What HISTORY HAS TAUGHT ME

L. J. Martin is a novelist, nonfiction author, and member of the Society of Professional Journalists, Western Writers of America, Mystery Writers, and International Thriller Writers. He is the author of 55 Western, historical, mystery, and thriller novels from Bantam, Pinnacle, Avon, Gale, and Wolfpack Publishing, and 12 nonfiction works, including two cooking books and one on greenhouse gardening in Montana. Join him on his webpage LJMartin.com, and his wife at KatMartin.com. Both are active on Facebook and LinkedIn and other social media sites.

LARRY “L.J.” MARTIN, NOVELIST, AUTHOR, ENTREPRENEUR

I thankfully grew up in Bakersfield, in the center of the Oklahoma and Texas of California, Kern County. One hundred miles physically from L.A., but 1,500 miles culturally. It’s the home of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and of four of the country’s ten largest oil fields.

I was a latch key kid, raised by my mother from age seven, who worked hard and taught me I could do anything I set my mind to, even if I didn’t have a dime to start with.

A childhood hero was my brother Rex. Four-and-a-half years my senior, he got the highest grades ever achieved in Navy flight and ground school. He was Hot Gun, then the version of Top Gun. He flew a Crusader off the carrier, USS Ranger.