are and not what someone says about them.

Again, I’m thrilled. … But the purpose of this post is threefold: Bitch, which I’ve done; praise, which I’ve done; and alert Indian wars writers to wake up to a massive archive in SoCal that will reopen in a blink of an eye (hopefully 2017, but this is questionable) that there is material available that can be added to your manuscripts in ways you wouldn’t believe. If you are a historian doing Plains or Southwest Indian research wake up and add validity to your writing. … The former Braun Research Library (at the former Southwest Museum) along with the former Autry National Center library and archives will provide you with a research center that will blow you away (American Indian research and including the Indian wars).

I’ve again been harsh, and believe me I have been pounded in the past by companies that I write for that I’m an ingrate that bites the hand that feeds him. True? Probably. … Know that I care about everything that I do. This means that I can’t take prisoners, that I must fight for the best product possible at all times and that includes receiving requested documentation when promised and not being forced to complain again and again until I receive a comment that I’m unclear in what is owed me. I have deadlines and I can’t afford to miss too many of them or I won’t be hirable.

For the record

“There’s gold in them ‘thar’ hills!” I have no clue if this is a real quote of not. And, by God, I have struck it! Mining the Cheyennes at the Braun Research Library in June 2014 has already proved worth every hour I put in, every complaint I had to make to receive requested documentation, and every dollar that it has cost me (and it wasn’t cheap).

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This image is from 1997’s Titanic. Here Leonardo DiCaprio (as Jack Lawson) proclaims at the beam of the mighty vessel on its maiden voyage: “I’m king of the world!” Danny Nucci (as Fabrizio, Dawson’s friend), joins him. When this film was released it was storied to become the largest financial disaster in film history. Instead it became the largest grossing film worldwide ever (to that point in time). Almost everyone I knew loved the film, which went on to win a ton of awards including the Oscar for best film. Many of these people have since dismissed the film. … For the record I have two film lists: a top 13 Errol Flynn films (and The Adventures of Robin Hood isn’t on the list) and a top 60 films which does not include Flynn films. For what it’s worth, my top 60 films list (which isn’t close to being completed) is not based upon the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ Oscar for best picture, director, actor, actress, script, and so on. Perhaps Kevin Costner’s magnificent Dances with Wolves (1990) should be on my list but it isn’t, and never will be. I believe that Costner’s Open Range (2003) with Bob Duvall and Annette Bening is a much better film, and it has a chance of making my top 60 films list. … Even though I work on “The Song Remembers When” blog whenever I have free time there is a chance that a short blog, like this one, can sneak in. And I’m going to announce it here: “Errol Flynn & Louis Kraft, the connection and a view” will be my next blog. Be warned that it will include prose that might anger you, hopefully enlighten you, but certainly will be based upon a long-time film knowledge combined with a deep-seated gut-feeling that is present whenever I view film. For what it is worth I study film four to five times a week as it a great way to understand how dialogue; plot; script; editing; direction; cinematography; film scores, which is my favorite type of music; and good production values influence every word that I write for print (and that includes these blogs).

At the moment my every waking hour is dominated by one thought: Kraft, when are you working on the Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway manuscript? The short answer is daily. Research takes time; comprehension takes more time. Once both connect, my fingers pound the keyboard. At those times, and to again quote Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, “I’m king of the world!”

The Louis Kraft writing world differs from other writers’ worlds

Website & blogs © Louis Kraft 2013-2020

Contact Kraft at writerkraft@gmail.com or comment at the end of the blogs


On July 8 Pailin and I went to a dinner party with two friends who date back to my college days in Los Angeles just east of the 405 freeway. I believe that Saul Saladow has lived in his split-level townhouse for 20 years (and I don’t blame him, for it is nice). I believe that he joined me in the theatre department for the four years I attended college. He went on to a very successful career as a film editor. Veronica Morra became the girlfriend and future wife of a very good actor-singer in the theatre department. We met in college and the relationship continued after those years ended. Eventually they moved to the East Coast to be near their son and his family. At that point (or before) I lost contact with Vee (as Veronica prefers to be called) until she found me on social media several years back. Our friendship has grown.

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Taken at Saul’s townhouse in Los Angeles on 8jul2015. From left Vee Morra, Pailin, and Saul Saladow. Photo by Louis Kraft, and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Veronica Morra, Saul Saladow, and Louis Kraft 2015)

Pailin met both Vee and Saul when they visited us for dinner at Tujunga House in December 2013. Vee had traveled to Los Angeles to see Saul (who is a lifelong friend of hers) and other friends from long-gone days. Luckily they had one afternoon and evening free to visit us. Good times.

Nearing the end of our visit to Saul’s home Vee told me about a writer that she not only knows but likes the lady’s writing. She told me that this person spends nine months researching a book and then writes it in three months. Although I have continued to work on the Thai blog, which continues to grow, this writing schedule grabbed my interest. It is something that I want to discuss for although it is related to my writing life it is in stark contrast to my writing world.

This means one thing—lucky you—for this blog should be relatively short by my standards. At least I hope so. … Fat chance.

Not too long back in the past …

Over the course of my life I have met and known many writers, editors, agents, and other talented people that have played small and large roles in my writing world. Some have taken me under their wing and nurtured me and have done everything to further my career (and that includes in the software world). Others have been less open or friendly. I’ve always rolled with the punches.

