YONDERINGS Trails and Memories of the Big Bend by Ben H. English * REVIEW* Lone Star Book Blog Tour
YONDERINGS
Trails and Memories
of the Big Bend
by
Ben H. English
Genre: Memoir / Travel / Texas
Publisher: TCU Press
Date of Publication: November 17, 2017
Number of Pages: 221
It was a time before Terlingua Ranch, chili cook-offs, and when you could drive a hundred miles without seeing another vehicle or another person.
The year was 1961, and the tides of humanity that ebbed and flowed into the lower reaches
of the Big Bend were at their historical nadir. It was a vast, empty land spotted by isolated
ranch headquarters, a national park with few visitors, and the many ruins of a past shrouded
in legend, lore, and improbable truths. Six generations of Ben H. English’s family have called
this enigmatic region home. With his family headquartered at the old Lajitas Trading Post, he
worked and lived on ranches and in places now little more than forgotten dots on yellowing
maps. He attended the one-room schoolhouse at Terlingua, prowled the banks of the Rio
Grande, and crisscrossed the surrounding areas time and again on horseback and on foot.
Some fifty years later he writes about those years, revealing along the way the history and
legends of the singular land he knows so well, separating fact from fiction, and bringing the
reader into a world that few have experienced. He also explores the lower Big Bend as it is
found now, and the extraordinary vistas one can still discover just over the next rise.
legends of the singular land he knows so well, separating fact from fiction, and bringing the
reader into a world that few have experienced. He also explores the lower Big Bend as it is
found now, and the extraordinary vistas one can still discover just over the next rise.
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Texas is like no other state, and this book proves it. As a child of the Llano Estacado, whose family drove through the Caprock to go just about anywhere else in the state, I've long been fascinated with the mysteries all the mesas, gullies, red dirt and mesquite brush held. I've taken animal traces in the "wilds" of the state (in my own mind at least), and hiked around Palo Duro Canyon. But mostly I've driven past it and dreamed of what it held. I also haven't spent much time in the Big Bend, so I was really looking forward to reading this book about the author's experiences in that part of Texas. Yonderings does not disappoint.
English begins with a few memories of growing up in the area and soaking up his grandparent's wisdom, particularly that of his grandmother. For the first expedition he describes, he gives a somewhat "easy" family camping trip. The next trip is a much more harrowing experience, which one might expect of a man back packing the area with one of his grown military sons and his friends. I'm glad he threw that one in early, as it was a sobering reminder of some of the punishing aspects of the Big Bend country. Then, as each chapter unfolds, the reader feels more and more connected with the area and all of its hidden treasures and threats, as well as with the author and his family and friends.
English is a good writer and doesn't waste a word, so I was pleasantly surprised at how fast his stories read. I also loved how he told of some of the history of the areas and explained about some of the Spanish names still used in the Bend/Texas. I highly recommend this book for anyone with an adventurous nature, and for those who just dream of learning more about this beautiful, wild, surprising State we live in.
Thank you, Mr. English, for a review copy of the book so that I could give an honest review of it.
An eighth-generation Texan, Ben H. English was raised mostly in the Lajitas-Terlingua area. An honors graduate of Angelo State University, he served in the United States Marine Corps for seven years, was a high school teacher, and retired after twenty-two years in the Texas Highway Patrol.
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Yonderings
By Ben English
December 5-December 14, 2017
(updated 12/2/17)
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12/7/17
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12/8/17
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12/10/17
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12/11/17
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12/14/17
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