At 79, Don Howard can still ride and rope with the best of them, It turns out when he puts pencil to paper, he is also pretty good at spinning a yarn.
In 2013, he released his first book, Under the Cow Patty, published by The Drumheller Mail. This detailed many stories about his family and growing up on the prairie north of Drumheller. He still had many more stories to tell, which have now been written and released under the title Wild Garlic and Donsense.
“Some of this one is about my wife Carmen, which I had to get the okay on that,” he chuckles. “It is just regular stuff. It is very similar to other people’s experience with ranch work, but not a lot of difference from what other people have experienced.”
In fact, that is part of the charm, is to tell stories that people can identify with.
“A lot of people, after they read Under the Cow Patty, said that we could relate to what you said and I guess that is what makes a book somewhat interesting,” he said.
He has enjoyed taking on writing.
“I read a couple of autobiographies and thought maybe I should write one, and that one, Under the Cow Patty, was more successful than I would have expected,” he said.
“You get a little bit of satisfaction from completing it but more of it comes when someone comes up and says, ‘I read your book and I really enjoyed it,’” he said.
His new book is more of a light read.
“This one is an easy read, it is a smaller book. I guess if I kept on I could have added a lot of stories this year, especially with some of my contacts with wild cows and bulls and stuff, but you can only get so much of that.”
The book also contains some original photography and drawings by family members as well as sketches taken from old calendars.
Howard is hosting a book signing for this new work Wild Garlic and Donsense on Friday, August 9 at The Drumheller Mail, starting at 10 a.m.
As to whether there is another book in him, “I think this is it, I won’t push my luc