In 1987 I learned of a Western Writers of America convention in San Diego, California, and contacted one of the hosts of the event. He made it possible for me to know exactly what I needed to do to attend the event. By this time I had been selling articles and giving talks about the American Indian wars since the mid-1980s. I had also had some eight or nine intense screenwriting years with an agent and a writer-producer between 1976 and 1984, both of whom marked up my manuscripts and then discussed them in detail. These two fellows played a huge role in my future. The agent and I came close to optioning or selling on several occasions without success and this included me pitching my film contacts, which were numerous back then. The writer-producer loved a screenplay that was about the destruction of Germany in WW II as seen through the eyes of a U-boat commander and his Jewish girlfriend (yep, I was dealing with racial content way back then), but he wanted me to rewrite it and take out the genocide on Jews and change the war to WW I. If I did this he said that he’d produce the film. You can guess my answer: “No,” as he wanted to remove the entire reason why I wrote the screenplay. By 1987 I had also taken a ten-week fiction class at UCLA and had continued private lessons in Westwood, California, with the writer that taught it. I had a completed and polished novel called The Null State, which dealt with bootlegging on the modern-day Navajo Reservation. It was a thriller that also dealt with race, and my research marked the first time that I would spend an extended time on the Diné (as the Navajos call themselves) reservation.

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LK doesn’t have many images from the years 1987 through 1989 (and none of the writer I’m talking about—later in our years of friendship I have a lot of images but decided that none would be featured on this blog). This 1989 image was taken at Encino House (the first house I owned with my first wife). Dejah Thoris, named after Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Princess of Mars (Burroughs first novel in his John Carter of Mars series) was the most affectionate and kindest animal I have ever known. Yep, she’s giving me a big kiss. I loved her with all my heart and have never owned another animal after her death in 1992. When fully grown she was 55 pounds. My brother Lee had two Doberman Pinschers and they were both about 110 pounds. They were kind animals too, and they always greeted me by leaping up on me—this meant that I would back up a couple of feet as I tried to regain my balance. That said they were kind and loving dogs. Certainly animals can be trained to hurt and maim but that’s on the owner and not the animal. … That is my father to my left. BTW that’s not straight juice that I’m drinking, as I don’t think that I drank straight juice at that time. It was probably a Screwdriver. (photo © Louis Kraft 1989)

At the San Diego convention I met an Apache expert (Danny Aranda and his beautiful sister, who would have a short life—when I learned of this decades later it destroyed me but luckily I kept control of my emotions) that would become a long-time long-distance friend to this day. I would also meet a woman that would soon become my agent. She tried to sell The Null State but couldn’t. In 1989 she would sell an unwritten story that I pitched with her one night to an editor. I hadn’t written a word of my proposed The Moon of the Changing Season, which focused on race relations during the lead up to the October 1867 peace council at Medicine Lodge Creek in Kansas between the whites and the five major plains tribes on the central and southern plains. The “moon of the changing season” was what the Cheyennes called October. Walker and Company published my manuscript as The Final Showdown in April 1992. She and I also sold a follow-up western that dealt with Kit Carson, a Navajo warrior, and his granddaughter (but that contract ended when the publisher decided to drop their western line).

The writer that had helped me attend the 1987 WWA convention became a friend. He had sold a lot of novels, but most were hack genre fiction that if I remember correctly he wrote them in one or two months and did one review pass after he competed his draft. These stories became part of a number of genre series of books of which one was published each month under pseudonyms that represented four or five or maybe six writers creating the 12 books published each year for the various titles. I didn’t spend much time discussing this business with him as I really didn’t want to write fiction that I didn’t like reading. … To be honest, I don’t like reading clichéd crap and I certainly didn’t want to write it.

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In 1980 after our mother died on January 4 my brother Lee and I decided, with a group of friends, to create a baseball team. For the next 10 years Lee and I won a lot of trophies with our team the Cool-Aid Kids. During those years he and I played illegally or legally for other teams. A team had to have enough players to compete on any given day or night. If not they forfeited the game. Often brother Lee and I played for the Warriors (and we didn’t pay to play but were legal members of the team). They called us when they needed extra players. On this day in 1989 I played third base for the Warriors. I’m right handed (with the sword, in tennis, and certainly when writing with a pen), but I learned early in life that I was a better hitter left-handed. Over the years I didn’t bat right-handed often, but when playing for other teams I would practice my right-hand swing in a game situation. On this day I had rolled a couple of ground balls to the third baseman or shortstop. Easy outs. I wanted a hit. In the softball that I played there were four outfielders and this opposing team had a left-center fielder. He moved in, and I hoped for an outside pitch. I got it and drilled hook to left center field and as he raced back it sliced away from him. An easy home run. (photo © Louis Kraft 1989)

But this novel writer I met in 1987 always had to be right. He was light on research, but knew everything. Worse, whenever he decided to tear into my family or people close to me he would lead off with, “I’ve got to tell the truth.” He would then get to his point, which ran along the lines of “I never liked her,” “She was too negative,” “Your sister has no right to say what she did about religion” (I believe that he had told me that he was an agnostic). Ouch! Sometimes I can only stomach so much of this kind of bullshit. … In 2014 I had offered to visit him for the umpteenth time to introduce him to the lady who would become my wife (both phone messages and email). No reply (I should add that whenever he visited SoCal he refused to visit me—he was only passing through and always too busy; I was always passing through Arizona on the I-40 and I always made the time to visit him.

Oh yeah, an explosion was a comin’.

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This art of Pailin and LK is based upon a photo taken by our great friend Glen Williams in Texas on 13oct2014.

In 2014 a chief historian in the National Park Service asked me to review a document on Ned Wynkoop that the park service was preparing for the Sand Creek Massacre, Fort Larned, and Washita Battlefield National Historic Sites. I did and it was constructive … and ignored (If you ever see the document and know something about Wynkoop you would cringe). I sent him a link to a blog that took the National Park Service to task (see https://www.louiskraftwriter.com/2014/08/30/national-park-service-ned-wynkoop-a-bad-taste/). His reply, and this is a paraphrase: Why would they read an unsolicited review? He then blasted me for being an expert on Wynkoop and not writing about anything else. Hello? Charles Gatewood, Geronimo, and the Apaches don’t count? Two books, and I had given him both of them (my guess is that he never read them). I had just delivered a major talk in Arizona on Gatewood and Geronimo and was working on the October 2015 Wild West Geronimo article (“Geronimo’s Gunfighter Attitude”), both of which have been publicized on my blogs and elsewhere on social media. Or George Armstrong Custer; one book, a fair amount of talks, and numerous articles (some of which had been requested by editors). Hell, there have been Errol Flynn talks in five states, numerous articles, and plenty of publicity on social media not to mention two additional books on Flynn (documented on these blogs). I’ve been pushing The Discovery since I moved away from being a consultant (which began in 2010, but ended in 2011) and became a partner at the end of 2014.

