Lou is doing much better. Today she walked down the highway to meet me coming back from my two mile walk. I was picking up tire remnants along the road. She was fascinated by the sound of the creek running through. The water falls all along send a sound that resonates all along the road. Lou is getting productive again. She sent her article on Rushing to THE ROUNDUP and now she is getting enthusiastic about writing her memoirs. She is rereading what she had written and found most of it good. She is reading Frank McCourt who has written three memoirs by writing stories and each page has humor. She thinks that will be her model, to tell stories of how she has followed women writers. Of course she has also read all the men so she can make accurate comparisons.

Her health is improving, she has started exercising her stomach muscles and that is reducing her back pain, although she still has some.

This morning we had a little shower and the sun is now shining. I will have to mow next week.

Lou is becoming productive again. She sent her article about Jane Rushing to Candy Moulton at THE ROUNDUP yesterday. I told her not to expect another Stirrup award for this one, because a lot more people knew Tom Lea than Jane. But you never know. Her skills as an essayist are really good. She is reading and talking about working on her memoir book again. She started trying exercises this morning when we couldn't walk because of the rain. Her back is still bothering her, but the pain is moving around and maybe the exercises will help.

Today John Knudsen from A&M came to visit her. He works for the Liberal Arts college raising money for endownments, etc. He told of visiting a lawyer in Abilene who has histories of A&M and had read a chapter in a book about the history of the engineering college that I had written a chapter on Aerospace Engineering. He also told Knudsen about some woman that wrote about women writers. Knudsen told him about us. He didn't know we lived out here. Knudsen visits Lou every year and she tells him stories about students like John Korbell that he later visits. He tells her the latest going on at A&M in the Liberal Arts. They discussed that A&M is considering picking up publishing the TSHA journal. Be interesting if they transfered TSHA headquarters to A&M after being in Austin for so long.

Our wild life is picking up. While we were gone Joyce was checking the house and feeding the birds and found a rattlesnake. I haven't seen any snakes but Sunday we had a turkey hen go wandering across the front yard from South to North and I looked in the back yard to see a doe grazing at our well house. Her ears pricked up, she saw the turkey and went walking over to it. They looked each other over and went on their paths. We only got 0.2" of rain Monday morning when Cross Plains got 3 - 4" and it shut down the electric power, telephones and cell phones until noon. Then last night we got 2" while they are having flooding just east of us in Eastland County. I keep hoping for enough to start our creek flowing. Haven't had quite enough yet. It still has the promise of more rain.

Here are photos of Lou with her Stirrup Award from the Western Writers of America. The award is for the best article in the 2006 issues of THE ROUNDUP, the magazine published by WWA. The Award was presented by Candy Moulton, shown with Lou. Candy is the editor of THE ROUNDUP. Her cover story in the August issue was about artist/writer Tom Lea.

I recieved an email asking how the last mammogram came out and the answer is that the image is believed to be benign. She was asked to return in six months for another. Lou thinks it is detritus from the port installation used during chemo.

The top photo is with Candy.
The bottom was taken back in the hotel room.

Lou is working on her essay on Jane Rushing to be submitted to Candy for the magazine. She has been feeling pretty good and walking down to the cross fence. Still has low back pains and takes Ibuprofen for relief.

Our daughter Kathy just came back from visiting her cousin, Lou Ann Bates, in Abilene who is leaving in August to go teach school in a remote Alaskan village. To learn more about her go to the web site: http://www.swrsd.org/

You will find Lou Ann listed in the new faculty and they have a lot of photos of the village and its less than 30 inhabitants.

We are safely back on Halsell Hill. Drove through rain again in Okla. It has rained here with over 2" in the guage. A storm came by with thunder but no rain just as drove in. The TV says there is a flood watch in Comanche County so I guess it went that way to rain on Margaret Waring.



