Confessions of a Horseshoer offers a close and personal look at the mind-set of a professional horseshoer (farrier) who also happens to be a college professor. The book, an ironic and playful view of the many unusual animals (and people) Ron Tatum has encountered over thirty-seven years, is nicely balanced between straightforward presentation, self-effacing humor, and lightly seasoned wisdom. It captures the day-to-day life of a somewhat cantankerous old guy, who has attitude and strong opinions. Throughout the book, Tatum ponders the causes that led him into the apparently opposing worlds of horseshoeing, with its mud, pain, and danger, and the bookish life of a college professor. He tells the reader that it is his hope that writing the book will help him understand this apparent paradox between the physical and the mental. Tatum provides a detailed description of the horseshoeing process, its history, and why horses need shoes in the first place. The reader will learn about the dangers of shoeing horses in “Injuries I Have Known,” in which Tatum describes one particular self-inflicted injury that he claims no other horseshoer has ever, or will ever, experience. “Eight Week Syndrome” demonstrates the close, often therapeutic, relationship between the horseshoer …

In early February of 1968, at the beginning of the Tet Offensive, Private First Class Gregory V. Short arrived in Vietnam as an eighteen-year-old U.S. Marine. Amid all of the confusion and destruction, he began his tour of duty as an 81mm mortarman with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, which was stationed at Con Thien near the DMZ. While living in horrendous conditions reminiscent of the trenches in World War I, his unit was cut off and constantly being bombarded by the North Vietnamese heavy artillery, rockets, and mortars. Soon thereafter Short left his mortar crew and became an 81mm’s Forward Observer for Hotel Company. Working with the U.S. Army’s 1st Air Cavalry Division and other units, he helped relieve the siege at Khe Sanh by reopening Route 9. Short participated in several different operations close to the Laotian border, where contact with the enemy was often heavy and always chaotic. On May 19, Ho Chi Minh’s birthday, the NVA attempted to overrun the combat base in the early morning hours. Tragically, during a two-month period, one of the companies (Foxtrot Company) within his battalion would sustain more than 70 percent casualties. By September Short was transferred to the …

A guest band concert perfomed at the UNT College of Music Winspear Hall.

Interview with Charles Weldon Burgoon, life-time Denton resident and owner of Weldon's Saddle Shop. The interview includes Burgoon's experiences as a child in Denton, his genealogy, and Denton city and country history. Burgoon gives details about area rodeos, schooling in Denton, his summer job mowing lawns, experience with country living, and other various jobs including leather-working and tooling. He talks about the lack of shotgun shells and metal bathtubs during the Second World War, the courtship and marriage of his wife, the Cowboy Turtle Association, selling hand-made goods at rodeos, the Dallas Sportatorium, and professional wrestling. The interview also includes the opening of Burgoon's saddle shop and western store, Harpool's Farm Store, changes in his saddle shop, and the involvement of his daughter in the saddle shop. Burgoon talks about his son's college years and move to California, rental properties and the effect of the recession, and his thoughts on work ethic. It includes an appendix with photographs, a list detailing the images, and an article on The North Texas State Fair and Rodeo.