The Autobiography of Terry Ryan, A Shooter

by Pat Bartron, Robert Bartron

Overview

Pat Bartron (1922-1996) was a sailor, policeman, machinist, journalist, Irish story-teller, famed raconteur, and a true son of the west. This edition is a revision of the novel he first penned twenty years ago.

Bartron once said, “Writin’ ignorant is hard work. Mark Twain said that…and if he din’t, then he shoulda.” The Autobiography of Terry Ryan, a Shooter has been compared to the best work of Zane Grey and Louis L’amour, but it moves readers more like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. You are enthralled with the narrative but only after the last page is turned do you realize that the commentary and wisdom of the story has stealthily been absorbed into your thoughts. It is an easy read of a simple story that stays with you for years after you finish it.

Now available in electronic format a new paperback version for the next generations to learn the lessons of independence, pride, honor, loyalty and love found in its pages.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012798282
Publisher:	Robert
Publication date:	09/12/1991
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	470 KB

About the Author

Pat Bartron (1922-1996) was a true son of the west. He never stopped rushing into tomorrow to find something new. Born in Oregon and raised on a ranch near Santa Maria, CA, he graduated from high school at age 15 and then lied about his age to join a tramp steamer crew that sailed from Los Angeles to Valparaiso Chile. He altered his birth certificate to qualify for the Navy and went to war, spending 1941 to 1944 in the Pacific being shot down, ship wrecked and escaping after being captured. Earning multiple Purple Hearts he went into journalism after the war because it was easier on his injured legs. He wrote for a bi-weekly country paper and then he produced poems and stories and novellas as he earned money in sales jobs, as a master machinist, as a mental prison guard and later he retired as a state policeman. In retirement he continued to write and to build…including a 32’ ferro-cement sailboat in his back yard that he sailed from San Francisco to Baja Mexico. Having climbed that hill, he looked for a new peak to scale, so at age 61 he earned a degree in aircraft repair and opened his own repair business and flew a pre-war plane across the U.S.

His entire life he was an Irish story-teller. Born Pat Hanion, he was never without a fascinating story to share…and being Irish, he never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Never a rich man by Wall Street standards (he lived by the definition: “ a rich man is any man with one dollar more in his pocket than he needs at that moment”), Pat lived a life rich in experiences and friends. When he was dying and was laid up in a hospice bed in his small trailer for the last four weeks of his life, a continuous parade of visitors from all over the world made the effort to visit and call him to tell him how he had touched their lives. He truly was the richest man he’d ever met.

He left one more story to tell. He gave his youngest son the manuscript of a nearly completed novel he had written toward the end of his life when cancer was eating him alive on the inside. He chose a tale of his beloved west and he wrote it in the voice of his Gramps, who had raised him and had lived some of the scenes in the novel.