Yes, this relationship has ended as he didn’t like my reply.
For the record, I have been advertising a future blog that deals
with this writer but as of the posting of this blog that is now history.
End of him and end of subject.

Not quite, even though he had met Pailin and I had informed him of our marriage, his last comment to me before I went ballistic was, “Whatever happened to your girlfriend?” Yeah, F—him. His name was Gary McCarthy, and I unloaded all eight or ten of his books that I had at a local used book dealer (they made me three bucks richer).

Michael Blake, a special person and writer

I met Michael Blake, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for Dances With Wolves (1990) in 1991. On 2dec2006 when we both spoke at an Upton and Sons Publishers Symposium in El Segundo, California (“Voices of the West”). On that day I spoke about Errol Flynn and George Armstrong Custer, and he spoke about the Bison. Michael loved the horse, but on this day he shared his love for the buffalo and the natural world. Afterwards we hung out on the hotel’s balcony and talked and got to know each other—where we’ve been and where we hoped to go.

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Michael Blake talking at Southwestern Oklahoma State University on 8nov2006. This is pretty much the Michael Blake that I met in El Segundo, California, in December of that same year.

We had previously known each other when Michael initiated the relationship by phone when he was writing Indian Yell: The Heart of an American Insurgency (Northland, 2006). He had asked me to review his chapter dealing with Custer’s November 1868 attack on Black Kettle’s Washita village. He had read my Custer and the Cheyenne while recovering from an operation and had contacted publisher Dick Upton to obtain my phone number. This began our relationship, which was confirmed at Dick’s symposium when we got to hang out together.

One thing that we compared over the years were our operations. I have had a lot, but Michael’s count made me sound like an “also ran” or “rookie.” My good friend Dick Upton let me know that Michael had unfortunately died on 2may2015. On Michael’s Facebook page his wife Marianne wrote: “We miss him very much but take strength in the fact that he is at peace now, reunited with his heroes — animals and humans alike.” I never knew his wife or children, but we continued to communicate mainly through letters and the phone. He was a survivor who had a clear focus on his life, what was important to him, and what he wrote.

He kindly gave me some of his published writing and I gave him some of mine. Michael wrote two autobiographical nonfiction works that I am aware of, and they were magnificent. In my humble opinion they were his best nonfiction books. You’ve got to realize that when I read a book I’m paying attention and taking notes of why or why not I like the book. This was and is a learning process that continues to this day. Whenever I coach or hire out to novice writers or wannabe writers I always tell them to think about books they’ve read and decide why they like or don’t like the book. … I have no comments on Michael’s Like A Running Dog, Vol. 1: Los Angeles, 1970-1972 (Hrymfaxe LLC, 2002) and his follow-up book Like A Running Dog, Volume II—Los Angeles 1979-1982, other than that they were great reads.

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As I said in the flow of the text I couldn’t find Michael’s memoirs, but time is short and I couldn’t tear the house apart for I have too much on my plate at the moment. Put mildly I’m not pleased with myself. I decided to grab an image from my talk on the day that Michael and I met in person that December of 2006. It was slightly out of focus but I could have fixed that. Instead I decided to play around with color and turn it into art. What you are looking at here fits my life quite well. Mainly that I cherish a lot of people who are writers or artists or directors or artistic people or just normal folks that I love. I love their creativity, I love their thought process, I love their friendship, but most important I love knowing them. That said I can’t tell you how often I have missed out because I didn’t call, didn’t visit, didn’t take that extra step to spend time with special people. (I saw my brother Lee Kraft three, four, five times a week but his sudden death has torn me apart to this day and destroyed our father; Dale Schuler, my father’s best friend and partner who was like a father to me; Mark Hendrickson, an actor and magician who grew up next door to me; and Doug McGirr, my ex-wife’s brother and my friend since I met him in 1967—his death has shocked my daughter Marissa and awakened her to how precious life really is. These were sudden deaths, but there have been friends who didn’t live close that fought for their lives that I called once but waited too long to call again; Tony Graham and Doug Matheson are just two.) … I don’t walk with the devil but red is the color that represents the end to me. This image is to remind me not to pass off until tomorrow calls, emails, or visits that I could do today. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

I have both in hardbound editions but it looks like only Volume I was published (but the two books Michael sent me look close, and certainly my Volume I looks like the printed book). I have an admission to make; I have books and research in every room except for the bathroom. I know, a sad state of affairs and Pailin reminds me of this. I can’t find these two books, but I have them and they are mine. They “ain’t” going nowhere, unless you gut me with your Bowie knife (I should add that I’ll nail you first, so don’t even think about it). Let’s take that “great reads” comment to the next level, if you are going to write an autobiographical piece do yourself a favor and read Michael’s two books. I don’t care if you are a novice writer, a bad writer, or a good writer, you’ll learn content flow, word usage, and composition from Michael’s text. You’ll also see a damned good way to write an autobiography or memoir.

