East Texans Love To Talk is a collection from over a lifetime of listening to his relatives, friends, and residents of East Texas. The stories are sometimes humorous, sometimes factual, and sometimes sentimental. Their value is that they reflect what native East Texans believe to be, or perhaps want to be, the truth about their heritage. In some instances, the tales are told to correct what the narrators believe to be the misleading or false information printed and taught about East Texas by politically correct historians. Some of the stories simply spring from Bonnet´s imagination, and are told to reflect something real about the East Texas and East Texans he has known.
The Millenium Primer for Elected Municipal Officials is the natural product of twenty years of public service and living and working in the political maelstrom called small town politics. Matthew Bonnet takes each of the normal operational divisions of the typical municipality and explores its deepest recesses. He searches for the humor and irony found in each area, but at the same time he exposes its weaknesses and strengths. Bonnet exaggerates and overstates, but he does not lie. As ridiculous as some of his examples and anecdotes may seem, they are true. Sad. But true. Many good men and women serve their communities as elected officials for several years without having a clue as to some of the things Bonnet exposes in this Primer. There are no sacred cows left standing when Bonnet leaves the room. Civil Service, City Attorneys, Fire Departments, State regulators and inspectors, Congressmen, and even the Great Generation, all fall prey to his pen. Those who know Bonnet understand that his sarcasm and honesty is tempered with love and respect for those with whom he has spent most of his life working. But that does not buy them a free pass from the scrutiny of the dreaded Primer.
"Hilarious guide to lone star lingo, from draw/te twang with innumerable regional turns of phrase. Issued by the fictional Texas twang preservation society."
Dirt Roads is a collection born of a combination of age, life changes, and living in the solitude and silence of the mountains and high desert. The latter encourages and enables listening, self-awareness, and critical thinking; allowing your mind to soar and search like the Eagle. The extreme conditions and endless vistas result in a cleansing of your mind of the petty and ridiculous matters that occupy so much of Americans time and thought.
The Muse Only Wakes After Midnight; A Collection of Stories Written While You Slept contains six short stories compiled over the last five years. They come at you from all directions, from the tale of a fleeing survivor of the World Trade Center attack to the life of a young man who left his home to accompany Jesus and his disciples during their trek into history in Jerusalem. In between, there is the story of a first car and another about a first job as a real cowboy in West Texas. There is one about the JFK assassination in Dallas and a humorous look at a young Connecticut scientist's experience living in an East Texas town. The title of the collection comes from the author's habit of retiring early, sleeping until the early morning hours and rising at one or two o'clock to write and complete research while others sleep. Most distractions are absent at that hour, particularly the telephone.
The Fishkill Mission was Tony Martin's first of his six books. It was written fifteen years before the World Trade Center destruction, about an attack on a small part of Texas by a four-man team of vengeful Cuban terrorists. They are in our country for less than three days, kill over 100,000 people, destroy the economic viability of a region of over 75,000 square miles for decades to come, terrorize an entire nation and completely alter and redirect the political and defense priorities and the financial expenditures of the entire government structure at all levels; and, we never knew who they were or why they attacked us. Tony Martin asked several of his friends, relatives, and even an author's agent, to review it for him in 1986, and to the person, they said it was simply too frightening and asked him not to publish it for fear of giving ideas to terrorists. He acquiesced to their pleas, and wrote and published five other books over the next fifteen years. He dug the book out in 2000 to update it to reflect the political realities of the 1990's such as the fall of the USSR and the Gulf War, but again, he did not publish it. Since writing the book, Martin has been responsible for public water supplies in two different communities totaling well over 100,000 people, and the book reflects his long-standing belief that our life support infrastructure system exposes us to small unit attacks by our enemies with the greatest ease, the greatest long-term impact and the least probability of discovery or apprehension. Martin actually carried out the attacks described in the book using sand-filled containers and a camera, to ensure that the timetables and undetected access were possible and realistic. Sadly, they were.
This book explores the answers to lifes many questions, such as the following: Who was Sam Hill? What is Adams off ox? What is the difference between a redneck and a good ole boy? It is a lead pipe since you will enjoy reading this book because it is what it is, a fair-to-middling, rule-of-thumb, bird-in-the-hand explanation of the questions that you have always wanted to ask but never got around to.
The heritage of East Texas partakes in the same degree of unexpected turns and hidden depths as its backroads and bayous. One line of inquiry meanders into another. Start out searching for La Salle's grave and end up chasing Spanish gold in Upshur County. From Sam Houston's Bible to the Longview nightclub that hosted both Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, one tale follows another and introduces a cast of characters that includes Candace and Peter Ellis Bean, Old Rip, Jack Lummus and Vernon Wayne Howell. Part the Pine Curtain with Tex Midkiff for a history as heated as the La Grange Chicken Ranch's parlor and irresistible as a batch of Golden sweet potatoes.
The East Texas Connection By: Ronald Armstrong The East Texas Connection is about many of the people and friends that make up Ronald Armstrong’s everyday life. The antics and situations that they and he are flung into are sometimes of their own accord and sometimes by accident. There's nothing better than true stories except true stories from Texas and outlaw antics. The outlaw antics range from motorcycles to the Piney woods to the body shop. There are hundreds of thousands of people just like Armstrong and his Brothers and Sisters in this book who can relate to these stories and might even have better ones than he tells. What makes this book unique is that Armstrong is willing to allow everyone a peek inside his world which has a vast range of interests from his Motorcycle Club, his Bigfoot sightings, hunting mishaps, encounters with the LAW, workplace chaos, Jesus and a .45, black powder explosions, haint's and so many varieties of stories that it's like a buffet of entertainment. Armstrong hopes that everyone who reads his book laughs and that the stories help readers disconnect from the everyday struggles and stresses of life.
If you are easily frightened, stay away from Tangle Tree, where diabolical entities watch for opportunities to persecute the living. Even today, Tangle Tree Valley is cursed by the legend of a deadly confrontation in 1192 between a powerful Shawnee sorceress and a ruthless tribal leader. The disturbing presence of five oak trees stand in memorial of his murders and her revenge. Likewise, Tangle Tree Manor is believed to be haunted by the ghosts of the Crayton family, who built the mansion after fleeing the potato famine of Scotland in the 1850s. The family was tormented with suspicion, tragedy, and the constant fear of retribution for Richard Crayton's betrayal of vindictive conspirators. Being unaware of the danger, six people seeking psychiatric treatment, two psychiatrists, and Jesse Kingston, the property manager, commit to a six-week stay in the isolated mansion, despite its haunted reputation. Supernatural apparitions menace the occupants and secret agendas complicate the treatment process. Dangerous intruders, mysterious disappearances, and unexplainable events abound as relationships, both amiable and antagonistic, develop during their stay. The nine face physical and emotional challenges as they struggle to untangle the truth of their own tragedies and survive the curse of Tangle Tree Valley.
