Six years ago, when I started writing, I had no intention of writing Westerns. That’s not to say I didn’t like Western books, movies, and television shows. After all, I grew up in the 1950s—the Golden Age of Westerns. As a kid, my friends and I played cowboys and Indians. Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, and The Cisco Kid rode across our television screen every Saturday. They say you should write about what you know. So my first book, “Da Nang Damned!” was loosely based on my experiences in Vietnam. After finishing the book, I started playing with a couple of ideas. From this, my character Chet Henderson evolved. Chet is an anachronism. An aging Texas Rangers caught between the old ways and the onslaught of changes coming to the West of the 1890s. As a former history teacher, I wanted to write historically accurate stories, at least as far as it fits into the storyline. I also wanted to create interesting and likable but flawed characters and insert them into this period. How would they cope with all the changes? What challenges would they face? Would they survive the changing West? Or would they blow away like a tumbleweed?Westerns are a uniquely American experience. Men and women were willing to risk everything for a chance at a better life. Compare to today’s complicated world, the Old West was a simpler time. There were things you were supposed to do and things you weren’t. Justices could be harsh and swift, life was hard, and needs were basic. The weak perished, and the strong survived. You weren’t a victim. You just played the hand you were dealt. Maybe in this interconnected, complex world of the twenty-first century, it’s a desire to have lived in a simpler time. Perhaps it’s because I live in an area that used to be called Rattlesnake Ridge, or maybe, as Toby Keith sings, “I should have been a cowboy.” Whatever the reason, I’m enjoying the ride and happy that so many people are saddling up and riding with me.