I really should mention Michael’s Marching to Valhalla (Villard Books, Westminster, Maryland, 1996). I read this book when it was published, and this happened before Michael and I met via phone. At the time I saw at least one review that stated that Michael pulled his storyline from Errol Flynn’s film, They Died With Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941). Flynn’s film is one of my favorite films of all time (see Wild West, August 2014 for “Must See, Must Read” by LK), and as far as I was concerned that review was pure bullshit. By that I mean that I don’t think that Michael’s book and Flynn’s film were similar. I liked Michael’s novel about George Armstrong Custer. I wasn’t crazy about it but I liked it, and more important I thought that it would translate to the screen. Years later, in one of my better articles in a national magazine, (“Custer: The Truth Behind the Silver Screen Myth,” American History, February 2008) I pitched Michael’s quest to get his book onto the screen. If memory serves me back in those days he had a few big-name actors attached to the possibility but alas nothing happened. A shame, for it could have been a good film.

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Michael Blake as he appears in his DVD The American West: On the road with Michael Blake (image © Wolf Creek Productions, 2008)

Moving forward Michael sent me a “Screener Copy” of a great filmed nonfiction documentary series idea that he shot with director John Carver (Wolf Creek Productions, 2008) titled The American West: On the road with Michael Blake. It was slow and meandering—perfect for this type of Indian wars documentary as Michael, on horseback—a place he loved—talked about the end of the Apache wars as he took you to various historic sites.

Michael wanted me to write a comment for the DVD label. I did, and it appeared on his website for years (don’t think that it is there now), and he never sent me a DVD that he sent to potential backers.

Bottom line: Michael was a great human being who cared about people; living in our past; animals (he loved horses and had a great respect for the American Bison); and when he wrote he did so from the heart. Every writer should do this. … We have lost a great writer and I have lost a good long-distance friend. If you read his works he’ll be with you, and more important for me is that he’ll always be with me.

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Teaming up with Tom Eubanks for a pitch

Several years after Michael’s The American West: On the road with Michael Blake DVD was completed my great friend writer-director Tom Eubanks and I teamed and tried to sell a Ned Wynkoop/Southern Cheyennes five-episode documentary. I lined up top-notch Indian wars historians and Southern Cheyennes to take part in the project.

The image at right is based upon a photo that writer Johnny Boggs took at the final dress rehearsal for the Wynkoop one-man shows contracted by the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site (Cheyenne, Oklahoma) in December 2008. That’s director Tom Eubanks on his knees begging LK to remember his lines. I like that sentence but it’s not true. We’re discussing the prayer at the end of the play, and as you can see my nose was red. Yep, LK was doing some crying. Tom was showing me how I could improve the scene.

I made sure that Tom saw Michael’s DVD and he loved it. I added Michael’s horseback riding to the storyline to bring the viewers into the location and land that played a major role in what happened. Like Michael, we struck out. Probably in both Michael and our proposals the cost of location production killed us. As in the past, I have learned to “never say ‘never.'” If the chance arrives I will again toss Tom and myself into the ring.

Helping other writers + LK books & plays

One thing I’ve become quite good at over the years is not ripping another person’s writing (this said, my apologies for the above on McCarthy). When asked to review I’ve generously given my time and constructively marked up manuscripts. In the past I had done a fair amount of free reviews with comments of what the writer should focus on when improving his or her manuscript.

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My daughter Marissa (left in image) would meet and spend quality time with writer/historian Eric Niderost (right in image) over the years. On 15mar2003 it poured rain in Los Angeles. This used to happen in the past but during recent years Los Angeles and all of California has fallen upon hard times, actually the worst drought in over 100 years. On this day we went to see the museum at the La Brea Tar Pits next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and then visited magazine publisher and collector of science fiction film art and collectables Forrest J. Ackerman (center in image). Eric had set up our appointment with Forrest and his open welcome to unknown people into his Hollywood home that was really a museum became a major film history highlight. I am not a fan of horror or science fiction films, but let me tell you Mr. Ackerman had major framed posters of the key films from the silent era and into the golden age of cinema. He also had major artifacts such as Bella Lugosi’s original Dracula cape and the miniatures from the film The War of the Worlds (1953). (photo by Louis Kraft and © Marissa & Louis Kraft and Eric Niderost 2003)

One was a 100-page draft of a period thriller that took place in 1930s Shanghai by professor, historian, and author Eric Niderost, who has been my friend since 1995. It took me over a month to mark up the 100 pages (and I not only worked 40-50 hours I also had a roughly 10-hour drive weekly, and I worked on my writing usually between 20 and 40 hours every week when writing for companies). Eric had/has I think a great story idea and I hope that he pursues selling it, as he now has a completed manuscript.

I also completed a full review of Tom Eubanks’ PK (“PK” stands for “Preacher’s Kid”), which took place on a Caribbean Island (if memory serves me). Tom has been a good friend since we met at a Ventura County Writers Club weekly readings in 1990. Although we were at odds at times I saw his writing talent immediately. The group didn’t end, but I dropped out when a divorce removed me from Ventura County. I had then lived in a great house with a pool (swimming is my favorite exercise sport) a half block walk into the Santa Monica Mountains in Thousand Oaks, California. The divorce moved me back into Los Angeles County, but the end of my marriage did not mean the end of my friendship with Tom. He is one of the few people I know that whenever I see him it is just like we saw each other the previous week.

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Pailin and my great friend Tom Eubanks at his Elite Theatre complex on the Pacific Ocean in Oxnard, California, on 24apr14. That night we saw the final dress rehearsal of a play that Tom wrote and directed called The Art of Something. Over the years Tom and his wife Judy have played a major part in my life. On that evening Pailin met Tom, Judy, and their youngest daughter, Hannah (whom I’ve known since before she was born). A good night. (photo by LK, and © Pailin Subanna-Kraft, Tom Eubanks, and Louis Kraft 2014)

Tom is perhaps the most talented person I have ever known, and his energy blows me away. He’s also a wiz with words and the copy I reviewed of PK was polished. Many pages (somewhere between four and five hundred), but I completed my review of his preacher’s kid story draft in about two+ weeks. Upon my suggestion Tom changed his book title but I don’t remember what he changed it to as I never saw the printed book.

Beginning in 2002 he became my director for all the Wynkoop one-man shows and Cheyenne Blood (2009).

