"The Shadow Riders" (1982)

My best friend and I like to say that Cowboys Make Everything Better, and that sure has been true of The Shadow Riders (1982) for me.  I first watched it on my own last fall while laid up with an upper respiratory infection when we got home from my dad's funeral, and it was just the right kind of hope-filled western to boost my spirits.  I watched it again this summer with my husband after a crushingly stressful week, and it once again both soothed me and perked me up.  It has such a flavor of insistent optimism.  None of the main characters ever frets that they won't succeed at what they need to do, so the viewer never does either.  And that is so much what I need, sometimes.  Determined and confident cowboys.  Such good medicine.

I had watched The Sacketts (1979) not long before seeing this the first time, and I was absolutely tickled to see Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott, and Jeff Osterage playing brothers in a Louis L'Amour adaptation again.  Although I mightily enjoyed The Sacketts, most of my enjoyment there was due to having read all the Sackett books by L'Amour and liking how the characters were brought to life onscreen.  I haven't read the book The Shadow Riders yet, but man, do I like the movie!  (I'm not entirely clear which came first, actually -- the book or the movie?  I read somewhere that L'Amour wrote this story for Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott to star in, so did he write the book first, or just the storyline?  I haven't really dug around enough to find out.  If you know, please tell me!)  In some ways, I think this is a stronger movie than The Sacketts -- particularly in its ability to be enjoyed by people who don't know the storyline ahead of time.  I had to explain some backstory stuff and other things to my husband while watching The Sacketts because he got a bit confused by some of it, but such was never the case for The Shadow Riders.

Anyway, the story follows three brothers: Mac (Tom Selleck), Dal (Sam Elliott), and Jesse (Jeff Osterhage) Traven.  (Why does Jesse get a full name, but Mac and Dal only get what feel like half names?  Inquiring minds want to know.)  The film opens during the very end of the Civil War, with Confederate soldier Dal and Union soldier Dal just trying to get home to their Texas ranch again.  

I have to pause here and mention that my husband is a big fan of Sam Elliott.  And there's a moment when Mac and Dal first arrive home and are greeted by their father (Harry Carey, Jr.), but their mother (Jane Greer) isn't sure for a minute if Dal is who they say he is because a) he was reported dead during the war, and b) he's covered basically his whole face up with a bushy beard.  But when Dal says, "How're you doing, Mama?" she knows it's him because, as she says, "There's only one man in the world with that voice."  At that point, my husband completely busted up and was alternately laughing and crowing, "She's got that right!"  And he really loves to quote that moment now.

Anyway, as soon as they get home, they have to leave right away again because their two sisters and their brother Jesse have been kidnapped by white slavers, along with the woman Dal loves silently and deeply, Kate (Katharine Ross).  Off Mac and Dal go, determined to do whatever it takes to rescue their siblings and Dal's One True Love and whoever else might need rescuing.

Meanwhile, Kate is bound and determined to escape their captors and take all the rest of the kidnappees with her before they can be sold in Mexico.  And Kate is the sort of woman who doesn't get defeated easily.  I want to be friends with her.

Jesse gets free with Kate's help and joins back up with his brothers to plot how to rescue their sisters and Kate, and free the other captives -- the bad guys took a bunch of men like Jesse too to sell as slaves to Mexican silver mines.  (They're equal opportunity kidnappers, you see.)

The brothers enlist the help of their rascally Uncle "Black Jack" Traven (Ben Johnson), who steals every scene he's in.  I've been a Ben Johnson fan since I was 11 or 12, ever since I first saw Chisum (1970) -- I am always happy to see his name on the cast list for a movie, because I know I'll smile while watching it.  Even when he plays an antagonist, I still just want to hug him.

Of course there are lots of exciting altercations and narrow escapes and plot twists and such, including a sequence involving a micro-trope I love exceedingly much: people walking around on top of a moving train.  Even the first time I watched this, I was in no doubt of the outcome, though.  And that doesn't make this movie boring, it makes it comfortable and relaxing and downright fun.  For me, anyway!  It feels like a throwback to the westerns of the 1950s where everything is guaranteed to turn out all right in the end.  And I love that.

