Frank Goodwyn

This book is a collection of short stories/essays about some of the various myths/stories told by cowboys and other workers at the King Ranch. It also contains a lot of interesting information about how the hands lived and worked, the living conditions on the ranch which is so huge that entire towns/villages were constructed around the ranch. The life there seems very much "company store" oriented, with housing, health care, free/inexpensive food, etc. being provided to the hands and their families. The men were cared for after they reached the age of retirement and life as described in this book was good.

This book was written in the 50's and so is quite dated in many ways. I doubt there are so many hands now 60 years later.

Additionally, most of the hands appeared to be Chicano or Mexican or whatever they were called in those days. I wonder how much discrimination there actually was; a lot, I imagine. Not mentioned here.

The folk tales of the hands are told in great detail and in many ways are the most interesting part of this book.

All in all, fairly interesting from a historical/sociological point of view. I would have liked more information about the powers-that-be and the King family in general, but this was apparently not within the scope of the writer.… (meer)