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This art is of LK in 2002 at Fort Larned, Kansas. I worked on it as I hope to turn it into art of Wynkoop for the Sand Creek book epilogue. I think that this is doable, and it is certainly a good start. …. BTW the goal of all writers is to create a manuscript/book that earns money. University presses are by far the best nonfiction publishers in the USA, and I consider myself lucky to write for the best Indian wars publisher in the world (University of Oklahoma Press). (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

To date he hasn’t commented on an Errol Flynn play with perhaps five or seven actors but hope burns eternal that someday I’ll catch him at a weak moment. And I still haven’t given up hope of getting Johnny Boggs’ great novel East of the Border on the stage. Yeah, I want to play Flynn and Wild Bill Hickok while I still walk this earth.

I don’t edit for free any longer. I just don’t have the time unless I work as a contractor for a reasonable salary which is usually more than most writers or would-be writers want to pay. … The offers come, but usually with attempts to reduce my salary. Bottom line: I don’t write for companies any longer and my writing focus is now my books, let me repeat that—my books, and although I could use the money, if I work as a contractor I will receive an acceptable salary and the contract will be juggled with my book projects. … For the record, my partnership with Bob Goodman on The Discovery began as a contract, but changed to a partnership upon Bob’s request and my realization that I knew that I could bring his story idea and characters to life.

Simple, and there will be no arguments or major negotiations.

LK as a minister

For almost 10 years my girlfriend was Japanese (born in Hawaii). Her name was Cindy Tengan, and I’m proud to have known her, for she was a major part of my life (and will always remain a special person who I loved with all my heart). She was gorgeous and oh-so sexy (just thinking about her brings back sensual memories of our intimacy). I can’t begin to tell how wonderful it was to hold her naked body next to me. At the time I met her, her two girls were adults. One had dropped out of college and would soon move back to Hawaii while the other was just beginning her college career. I did my best to befriend both of them. The younger daughter and I connected, and her boyfriend and I became buddies. This relationship began in late 1994.

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LK marrying Chelsea Tengan & John Fortuna at Balboa Park in San Diego, California, on 9Aug2003.

By 2003 my health was in great distress and there were two major operations that year (without checking I believe that my operation count is currently at 14). Between those operations (which cost me 4 1/2 months of downtime and learning to walk again) my lady’s daughter asked me to marry her to her boyfriend. I read her draft of the ceremony and said that I would if I could rewrite the words that I would say (she and I reviewed the draft numerous times until we mutually agreed on the text). I then laid it on her: It would be an acting performance. “What do you mean?” “I mean that I won’t read a word.” As far as I was concerned I would be playing a minister, and as such I would be performing a ceremony that I had previously performed hundreds of times. Oh yeah, Kraft was about to step onto the stage one more time. A three-person ceremony with one performance. She agreed, and we were off to the races.

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You are looking at Cindy Tengan on the day of her daughter’s wedding on 9aug2003. She was a special lady and I’m lucky to have known her for almost 10 years. She was never more beautiful, alive, or happy than I saw her on the day and night of Chelsea’s wedding. She didn’t think much of her body, which I could never understand for she was absolutely beautiful. (photo © Cindy Tengan & Louis Kraft 2003)

I had one hell of a great time marrying Chelsea to her boyfriend. I was front and center and watched the tears of joy up close. Good stuff, and one of the highlights of my life. Afterwards a lot of people commented, and they wanted to know how many marriages I had performed.

“One.”

“Get out of here!”

“And it is my last one.” This scattered most of them. Others pushed, and I pushed back just as hard: “There will be no more weddings performed by me!” The reason was simple: I didn’t and don’t have the time.

My writing world and welcome to it

My writing world is mine. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. What other writers do is part of their writing world and it has no connection with my world. I take years and years and years to research a book, and then years and more years to write the book. For example research on Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek and Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway began in 1985. The Wynkoop book was published in 2011 and the first draft of the Sand Creek manuscript is due on 1oct2016 (both books were/are contracted). If someone can research a major nonfiction work and write it in a year, kudos to them. All I’m saying here is that I will never create any of my books in a year.

cookCell_boggsKill_Indian_collage_july15_wsI haven’t read a lot of the nonfiction or fiction that is published each year (actually this is a major understatement). I can count all of the novelists that I respect over my entire life on my two hands. There are a lot of nonfiction writers whose work I respect. The above said, it would take me two or three hundred pages to discuss nonfiction and fiction writers that I don’t think are very good.

Yep, this is my world, and I have no intention of agreeing to bullshit, lies, and errors. I don’t care if the writer has a big name or comes from a major publication house, for the simple reason that poor research or intended errors to deceive the reading public are heinous (and from my point of view criminal acts). END OF SUBJECT.

Researching and writing a book in a year …

I’m certain that good novelists can do this. However, knowing my track record and how long it takes me to uncover the truth I don’t think that nonfiction writers can do this unless they have a huge staff performing their research for them. A recent book has done quite well, and the writer’s prose dealing with the here and now with the tragedy of Sand Creek seems to be right on the money. However, the writer’s historical research into 1864 and 1965 is error-riddled.

I say the above, as people shouldn’t take popular nonfiction as gospel for more often than not it perpetuates errors that have been in place for decades …. or worse creates new errors that will now be repeated ad nauseam.

Back to Vee’s comments on her writer-friend, … I thought she was talking about nonfiction but she had said something that her friend told her: “Characters drive plot.” This sounds like fiction to me, and if yes, I totally agree with her writer friend. The characters move the plot, and a writer must allow them to do this. … Again I haven’t read this lady’s books, so I cannot say anything about them. Going with the above, perhaps I should read one of her books, for she is right on here. … Nine months of research seems reasonable for a novel, however I believe that research for fiction (or nonfiction) should continue until the copyediting has ended for one never knows when new information that wasn’t known is found or what was thought to be factual was in fact wrong.

