This follow-up to the surprise hit, Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover's Soul, brings to the page the adoration we have for our horses with inspiring, funny and tender stories.
When a high-profile basketball star is accused of rape, ex-lawyer and pro sports investigator DiMaggio is called into the case and must sift through a media circus of innuendo and lies in order to discern the truth.
Thirty-eight years in Muleshoe, Texas, has gifted me with a wealth of stories about the people, places, and history of our little town in the Blackwater Valley. But as time goes by, these priceless stories and town history are often lost forever as the people who know the details die and take their history to the grave with them. The Bright Lights of Muleshoe is a repository of West Texas lore set in a place with a name as unique as its people-Muleshoe. From a great newspaper sting to the travels of a fiberglass mule, this book tells the rich history of small-town life. But you don't have to be from Muleshoe to enjoy these stories because the common denominator in each and every one is the human experience. "Stories of intrigue and history define so many small towns in our Texas, and Muleshoe has a unique version of its own. From the life-size statue of "Ol' Pete," the memorial to a mule, to the many individuals who have claimed this town on the Llano Estacado their home, The Bright Lights of Muleshoe gives insight into this island upon an ocean of land." -WYMAN MEINZER, award-winning photographer "As its tongue-in-cheek title suggests, The Bright Lights of Muleshoe offers a refreshing take on small-town life in remote West Texas. The collection of entertaining, well-researched stories ranges from the origin of one of the state's oldest Mexican restaurants to the shock-and-awe experience of latter-day dust storms. Profiles of local personalities reveal an area where residents value hard work, honesty, and humor. An accomplished photographer, the author illustrates this delightful compilation with numerous color photographs." -NOLA MCKEY, former senior editor of Texas Highways and author of From Tea Cakes to Tamales: Third-Generation Texas Recipes "Meet the people and places of Muleshoe, Texas, through the eyes of Alice Liles. If you have never heard of Muleshoe you will want to visit the place with a most unusual name and see the National Mule Memorial, the Muleshoe Heritage Foundation, the Muleshoe Area Public Library, and the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, the first established in the state of Texas. If you are from Muleshoe, you'll love the stories about your hometown. The people of Muleshoe make a difference!" -MAGANN RENNELS, Owner of Gil Lamb Advertising/Channel 6, www.muleshoetv.com "Bravo to Alice Liles for capturing the broader texture of small-town America through the stories from her adopted home on the Texas High Plains. One has to chuckle at the thought of how poetic the name of the town would have been had the founders named it "Jennyslipper" instead of "Muleshoe." -GERALD E. MCLEOD, Author of Day Trips for the Austin Chronicle
Once upon a time, an Apache story tells us, the trickster called Coyote killed a bear so that he could make a suitable quiver for his magical arrows. “You shouldn’t have done that,” someone warned Coyote. “That skin will only bring you bad luck.” And so it has been for Coyote ever since, chased by bears and humans alike. In this charming collection of folktales from long ago, we read of the creation of the world, of the ways of animals, of the beguiling Coyote, of the world in which we live and other worlds that hide just beyond our sight. Drawn from the oral literatures of some twenty Southwestern American Indian peoples, these stories teach us about the constants of those dry places: about how the clouds form in the sky, how the heat rises from the ground, how the animals move about from one shady spot to another, and how the people once lived their lives. All these stories show us – as the great anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, observed – that folktales are not mere afterthoughts of literature, just pleasant stories to tell around the campfire, but rather valuable tools for reflection upon our own lives.