One Eye Closed, the Other Red: The California Bootlegging Years [Hardcover]

Clifford James Walker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 12, 1999

For 22 years Walker has been interviewing bootleggers, rumrunners and smugglers, as well as constables and border patrolmen. He has buried himself in national and local archives, read court cases and newspaper accounts of that fabulous Roaring 20s in California. He allows these people to tell their own stories in 624 pages of a beautilully bound book, with a glossary, six appendixes, endnotes, index and huge bibliography. The book benefitted from several local authors and historians who have added their specialities.

Some features in the 30 chapters are moonshiners' recipes, drunk animals, robbin' hoods who stole from the alcohol rich to sell to the alcohol poor, prostitutes who enhanced their income by bootlegging, dry (prohibition) humor, rum war at sea--a war the Coast Guard lost, a border war, and airplane use for smuggling.

Although the author tried to cover the whole state--an impossible job--the following counties have many stories: Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Marin, Solano, Sacramento, San Joaquin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Monterey, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Imperial, Kern, Inyo, San Bernardino, Plumas and Riverside. Over 2,000 names, many with addresses, make this a must for looking up California ancestors. Here are their stories, stories filled with humor, pathos, exaggeration and above all: human.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...it is fascinating and I must have it in my collection. Thank you for all the work you did in researching for it." -- --Mildred Pickersgill, Friends of Lake County Museum

"Impressive! You provide a comprehensive picture of bootlegging from the mountains to the desert to the shores of the West.I enjoyed it." -- Alan Balboni, Nevada Historian

"With this book a window flies open in America's most hilarious--and tragic--scene." -- Peter Wild

About the Author

Clifford James Walker is a California historian specializing in Mojave Desert area and prohibitiion era. He thinks history should not just be about wars, kings and presidents, but about common folk, his uncle, grandfather and even his mother and thousands of little guys who reacted to prohibition laws by buying, selling, making, enforcing, or looking the other way.

Walker and his wife Barbara helped start the Mojave River Valley Museum in Barstow, which has grown to 430 family members (about 1300 people). The Conferance of California Historical Societies honored him in 1995 with the Individual Award of Merit. His book "Back Door to California: The Story of the Mojave River Trail" sold 3,300 copies and will be reprinted in 2000. He has given talks all over Southern California, and in Nevada and Utah.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 624 pages
• Publisher: Back Door Publishing (November 12, 1999)
• ISBN-10: 0967314100
• ISBN-13: 978-0967314105
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,395,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be.... Where the wild ones were!, August 18, 2000

By 

Douglas Hayes "D-Man" (Kuwait) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Eye Closed, the Other Red: The California Bootlegging Years (Hardcover)

Got this book as a gift from mom and dad. Walker was a teacher of mine in High School and college. Started reading it just in kind of a way to say thanks for all he taught and found the old professor instructing me yet again. Cliff Walker has a way of making you interested in whatever he's interested in and getting you revved up to go off in your own direction and provide light on a new subject. Since getting it I havn't been able to put it down. The people who are such a part of our history cease to be mythic gods and have put real faces and life into it. Understand this! It is not so much a history book as it great tales about a past we knew was there but scarcely considered. Walker has made the past come alive in a way that few history books ever have...

Thanks again Cliff.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book, November 21, 1999

By 

Emmett C Harder/ Real Adventure Publishing (San Bernardino, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Eye Closed, the Other Red: The California Bootlegging Years (Paperback)

"One Eye Closed the other Red" is the most interesting, humorous , and comprehensive treatment of the Prohibition era that was such an important social storm in our countrys not too distant past. In his book Walker lets us understand and enjoy the "Bootlegging" years that many of us were born in. This is a rich, fun filled account as well as an important book that everyone should have in their library. Cliff Walker has written this as a labor of love and I appreciate the many years of labor he put into it. Thanks Cliff.

4.0 out of 5 stars One Eye Smiling, December 26, 2010

By 

Thomas J. Burchfield "Novelist, essayist, edi... (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: One Eye Closed, the Other Red: The California Bootlegging Years (Paperback)

One Eye Closed, The Other Red is clearly an independently published book--errors are legion here--but as a basic and thorough resource for an obscure corner of California and American history, it's a delight. There are enough thrilling true and personal stories for a year's worth of dinner table memories: funny and sad, violent and not. It's colorful and exciting and also provides a palpable sense of its time and a warning of the injustices and disruptions caused when fanatics and idealists are allowed too much sway over our lives. Better histories of this time and place await to be written, but this book will provide a sound foundation for future writers. Overall, invaluable.


Thomas Burchfield
Author of the supernatural thriller Dragon's Ark, due March 15, 2011, from Ambler House
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