My problem remains with writing and delivering a polished 125,000-word fiction manuscript in three months. That’s a mouthful—no more comments.

Other than to say that I can’t and will never be able to do this.

But that’s just me.

Let’s deal with the research

Research for writers vary, but unfortunately way too many writers write books that are based upon secondary books that may or may not have faulty information. This perhaps can work in fiction, but not always and especially not when it is an historical novel or a medical thriller that require facts. Today I’m going to stick with historical fiction, which often presents itself as being based upon fact when often just the reverse is true. That is the writer didn’t perform decent research and the story is loaded with factual errors. Often I have read a novel and went “Wow! This is good stuff.” Unfortunately when I read novels that are based upon historic or modern subjects that I know intimately I am bent over in agony and screaming at the gods for the pitiful research that now unwary readers think is factual. I’m going to provide two examples here with the caveat that I don’t know how long it took the writers to research or write their books:

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Cahill’s paperback novel cover.

Sand Creek by Kevin Cahill (Bloomington, Indiana: Author House, 2005): Mr. Cahill has a good website that Northwestern University used when they explored John Evans’s actions at the time of the Sand Creek tragedy (see Report of the John Evans Study Committee, May 2014). BTW, I do believe that Mr. Cahill’s site (Kevin Cahill’s Lone Wolf Sand Creek website) is well done and of value to researchers as it offers valid links to historical documents that are available online. Evans was governor of Colorado Territory at that time. Back to Mr. Cahill’s book. He even uses historical images in his novel, and the total presentation is that his book is factual. No! The reason is simple: His research is incomplete, but not for his lack of research for I believe he was diligent. There is so much primary source material on the subject that obscure pieces can be missed. I’m not blaming Mr. Cahill at all, for I think that he created a damned good novel. … I know Ned Wynkoop and his life like the back of my hand. My study of him began in the mid-1980s and it continues to this day. … It has oft been stated that Wynkoop fell off his horse during Captain Silas Soule’s funeral procession in Denver in 1865 and that this injury would affect him for the rest of his life. True, the injury would affect him and it would worsen with time. However the year of 1865 is totally wrong, for the event happened in 1861 (Don’t believe me? Check the Rocky Mountain News in 1863 and 1865. The answer will be before your eyes.).

Wynkoop’s fall from his horse happened and the horse covering him on the ground in Denver in 1865 first saw print in secondary books, but it has been around for decades. Writers that don’t perform good research grab this 1865 horse incident and run with it. Hell, if it is in print it must be true. No!

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Many of you have seen this Wynkoop portrait that documents him confronting the Cheyenne and Arapaho battle line on 10sept1864 near a tributary of the Smoky Hill River is western Kansas. It originally saw print in the August 2014 issue of Wild West magazine in an article entitled “Wynkoop’s Gamble to End War.” It is totally copyrighted and protected, and as a grayscale image will be used in Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (University of Oklahoma Press). Some of my articles have won awards. My opinion: This is the best published article that I have written.

There are three major pieces of primary source material that show that Cahill is wrong (as are nonfiction writers that have repeated this piece of fiction). They are:

  • Newspaper accounts that document a funeral procession in Denver in 1863 wherein Wynkoop’s horse was spooked, reared up, and when he was not able to control the animal it fell backward and onto him (not one but many articles).
  • Wynkoop’s military file. For the record Wynkoop was at Fort Lyon, Colorado Territory, during the entire month of April 1865 and not in Denver—thus he couldn’t have attended Soule’s funeral.
  • Newspaper accounts for the entire Denver area for the month of April 1865, which contain absolutely no mention of Wynkoop being in the city at that time, attending Soule’s funeral, or having a horse mishap.

I’m picking on Mr. Cahill’s novel and I shouldn’t be. The reason is simple: There was a lot of “supposed” decent nonfiction books that confirmed what he used in his novel. Unfortunately the nonfiction books repeated what was never true. He trusted the history books he read, and I almost did, but luckily stumbled upon the truth. That’s it. If I didn’t know anything about Sand Creek story I might have loved his novel.

Ladies and gentlemen I can’t tell you how often I have been shocked by errors that are not only caused by improper or incomplete research, but worse—and here I’m talking about nonfiction—the creation of facts (that’s right, creating facts that are fiction to dupe the reader); the misrepresentation of facts on purpose or because the nonfiction writer didn’t bother to complete his or her research (Read: They read one or two or three secondary books); inadequate documentation (that is their cited notes are so obscure or vague or inaccurate that the reader cannot find them to view them). There will be two upcoming blogs that will discuss this in detail and they won’t be vague.

oswaldWynkoopBookAnother book is, believe it or not, a young readers book, Edward Wynkoop: Soldier and Indian Agent (Palmer Lake, Colorado, LLC, 2014). The author, Nancy Oswald, kindly said the following in her Acknowledgments: “I would like to acknowledge Louis Kraft, biographer and author of Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek. Without his book and his in-depth research and knowledge, my own understanding of Wynkoop’s life would have been far less complete.”

Wow!!! The above is more than kind. Moreover her Wynkoop book won the Western Writers of America Spur award for best juvenile nonfiction for the year 2014 (SEE BELOW: For this in itself is reason enough for me to drop my membership to this organization as I have been totally embarrassed—anyone who reads her acknowledgment and knows anything about Wynkoop will think that my book is a total piece of crap … say what?).

There’s only one problem, and it is major.

