Kickstarter Campaign

Happy nearly new year!

My kickstarter campaign has launched today, December 31st!
Help me fund the book!

I am excited to announce that the book is written and ready for final editing. Once funded, the book will be professionally edited, designed, typeset, and published in hard cover.

As many of you know, I have been writing a book about the life of Damon “Chub “Anderson and his involvement in the 1970 murder of prominent Oklahoma rancher E.C. Mullendore III. The book has been written with the benefit of exclusive interviews I held with Chub during the final years of his life. From those interviews I learned the full story of the life of this Oklahoma outlaw. More than that, Anderson gave me a definitive first-hand account of the murder.

The title of the book is:

footprints in the dew

Footprints in the Dew: Damon “Chub” Anderson and the Unsolved Mullendore Murder

This will be a book worth reading!
I can use your help to make it a reality.

First, help spread the word about this project. Share it with your family, friends, colleagues, and anyone else who may be interested. Go to my Facebook page and like it, as I will post regular updates there, which you can easily share with family and friends. In addition there are prominent links on the homepage of my website.

Then go to Kickstarter.com and make a contribution to help fund the project. You can contribute at any level, from $5 to $500 — or more. Each $25 contributor will receive an electronic PDF version of the book. Contributions of $50 or more will include a hard-bound special first edition of the book.

Thank you for your interest and support.

Have a Happy New Year.

See you down the road,
Dale Lewis

Gary Busey in Bartlesville

Get ready for the launch of the Kickstarter Campaign on December 31st- Visit kickstarter.com or follow the link from this site!

                                                         Down The Road with the Original Buffalo Dale

 Welcome back. This week once again I’m bringing you a story in which fact and fiction are hard to separate.

Word of yet one more famous celebrity roaming our local streets has just reached my ears so I’ll start with this week’s local scoop. A 1962 graduate of Nathan Hale High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, this man went on to play football at Pittsburg State University on a full scholarship and that’s where the acting bug first bit him. When he moved back to Tulsa, his entry into show business was as a drummer in the “Rubber band” band. After joining Leon Russell in the recording studio, he became known as “Teddy Jack Eddy” when friend and fellow Tulsan Gailard Sartain who was also known as “Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi” suggested that one name wasn’t enough and three would suit him better. Yes, the star of the Buddy Holly Story, Lethal Weapon and dozens of other movies and TV shows, Gary Busey was in town shooting a short film for the Delaware Tribe which he is also a member of. Busey was also at the Buffalo Run Casino watching boxing when heavyweight World Champion Tommy Morrison’s sons were fighting. The story here is that Morrison and Busey were good friends and Busey has been following the boys’ boxing careers.

Moving forward, whenever I am traveling I make a point of reading the local newspapers like my hero Will Rogers who famously said “All I know is what I read in the papers.” Many weeks that is true for me as well and I frequently pass along the entertaining tid-bits I find. Here is one of them.

The human strain of this disease is called “Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease” or vCJD and my friends it is fatal. Although it is different, vCJD is often referred to as “Mad Cow Disease” and you can get it by eating the nerve tissue of cows such as brain and spinal cord pieces. According to WebMD, the illness is typically dormant for at least three months after infection and fortunately infected people can not pass it to others through casual contact.

No one is sure what causes either vCJD or Mad Cow Disease. I’m sure your next questions will be how common are these killers and how are they diagnosed and treated? The first recognized case of cVJD was diagnosed in 1996 and since then most of the cases have occurred in the United Kingdom including England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The symptoms are sketchy and can encompass dementia, psychotic behavior and loss of muscle control, followed by coma. There is no single test which can be used to diagnose cVJD and usually it can only be confirmed by a brain biopsy. cVJD is not found in the muscle tissue of cows or in milk and luckily we in the United States see very few cases of this horrible disease.

I’ll end this week by suggesting you take a walk through downtown Bartlesville as you never know just who you might run into. Till next time I’ll see ya down the road.

 

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The Night Before Christmas…..

We are now officially counting down to the launch of our www.kickstarter.com campaign on December 31st! and now for a little Christmas story…

 

Down The Road with the Original Buffalo Dale

 

Welcome back. This week for your pleasure I’m bringing you a little fiction, or is it? The night was partly cloudy with a whiff of snow in the air. It was cold and after doing some surveillance on a project for the past three nights I was starting to get used to the routine. I was wearing layers of dark clothes to keep warm as well as a good stocking cap and gloves. The gloves were the fingerless kind that let me use my binoculars, and hopefully my camera. At 63, this wasn’t the kind of job I would normally take on. In my younger years, at 6’2” and in pretty good shape yes, but now with the real possibility of confronting a man known to be at least as big as myself if not bigger I was starting to wonder if this was such a good idea.

