Up By The Bootstraps

About the Book

The day Red was born, the trumpets sounded, the heavenly angels burst into song, and a voice from on high was heard saying, “LOOK OUT BELOW! Here comes Red, and you better be ready for him.” From the hills of the Kiamishi Mountains, in southeast Oklahoma, a boy picked himself up by the bootstraps, brushed off the Oklahoma dust and showed the world he was someone to reckon with. The only thing he knew was hard work. Deprived in more ways than one, he learned early in life to keep his mouth shut. But when he was on his own, he quickly made up for it, and never stopped after that. He became a mouth piece for all the cops in the state of Nevada, as well as nationwide. His grammar was less than perfect yet no one misunderstood what he was bluntly saying. He got his point across immediately and didn’t mince words. This is a remarkable story of a boy from the cotton fields to the oil fields, from trucker to pilot, from cop to labor leader, from lobbyist to senator. At one point he was either president or chairman of eleven different organizations at the same time. But his accomplishments didn’t change him. As he always said, “I’m just a poor ol’country boy come to town trying to make good.” And he certainly did. This story shows that honesty, hard work, tenacity, and humor are still the best assets a person can possess. It opened doors which would normally have been slammed in his face, had he not had the foresight to stick his boot in the door ahead of time.

About the Author

Jorjan grew up in Batavia, Ohio. She attended the Cincinnati College of Music as a child. Her professional career as a ballerina began at the age of fourteen. After college she went to New York to follow her dream as a dancer. She eventually made her way to Las Vegas where she danced in the big extravaganzas on the strip. She became one of the first female patrol officers for the Metropolitan Police Department. Both she and her husband were cops. Later, she transferred to McCarran International Airport where she was an operations coordinator handling bomb threats, hijackings, emergency landings, and plane crashes. She has an insatiable appetite for learning evidenced by degrees in five different fields. She attended the University of Cincinnati, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and the University of Humanistic Studies. Psychology was her forte. After internship with a psychologist, she opened her own office as a motivational therapist. She worked two jobs for six years while going to college and raising a family. Her hobbies are gardening, the Japanese floral art of Oshibana, graphology, traveling the world, and collecting thimbles. She has two sons, Gregory and Travis. Each one has a book written about them. She also wrote her husband’s biography titled “Up by the Bootstraps”.