I don’t think that author Oswald read my Wynkoop book, for if she did she decided to ignore many of the known facts documented in my book and replace them with often-repeated errors that are prevalent in popular nonfiction. For example:

  • Wynkoop worked as a bartender in the Criterion Saloon in Denver to earn extra money. This isn’t mentioned; instead it is replaced with the oft repeated error that Wynkoop earned money as an actor on the stage (page 12). For the record Wynkoop acted on the Denver stage but as an amateur, and he never earned a penny as an actor.
  • Wynkoop resigned his commission as U.S. Indian agent while still en route to Fort Cobb, Indian Territory, on November 29, 1868. Although he didn’t know it and would not learn of it until he returned to civilization, Black Kettle’s village on the Washita River in Indian Territory was attacked and destroyed on November 27, 1868. Black Kettle and his wife, Medicine Woman Later, died that day. On page 53 writer Oswald states: “When Wynkoop learned of Black Kettle’s death, he wrote a letter of resignation.” This statement is absolutely incorrect!

There’s more, much more but not for this blog.

Nancy Oswald’s writing flows nicely and her book is a page turner. Unfortunately she included major errors about Wynkoop. With her kind words about me she implies that these errors came from me. They did not. Web pages that profess the truth aren’t always accurate and primary information should be consulted to confirm everything on these websites. This takes time—lots of time and many writers prefer to take short cuts when researching. Many nonfiction books are error-riddled, especially popular nonfiction which doesn’t bother with notes (and believe it or not even more so with some of the major pieces of popular nonfiction that have notes).

What can I say other than I’m embarrassed by Osward’s award-winning book for it is little more than a poorly written piece of trash (Yeah, I’m repeating myself—but damn it to hell I am!), and I wish that she never said a word about my book.

Believe it or not I am considering dropping my membership in Western Writers of America (My apologies, for I’m again repeating myself.) for the simple reason that when judges are selected to review nonfiction they should make an attempt to confirm what they are reading before casting their votes. Obviously some of the members of the WWA have their fingers stuck where the sun doesn’t shine. SHAME on them!

People are my life & my writing world

People from times long gone, people from the more recent past, and people in the here and now are with me every day. I care about people, and their lives. Everyone’s life is unique and it shouldn’t be treated cavalierly nor should their lives be forgotten because they weren’t a king or president or sports hero or a soldier that was responsible for the death of innocent people or just an evil person that rapes, steals, and murders.

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My ex-wife’s and my gift to my sister, Linda, was that I would shoot her wedding to Greg Morgon on 3dec1988 at their church in Long Beach, California (others shot some photos but they were catch as catch can) and give them prints. My ex-wife worked for a number of years as a professional photographer. I learned from her, directors of photography on films and TV, and from fashion photographers that I worked with over the years. Here I’m trying to get a little too “artsy-fartsy,” but I liked my attempt (even though it is out of focus). My ex-wife, Marissa, and my father participated in the wedding ceremony. My brother Lee refused to attend (no matter what my father or I said to him), and his reasoning was valid (but this is for the memoir). I was present, but there are no photos proving this. My sister was radiant and beautiful, but then she was always beautiful. This image is full frame as I captured her in the mirror of the bride’s dressing room before the ceremony. (photo © Louis Kraft 1988)

I grew up with two parents that accepted people regardless of their race. But in those times during my school years and for decades after I saw a lot of racial prejudice. Sometimes I closed my ears. At other times I didn’t but depending upon the person I might have just scratched them off. My sister, Linda, served as a deputy sheriff in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and then as an investigator for the Los Angeles District Attorney. When she knew that the end had arrived she gave me both of her badges, and I cherish them. I saw racial attitudes in her at times but placed them on her career path. Strangely she kept her distance from our family for most of her adult life (and my ex-wife has suggested a reason that I think may be correct).

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Doris & Louis Kraft Sr. at their home in Reseda, California, in 1972. Photo by Joan McGirr.

During the last two years of our mother’s life, my brother Lee who then lived at home gave our mother multiple shots every day and our father drove her to San Diego for experimental cancer treatments monthly. Our mother went into a hospital three weeks before Christmas 1979. On a Saturday morning I took a day off and flew home from San Diego where I worked on a film shooting at sea. She was released that day and I spent almost two days with her before returning to the location. Linda wasn’t around. I had one more week at sea and then a couple of days at the studio for pick up shots. My work ended three days before Christmas. Linda, who’s birthday was December 24, arrived. Mom wasn’t good, and the day after Christmas she returned to the hospital for the last 10 days of her life. I spent those 10 days and deep into the nights with my father, and this cemented our relationship for all time. On New Year’s Eve after he and I left the hospital we returned to his and my mother’s home and drank and smoked and and talked deep into the wee hours. I finished my last cigarette just before the midnight hour and have never smoked since.

Lee, who was 23 was distraught, placed the blame on himself for the inevitable, which happened on January 4, 1980. Linda wasn’t around. When I asked her about this later, she said: “I didn’t know Mom was dying.”

Our father died 19 years later. I had been taking care of him for years, and just before the end he said to me, “If I knew that I’d live this long I would have taken better care of myself.” I called Linda on a Friday night and told her that dad wouldn’t make it through the weekend. He died two days later on Valentine’s Day. On that day I left over 40 voice mails on her home and cell phones updating our father’s status. Early on Monday morning she finally called me. “Where were you?” I asked. “It was Valentine’s Day,” she replied. “Besides I didn’t believe you.” My sister was AWOL for our mother, our father, Lee, and myself her entire life. She was about her, and we didn’t exist. Over the years I had tried to love her, but couldn’t, but now I knew why. The upcoming days would confirm what I already suspected. She not only lied to us, she stole from us. Certainly from me, for after dad was gone she stole over $250,000 from me by selling his house without letting me know. Her reason: she needed a downpayment so she could buy a third house. She sold dad’s house for $139,000. Five months later his house sold for $510,000. When I told her this she snarled at me: “Why did you tell me this.?” “Because I wanted you to know how much money you F—ed me out of because of your greed.”

leeKraft&robinFried_xmas1988_EncinoHouse_ws

Lee Kraft and his girlfriend Robin Fried at the first house that my ex-wife and I owned in Encino, California, on Christmas day 1988. He was a good looking fellow and the best athlete I ever played with or against. He had a great smile. Robin was a lady that I always liked, and even more so after Lee’s death in a little over a year for she was absolutely terrific with my dad. Luckily she found me on social media and we have reconnected (after a long separation that I had nothing to do with and didn’t know about until long after my father died in 1999). Again, my loving sister (and I am sarcastic here) did everything possible to destroy everyone connected with our family, and this included Robin who my father loved like a daughter. I took at least one other photo of Lee on that day, and that photo is my favorite of my brother. (photo © Louis Kraft 1988).

