RAIN AND ORTHOPEDICS

Last night we got 1.25" of rain and no hail. Today I made the dreaded trip to the Orthopedics Associates in Fort Worth to have my right arm evaluated. The PA looking at my arm at my annual physical recommended that I have it surgically repaired. I did my own Internet search of the problem and came to the consensus that nothing should be done to it. This was confirmed by Dr. Watson's PA who has had 40 years in the business. He checked the mobility and strength of my arms and determined that my right arm was almost as good as my left. He said not to do anything to it. No surgery was required. My concern was that if the first tendon tearing off was related to old age, what is the status of the remaining tendon. He said it was fine and that I shouldn't worry about it. This is the second visit to Dr. Watson where I was told I had no problem.

It was an interesting trip. My son Mark was in Dayton visiting the AF and so his wife, Mary Kathryn offered to go with me to the doctor's office and we could have lunch together before she had to go pick up Mark who was flying back in. To celebrate their anniversary they had a meal at Aventinos, an Italian restaurant off Camp Bowie just behind La Madelaine. So we went there. When I worked in FW I used to eat there. The owner is an engineer that I knew at General Dynamics. I hadn't seen him in over 20 years but he was there and we visited. He put his iPhone on our table and gave me a rundown of all of his current design projects and I was amazed at the functionality of that gadget. The Italian food was great. I need spinach at every meal and they served spinach soup for me. We both enjoyed the luncheon specials, I had the salmon and pasta and MK had I think Tetrazini or something like that. It was good and we enjoyed it.

We needed to leave to get MK back to her car and just as we paid the bill the bottom dropped out of rain clouds. We had to run to the car in a sheet of rain water. Good thing we wear drip dry clothing. It was completely dry at MK's house. Driving back I stopped at DQ in Ranger for a waffle sundae. Didn't need it but it helped wake me up. Stopped for gasoline in Cisco which still has the lowest price out here. Helped Exxon out on their corporate meeting day.

Lou is doing fairly well. I walked with her Monday and Tuesday to the front gate and back. She has to rest in her chair coming back, but she made it. Tuesday I suggested she take her pain pill, not Advil but something like that before we walked. She had been taking a pill after she got back. It helped some. Didn't completely prevent back pain, but helped some. While I was in FW our neighbor, Joyce Marton, picked up the mail and visited with Lou for a little while. Lou is working on her memoir and is making progress.

I am learning more about QuickBooks for the church treasurer's job and was proud of myself when last Saturday I learned how to program the payroll for employees; pressed one button and entered the first check number, pressed the print paystubs button and the checks were created and the printer spit out the stubs and all I had to do was hand write the checks and correct the check numbers for the automatic transfer payments. My goal is to get rid of the treasurer's job.

Next week we go to the dentist on Tuesday, Lou has bone density test and a CT Scan on Thursday with a Regents meeting in Dallas on Friday. The next week we leave for Scottsdale on Tuesday for the annual WWA meeting. Our granddaughter, Val, will be our chauffer. So we remain busy.

SOME LITERARY COMMENTS
I would like to share some interesting literary comments from a great literary critic, Margaret Waring who is the Comanche Librarian. She was commenting on the blog.

Big thanks for the report on the Literary Lubbock event. It was as interesting and the other things you continue to provide for our pleasure. Even better is the amount of new material, fresh names, and suggestions of titles and work of interest to me and for our library, too.

While we're talking about good stufff, let me point to Mike Cox's new Wearing the Cinco Peso, a history of the Texas Rangers to 1900. It is vol. 1 of 2 apparently. It is a good read and different from the many other Ranger books out there. Mike's style is informal and ever so readable. However, one must take note of his sources as his endnotes (long) and bibliography(extensive) take nearly 100 pages. IMHO, with that backup, you can write "folksy".

Another delightful piece I just finished is Pierce Burns' A Few Good Horses. This is a family story of a Brown County bunch but I thought it far above the customary run of family stories. Burns owns a substantial ranch in eastern Brown County but he is a retired engineer (U.T. grad I learned by asking). He is charming and involved with several writers groups where he lives in Austin. I know the contact has made a big difference in his work. The difference is obvious. His engineering training/mind-set helps his work it seemed to me.

Our Library wants to have Mike Cox for our Meet the Author next Fall and I appreciated the review of his book. I am behind on my reading.

MOSTLY ROUTINE
We have been enjoying routine. I have made appointments for us for the dentist and optometrist for next month. Lou is doing fairly well. She walked to the front gate last Saturday, Monday and today. It is hard on her but she is doing it. I worried about my torn tendon because it looked so bad but after research on the web I am fairly convinced that doing nothing is the best option. It doesn't hurt and I have been able to function carrying in groceries, mowing the lawn on the riding mower, etc. I just worry about the other tendon letting go and then I would be in trouble. We worry that if I couldn't drive we would be in a pickle. Lou hasn't driven for 3 years now. There is a rural taxi service that we could use but it doesn't run to FW and Dallas. Friday we drive to Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas for a Regent's committee meeting.

