Were Those Really the "Good Ole Days"?

About the Book

The contents cover a middle aged middle-aged with two young children that sold their home and risked all by heading west in search of a fortune gold during the California gold rush in1849. Of course, they experienced some of the expected dangers, but also quite a few that they were unprepared for. In the book, the reader will enjoy learning about surprises that would be normally thought of in association with such a tough, rugged trip of this nature. The high point is the ending, which should not be read first. Unlike some writings, this would ruin the whole story. My hope and desire is that you thoroughly enjoy reading the story and tell friends and neighbors about it, in order that they can not only enjoy it, but also glean some interesting facts about life in a wagon train, as well as some interesting historical information. Good reading!

About the Author

In my young days in school, reading was about my worst subject, especially if it had to do with anything about history. Being born in 1935, I vividly recall WWII and went with my father to see every war movie I could, but still read virtually no books on the subject except God is my Copilot, written by General Robert Lee Scott, Jr. It was a great production in my mind and the pilots “virtually came to life”, diving and swooping, with fire belching from the guns on each wing in their P-39 Flying Tiger Cobras. In order to confuse the Japanese, they repainted the nose cone on their plane every day and it did the job, in that the Japs, as we Americans wrongly called them, thought they had many more Flying Tigers than they really did…shrewd and effective, to say the least. They flew for General Claire Lee Chennault as a volunteer group As a child that age, as much as I enjoyed the war movies, the hand to hand combat scenes scared me badly, but the fighter dogfights were exciting and not so up close and personal. This excitement made me want to learn to fly some day and finally, at the age of 45, I could afford to begin lessons and own my own plane. A dream fulfilled. Fast forward to the past year. At 77, I began to be beware of the fact that my wife read every night while in bed, so I asked her if I could have a fictional book when she finished and I was astonished that I totally enjoyed it. I’ve read numerous other fiction and non-fiction books since that time and have enjoyed most of them. They give me a chance to analyze the author’s style and how he/she uses our language to put together “word pictures”. At some point, like some others in this world, I felt my God given, creative juices starting to flow and decided to write a fictional book about a subject (history) that I absolutely detested as a younger person. It is my hope that this creation will be one that will be difficult for you put down until it drops from your hand as you fall to sleep. Blessings, Don Strong