As a long-time Deputy Sheriff in Marin County, Weldon lived through some very interesting times relevant to law enforcement, participating in fighting the most vicious crimes emananting from the hottest issues of the day. His many memorable experiences, in and out of uniform, were always in the interests of keeping the peace.The book's subtitle, ". . . in Wild and Wooly West Marin; a collection of vivid vignettes," says a lot about its contents. The author's tales brim with a variety of countercultural events, and the many ways that humans succumb to evil and occasionally rise in redemption. Many revelations are devilishly humorous but all reflect the image of a conscientious man who has, fortunately for Marin County and California society, invested the major part of his life in keeping the sane balance between extremes of behavior found in the Golden State.

of book for press release. This book is a continuum of an earlier work by the author. It offers the reader a similar but even more widely ranging collection of vignettes, all related to "keeping the peace" in very turbulent times and situations, spanning more than five decades.

The Texas Sheriff takes a fresh, colorful, and insightful look at Texas law enforcement during the decades before 1960. In the first half of the twentieth century, rural Texas was a strange, often violent, and complicated place. Nineteenth-century lifestyles persisted, blood relationships made a difference, and racial apartheid was still rigidly enforced. Citizens expected their county sheriff to uphold local customs as well as state laws. He had to help constituents with their personal problems, which often had little or nothing to do with law enforcement. The rural sheriff served as his county’s “Mr. Fixit,” its resident “good old boy,” and the lord of an intricate rural society. Basing his interpretations on primary sources and extensive interviews, Thad Sitton explores the dual nature of Texas sheriffs, demonstrating their far-reaching power both to do good and to abuse the law.

The largest county in the continental United States has seen its share of colorful pursuits of suspects and fugitives, including the search for the last Native American in the United States to be tracked to his tragic end by a lawman's posse: "Willie Boy" at Ruby Mountain. San Bernardino County also was the setting for the shoot-outs at Baldy Mesa and Lytle Creek. Yet gunplay lore is only one aspect of the epic of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. Today the department deploys nearly 5,000 salaried and volunteer employees to protect and serve its 20,186 square miles of deserts, mountains, forests, and increasingly urban areas. This original cow-county sheriff's office went through many developments that are detailed in these vintage photographs-sheriffs' administrations, equipment, investigations, and other exploits-all culled from the department's archives, private collections, the California Room of the San Bernardino Public Library, and the San Bernardino Pioneer Historical Society.