Book Report! “Cheyenne Summer…”, by Terry Mort

I’ve been reading “Cheyenne Summer, The Battle of Beecher Island A History” (Pegasus $27.95 9781643137100) these past few weeks.  I almost put it down and returned it to the public library, but “pressed on”, in the lingo of those U.S. Army Calvary Generals Sheridan, Fetterman, Major Forsythe, Custer (yes that “Custer of “the last stand”) and Beecher who Terry  quotes often. The complete and teasing Introduction sets the table and is why I kept reading through the 270 enlightening hardcover pages!

Depending upon how you feel about the conquest or resettlement of native Americans (“Indians” when I was growing up), or as is fashionable to say nowadays, “indigenous peoples” (not bad, I kinda like it), this book is either historically neutral and exciting, uncomfortable, sad, disturbing or adventurous.

Civil War, U.S. post civil war Calvary buffs and early American expansionist railroad enthusiasts will love the accurate descriptions of weapons, injuries, attire and the politics of those days.  The read reminded me of, and brought to mind the many “Cowboy and Indian” movies I watched as a young man growing up in the 1960s through the 1980s, and in-particular, 1964’s “Cheyenne Autumn”, starring Richard Widmark, James Stewart, Sal Mineo Ricardo Montaban and Carroll Baker, which is why it caught my eye on the library’s “new” shelf; but I digress… This book is a precise read and even gives credit to the freed slave men or “Buffalo” soldiers (so named by the Indians because they wore coats made of Buffalo hide during the harsh plains winters). Mr. Mort spends most of the pages setting-up the events on the continental plains east of Missouri that lead to a questionably “decisive” battle between the Calvary “Scouts” and the Cheyenne Indian nation with other tribes supporting them.  The battle is rather anti-climatic, except for the demise of one of the apparently greatest and fearless Cheyenne warriors, Roman Nose, who Mort gives graphic descriptions of throughout the book!

You’ll be able to put together the various historical aspects of how our country applied “manifest destiny” – a term I’d not read since high school – to justifying the rapacious [one of several new words I learned from the book] advance from the east coast to the west, including frequent mentions of how the “gold rush” and those 49ers played a huge part in perpetuating it.   

I would have enjoyed more photos of the battle scene in the picture pages, but forgive on that due to available photography in the late 1800s.  With the recently apparent denial of true history by too many people, this is an even more necessarily compelling read and could even be a supporting class assignment on the high school or college level! I learned much by suffering through it.  Therefore, I scalp it with 4.5 tomahawks!!

Remember, history is our reflection and available so that succeeding generations do not repeat past mistakes!

**Pick Hit…”I love ‘Cheyenne Summer’ as a first and middle name for a girl!

Book Report: “A Boob’s Life – How America’s Obsession Shaped Me…And You” by Leslie Lehr

In a prior post, I promised to review at least one of the books on my summer 2021 bedside reading stack. There may be another one, but this tome clearly engaged more of my curiosity and summer reading time than the others. One of my favorite aisles at my local public library is the “New Best Sellers”.  So, when “A Boob’s Life – How America’s Obsession Shaped me…And You” (Pegasus $27.95 9781643136226) caught my eyes, I knew it was not another mid-summer night’s walking in my sleep dream, put on the brakes and stepped-back to examine it; soon adding it to my borrows that day.

Upon the early pages, I thought, “Geez, another angry b**** book,  I’m not gonna read much of this for long – take it back to the library…”  I never did so, even though she vituperates several natural and innocent bastions of male comeuppance, like Playboy magazine.  Moving through the chapters, it is so detailed, that she must have been constantly taking notes, or has an incredibly accurate memory of events!

Ms. Lehr writes from a – z about her family life; giving the reader a whole tour, from the time her Princeton grad father baptized her over a swimming pool diving board to be able to do “whatever [she] put her mind to”, to secret family photos , the infatuation with Marilyn Monroe and her dysfunctionally abusive, former U.S. Marine Corps first husband (no surprise there).  That she pulls back the curtain on the fallacies of major beauty pageants, the misogyny of a certain “President” who many recently suffered under and coins phresh phrases like “comparative empathy” and “breasts have the power to feed or kill us…” (Whoa!), kept me turning the pages. I could understand it when she wrote how, “Breast cancer ruined an entire color for me.”

Although I believe that she aimed this autoboobography primarily at the female feminist demographic, I, as a man, learned much about the female experience, including several new words and phrases for my vocabulary; the favorite of which is “de`colletage”! I also learned, “oeuvre”, “hand bra” and about “messy leaking”.  Wow.  I love any work that sends me to my huge, big dictionary!

Honestly, this read gave me a new respect level for women, who are truly a whole different species (as I’ve always maintained), with very special “plumbing” needs. I’ve adjusted, am “scared straight” and will revisit case-by-case, while remaining a suave bachelor “breast man” (lol) in those flirty situations “in the hunt”, for that extra special one, whose I can tenderly examine and care for:-j

In a personal ironic twist, a chapter in this book about boobs reminded me of when I sold Christmas cards door-to-door in my boyhood neighborhood for a microscope and other prizes!  OMG  It is during this point in the book where she sounds miffed, as we follow her booby journey from pre-puberty through a tragic adult happenstance.

“A Boob’s Life” is clever, amusing and modestly entertaining initially, uncomfortable for the medically squeamish (like me) in the middle – with a nice photo album section mid-stream – and inclusively optimistic by her last word – “life”.  No matter what shape your gender is in, I recommend it with five (5) out-of-a-possible-five lipsticks –

(I couldn’t locate any pix of ‘five boobs’ to use).