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Fourteen-year-old Josh and his friend Shan are facing hard times on their families' farms in Central Texas in 1934. It's the days of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, and rain is as scarce as money. With the long dry spell have come wild animals with flashing teeth and deadly rabies. Dust storms known as black blizzards are raging, threatening lives and destroying cropland.Will a rainmaker bring rain? Will their families lose their homes? Will Josh's and Shan's friendship survive?From rabid animal attacks to a deadly flood to a barreling freight train, Josh is in for an adventure he will never forget.

More than 250 on-site photographs illustrate this tour of homes of many of the Lone Star State's most powerful political leaders. From the Governor's Mansion in Austin to the Texas White House near Johnson City, from Sam Houston's "Wigwam" in Huntsville to the Eisenhower birthplace in Denison, almost a score of homes of Texas governors and presidents are open to the public. Two fine Victorian residences which once were governors' homes now are B&Bs, in Galveston and Weatherford. Another three dozen houses, while privately owned today, may be viewed when driving through hometowns from Lubbock to LaPorte, from Uvalde to Haskell. This travel book provides directions to these houses, as well as photos and stories of the men and women and their families who brought life to these plantation homes, log cabins, ranch houses, and mansions.

Many Christians live with doubts about certain traditional Christian beliefs, and their doubts often result in guilt. Others are led to reject the faith out of disagreement with beliefs that seem to be absurd and anti-intellectual. Despite the notoriety of the fundamentalist world-view, some stories need not to be taken as literal or historical; and learning to separate fact from symbol, metaphor, or myth may actually strengthen the Christian witness. Liberation from literalism open the possibilities for greater depth of meaning to be found in what have been traditional beliefs. Bishop J.A.T. Robinson put it this way; "It is the things one doesn't have to believe, and finds one doesn't have to believe, which are truly liberating as the thingds one does.""What You Don't Have to Believe to Be a Christian," is a helpful guide to discovering the non-essential in Christian beliefs.

Eleazar Louis Ripley Wheelock had fortunate beginnings as the grandson of the founder of Dartmouth College. But he would not take the easy route in life. His personal odyssey would lead him through poverty in pioneer Ohio, climactic battles in the War of 1812, law studies in Kentucky, peril on the Arkansas frontier, and finally, in 1824, an arduous journey to a new land that would define the man: Texas. There he became a settler with Robertson's Colony and subsequently led a life of adventure as a captain of the Texas Rangers, silver miner, founder of a fort and town, Indian agent, surveyor, rancher, land agent, lawyer, and political hopeful.Texian Odyssey is a valuable addition to the record of largely forgotten settlers who came to Texas by the thousands and created a great state out of nothing but courage and sweat.

The discovery of the Black Giant in 1930 was the largest oil strike in the U.S. at that time, and its gushers changed the face of the oil industry. Oilmen, promoters, oil patch workers, and the nation's unemployed streamed into the tiny hamlets of East Texas for their share, but they faced wars between "big oil" and independent oilmen, bootleg or "hot oil," martial law, and legalized price fixing. Yet the Black Giant turned out to be the salvation of the drought-stricken farmers, helped in the fight against Germany and Japan, and made lots of folks "Texas rich."In "The Black Giant," the characters, times and oil industry skullduggery are recalled and explained in dozens of sidebars full of humorous facts and trivia. The author, law professor at Washing College of Law, The American University, practiced oil and gas law for more than 35 years and focused on oil and gas matters during the Arab oil embargo for the U.S. Department of the Interior.