Yesterday I received an email from Louann Bates who is teaching in Alaska. She has finished this school year and will return next year to a different school that is a little larger and nearer to civilization. She returns to Texas this weekend.

Lou has been working on her memoir and has been reading a lot. She reread Jim Lee's book and kept laughing and reading excerpts to me. She would love to have that voice for her book, but has to develop her own. Jim says that he gave a paper at the Folklore Society and when everyone laughed he realized that he is a stand-up comedian. He has given many excellent and humerous papers since then.

My biggest problem is trying to get QuickBooks to work for doing the accounting for the church. Today it went beserk and is giving me fits. But I will conquer it!

ANNUAL PHYSICALS REPORT
Yesterday we had our annual physical checkups with EKGs, blood pressure, blood work, chest xrays, etc. Today they called with the lab reports and except for one test on me that needs a recheck (kidney test) everything was OK. My PSA is still down to 3.6. Lou had no problems. She is scheduled for a bone density scan later.

My right shoulder has a torn tendon and I called a doctor in FW that Mark recommended and will go in the last week in May to have it evaluated. I will probably have to have surgery to repair the tendon in June.

Today Lou and I went to meet with the lawyer from Abilene, Cathy Kim Fowlkes, who is coming to CP to help with wills and such. I had heard her speak at Kiwanis, but when she saw Lou she said I know you, and Lou said yes you are Dr. Kim's daughter. Kim was president of McMurry when Lou started teaching there. She is also married to an Aggie Civil engineer so we were able to communicate. We ate lunch with her and her aide at Staghorn.

Tonight at 7:15 a storm came through and dropped .7" of rain and some pea and quarter size hail, but did no damage that I could see. Few leaves knocked off the trees.

MEMORABLE MASTER'S AND MOTHER'S WEEKEND

We had a memorable weekend. First I can report that Lou's bones are stronger than we thought. Friday night we stayed at what was the Radisson Hotel in Denton that has been bought by UNT who canceled the restaurant and lounge. They did have a free hot breakfast Saturday morning. We ate after Lou took a shower and slipped falling down in the tub. I helped her get up with no injury to any bones or even strains on her left arm that she used to break her fall.

After breakfast we drove to the campus where Lou joined the Regents in getting a robe and a tam type cap on her very short hair do. Her hair is growing but is very short. She was able to walk down the aisle and sit on the podium with other Regents for the commencent exercises at 9. She didn't have to attend the services at 12 and 3. Our granddaughter, Ashley Pagenkopf, was receiving her Master of Science degree in Child Life with a large class of Master's students many of whom had taken courses online. We had 10 family members sitting on the front row of the graduating students in seats marked Regent Rodenberger. We felt honored. Ashley's husband and his mother joined members of our family to watch the event. After we enjoyed the fruit and cookie buffet for the graduates and their families and then went back to Weatherford for Ashley's party where about 30 of her friends and relatives celebrated her achievment. She received a number of nice gifts. We enjoyed another meal prepared by our talented daughter-in-law, Mary Kathryn, who had chips and dips with specially prepared dips and side dishes that she added to Rudy's BBQ that she picked up in Denton. Rudy's had an outlet in College Station and Dallas I think. Excellent meat and sauce.
And of course, brownies as well as ice cream with hot fudge! Some of the others enjoyed the strawberries also.

Then today we went to church at Aledo UMC where we found that Lou is listed in their prayer list. That probably helped with her fall also. While we were there, our daughter, Kathy, and her husband, Keith, took their daughter, Vanessa, to Love Field to catch a SW Airlines flight back to Lubbock. They got back in time for the meal to honor the mothers. We had Ashley's mother-in-law as well as Lou, MK's mother, Lou, Kathy, MK who all had presents and calls from their children.

And at 8 p.m. everyone has checked in getting home safely to complete a wonderful weekend.

A LITERARY EVENT TO REMEMBER
Texas Institute of Letters was pretty good and inducted Noel Parsons, director of Texas Tech Press but we really enjoyed a superb event Friday night. Literary Lubbock has a five year history. Lou was one of the featured authors last year with six new ones this year and they were all great. It was billed as A Signature Evening with Southwestern Authors, but one author Fred Nolan lives between London and Oxford in England.