Maybe that old-fashioned vibe is partly due to The Shadow Riders being directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, who directed quite a few of my favorite old western movies, like The Rare Breed (1965) and Chisum (1970), plus episodes of so many great old TV westerns.  (He also directed The Blue and the Gray (1982), which I love very dearly, but that's not a western.  I still had to mention it, though.)

Is this movie family friendly?  Mostly.  Obviously, there's the whole human-trafficking plotline, but it's handled in a matter-of-fact way, shown to be a wrong thing that Must Be Stopped.  There's some mild cussing, consistent with a 1980s made-for-TV movie.  The violence is non-gory.  There's a bit of dialog innuendo about the fate the female kidnappees are headed for, and also a scene when we're introduced to Selleck's character where he's lying in bed kissing a woman and they get interrupted, but everyone is fully clothed and it is minimally suggestive.  I'd say it's fine for older kids and teens.

You can stream The Shadow Riders on Amazon, Tubi, and the Roku Channel, and also buy it on DVD and Blu-Ray.

This review is a contribution to this year's Legends of Western Cinema Week, which I'm co-hosting this week.

Where in the West? A Party Game

Western films sometimes take place in an amorphous "Old West" setting without naming a specific state or territory as their location.  Others take place over a wide swath of land, moving from one locality to another.  But sometimes, a western takes place in one particular state.  Today, I have rounded up fifteen westerns that do take place in one US state, and your job is to figure out which state goes with each of them!

To make it a little easier, here are the states that get used:

Arizona

California

Colorado

Montana

New Mexico

Texas

Wyoming

And here are the films:

1. The Mark of Zorro (1940) 

2. My Darling Clementine (1946)

3. Shane (1953) 

4. High Noon (1955) 

5. The Searchers (1956) 

6. Giant (1956)

7. 3:10 to Yuma (1957 and 2007) 

8. The Alamo (1960)

9. The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) 

10. Chisum (1970)

11. Pale Rider (1985) 

12. Young Guns (1988) 

13. Dances with Wolves (1990)

14. Open Range (2003)

15. The Lone Ranger (2013)

Important Note:  We are talking about the states where the films take place here, NOT where they were filmed.  Some were filmed at least partly on location, and some weren't, but for the purpose of this game, we are talking about where the story happens.

Put your guesses in a comment!  I'll reveal the answers at the end of the week, along with everyone's scores.  I'll put comments on full moderation today so that your answers will be kept secret while the game lasts.

(Yes, technically a couple of those take place in Territories instead of States, but we're just saying states for the sake of simplicity.)

2025 Legends of Western Cinema Kick-off + Tag

Welcome once again to Legends of Western Cinema Week!  I'm so glad you decided to join Heidi (of Along the Brandywine) and Olivia (of Meanwhile, in Rivendell...) and I as we celebrate the Wild West on screens big and small!

Whenever you post a contribution to this year's festivities, be sure to add your post's link to this widget, on any of the three hosting blogs.  Links shared this way will show up on all three blogs, making it easy for everyone to see what new things people have shared and to read their posts!

Please share posts with your tag answers there, as well as anything else you post for this event.  And remember, all your contributions for this party should be:

• about westerns, 
• appreciative and not derogatory, and 
• new posts (no fair just linking to old ones)

Speaking of the tag, here it is!  Share one or more movies or shows for each prompt:

Cliff -- a tense cliffhanger 

Gulch -- a cool ambush scene 

Canyon -- a big gunfight 

Mountains -- high stakes 

Valley -- a beautiful romance 

Desert -- a suspenseful plot 

Forest -- themes about renewal 

River -- traveling to a new home 

Plains -- characters who are farmers 

Mesa -- an animal central to the story

All you have to do is copy the prompts, paste them into a post for your own site, answer them, and be sure to add one of this year's buttons (find them all here) and as many photos as you want to illustrate your points. Then come back here and add the link for your post to that list widget above!

Giveaway for the 2025 Legends of Western Cinema Week

Here are this year's prizes!

You may notice a bit of a theme for the three movies I chose to give away :-D  All three DVDs are used.  They play okay in my DVD player, but YMMV.

Prize 1:  The Man from Snowy River (1982) on DVD (rated PG)

Prize 2:  Australia (2008) on DVD (rated PG-13)

Prize 3:  Quigley Down Under (1990) on DVD (rated PG-13)

Prize 4: a pair of wooden cactus earrings on nickel-free earing wires

Prize 5: a set of "3D" cowboy stickers

Prize 6:  a fridge magnet with a photo of John Wayne and the famous quotation "Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway."