Although Lee was nine and a half years younger than I was we were always close. We shared a bedroom during the entire time I lived at home. One night when he was still young our mother caught me climbing out the window with him my arms. “What are you doing?” “The Martians are coming. We’ve got to get out now!” (I never did well with horror and science fiction films.) When he was about 10 or 11 I told my mother that he was stealing my clothes. She questioned him. “No,” Lee said. We lived on half an acre in a rural area of Reseda, California. One day I was going out the back door and Lee was stuffing one of my coats into an old washing machine that our father hadn’t gotten rid of yet. Oops!

Our relationship grew even stronger once he reached 18 or so. But Lee also had some racial tendencies (which I saw when we played sports, and this I found surprising for our ball team had players of various races and they were his friends). And you know how it is; brothers would be brothers and they would fight and this grew as he also became an adult. When a friend of Lee’s, Ron Powell (who I liked), was redoing my roof in Encino with Lee and I was assisting he didn’t finish the job and when I had to hire another roofer to finish the work I kept Powell’s tools. This angered Lee and we didn’t speak for quite a number of months (eventually I returned the tools). On another occasion we had a ball practice on a holiday before Lee and his wife Teresa or his long-time girlfriend Robin (who adored our dad until his death) and Tony and Cindy Graham were coming over for a barbecue. After the practice Tony (who I believe was Lee’s best friend of all time) told me he decided to do something else. We got into a fight and then suddenly it was Lee and I wrestling around on the ground with Tony trying to drag us apart. Another string of months with no communication. But then it was over and was just like nothing had happened.

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Pailin asked to take a picture of me as I cooked dinner for four good friends that visited Tujunga House on the Fourth of July 2015. The front of the house faces east but it was a sunny day and sunshine still blasted through the dinning room windows. We had good lighting but for some reason her phone camera messed up big time. I liked the image for it both told a story and gave a good rendition of what I currently looked like. Some people cringe (I can see it in their eyes); others like this look. Me? It’s my shaggy dog look. Sudeshna Ghosh, Robin Fried, and Pailin all like it. When I growl at Pailin and ask her opinion about getting my hair cut, she refuses to answer. Silence is golden. To use the image I used my paintbrush and healing brush tool in Photoshop. I decided to use this image here as shows you how close Lee and I looked. (art © Louis Kraft 2015)

Lee was always there for me.

The memoir is coming. The question is, how do I write it? I know the answer. Truthfully. I haven’t read many autobiographies or memoirs that are truthful; many are gloss overs or sometimes attacks. There is good and there is bad. There are good times and there are bad times. Certainly for me. Relationships begin and unfortunately many end. Why? What happened? Why did I get that acting job? Why didn’t I get those 50 acting jobs? Before he died Edward G. Robinson, a big star from the golden age of film, said that he wished that he had a nickel for every time one of his films played on TV (actors didn’t receive residuals in those days). I wish I had fifty bucks for every job interview and writing pitch or query that I’ve made over the years. … I’ve been knocked cold; I’ve taken a motorcycle over a cliff; I’ve had a knife at my throat in Austin, Texas, in 1970; six years later I was lucky to get out of Lubbock, Texas, without being tarred and feathered; I had a revolver pointed at me while driving Marissa to school (I told her to get off the seat and onto the floorboard); I took a fast car into a freeway center divider at high speed after it hydroplaned and spun out at about 65 mph. After hitting the center divider it spun two more times and took out the passenger side and then the rear end of the car. Surprisingly I walked away from the crash with my spine still functioning (my Vette died but it saved my life).

They say that the good die young, … but I don’t look at myself as evil.

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This is my lady, wife, and best friend Pailin in the front of Tujunga House on 24oct2013. … A little over a week ago she asked if we’d do a research trip this year. Alas, this isn’t in our timeline as she has continued schooling for her California Massage Therapy Council certification and I have major writing work staring at me. She experienced a research trip for the first time in fall 2014, loved it, and she is ready to go when I need to do another research trip. This is a first for LK!!!! (photo © Pailin Subanna-Kraft and Louis Kraft 2013)

I’m not telling you anything that you haven’t seen or experienced personally. My goal is to tell this story truthfully, and by the way this memoir has been in the works for years. You would be floored if you saw how much research I have. That said I haven’t written a word (but that’s not true for you’re seeing a fair amount of it in these blogs). … That’s right, I use the blogs as a research tool for myself.

All of the words in this section are here for one reason. I must know as much as possible before I develop a talk, write an article or a book, and the research never ends. There are answers out there and I want to know them. This has been in place since the Custer/Cheyenne book, for both of the Gatewood/Geronimo/Apache books, the Wynkoop/Cheyenne book, the Flynn and de Havilland book (which is on hold at the moment), and so it will be for the Sand Creek book (Cheyennes and Arapahos and their lifeways, whites who want to develop a great new land, whites who married Indian women, their mixed-blood children, and the whites that spoke out against the killing of Cheyennes and Arapahos who were told that they were under the protection of the military when they were attacked and in many cases sexually hacked to pieces at Sand Creek in Colorado Territory on November 29, 1864). These books are hard to write for I want the people to come to life, and to do this I must find what made them tick, what made them do what they did. Actions and not words define who people are.

A lot of research, a lot of edits, and a lot of rewrites went into the creation of this blog. Writing is what I do. It is work and it takes time to get it right.