Last night was a big night in Lou's life. She was the second awardee of the evening recieving the Stirrup Award for the best article in last year's Roundup magazine. Her cover story on Tom Lea won the award for her. She explained to James Ersfeld who is a UMN staffer at our table last night that she got interested in Tom Lea through his brother, Dick Lea, who was an Aggie Aerospace engineer that used to come to lecture to my classes. Ersfeld got his degree in Aero from Notre Dame in 1971 and couldn't find a job. He did work in the Aero industry but is now working on a PhD in History. Dick Lea told us stories about how his father brokered deals with the Mexican revolutionaries back when they were kids in El Paso.



I sent Laura Bush an email when the article came out asking her to show it to her mother, Jeanna Welch, who we met in Midland and El Paso and knew was a good friend of Tom Lea, having grown up in El Paso. I don't know if she gets my emails. She gets thousands a day I imagine.



We enjoyed the Spur awards dinner as well as the sessions Saturday. The WWA celebrated Natalie Kennoyer's 100th birthday and the Kelton's 60th anniversary. We also got to visit with Jim and Regina Crutchfield and Cotton and Sonja Smith who were very supportive of Lou with their prayers during her cancer battle. Mike Powell had to have his photo made with Lou with her award. I haven't downloaded my photos to add to the blog, but maybe I will get around to it. I even took a few seconds of video of Mike Blakely singing. He sang two songs during the Awards ceremony, one about the white buffalo and the other dedicated to Nat Kennoyer to celebrate her birthday. She was in a wheel chair because she fell on a bus getting to the airport in CA. Val Mathis continued the air trip with Nat using airport and then the hotel wheel chairs. Nat has been walking on the injured leg and said she would walk off the plane when she gets back today. She blamed the fall on her poor eyesight due to macular degeneration, but she doesn't wear glasses or use a hearing aid. She is something else. WWA has become like a family for Lou. She finished her stint on the WWA board at this meeting and everyone knows her. She is working on another article for the Roundup and will send it in this week. I finished Bogg's book WALK PROUD, STAND TALL in the car. It is a good story. We bought his latest book that won a Spur as well as a lot more books during the book signing session. It was held at a Western wear store and Kathy helped me choose three new western shirts that I enjoy. We had a big week!



When we got home after we clawed our way through all the mail and newspapers and got around to our usual small glass of wine, I found a large package in my recliner with my Father's Day gift from my daughter. It was an eclectic assortment of gifts: a paper holder to use when computing, a cement frog with a rain guage in his mouth that I put on the front walk where it blended right in and a beautiful orange shirt that I said I could wear because I have degree from UT. My son Mark called while we were on the road to wish me a Happy Father's Day also. He said he has had over 4" of rain this week. My grass is growing and tomorrow will bring an attempt to mow some of it. We are looking forward to sleeping in our own bed and getting a better rest than the smaller bed we shared in the hotel.

We lost Lou this morning. I stayed in the room to write my column and went down to meet Kathy and Lou for the lunch at 11. I looked around, thought I saw Lou still in the meeting room. Kathy came by and asked if I had found her. I said no, she looked in our room and the restroom because Lou had left the meeting telling her she was going to the bathroom. We panicked worrying whether she had fallen somewhere. Mike Powell, a lawyer friend from Virginia who works as a Magistrate helped us look and soon signaled that he had found her. She was being videod for use by the WWA for their promotion TV programs this year. We had forgotten that she was scheduled for that gig.

Lou is really doing well this trip. She has gone on the bus trips. Wednesday we had panels and went out for lunch with Mike Powell. He is a fascinating character who has read every Western book that has been published and has been a movie reviewer and knows all the western movies. He is a book collector. We drove by the ABC bookstore. He said he had already been there and traded books with them. He has all of Elmer Kelton's books, and knows all of Lou's books.

Wednesday night we went to Walnut Springs for chuckwagon BBQ and entertainment by an Ozark bluegrass band. The resort was a large dairy farm that is now a museum of all their farm equipment. Kathy and I toured that with Val Mathes while Lou listened to the band. I regalled Kathy with my farming experience with all the horse drawn implements. They also had a few milk goats and I had to tell about my experience with them as a teenager.