Please comment on THIS post and tell me what your top 2 picks for a prize would be! I can't guarantee that winners will get one of their top choices, but I do try to match winners and prizes. If you already own one of the movies and don't want a second copy, please comment with that info too. 

 Enter the giveaway via this widget:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway is open WORLDWIDE. Void where prohibited. Winner must be 18 years of age or older, or have parent/guardian permission to share their mailing address. Not affiliated with Blogger, Google, the USPS, Hollywood, or the John Wayne estate.  I purchased all prizes myself for the purpose of this giveaway.

This giveaway ends at 11:59pm on Friday, August 29. I will have the widget choose five winners on Saturday, August 30, and share those winners here as well as email the winners to alert them. PLEASE use an email address you REGULARLY check to enter this giveaway! If you don't respond to my email about your prize by Saturday, September 6, you will be disqualified and I will choose a different winner for it. You've been warned.

You probably noticed that one of the ways to enter the giveaway is to participate in this week's party!  Check out my kickoff post for info on how to do that.

New Book Release Coming August 31!

Friends, I'm so sorry I haven't talked much about this until now.  My year has been extra-busy, and sharing things about my writing and books has gotten shoved to a back burner all too often.  But I'm grabbing some time to share this now!

On August 31, a brand-new anthology of short western stories is getting released!  Edited by Allison Tebo, it includes short stories by her, Hannah Kaye, A. Hartley, Emily Hayse, Elisabeth Grace Foley... and me!

My short story is called "Safekeeping," and it's not a fairy tale retelling :-o  Try not to faint.  It's about a fur trapper who inherits a poke of gold dust, but the gold was left in the keeping of a greedy bartender with no intention of handing it over.  

If you would like to join the launch team for Follow the Lonesome Trail, please fill out this form.

You can pre-order the e-book here on Amazon already!  And you can mark it as want-to-read on Goodreads right here.  We've even got some advance reviews on Goodreads already, such as this:

I'm really excited to be appearing in a collection along with these other talented writers!

Nonsensical Geometry: The Two Love Triangles of "Jane Eyre"

The central romance in Jane Eyre resolves happily. (Do I need to mark that as a spoiler? Surely not! Surely, if you haven’t read Charlotte Bronte’s triumph of a novel by this time, you’ve at least watched a movie version?) Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre overcome every obstacle, including those within themselves, to meet as equals at last in the eyes of all, marry, produce offspring, and live happily ever after. Good for them. 

Good for them, but bad for two other characters within the novel. Because Jane Eyre contains not one but two love triangles. And the trouble with love triangles is that, inevitably, someone will lose. Someone will have their heart broken. Unless it becomes a weird love quadrangle where the thrown-off would-be lovers end up together, which I suppose could end happily for all involved… but that’s not what happens in Jane Eyre. 

Two women lay claim to Edward Fairfax Rochester. One, as we all know, is Jane herself. Young, poor, fiercely intelligent, insistently independent, and resolutely conscientious Jane. She’s my favorite fictional heroine, and I haven’t adjectives and adverbs enough to describe how wonderful she is. Mr. Rochester agrees with me. He wants absolutely nothing more than to grapple Jane to himself with hoops of steel so they can never be parted. 

But someone stands between them. Someone with an earlier claim to his name, his person, his love. Bertha Mason Rochester, his wife. Though she’s now joked about as the madwoman in the attic in our insensitive postmodern world, Bertha bears the sad honor of being the losing side of the love triangle. Edward Rochester may have loved her once, or been willing to love her. But her family’s deceit and her own behavior drove such tender feelings far from him. He spent his adult life searching for someone to replace the mad wife he hid in Thornfield’s upper floors. Bertha had no such options—no one to replace the husband who shunned her. And when she learns, somehow, that Edward means to marry another, Bertha fights for her marriage the only way she can. She attempts to destroy her husband. But she destroys only herself, freeing Edward at last to marry the woman he now loves. 

As for Jane Eyre, two men also lay claim to her. Edward Rochester nearly wins her, only to lose her when the truth about his past destroys the future happiness he’d almost secured. Jane flees, eventually finding refuge with a trio of siblings who nurse her back to health and help heal her wounded spirit. 

