New book highlights time on the trail and the extraordinary life of a Texas maverick
BY TERRY MATHEWS | News-Telegram Arts Editor
May 24, 2007 - If early sales are any indication of what’s to come, Annie Golightly can add best-selling author to her impressive list of accomplishments.
Dreams and a White Horse
Golightly’s book, “Dreams and a White Horse” has been selling like hotcakes, first at Quitman’s Spring Swing Festival, then at the Women’s Club of Keller and now at the Connections Bookstore in her hometown of Fort Worth.
“It’s been amazing,” Golightly said in an interview from her home in Richland Hills. “I’ve just been blown away. I guess a lot of people want to hear what this ole’ gray mare has to say.”
The book tells the story of Annie’s role in the 1995 Great American Cattle Drive.
“Thirty cowboys drove 270 longhorn cattle over 1,800 miles.” Golightly said. “We left Fort Worth in March and arrived in Wyoming in September. I was the only woman and at 64, I was certainly the oldest one on the trail.”
The cattle drive’s organizers originally asked Golightly to sing at rodeos along the route, but she had other plans. She wanted to make the ride as a drover (someone who moves cattle over long distances) and she wanted to write a book about the experience.
No one stands between Golightly and her dreams.
As a young girl growing up on a cotton farm just outside of Commerce in Hunt County, she dreamed about the great big world just waiting to be discovered.
“By the time I reached my teens, I knew what I wanted to be. I believe that I would make a great bum. … I wanted to ride around the country, down dirt roads, wandering, meeting people; maybe finding work in some little café in some little town, to buy food and horse feed. If I failed to get that job, I could build fences or drive a tractor, or fry cook in some Toddle House for awhile, then move on. I could sing for my supper, paint pictures of wild creatures and two-legged crazies, while being responsible for no one but myself and my horse; fishing in the rivers and sleeping on the earth under the stars. Well, that didn’t exactly work out. ...”
Although the main focus of “Dreams and a White Horse” is the cattle drive, Golightly injects the story of her life, so far, into the prose.
In true cowgirl spirit, Golightly, now 76, tells her story straight up, with no excuses. She married the wrong man when she was too young. After her first child was born and the relationship turned violent, she left. She married again and had another child. This husband was killed in a car wreck in Germany, just days before she and her two children were to join him on the Army base where he was stationed. She married again, had three children and a solid relationship until another fatal car wreck.
She was a widow. Again. Only this time, she had five children to raise. She went to work in a bar and eventually began to sing. She bought a supper club in Fort Worth and for the next 30 years, she wined and dined with some pretty heady company. She’s painted a portrait of Arnold Palmer and entertained Chuck Norris in her nightclub. She’s sung for four presidents and has performed with the likes of Rosemary Clooney and Tom T. Hall.
Golightly’s chronicle of the cattle drive is an amazing read, too. Who knew so much drama could happen when you try to move some cows from Texas to Wyoming? The people on the drive battled the elements and each other. They lived through some pretty bloody stampedes. They watched some of their horses die. They went hungry. They were cold and wet a good part of the time. And, there was the ever-present issue of money, or the lack thereof.
You can’t make up stories like these. They can only have happened to a woman like Annie Golightly who had the guts, drive and determination to make her mark in this world.
Don’t miss the chance to hear some great Texas history from a woman who lived it.
Golightly will be in town tonight to share her memories, tall tales and stories from the cattle drive at the Sulphur Springs Public Library, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free.
