The Best of Brush Country Bull (284 pages, Westbow Press, ISBN-13: 978-1-4497-3944-7, $19.99 paperback, $35.99 hardcover)), by Henry Byrn Briscoe, proves that witty observation is timeless.
A collection of nearly 100 “Brush County Bull” columns that Briscoe wrote for The Devine News (Devine, Texas) from 1977 through 1980, The Best of Brush Country Bull provides an intriguing look at life through the eyes of a Depression-bred South Texan, sportsman, veteran, pilot, historian, and patriot. Although Briscoe’s observations, reflections, and commentaries are more than thirty years old, it truly is uncanny how many of them read as if they were written three weeks ago instead of three decades ago.
In “Corncob Fights and Swimmin’ Holes,” for example, Briscoe discusses how children in the Depression era benefited from the lack of supervised youth activities. He writes, “there was no little league, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, eight grade football–no nothing. If’n ya wanted to be entertained when your were a kid, ya kinda entertained yourself.” He goes on to provide colorful examples of self-entertaining activities, and he poignantly stated that “by planning and supervising every conceivable activity, we in some way reduce our young people’s initiative and ingenuity.” His words are just as true today as they were in 1978.
Briscoe’s “Brush Country Bull” columns occasionally tackled political and social issues, and many of his topics are still relevant. In “Being Poor is a Relative Thing,” he discusses changing attitudes toward charity and government assistance programs. He believed that many government assistance programs “take away initiative, destroy incentive, and absolutely demolish self-esteem” and he suggests avoiding such programs at all costs. His opinions are presented thoughtfully, and they draw from his own experiences as a child. Again, although Briscoe wrote the column in the late 1970s, the topic is still discussed and debated in 2012.
Although Briscoe was a writer, farmer, and a United States Air Force pilot, he was an outdoorsman through and through. His columns covered an array of topics that appeal to any outdoorsman. From hunting and fishing to hog butchering and sausage making, Briscoe’s introspective, descriptive, and sometime humorous accounts of his outdoors-related activities provide hunters, fishermen, and farmers with ample campfire discussion topics.
The Best of Brush Country Bull is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.