One of these siblings, St. John Rivers, also desires Jane Eyre. Though he does not express a bodily, sensual desire for her, he wishes to marry her. St. John is preparing to embark on a missionary journey. In the time when this book takes place, missionaries did not expect to return home. Ever. Many of them packed their luggage in a coffin so that, when they inevitably died in their mission field, they would have everything they needed for their burial. That being the case, St. John knows he will probably never find another Englishwoman so suited to being his helper. Jane is intelligent, pious, quick to learn languages, and has a steady personality. If he could but convince her to devote herself to being his helpmeet, he could face any heathen horde with equanimity. 

St. John Rivers would probably grow pale and stern if told he’s made himself one point of a love triangle by demanding Jane Eyre marry him. He would insist he harbored no romantic feelings for Jane, and thus could not be part of any such nonsensical geometry. But it’s true, nonetheless. Like Bertha Mason, however, he must exit the story disappointed. Jane rejects his proposal with absolute finality, dashing this second love triangle to pieces. 

We sometimes groan about how often love triangles pop up in modern fiction. Maybe if modern writers could handle them as deftly and unprosaically as Charlotte Bronte, we wouldn’t be so tired of them.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on January 12, 2019.)

"Back to the Titanic" (2020)

I have been fascinated by the wreck of the RMS Titanic since I was a girl, probably in single digits.  My parents had subscribed to National Geographic for a while in the 1980s, and they had a stack of the magazines on a shelf in our upstairs hallway.  I used to pull them out and look through the photos when I was too young to read the articles properly.  And they had the December 1985 issue with a long article by Dr. Robert Ballard, the man who found the wreck of the Titanic.  It had amazing photos.  It was my favorite of all the issues on the stack, and I used to pore over it pretty often.

Because I couldn't really read the article, I didn't know the tragic story of the ship's sinking until I was older.  I only knew there was a huge ship under the ocean that had been there so long, fish lived on it.  Ever since, I've had a desire to swim around a wrecked ship for myself.  (I also didn't understand that this ship lay more than 3 miles below the surface, where humans can't survive.)  I think my fascination with historic artifacts and archaeology probably stems from that magazine as well.

When I was in middle school, I had to write a research paper on a historic event.  I chose the sinking of RMS Titanic.  I read several books about it, including Walter Lord's A Night to Remember.  I'd seen The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) by then, and I remember getting the 1958 movie version of A Night to Remember and the 1953 movie Titanic from the library to watch while writing my paper -- not as research, but for general atmosphere.  (This was in the early 1990s, before the Kate Winslet movie was released.)  Even though I am fascinated by the true story, I've never particularly enjoyed movies about the tragedy.  I think I learned too much about the real horror to find entertainment in seeing it portrayed fictionally.  (I do like Molly Brown, but probably because there is only a smidgen about the Titanic portrayed).

Man, that was a fascinating paper to write.  I did tracings of diagrams of the ship, both before and after the wreck.  I was so incredibly proud of that paper.  My teacher (who was also my mom, since I was homeschooled) thought it was macabre, though.  (The next year, I wrote a research paper about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which had a happier ending.)  

Through all of that, and through the thirty years beyond, what has really captivated me the most, though, is the wreck itself.  All the history it contains.  The ways that the ocean has both preserved and begun to deteriorate it.  This fascination has extended to making me intrigued by basically all shipwrecks that have been found and explored, especially if the explorers brought things back from them.  One of the great delights of my tween life was visiting the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City with my family and grandparents.  The Arabia was a steamboat that sank in the Mississippi River in 1856 and was discovered in 1988, still filled with its original cargo preserved in mud.  I want to go back there one day, because I remember it as being mesmerizing.  I've also visited the Mariner's Museum in Newport News twice, where items recovered from the 1862 wreck of the USS Monitor are kept and displayed and studied (and where they have a life vest from Titanic, too!)

ANYWAY.  I'm rambling, and I know it.  I've had a bad cold all weekend.  Sorry.  I will get back on track.

All of this is why I eagerly joined the Titanic in Pop Culture blogathon hosted by Taking Up Room this weekend.  And why I chose not to review a fictional movie about the ship, but the National Geographic Channel documentary Back to the Titanic (2020).  It's all about the wreck, not how it got wrecked.  It traces the events of the first manned expedition to the wreck in fifteen years, and how scientists are studying the way the wreck is slowly changing and deteriorating.