This night might be one to remember. Laying quietly in the shadows of a large tree for hours, I tried to stay focused for a mind will often drift to other things in these circumstances. Family matters of course, cars and trucks and vacations, dreaming of warm sand on a beautiful beach and listening to the waves hit the shore. The sound of a broken twig to my right brought me back to reality. Was this the man I was looking for or just a deer walking through the woods? Another noise in the treetops behind me, then what sounded like a falling limb kept me on my toes for the next several hours. The file on the man stated that he worked strictly at night and he was known as an aerial artist because of his ability to get into people’s houses through the smallest opening. The man was also known to have accomplices so I had to stay alert and stop focusing on the many trivial things that were flooding my mind.

He was married and lived in a remote spot but no one who had attempted to see him there had ever returned. As a matter of fact although he’s often impersonated there’s no proof that anyone’s ever seen the real culprit. Always dressed in a heavy suit with a full beard and wearing thick glasses, the usual description of the guy was always the same. He had been doing this late night work one day a year for decades and always covered a lot of territory.

UFO or some kind of alien being? I didn’t think so. I’ve investigated the mutilated cows in New Mexico and this was something entirely different. The Mafia? Absolutely no way! After my research into Whitey Bulger and organized crime I knew this wasn’t their style either.

From all reports this guy is always happy. He doesn’t ransack anyone’s house or steal anything although he has been known to have a sweet tooth. His mode of transportation is also in question. As a member of the Bartlesville Chamber of Commerce for close to twenty years, I’m listed as a scout, tracker, translator and interpreter and finding people, places and things is my gift. If I could just get a picture of him it would make me a bundle and it would also clear up a lot of myths. It was getting close to midnight now and I was letting my thoughts wander again instead of laying still and listening.

With the snow falling heavily, my spot under the tree was the only bare spot around. I’ve got seven more nights and if I’m good, I’ll see him!

I took a break from my surveillance on Saturday night to witness something special when the sons of the late World Heavy Weight champion Tommy Morrison, Trey Lippe Morrison and Kenzie Witt destroyed their opponents in technical knockouts.

Mark my words, these two young men are definitely moving up the ladder in the professional boxing world. Kenzie trains here in Bartlesville and his success puts our city in the limelight once again.

Now back to my stakeout.

Till next week I’ll see ya down the road……

 

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Ansel Adams and boxer Tommy Morrison

 For those of you who have been waiting to read Footprints in the Dew, my Kickstarter campaign should begin right after New Year’s- stay tuned for an official notification as soon as it begins and I hope you will all help me make this project a reality.                                                              

Down The Road with the Original Buffalo Dale

 Welcome back. History has always been one of my biggest interests with biographies running a close second. When I recently heard that the Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City will be opening a new exhibit of Ansell Adams’ “Masterworks” it definitely caught my attention. I found out that the exhibit contains what are known as the “museum set” of photographs. These are images that Adams himself considered to be his best works. According to the museum, there are going to be forty-seven photographs on loan from Turtle Bay Exploration Park in Redding, California. The exhibit opens on February 28, 2015 and will be on view through May 10, 2015. This looks like a great show of one of our best known and best loved artists. Don’t forget that if you are a member of Woolaorc, you get in for free and a membership would make a great Christmas gift for anyone on your list, young or old.  I’ll have more about this show after it opens, along with an interview with the new museum director Dr. Stephen Kamp.

Moving forward, this Saturday night will be the third professional fight for my new friend boxer Kenzie Witt who trains here in Bartlesville. You long time readers may remember that I knew Kenzie’s dad, heavyweight world champ and movie star Tommie Morrison. Working in Tulsa for restaurateur Charlie Mitchell during the late eighties and early nineties, I often ran into Morrison who was then at the height of his career and kept a place in Tulsa. I always enjoyed talking with him as he was about as down home as it gets. I find his son to be the same way. Kenzie is hoping to follow in his dad’s footsteps and become a champion. Saturday night will be his toughest challenge yet when he faces Jason Lovett.