Yesterday we had panels on the Civil War battles in MO and the outlaws that followed in the chaos after the War. Our tour was to the Wilson's Creek battlefield where there was a one day war where the first Union general was slain. The Confederates returned his body to the Union and we saw the bed it was on. They had the body returned back East on a train that stopped at every station. Lou made the walk to eat a box lunch and hear a talk by an enactor who showed us how the army loaded and fired their muskets. She then walked through the museum with Kathy and me and hasn't complained about her back, although it still has low back pains. Last night was the Foundation auction. Kathy again helped with displaying and giving the auction items. I donated my painting THE NAVAJO STORYTELLER and it brought $300 by a couple, Joe and Zona Crabtree from Verona, MO who have been asking me all about its history today.

This afternoon Lou will be part of the huge group signing her books at a special event. Tomorrow she will recieve the Stirrup Award for the best article published in THE ROUNDUP for her cover story on Tom Lea.

We hope we don't lose her anymore.

We made it to Springfield, MO without incidence. Kathy is a good driver. We expected hot weather and almost froze when we drove through a rain storm this morning from just this side of Tulsa all the way to the hotel. We left at 8 this morning and got to Springfield at 10:30. The rain had stopped but the cloudy weather kept it cool. It was 66 degrees on the car thermometer as we drove in. We left home yesterday at 8:22 in the morning. Drove through Cisco, Breckenridge, Graham and entered I-44 at Wichita Falls and stayed on 44 all the way to the hotel here. We got to the hotel in Catoosa (Tulsa suburb that is the port city for Tulsa) at 4 p.m. and had a nap. We were all tired and went to bed early. It is4:30 and I just looked at the KTXS radar and it looks like we got a rain shower at Halsell Hill.

When we spent our time in the lobby waiting for our room here we got to visit a lot of old friends. The oldest is Natilie at 100. She is in a wheel chair because getting on the bus at the airport she slipped and fell and sprained her left leg. No broken bones. She said it was because her macular degeneration causes problems with her short distance vision. She loves to talk and told us how she got married in 1936 to a doctor as she completed her nurse's training. They both donated their bodies to science and that he died after picking up a hitchhiker who infected him with meningitis. The university hospital took his body because at the time they had little knowledge of the disease in adults.

Fortunately I was reading Johhny Boggs' WALK TALL AND STAND PROUD when he came by. Lou went to a meeting of the board of directors of WWA. Kathy and I waited till we could get our room at 2 and unloaded the car. As we were putting things away, Kathy found she had lost a diamond ring Keith had given her. We searched the room and path we had taken. Went back downstairs and fortunately she found it where she had been sitting and had used some hand cream. So we could then take a nap. Lou is still in her meeting. She says she is feeling much better although she still has some lower back pain. Everyone she has met at the meeting told her they also have back pain so it is an epidemic.

I felt right at home with NASCAR running at Texas Speedway yesterday when I took on the Dallas traffic. Had to drive to Presbyterian Hospital where TWU has a campus for educating occupational therapists and others in the nursing profession. Had to get on the I-35 parking lot for only about a mile and then onto the 75 expressway and play dodge-em cars out to Walnut something where we wandered around and even asked for direction from three different sources to find TWU campus. Lou was there for a meeting of the Board of Regents to approve promotion and tenure and other important university actions. As usual they fixed me up with my own little office connected to a DSL line where I was able to write and mail my Cowboy and Computer column. I even got to read another chapter in a Johnny Boggs book about Lin Garrett, a marshall in the Arizona territory. Lou got finished at 1:30 and we left the campus at 2. I then had another frightening test of my driving skills to exit I-35 to I-30 that required me to move from the right lane in heavy traffic over to the far left lane. Of course traffic is always slow on 35 so I made it without bending any metal. Traffic was not bad the rest of the way home, but I always give a prayer when we finally get home safely. I hope we don't have any more meetings on that side of Dallas.

Lou is still reading and writing. She has almost finished her article on Rushing for the Roundup. I had to replace the toner cartridge in her printer so that she could print it today. She had a bad day Thursday when she had to go back for another mammogram on her left breast late in the day. I think she was depressed thinking about the possibility of breast cancer. She was also not pleased with the way the tree trimmers had trimmed the trees over the garage and pump house. Their truck broke down in the road coming in the truck gate and is still there awaiting repairs. Therefore there are cut branches all up and down the road and around the house and garage that is not too pleasing. Lou never likes to see trees harmed in any way.

