Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Close-ups and Six Rode Home


TV is magic.  Or at least it is to me.
 
While much of the TV shows broadcast today leave me cold I do love many of the old 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and (in part) 1980s TV programs--serious or funny.

Many TV shows of the past offered viewers a slice of American life, flights of fancy and fantasy and adventure and danger—safe on a couch or armchair.

I have my favorites as most people do but there are those programs and characters that strike a chord with all viewers of past TV series.

In Eddie Lucas’ Close-ups Conversations With Our TV Favorites, published by BearManor Media, readers join Mr. Lucas as he has some up-close and personal conversations with such TV stars Peter Brock from The Big Valley, Barbara Billingsley of Leave It To Beaver, Dwayne Hickman of Dobie Gillis fame and over a dozen other actors and actresses from long ago TV series.

What a delightful journey!  I really enjoyed traveling down TV Memory Lane with some of my favorite actors and actresses and reading their accounts of working on their respective series.

Candid, up-front and filled with surprises and little known tidbits, the book is a veritable treasure trove of memories from a bygone era.

The American Civil War nearly tore this country apart.  Neighbor fought against neighbor and brother against brother.  Entire families were devastated as the toll of the war left its ugly mark-especially in the Southern States.

In Michael Dante’s Six Rode Home, a half a dozen horse soldiers return home to the South.  

Downtrodden and disheartened that their side lost the soldiers are still excited to be going home.  What will they find?  Will their family’s still exist?  What cost has they and their loved ones paid?

Along the way they experience the entire gamut of emotions from joy to horror.  Like all wars The Civil War carried with it a heavy cost.  In Six Rode Home readers are invited to witness what war-weary and disillusioned Southern soldiers experienced on their journey home and their eventual arrival.

I encourage readers to take to heart the message and to never forget.  Only when we learn from history can we ever truly change.