Aside from all the amazing videography of the wreck itself, which I was absolutely delighted by, the coolest thing about this documentary is that they had a descendant of Benjamin Guggenheim along!  Guggenheim was a fabulously wealthy American businessman who was aboard the Titanic.  He was very helpful in loading women and children into the lifeboats after the iceberg collision, then famously took off the life vest he was wearing over his formal evening wear, put a rose in his buttonhole, and declared he was prepared to die like a gentleman.  Which, by all accounts, he did.

Guggenheim had booked a stateroom along the starboard side of Titanic, in a section of the ship that broke off when the the ship sank.  That section was swept away from the rest of the wreck by strong ocean currents, and had not been found by previous expeditions.  One major aim of the 2020 expedition was to see if they could find the staterooms, with Guggenheim's descendant Sindbad Rumney-Guggenheim aboard to witness the finding.  And that was... really poignant. 

You can learn lots more about this documentary, including photos, right here.  And you can watch the whole thing on Disney+, which is how I saw it.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the Titanic in Pop Culture blogathon!

Gearing up for Legends of Western Cinema Week 2025!

Gather 'round, lads and lasses!  Gather 'round!

Heidi of Along the Brandywine and Olivia of Meanwhile, in Rivendell... and I are pleased to announce that our beloved Legends of Western Cinema Week blog extravaganza is returning this summer!

This year, we'll be celebrating August 25-29, and you are hereby invited to join the party!  As usual, we'll provide some of the fun, such as games, giveaways, and a blog tag to fill out, but the rest of the shindig depends on YOU!

We don't have a sign-up sheet of any kind, as we like to keep this event informal and easygoing.  But I encourage you to start thinking now about what you would like to contribute.  Posts of all kinds are welcome, whether they be movie reviews, games, lists of favorites, your own fan art, or something else entirely that you dream up.  

The only real rule is that posts should celebrate western movies and shows, not malign or denigrate them.  It's fine to mention flaws in a review, of course, but the point of this event is to have fun and share our love for westerns on film.

Please save any and all of these buttons for use on your blog!  Share them with a link back to one of our announcement posts so other people can find out about the event.  And sprinkle your own party posts with them as freely as you like.

I can't wait to see what everyone brings to the party this year!

A Summery Sunshine Blogger Award

Sally Silverscreen of 18 Cinema Lane has awarded me with a Sunshine Blogger Award :-D  Thank you, Sally!

The rules of this award are pretty simple:  answer the 11 questions asked by the person who nominated you, then nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 questions of your own.  Always good fun, because the questions can be new every time!

Here are Sally's questions for me:

1. Which actor or actress do you wish had starred in a historical fiction/historical period picture?  

Most of my favorite actors and actresses HAVE starred in period dramas.  But I do have a running list of actors I dearly wish would make a western.  And they are:

Chris Hemsworth

Luke Evans

David Boreanaz

Henry Cavill

Charlie Hunnam

Come on, guys, get yourselves some hats and horses and let's go!

(Not at all coincidentally, I have cast all of those guys in western books I've written).

2. What two shows would you pair for a crossover? 

I want a Perry Mason (1957-66) and Dragnet (1951-59) crossover!  I want Paul Drake (William Hopper) and Joe Friday (Jack Webb) working together to solve a crime involving someone Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) is defending.  Please, and thank you.

3. Which food-related movie promotion would you bring back? 

Back when Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) came out, they released a limited edition Snickers bar with coconut in it that I LOVED.  I wish they made those still.

4. You’ve been tasked with designing a popcorn bucket! What movie do you choose and what does its popcorn bucket look like? 

This year is the 70th anniversary of my favorite musical, Guys and Dolls (1955), and I would design a very cool bucket similar to this Dutch poster:

I want bright and cheery yellow streaks, little multi-colored stars, and the main characters in their vivid clothing all around the popcorn bucket.  

Actually, now I really want a coffee mug like that.  May have to go see if anyone has made one.

5. When was the last time you saw a made-for-TV movie? 

I watched The Shadow Riders (1982) with my husband a few weeks ago.  It's such a fun romp of a western -- I probably will review it for Legends of Western Cinema Week next month.  (Yes, that event is returning!  We will be announcing it pretty soon!)