Last night Lou was doing a lot better after the meeting but we decided to not go into Cross Plains for the Robert E. Howard dinner and talk. The Barbarian Festival is in full swing with the parade this morning and activities all day. I volunteered to work at the Library but they didn't need me. I will go in this afternoon to take the bookkeeping for the meeting of the board that I will miss Monday when we leave for Springfield and the annual WWA meeting. We also have a funeral this afternoon for one of our new church members who was in the nursing home in Rising Star. He joined the church due to the mission efforts of Jimmielee Payne about a month ago and died last week.

Tomorrow we will do another laundry to get enough underwear for a week in Missouri. Kathy is with Mary Kathryn this weekend working on the party for Ashley and will come in Sunday night to drive us Monday to Tulsa where we will spend the night and drive into Springfield Tuesday. Will drive back Sunday, the Lord willing and the Creeks don't rise (or the Cherokees or Comanches. We will be going through Indian Territory).

Today Mama Fox showed us her family. Normally she has had two pups or kits whatever they are called. Today she had four little ones nursing. Now we know why she looked so gaunt. She has them living under the play/storage house that Mark built for Ashley before they first went to Japan and stored the house in our backyard. We had not seen her around the house before.

On a literary note, Lou has been reading all of Sandra Scofield's novels and while she was waiting for me in the eye doctor's office she got well into SCENE Sandra's book on how to write fiction. Lou also read a manuscript for TT Press and sent the review and MS back today. She is working on an article for ROUNDUP about Jane Rushing and is about to get that done. She is staying busy even though it is painful. Her work station needs some ergonomic twitching.

Monday was my day to go to the doctor's office. Because the appointment was at 1 p.m. we used the opportunity to eat at the Cracker Barrel restaurant, do some fast shopping at Walmart and recycle newspapers and cardboard at the recycling center. Didn't see our friend Ann Curtis at the CB. She used to work in their front store. Forgot to ask her husband Bobby about it this morning.

The eye doctor said my macular degeneration was better and said he would look up the connection between spinach and ARMD on the net. I told him that I have been eating it since he first diagnosed me with Senile Macular Degeneration in 1999. At that time I objected to having any condition called senile and the profession has since changed the name to Age Related. I like that a little better.

When we got back home Lou had a call from Dr. Estes office saying her mammogram had a questionable spot and to come back Thursday afternoon. Lou said this happened the last time and isn't too worried about it, but having battled ovarian cancer she is always concerned about something else popping up. I will keep you posted. Keep her in your prayers anyhow.

I called my brother, Robert, today and he said he has been keeping up with us by checking the blog everyday. I was surprised. I didn't think any family reads it. I hear from friends.

To update we are still going to doctors. Wednesday Lou had the mammography ordered by Dr. Estes. Before the appoinment we ate at China Garden, that is up for sale. We got to talk to Glenn Dromgoole who is planning the West Texas Book and Music Festival. We discussed his having Elmer Kelton sign books again in Abilene. I accused him of having him come every month. He said Elmer really helps out when asked. We all agreed he was the pluperfect gentleman author. I asked Glenn if he was going to buy China Garden and he said no, Carol made him agree not to go into the restaurant business.

Today we drove to Dallas to the TWU campus at Parkland hospital for Lou to attend a meeting of the Finance committee of the board of regents. She just got that assignment last week. Traffic wasn't bad and we had benevolent clouds going in that kept the early sun out of our eyes. I tied my laptop into their DSL line and sent my weekly Kiwanis newsletter and checked my email. Downloaded a video that John Womack sent of the juggling finalist. I was fascinated.

Monday I go to the eye doctor for a checkup. Have to support the medical profession. Then we will go back to Dallas Friday this time at the Presbyterian campus of TWU for a full Board of Regents meeting. That night is the dinner in Cross Plains for the Robert E. Howard REHupa group and we hope to make it. Saturday I have volunteered to help the Library stay open for the REH fans. Sunday we start packing to leave Monday for the WWA annual meeting in Springfield, MO.