PECKERWOOD ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks to the following for their time, patience, and advice while I drove them crazy:

Deanne Lachner – the grammar diva who taught me to say “backward” instead of “backwards,” and a thousand other things that masked my ignorance. A whipped dog is the wiser dog.

L.A. Starks – author of 13 Days: The Pythagoras Conspiracy and forthcoming Strike Price, another mystery/thriller in the Lynn Dayton series of oily villains and the smart, strong woman who rescues our petroleum refineries and the people who run them. Thanks for the counsel and encouragement.

Harvey Stanbrough: Stonethread Publishing editor,  novelist,  poet, and retired Marine Master Sergeant. I swear, the man never sleeps.

Jesse Dean (J.D.) Thompson – friend for 40 years, investigator, firearms instructor, tactical instructor, sniper, and pistolero. The kind of partner every cop hopes for, and a master of keeping his mouth shut when things didn’t go as well as we expected.

A thousand thanks to the Dallas Pentad writers: Art Bauer (Richard Holcroft), Janet Carter, Helen Holmes, and Carol McCoy for keeping my story-telling battery charged.

And unending gratitude to my family, friends, and brothers and sisters in law enforcement for cheering me on when I must’ve seemed as dizzy as a stomped piss ant.

Very special thanks to the wonderful people of Rusk County, Texas, and especially the New London community, who suffered an unimaginable catastrophe in 1937, and then rebuilt their lives and educational system while they bore the grief of the loss of hundreds of their children and friends. The New London Museum and Tea Room is located across the street from the site of the beautifully rebuilt school. The museum houses a vast amount of memorabilia and photographs of the explosion that Walter Cronkite reported to a shocked nation. It is truly worth the visit. Note: Let me emphasize that The Grave on Peckerwood Hill is a work of fiction. The purpose of my manipulation of historical facts concerning the New London event and other Texas catastrophes was only to create a past for certain fictional characters and add credibility to the plot, not generate whacky conspiracy theories. For an historically accurate and beautifully written account, I recommend Lori Olson’s book, New London School: In Memoriam, published by Eakin Press in Austin, Texas.


James Gary Vineyard