6. What is your least favorite trend in movies? 

I am sick of the big Hollywood studios putting out movies that they think audiences should like instead of putting out movies audiences actually do like and want to watch.

7. Which movie would you like to see from a different character’s perspective? 

Hmm.  You know, I'd like to see what Dave (1993) would look like from the perspective of Ellen Mitchell (Sigourney Weaver).  

8. Is there a movie poster or trailer you wish you could fix? If so, which one? 

The trailers for The Lone Ranger (2013) made it look like it was going to be a straight-up western and failed to prepare people for its quirky, fantastical twists.  Likewise, The Man from UNCLE (2014) trailers were dark and serious and totally missed both the humor and the retro panache of the film.  As a result, both films failed to land their target audiences and kinda fizzled.  And that makes me very angry because I would happily be watching sequel after sequel for both of them.

9. What is your least favorite film from your favorite actor’s or actress’s filmography? 

My favorite actor is John Wayne.  I will probably never watch The Shootist (1976) again because it's too sad.  I also don't care much for Rio Lobo (1970) or Legend of the Lost (1957).

My favorite actress is Maureen O'Hara, and I honestly didn't care much for How Green was My Valley (1941).  I know it's widely admired, so I feel like I should give it another chance.  Maybe I will, some day.

10. What movie-related mystery would you like to see solved? 

Who killed the chauffeur in The Big Sleep (1946)?  Author Raymond Chandler, who wrote the original book, didn't know.  Nobody knows.  I suspect a couple different people, but it sure would be nice to know.

11. Is there a “lost” or “partially lost” film you wish was recovered? If so, which one?

Many!  We have lost so many of Rudolph Valentino's early films, and even some made after he became famous.  I dearly wish someone would find prints of A Sainted Devil (1924) and The Young Rajah (1922) squirreled away in someone's attic.  We did find Beyond the Rocks in 2003, after all!  Parts of The Young Rajah have been found, and a version has been cobbled together from that partial print plus publicity stills and what is know of the script, but still... the whole movie isn't with us anymore, and I'm bummed.

And now, it's my turn!

My Questions:

1. What classic movie have you seen most recently?

2. What modern movie have you seen most recently?

3. What's movie that was made in your birth year that you really enjoy?

4. What's a movie you wish you had seen much earlier than you did?

5. What movie are you hoping to watch soon?

6. What's a movie you have been wanting to see for years, but still haven't?

7. Have you ever watched the same movie more than once in the movie theater?

8. What movie needs a sequel but never got one?

9. How do you watch most movies?  (Streaming?  DVD?  Theater?  TV?)

10. Have you ever changed your mind and started liking an actor/actress you formerly disliked?

11. Have you ever visited a filming location?  (Share photos if you can!)

And I Tag:

Along the Brandywine

Any Merry Little Thought

The Flapper Dame

Holds Upon Happiness

I Am Charles Baker Harris (And I Can Read)

Maidens of Green Gables

Meanwhile, in Rivendell...

Musings of an Introvert

Sidewalk Crossings

Taking Up Room

VT Dorchester

Play if you want to!

Respect Me as a Human Being: Jackie Robinson

I spent a lot of years searching for my personal Civil Rights hero. History classes taught me the big names: Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, President John F. Kennedy. None of them connected with me. None had the mixture of goodness, integrity, and grit that makes someone my hero. 

And then, in my mid-twenties, I got Ken Burns’ documentary Baseball (1994) from the library. As I made my way through the series, I became fascinated by Jackie Robinson and how he used his athletic skills and personal courage to show the world that the color of a person’s skin had nothing to do with their worth and abilities. When I subsequently read Robinson’s autobiography, I Never Had it Made, I knew I’d found my Civil Rights hero at last. A kind, stubborn, dignified Christian, Robinson was everything I wanted in a hero. 

Born to Georgia sharecroppers, Jack Roosevelt Robinson grew up poor, but determined. His father left the family when Jack was still a baby, so his mother moved her five children all the way out to California, where she worked whatever jobs she could find and saved up enough money to buy a house in a nice neighborhood. They were the only non-white family on their street. 

Jack Robinson excelled at sports in high school and Pasadena Junior college, playing on various varsity teams. But he also gained a reputation for combativeness, standing up for other African-American students when he thought they were being unfairly treated due to their race. He nearly got suspended at least once over his resistance to inferior treatment. 

