IT'S BETTER TO BE LUCKY THAN GOOD by Merle Aus

“It’s Better to Be Lucky than Good” by Merle Aus is a self-published book, possibly through Print on Demand (POD) technology. It was a family project and since Merle’s wife is an English teacher and his daughter is a CPA, it is so meticulously designed, edited and proofed that I saw no more than half-a-dozen misspellings or comma blunders in the entire book -- FAR less than in most “published” books these days. Illustrations are cherished family photos, carefully presented.

I bought this book directly from Merle because he will be on the Montana Festival of the Book panel about memoir, autobiography, biography and so on in Missoula on September 14 and 15. It’s a good book to review on Labor Day because Merle was an almost archetypal working man. There are also a lot of working horses in this book, always a good thing.

Merle is one of those tall, lean Norskies who loves women (but as sisters and friends -- he is absolutely faithful to his wife) as well as horses and is able to survive way out there on the North Dakota/Montana line by thinking things through, making lots of friends, standing by family, and seizing the moment. He met his wife while acting in a pageant depicting the life of Teddy Roosevelt in Medora, one of the most romantically named (for a woman, wife of the Marquis de Mores) and storied towns on the prairie. As soon as Merle laid eyes on Rose Marie, a fellow cast member, he caught fire with love and they were married 13 days later, which turned out to be their lucky number. They were an excellent match whose marriage just didn’t include the kind of strife that some fall into, so there was plenty of energy to build up ranches and to bring up their elegant daughter, Kristen, who rode at the age some people learn to walk.

Kristen married Bruce Bainbridge and both teach at Dawson for a formal occupation but they put a lot of energy into the family ranch, enough that by now the older generation doesn’t have to do any more than they want to. They still want to do it all, but age tells.

Merle wasn’t just a rancher. He tried a lot of schemes while Rose Marie went along teaching in Glendive, first in high school and then in Dawson Community College for her long successful career. Saddle making was one of his early skills and even now, entering his eighties, Merle is still making a few saddles for friends. Trucking was his game right after WWII when roads were nearly theoretical, tires and parts were scarce, and some loads spent their time kicking the slats out of the back of the truck. He regrets not having the concept of “horse-whispering” early in his life, but seems to have managed well with common sense and staying alert, though that sometimes meant learning the hard way.

One of his most heart-breaking stories is that of “Little Orphan Annie.” Annie’s mother died on the range and Merle found the foal stretched out alongside the body with her head on her mother’s belly. She was nearly dead of starvation, but much TLC and bottle feeding revived her. She just never grew very big. Her luck ran out when she was showing major promise as a roping horse -- a cougar got her. Merle tells the tale in a regretful but stoic voice, but I’m willing to bet there were some quiet tears involved. And he's not a fan of cougars.

Merle’s heart and back wore out on him before his arms did and he still itches to do the hard, physical labor his body was meant to do, whether it was carpentry or rodeo roping or organizing trail rides and cattle drives.

This is the sort of book I always watch for and buy if I can, because this kind of person is a natural teacher and I pick up a lot of tips about how to manage tricky stuff. There aren’t any stories about getting drunk, but a lot of improvisations and escapes from tight squeaks. Other favorites on my shelves that are in this genre are “Rancho Gumbo” by Abner M. Wagner, which is about a Blackfeet Reservation ranch; “Piece of Cake, Scotty, Piece of Cake” and “Been Any Bigger I’d Have Said so!” both by the irrepressible Scotty Zion who did a lot of impossible house moving, including an entire grain elevator; and “Ranch Under the Rimrock” by Dorothy Lawson McCall who raised one of Oregon’s best governors on a ranch. The women’s equivalent are often about school teachers like “Women Teachers on the Frontier” by Polly Weltz Kaufman. Many times these have letters or journals in them. Once in a while, like “Little House on the Prairie” by Laura Ingalls Wilder, they become popular across the country. "Land of the Burnt Thigh" by Edith Eudora Kohl is about homesteading in South Dakota, near where my grandparents proved up.

These books, a mix of self-publishing and academic publishing, are the utter opposite of one of the major staples of Montana writing: the Easterner who comes to where it’s “so beautiful” and tells in poetic literary tropes about “how my life was changed,” with some Buddhist quotes thrown in and maybe some assurances that they met “real Indians.” Books like Aus' are about good Christian folks, though given the roads and the weather they might not make it to church every Sunday. Usually they are the children of immigrants. Usually their books don’t ever get reviewed in the New York Times Book Review or sometimes even in the state’s daily papers, though the truly local weeklies are likely to praise them as accomplishments of friends.

The obsessions of Manhattan, the literary theories of Johns Hopkins, mean nothing to these people writing the good news of how they survived in a very tough place. Even the Marquis de Mores, you know, finally couldn’t make his empire work and Medora herself sadly returned to France leaving her ranch Chateau behind with all its linen and china, all the little watercolor sketches she painted on the veranda. But what a time it was!

“It’s Better to Be Lucky than Good: An Autobiography of a Real Cowboy” by Merle Aus. ISBN 0-615-13097.6 ausbooks@midrivers.com