The evening starts with a reception serving red or white wine from Llano Estacado Winery. When we drove in about 3 in the afternoon it looked like the vineyard was losing all of its topsoil that was blowing across the highway so much that I had to slow down. But we milled around with the hoi-poloi of Lubbock society and talked to the featured authors as well as old friends from the press. The evening always features a dinner with wine that is prepared by chef Rocky Rockwell, who this past year received recognition as an executive chef. The menu was just for me because the salad was spinach to cure my macular degeneration and it worked because I was better today. The entree was boneless braised beef short ribs with red wine reduction. Sides were mashed potatoes and asparagus with your choice of lemon or chocolate tart for dessert. Of course I had chocolate.

During the meal they had each of the six featured authors talk about their book. First was Marcia Kaylakie who drove 55,000 miles during 10 years to collect quilt stories in a book called TEXAS QUILTS AND QUILTERS. Our daughter, Kathy, ordered 3 and had them signed when the book came out so we knew ahead of time about it. The next author, Gail Folkins, took Lou back to her salad days in Kerrville with a book, TEXAS DANCE HALLS. Lou remembers doing the Cotton-eye Joe at several dance halls in the hill country. Gail's husband played in dance halls and she discovered that each one had a personality that needed to be written about. She had a photographer who helped document dance halls from Luckenbach to Lubbock.

The next author is a special friend of Lou's. Lou was asked by TTPress to review the manuscripts of Susan Miller and Lou was fascinated by this geologist who lives in Tucson and writes murder mysteries set in the fossil fields of Nevada, Idaho and Utah. TTPress had two books by her. One was A SWEET, SEPARATE INTIMACY, an anthology of western women that they reprinted. The other was her latest mystery novel, HOODOO.

TASCOSA was written by Frederick Nolan, a prolific author who resides in England and has written over 70 books in his 35 years as a writer. He started in the book business as a publisher and wrote some books that he felt needed a market. He has been very successful and has several books on the west including a book on Billy the Kid.

The next author was Karl Schlesier, a German anthropologist who wrote a novel that focused on Comanche and Kiowa indians in Colorado and New Mexico called TRAIL OF THE RED BUTTERFLY. Lou had read it as one of the 47 novel she judged for the short novel Spur award. Karl had a thick german accent.

The last author, Sharon Spinks, was at our dinner table so that we got to know her and her husband well. Her book was her first and was LAW ON THE LAST FRONTIER, a biography of her husband's grandfather, who was a Texas Ranger named Hill, his mother's father. Most Ranger books are about the old time Rangers. This was unusual in that it documents a career that ranged from 1942 to 1974 with a large part of it stationed in the Big Bend area. She points out how he worked with Mexican law officials on the narcotics traffic. Her husband manages the airport at New Braunfels that is growing like mad as San Antonio moves its boundaries out. The airport has not scheduled airlines but he is expecting two regional airlines to come in soon. In aviation the next development that I read about in Aviation Week and Space Technology is the production of small jet aircraft that will permit taxi service to local airports everywhere. The other guests at our table were Steve Scott and his wife, who was on the LL committee. Late comers were Prof. Wink and his wife. He is an Art Professor at Tech and on the committee that approves the books that the Press publishes. He is a painter and was working in his studio and almost forgot to come to the dinner. He was a true scholar and gentleman who was praised by Judith Keeling for his wise counsel on that committee.

This morning we were guests of Noel Parsons and Judith along with Susan Miller and Fred Nolan for breakfast at the Pancake House. I was blown away by the stories of Fred in his career in the book business from London. He comes to the US at least twice a year because most of his sales are in the US. I told him about finding Robert E. Howard books on sale in a small town grocery store in France. He said he has seen his books translated to Italian and doesn't remember selling the Italian rights. When I googled him I got a Parish Newsletter that had his photo as the chair of the parish committee.

For lunch at Abuleos we were joined by our Tech granddaughter, Vanessa Wilcox, and our friends Richard and Mary Ann Chaffin. Richard was our pastor for five years in Cross Plains and had purchased a two-story home to retire in CP when the 2005 fire came through and destroyed it along with our church and parsonage. They had an RV and lived in it for a couple of years before moving back to Lubbock where he had pastored one of the major churches years before. They still spend most of their time in their RV and are planning to leave in June for another trip to the West coast until September. Vanessa is working toward becoming a nurse and has is getting experience by working for a home care operation in Lubbock. She will start taking make up courses in biology and physiology this summer.

The great news is that Lou got up this morning and said that her back didn't hurt. She said that during the night she felt a little pop in her spine and was afraid that it had collapsed again, but apparently it adjusted to relieve the continual pain that she has been having. By the time we got home some pain had returned but it is much better than it has been. I am hopeful that her walking exercise and getting rid of the chemo is improving her health. Her hair is slowly returning and is now in evidence but still short. Your prayers are working!! Thanks.