After junior college, Jack Robinson — nicknamed Jackie by newspaper reporters — went to UCLA, where he met his future wife, Rachel Isum. Although he did well athletically at UCLA, Robinson was restless. He quit school just a few months short of graduation. About that time, the US entered WWII, and Robinson applied for Officer Candidate School, graduating with a commission as a second lieutenant. He asked Rachel Isum to marry him, and they made plans for the future. 

But in the summer of 1944, Jack Robinson faced a court martial. The Army did not have segregated buses on the Texas base where he was stationed, but one day, a bus driver told Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson refused and got arrested. His court martial acquitted him, but he missed out on seeing combat duty because the rest of his unit shipped overseas while he was awaiting his trial. Later that year, the Army gave him an honorable discharge. 

In 1945, the Kansas City Monarchs signed Jackie Robinson to play baseball in the Negro League. Baseball was entirely segregated — Major League Baseball had been white-only since the 1880s, though there were no formal, legal rules prohibiting athletes of other races from playing. Rather, there was a “gentleman’s agreement” among the team owners and managers that prohibited hiring non-white players. In the mid-1940s, Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey set out to challenge that agreement. He scouted the Negro League for someone who not only played excellent baseball, but who could withstand the scrutiny and abuse that would crash down on the first black man to step onto major-league baseball diamonds. 

Robinson had a reputation for not only refusing to back down in the face of racial aggression, but asserting his equality. The incidents in the military and his school days pointed to his being someone who would not stand still and endure racial taunts, threats, and aggression. But Robinson promised not to fight back against whatever abuse came his way, and Rickey signed him to play with the Montreal Royals, the minor league team associated with the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

Jackie and Rachel Robinson got married at last. Robinson played in the minors until April 15, 1947, when he made his major league debut by taking the field with the rest of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was 28, old by baseball standards, but played so well he wound up being named Rookie of the Year. 

He endured the hatred of millions. Some of his own teammates didn’t want to play with him at first and threatened to sit out any game he played. People in the stands screamed racial slurs at him. One opposing player deliberately gashed Robinson’s leg with his spiked cleats. Others taunted him while on the field. Strangers sent death threats not just to Robinson, but to Rickey and others associated with the Dodgers. 

The American League also signed a black player, Larry Doby, just a few months after Robinson joined the National League. In 1948, both leagues accepted more black athletes, and the pressure on Robinson eased up somewhat. He played better than ever, and by 1949 he was voted Most Valuable Player in the league. A remarkable achievement, considering three years earlier, many in the league actively worked to keep Robinson and other black players out. 

Robinson retired from baseball in 1956, due to his age and ill health. He suffered from diabetes, and a life of constant athletic activity was catching up with him. After leaving baseball, he had a successful business and banking career. He was a devoted husband and father, and a regular churchgoer. And he was active in the emerging Civil Rights Movement, attending marches, giving speeches, and lending moral support to those engaged in sit-ins and freedom rides. He used his fame to gain attention for the movement and worked with leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and being active in the NAACP. 

Jack Robinson once said, “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me … all I ask is that you respect me as a human being.” I think that’s all any of us can ask from people around us — respect as a human being. Let my actions, my personality, or my words gain your like or dislike, but treat me with the respect you would give any other person because they are created in the image of God.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on February 15, 2018.)

The Back to 1985 Blogathon

If you feel a little tingly while reading this post and the ones it links to, I'm told that's a common side effect of time travel.

Welcome to the Back to 1985 Blogathon, hosted by myself and The Midnight Drive-in!  Check back throughout the weekend as more and more posts get added to the fun.

Participants, please drop a link to your entry in the comments on this post, or in the comments on Quiggy's post.  

Here we go!

Weird Science/Real Genius/My Science Project triple feature

at The Midnight Drive-In

The Bride

at 18 Cinema Lane

Private Resort

Angelman's Place

Clue

Hamlette's Soliloquy

Back to the Future

Any Merry Little Thought

Letter to Brezhnev

RealWeegieMidget Reviews

The Jewel of the Nile

Taking Up Room

White Nights

Sidewalk Crossings

The Breakfast Club

Movies Meet Their Match

Brewster's Millions

Dubsism

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

18 Cinema Lane