It's Over! And I can't believe that I liked it.

Alright, alright, I'll say it. I liked the story. Notice that I didn't say book, I had some problems there. I felt like the entire story could have been told in one hundred less pages. I swear, Bob was just puttering around Woolybucket for ages. Also, there was a huge chunk of the book devoted to stories of old about Woolybucket and those who lived there. Don't get me wrong, I liked reading about the people, but sometimes it seemed like Proulx got a little carried away. There were pages of her describing things that I couldn't relate to- old plows or barbed wire. I understand the importance of those seemingly minute things, they build up the image of the Old West, but to me they were very boring.

So here's what happened in the ending: Bob, after sufficiently screwing up his job at trying to find future hog farms by inciting a deadly shoot out by a crazed widower (no, not LaVon) in Global Pork Rinds' office building and stirring things up in general in the stubborn town of Woolybucket, quits. He does this because of both outside events and self realization, but the important part is this: there is some part of him that, through his experience, has made him fall in love with the people (no women, though, my prediction was wrong) and town of Woolybucket. I think that it is this major change within him that allows for the ULTIMATE ending.

So, Bob gives up his hopes of climbing the ladder of success through International Pork Rinds, and to his amazement, Ace Crouch, a man whom he was trying to buy land from, and the young, gangly assistant to Habakuk van Melkebeek back in the 1930's, has begun to buy up the panhandle, just as Bob had tried to do. Even more ironic is what he plans on doing with the land; he wants to create a giant reserve, a large plot of land dedicated to bringing back the Old West landscape and wildlife. But how could he possibly pay for this? Buckle your seat belts, it's about to get even more ironic. Ace Crouch received billions of dollars from his old friend, van Melkebeek, after he died. Ace is now a billionaire, thanks to a quirky Dutch man's love of Texas. And with that money, Crouch is going to restore Texas to a land that can be fallen in love with again. Along with investing in the help of all his fellow Woolybucket residents, Bob Dollar also falls in as an employee, showing a complete switch of 'sides'.

What was the whole point of this book? To understand this, it is important to know a little bit about the author- Annie Proulx. According to the back of the book, Proulx has a home and spends part of the year in the panhandle- hence the depth and intricacy that she is able to instill within the book. Her knowledge of the area is reflected, and in this the audience can see why she wrote this. It is clearly evident that holds a deep love and respect for the western plains, and she understands the workings of the small towns that reside there. In this book, Proulx has created a homage to that landscape which she loves, and in doing so, hopes to instill a tiny fraction of that same reverence within us.

I'm not about to go ride off into the sunset on Trigger or buy a pet buffalo now after reading 'That Old Ace in the Hole', but that is not to say that the book hasn't affected me. After reading it, I now have a connection with this previously unknown area. The fact that the area had such a strong connection to it's past stirred up a sense of nostalgia in me, and it got me thinking about the times when water was abundant, once you realized all you had to do was look down (as in deep), or when ranches were the core of the social fiber that made up the west.

In creating this book, Proulx created a window into a life of a town where past and present mix, but one thing stays constant- Cowboy Law: who ever you are, stay true to yourself, and what ever you do, do it well.