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2??8Book Reviews359 no endnotes or bibliography). Salinas was a member of die earliest rodeo cowboy associations (die Cowboys Turtie Association and die Rodeo Cowboys Association). At die height of the Great Depression, he embarked on a career as a professional calfroper on die national rodeo circuit. Salinas's considerable skills (not to mention diose ofhis famous equestrian partners La India and Honey Boy) earned him a place at die Championship Rodeo at Madison Square Garden for ten consecutive years (1936-1946). Exempted from service in World War II because he was a stock raiser, Salinas remained on the rodeo circuit, taking a train to New York City to compete against die best cowboys die nation had to offer. After a successful ten-year career on die circuit (where he earned an average ofabout$30,000 ayear), he quitperforming as a professional but remained active on the local rodeo scene in South Texas. Palacios's primary objective in writing die book is to shine a light on the largerthan -life personality and career ofhis TíoJuan. Broader social issues, consequendy, are broached only in passing. Salinas attributed a good part of his national prominence to his Hispanic heritage, as people from across the country came to witness a Mexican rodeo cowboy competing for top honors. Although he was die subject ofoccasional ridicule by racially insensitive fans, Salinas never experienced racism from his fellow rodeo cowboys. WhileJuan Salinas's rodeo adventures provide die book's primary focus, Palacios also examines the labor-intensive life ofreal South Texas cowboys. Readers unfamiliar widi the workings ofa catde ranch are in for a real eye-opener when diey peruse some ofdie latter chapters on Texas catde ranching at mid-century. A person had to be incredibly tough and resilient to eke out a living mending fences, locating strays, doctoring sick animals, and moving catde from one place to anodier. Nor were all cowboys the romantic and honorable heroes that one is accustomed to seeing in movies and on television. Some ofTíoJuan's own cowpokes were constant headaches who tested his patience and, at times, drifted on the wrong side of die law. As times passed andJuan Salinas'sfame and celebritystatuswaned, Palacios became convinced diathisunclewas deservingofrecognition as die firstMexicanAmerican rodeo champion.Through hardworkanddiligence, he succeeded in November 1991 in having his ninety-year-old uncle inducted into die National Cowboy Hall ofFame. Three years later, LULACnamedhim to dieirLatinAmerican InternationalSports Hall ofFame.While the old cowboy was characteristically modest about such recognition, they were fitting tributes, Palacios argues, "to the greatest Mexican cowboy who ever lived" (p. 1 85). University ofTexas at BrownsvilleThomas A. Britten River Walk: TL· Epic Story ofSan Antonio's River. By Lewis F. Fisher. (San Antonio: Maverick Publishing Company, 2006. Pp. 1 84. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 1893271401. $36.95, cloth.) If careful readers can disagree on a book's topic, diat often signals a botched communicationjob. Not here. Lewis Fisher, longtime chronicler of San Antonio's natural and cultural heritage, offers such a wonderfully comprehensive report on the river that it almost becomes an encyclopedia in narrative form. The way Goodman's 360Southwestern Historical QuarterlyJanuary Stories of Scottsboro (Vintage Books, 1995) and Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (Knopf, 1930) change perspective from chapter to chapter, River Walk changes from page to page, as Fisher brings to focus his principal stories of die natural, the political, and the technologicaljust as diese elements blend and then bend the course ofthe river's story. The organizational plan matches the topic perfecdy because, as Fisher makes clear, the river has beguiled and killed, yielded and frustrated, flooded and withered, benefited and annoyed according to no neat calendar or schedule. Fisher recounts die river's natural historywidi descriptions ofthe EdwardsAquifer , the springs, the river's course, and fatal floods, and shows that die fundamental feature of die River Walk and the town beside it is, after all, a gift ofnature ruled by inconsistent and unpredictable forces. The city's need for water, love for the river, and necessity to control river levels lead to the social history ofpolitical batdes that have raged over private investment and public works. Fisher's keen eye for...

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