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Journalist and TV personality Bill O’Reilly has plans for a companion book to his “docu-style” series, Legends & Lies: Into The West. Henry Holt, an imprint at Macmillan, Inc., will publish it on April 7th.

Author David Fisher has signed on to write the book. O’Reilly himself (pictured, via) will pen an introduction. It will contain illustrations and profiles on notable figures from the Wild West including Jesse James, Davy Crockett, and the real Lone Ranger.

Here’s more from the press release: “Generations of Americans have grown up on TV shows, movies and books about these legends. But what really happened in the Wild West? The Bill O’Reilly produced Fox series and the accompanying book will uncover the truth, which is sometimes heroic, sometimes brutal and bloody, but always riveting.”

Yee-haa!!! I'm Carl, the greatest blogger that ever sat in front of a computer screen! I'm half-horse, half- alligator, with just a touch of snappin' turtle! I can ride a streak of lightning, outgrin a hailstorm, shoot a rifle ball through the moon, and whip my weight in wildcats!!!

Well, do you really think I can do all that? Maybe not, but there was one American who said he could--the great Davy Crockett! He was the one who said all that (except the blogging part!) and, tarnation, I believe he could have done it! I'm writing about Davy today because I did a Heroes program about this true-life hero last Tuesday. He told a lot of tall tales about himself, which made him famous, but his real life was as great an adventure as any of his stories. He was born in 1796 to a poor backwoods family, had only 100 days of formal education in his whole life, and failed at every business he ever attempted, including farming. Yet this poor backwoodsman was elected to Congress three times, became a national celebrity, had magazines named after him, plays written about him, and he finally died a hero's death at the Alamo. The library has several copies of a book, Davy Crockett: Defender of the Alamo by William Sanford and Carl R. Green, that you ought to check out. Good information about the man behind the legend--and he really did live a larger-than-life story.

Davy told some very funny stories, especially about those about his being able to grin animals out of trees. His grin was so big and bright that critters, like raccoons, would just fall down dead into his sack--or his pot. Here's a picture of me as Davy and some kids from the program doing our best Davy Crockett grins.

Here's something new--a video! Here's Fess Parker, who played Davy in the great old Disney series, singing the famous theme song. (whole generations grew up singing this):

Click here to see a very funny video of the Kentucky Headhunters singing the same song.

OK, my friend Alan Silberberg, the Pond Scum author, wrote me a couple of weeks ago and asked me (and Bill) to write 5 things about ourselves. Well, you've heard one today--I think Davy Crockett was one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.

Megiddo's Shadow by Arthur Slade, Wendy Lamb Books, 2006

Arthur Slade dedicates this novel to the memory of the five Slade men who served in World War I, his great grandfather, grandfather and great uncles. The dates of the youngest one jump out at the reader, "Private Percy James Slade, 1897-1918 (KIA.)

If my memory serves, I do not think there is a village or town in France and England that does not have a memorial to the fallen of The Great War. World War I does not loom as large in the memory of Americans. In Megiddo's Shadow, Slade takes the reader to a lesser known front of that war, to Palestine in the Middle East.

Sixteen-year-old Edward Bathe leaves his farm in Saskatchewan, Canada and joins the army after receiving the news that his beloved older brother Hector has been killed in France. All he wants to do is get to the front and kill the Hun who took his brother's life but upon arrival in England he is transfered to the Fifth Imperial Remount unit to break horses. He chafes at the assignment but does meet a horse who will be part of his future when he is reassigned to the Lincolnshire Yeomanry. Slade describes the role of these units on his website :

Yeomanry were different than cavalry--they were trained to be foot soldiers and mounted soldiers. The idea was that they could ride quickly to their destination and dismount and fight. Or they could charge. They were even taught to get their horses to lay down, so they could use them as cover. The regiment was also trained to use the sword or lance in a charge.

A month later, in July, I was sent to hell...

...We fed and watered our horses, working through the night because the day would be too hot for us to lift a finger. As the sun rose, it revealed a desolation only the Devil could've dreamed up: a low, flat valley of white marl and salt, spotted with swamp, stony plain, patches of dense scrub, and a thin layer of dry grass. The land had never know rain. Lumps of dried flesh--dead camels--lay here and there as though dropped from the sky, a sky that had never seen a cloud. A hot breath of wind drove the salty dust into my eyes. Occasionally, a thirteen-pounder gun would roar just to let the Turks know that His Majesty's troops were still here.