Welcome to Inside the Cover.

I'm relatively certain most of you have read Louis L'Amour.

If not, I am guessin that you do recognize the name.

I occasionally find a L'Amour Western at my Little Free Public library, and after finding and reading Tucker, I decided it would be fun to devote a program to this prolific author and remarkable man.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

Louis L'Amour was born on March 22nd, 1908, in Jamestown, North Dakota.

He wrote historical fiction, science fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and short story collections, but he is most widely known for his Western novels, which he called ‘Frontier Stories.

At the time of his death on June 10th, 1988, almost all of his work, including 89 novels, was still in print.

During his early years, L'Amour engaged in a wide variety of jobs, including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, cattle skinner, and miner.

As a professional boxer, he won 51 of 55 fights.

In the early 1930s, He moved with his parents to Choctaw, Oklahoma, where he settled down to try to make something of himself as a writer.

During World War Two, L'Amour served in the U.S. Army as a lieutenant with the 362nd Quartermaster Truck Company.

After the war, he continue to write stories for magazines.

His first novel, publishe under his own name, was Westward the Tide, which was published in 1950.

Tucker was copyrighted in 1971.

It is a coming of age story about Edwin Shelvin Tucker.

The story begins when Tucker is 17 and his father has been killed and had his horse stolen, a horse with saddlebags carrying $20,000, all of the proceeds from the successful cattle drive of cattle belonging t the Tuckers and their neighbors.

The next 200 pages, covering several years, follow the youthful Tucker from Texas to Colorado to California to Arizona and back to Colorado as he seeks to rectify the evil deeds of others and return those hard earned funds to those who worked so hard for them.

Along the way, with the help of some good people he meets during his journey, Tucker becomes the man his father had always wanted him to be.

In this book, in addition to some beautiful prose, ‘ When I coul get outside to sit in the sun, I saw what a grand place they pick for that cabin.

It was on a small knoll down in the trees.

There was a corral with several horses and a long, slope covered with aspens.

The cabin stood in a grove of their slim, pale trunks, and I loved the whispering of their leaves.

There were squirrels around, and birds, and it was all mighty pleasant, just sitting in the sun and watching things.

The squirrels would pay me no mind, just chasing one another through the trees and along the ground.

‘ L'Amour also offers advice about living a successful lif in the Wild West, for example.

‘You aren't alone.

A lot of us didn't listen when we should have.

It takes time for a boy to appreciate his father.

There's something almighty real about a sheriff's posse, a loaded gun and a hangman's noose.

You'll find times when you have to fight.

The secret is never to hunt trouble.

I had ridden away from home a gangly know it all boy.

And now I was a man, or what passed for one.

But still I had no idea what I wanted to become or where I was going.

Over the years, I have found multiple L'Amour Westerns in my little free public library.

I have enjoyed them as I enjoyed Tucker.

While there are similarities an continuing themes in LAmours books, I have found them to be entertaining and well worth reading.

I am happy to recommend L'Amour and Tucker to you.

Good night and I look forward to our nex conversation here on PBS Kansas.

Until then, keep reading, and watching PBS Kansas.