Sage observations

Joe's gifts that keep giving



 

 

When the creek bank is washed yellow with a flood of black-eyed Susans, when a grandchild catches a goggle-eyed perch or big mouth bass and then returns it to the water, when the always curious and confrontive geese come honking profanities at us for invading their domain, I think of Joe.

They called him Hosstail – a good name for the editor-publisher of magazines about the real west. Joe Small’s dream was publishing magazines. While attending the University of Texas, he published a fishing magazine. He was a bartering Donald Trump: an ad in exchange for a barrel of nails, or a saddle, or “tell me what you’ve got.”

After graduation, he hit upon the idea that made him rich in so many ways. Stories from relatives, friends and sometimes even the real McCoy of the real characters of the wild, Wild West, told in the language of those who were there. And best of all, with photos of the characters involved, often seen dangling from the hanging tree or propped up in their coffins for all

to see. Joe’s True West and Frontier Times magazines published in Austin became internationally popular.

With his profits, Joe bought land. Land with lakes and creeks and views and wildlife. And then he shared it – with family and friends. For fishing and cookouts and campfires and song singing and story-telling and laughter with the likes of J. Frank Dobie, Fred Gipson, Joe Frantz and John Henry Faulk, and always the kids.

Joe is in the big corral in the sky now, but he’s still sharing his gifts of outdoors with family and friends. And when the fields are blue and red and yellow and green and the creeks flow clear and fast, all we beneficiaries think of Joe.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.