One Ranger: A Memoir (Bridwell Texas History Series)

[SHANEA]

http://bcblog.blogitnow.de/2006/10/26/one-ranger-a-memoir-bridwell-texas-history-series/

One Ranger: A Memoir (Bridwell Texas History Series)
October 26th, 2006
One Ranger: A Memoir (Bridwell Texas History Series)




Book Description:
When his picture appeared on the cover of Texas Monthly, Joaquin Jackson became the icon of the modern Texas Rangers. Nick Nolte modeled his character in the movie Extreme Prejudice on him. Jackson even had a speaking part of his own in The Good Old Boys with Tommy Lee Jones. But the role that Jackson has always played the best is that of the man who wears the silver badge cut from a Mexican cinco peso coin—a working Texas Ranger. Legend says that one Ranger is all it takes to put down lawlessness and restore the peace—one riot, one Ranger. In this adventure-filled memoir, Joaquin Jackson recalls what it was like to be the Ranger who responded when riots threatened, violence erupted, and criminals needed to be brought to justice across a wide swath of the Texas-Mexico border from 1966 to 1993.

Jackson has dramatic stories to tell. Defying all stereotypes, he was the one Ranger who ensured a fair election—and an overwhelming win for La Raza Unida party candidates—in Zavala County in 1972. He followed legendary Ranger Captain Alfred Y. Allee Sr. into a shootout at the Carrizo Springs jail that ended a prison revolt—and left him with nightmares. He captured “The See More Kid,” an elusive horse thief and burglar who left clean dishes and swept floors in the houses he robbed. He investigated the 1988 shootings in Big Bend’s Colorado Canyon and tried to understand the motives of the Mexican teenagers who terrorized three river rafters and killed one. He even helped train Afghan mujahedin warriors to fight the Soviet Union.

Jackson’s tenure in the Texas Rangers began when older Rangers still believed that law need not get in the way of maintaining order, and concluded as younger Rangers were turning to computer technology to help solve crimes. Though he insists, “I am only one Ranger. There was only one story that belonged to me,” his story is part of the larger story of the Texas Rangers becoming a modern law enforcement agency that serves all the people of the state. It’s a story that’s as interesting as any of the legends. And yet, Jackson’s story confirms the legends, too. With just over a hundred Texas Rangers to cover a state with 267,399 square miles, any one may become the one Ranger who, like Joaquin Jackson in Zavala County in 1972, stops one riot.

[cjacob]

This is a great book.  Came with my last belt buckle I purchased.  It was the one that the Ranger had on for the photo.  VERY enjoyable.  I am currently reading Ed Vestivus sp?  Book and it also is very good.

[BigBendHiker]

I second the comment about it being a great book.  It is indeed great reading and very difficult book to put down.   You want to read it in one sitting.


BBH

[Roger, Roger]

3rd the opionins expressed above.  One Ranger is a very good book.  I met the man a couple of times when I was younger, and he's the kind of guy that just has an aura.  The closest comparison I can make is that of Clint's character/s in the Man With No Name trilogy.  

If there's one job that I wish I could have, even though I know that 90% of it would be hell, it would be that of a Texas Ranger West of the Pecos.

[SHANEA]

From the Marathon News Leader...

Jackson returns with new ‘Ranger’

ALPINE – Retired Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson will present his new book, “One Ranger Returns,” with a talk and autograph reception from 6 to 8 p.m. tomorrow, Feb. 22, at Front Street Books Reading Room at 201 E. Holland Ave here. The public is invited, and refreshments will be served.

Published this month by University of Texas Press, “One Ranger Returns” continues the saga of Jackson’s exploits chasing criminals and keeping the peace across a wide swath of west and south Texas from 1966 to 1993.

It also covers his career as a private investigator since that period.

The popular “One Ranger: A Memoir,” published in 2005 also by Jackson is the fastest-selling title in UT Press history.

Now in its seventh printing with 40,000-plus sales, “One Ranger” continues to be a bestseller in Texas bookstores and has reached a sizable national audience, UT Press marketing data state.

That book was co-authored by David Marion Wilkinson, who played a vital role in its success.

Accomplished novelist and historian James L. Haley worked with Jackson on the new book, “another successful collaboration that has produced a highly readable, absorbing narrative,” Front Street owner Jean Hardy said. “It seems Jackson had many more gripping tales to tell and a lot more to say about his family and his Ranger friends.”

Some of the stories Jackson recalls include his five-year pursuit of two of America’s most notorious serial killers, Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Toole.

He also describes the frustration of trying to solve a cold case from 1938 – the brutal murder of a mother and daughter in the lonely desert east of Van Horn.

Jackson describes the role of the Texas Rangers during the United Farm Workers strike in the lower Rio Grande Valley in 1966 and 1967.

“In all my years of . . . Ranger service, the incident that caused the most controversy and damaged the reputation of the Rangers more than any other, was la Huelga ‘the Strike,’ the United Farm Workers strike of 1966-1967,” he wrote. “Since I am the only Ranger involved in the affair who is still alive . . . I have some issues to take up with the way this episode has been related by historians.”

Jackson sets the record straight according to his own lights, finding a more complex truth than what he calls a “shrink-wrapped” version, a “passion play of social stereotypes, of potbellied, bullying Rangers swinging nightsticks and pistol-whipping hapless, terrified Hispanic farmworkers, who were only seeking to better their destitute and exploited lives,” Jackson writes. “As reinforced by many politically-correct writers, this view was quickly extended back into Ranger history.”

Elsewhere, he presents a rogue’s gallery of cattle rustlers, drug smugglers, and a tee-totaling bootlegger named Tom Bybee, a modest, likeable man who became an ax murderer.

And in a concluding chapter, Jackson pays tribute to the Rangers who have gone before him, as well as those who keep the peace today.

For more information, contact Front Street Books at 432/837-3360, or by e-mail at amazons@fsbooks.com

“One Ranger Returns” is also featured on the store’s website at www.fsbooks.com.

[SHANEA]

Returning Ranger Joaquin Jackson Follows New Book Release With Movie Deal