The fight will be held in the event center at the Buffalo Run Casino in Miami, Oklahoma and will be taped by ESPN which is doing a special feature on Morrison that will air on 30/30. This will be my first visit to Buffalo Run and after a little research I learned that the casino is owned by the Peoria tribe of Indians. Apparently the Peoria tribe was created in 1854 when several different bands of Indians joined together. It sounds like an interesting story and I plan to learn more while I’m in Miami on Saturday as this is also their tribal headquarters.

In the meantime I’ll close this segment with a little more information about the life of Tommy Morrison in case you are not familiar with him. Tommy David Morrison was born in Gravette, AR on January 2, 1969 and was raised in Delaware County, Oklahoma, spending most of his youth in Jay. Nicknamed “The Duke” because of a well written about family tie to John Wayne (aka Marion Morrison), Tommy Morrison won his first Golden Gloves belt in 1988 and become Heavyweight Champion of the World Boxing Organization in 1993. Morrison’s career record was 52 fights and only three losses. He also appeared in Rocky V with Sylvester Stallone. Due to health issues he retired in 1996 and sadly died on September 1, 2013 at the age of 44. There is definitely a film to be made here and I’ll bet someone is already working on it.

I want to wrap up this week with a thank you to all of you readers for supporting my weekly column. I am looking forward to bringing you another year of interesting stories from my travels and from the history of our area.

Till next time I’ll see ya down the road……

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Home Sick

As some of you may realize I have been working on my website, gearing up for the Kickstarter campaign for Footprints in the Dew. I apologize for being offline and for any inconvenience. Glad to be back and hope you enjoy this post!

Welcome back. Almost recovered from what I was sure was Ebola, black leg, malaria, dengue fever or some other fatal disease, this week after several doctors’ visits under my belt along with a half dozen trips to the pharmacist I thought a medical story might be appropriate.

Did you know that according to the FDA its takes approximately two weeks after a flu shot for your body to mount an immune response? What that means around this part of the country is if you haven’t had a shot by now, don’t hesitate any longer. It’s not too late to be vaccinated.

Getting that flu shot is the first step in protecting yourself against illness. Step two is to always wash your hands properly and that means twenty seconds of lathering with soap, then air drying if possible. Step three, and this is where many of us go wrong and let the virus or infection go too far, is to capture the germs. The pros at fighting the flu, like Elizabeth Pantley who has written a bestselling book on the subject, recommend using a tissue to catch your cough or sneeze when it first appears. Then throw the tissue away immediately, don’t reuse it. That’s important, then wash your hands.  As for me I wish I could tell you that while on safari in deepest Africa with Tom Selleck I was bitten by a deadly flying spider but as it turned out acute bronchitis had attacked my body.

Acute bronchitis can be serious if left untreated. It can be either viral or bacterial in origin and with proper care most people, and that included me, can recover in about three weeks. Chronic bronchitis is much more serious and can require repeated medical treatments. It can be a problem for a couple of years as well.

The symptoms of bronchitis are a hacking cough and lots of phlegm (snot) that can lead to an upper respiratory infection. As the irritated lung membranes swell and grow thicker, they narrow and shut off the airways to the lungs. This condition causes the coughing and phlegm and breathlessness follows. If left untreated permanent lung damage can result so if you get the symptoms don’t wait!

Moving forward, what disease killed Dizzy Gillespie, Patrick Swayze and Apple computer founder Steve Jobs? That would be pancreatic cancer, a frequently asymptomatic cancer that is very difficult to detect. November was the official Pancreatic Cancer awareness month but I’m pretty sure that every month is awareness month to your family doctor. Do not ignore even small, seemingly minor symptoms.

Now a quick report from the ski area that is closest to northeast Oklahoma, Angel Fire. Lots of snow! The lifts could be opening early and with deep discounts on lodging up until Christmas the obvious question is why not?

On another note from the area, in a move to keep the Rotan, New Mexico airport from closing, Oklahoma businessman Bob Funk has purchased it. The airport is a vital link to the four state region and rumors that it might close had caused concern for people who travel there regularly. I’ll bring you more about the airport after my next visit.

I’ll close with my scoop of the week: one of my favorite places, the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, New Mexico is offering half price rooms through the winter. With the slopes just a scenic thirty minute drive away you can’t beat it. A historic setting with great food and comfortable beds, you need to give it a try even if you don’t ski.

Till next time I’ll see ya down the road…..

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