LITERARY SATURDAY
We went to the West Texas Book and Music Festival today. Lou took a pain pill this morning and was ready to go. We made the Texas Ranger panel that had Elmer Kelton, Mike Cox, Joaquin Jackson and Don Graham talking about their books on the Texas Rangers. Mike Cox started talking about being the spokesman for the Rangers for 15 years and has the first of his 2 volume book on the history of the Rangers in print. He will be in Cross Plains as our Meet the Author Monday night Oct. 6.

Don Graham talked about his Texas Monthly article reviewing Webb's book on the Rangers getting a lot of flak from readers. He also talked about movies that featured Rangers. He wrote about McNelly in his book about the King ranch.

We sat with Linda Burns, our CP Librarian, who grew up in Ropesville where the real Texas Ranger, Joaquin Jackson grew up. He told about his first book about his Ranger experiences and has another coming out soon. His books are his life stories that he gets a writer to help him narrate. He was featured at the Festival last year.

Elmer told about his latest series on the beginnings of the Rangers from small militias organized to fight the Comanches. His first book started with the Comanche raid on Linnville on the coast near Victoria where the Comanches destroyed the town with the only survivors were those who went into the Gulf in rowboats with the Indians riding after them into the surf. The Comanches had brought their families along and got strung out going home when the first organized ranchers and farmers as a militia caught them at Plum Creek. The beginning of the Rangers. They became more formally organized after the Reconstruction days but were not well paid or supported. He has covered about 40 years and has one more book that he will produce and doesn't plan to go beyond that time. At Q&A I asked him about his novel about Capt. McNelly that he wrote years ago. It was called CAPTAIN'S RANGERS. (I think.)

Tom Stephenson sat near us at the session and told about visiting with a Cross Plains boy, I think his name is John but his last name is Hanke, who invented computer maps that was bought by Google and is now Google Maps. He was showing Tom his new phone with a Beta version of Google maps on it.

We then went to the luncheon where Don Graham received the A. C. Greene award and gave a scathing talk about how UT has denied their Texas heritage with illustrations from his class on Texas literature where the students know nothing about WWI or WWII or Texas history and nothing about Dobie, Bedichek, Elmer Kelton or any other Texas writers. If it is Texas UT denies it. We know that is true when this year they kicked the Texas State Historical Association off campus where they had been since its formation.

We were visited by a lot of friends before the meal. Carol Walt was on the program all week talking about her books on Wednesday and on the panel on self-publishing today. Her husband, former Dallas police captain Eddie Walt, took care of her book booth and grandkids when she was in session. They retired to a small ranch between Rising Star and Cross Plains where Carol writes books about locals and her family. Gail Woerner sat at our table and talked WWA with Lou.

After lunch we visited the Texas Hall of Authors and visited with John Brock at the TTPress booth. Got to see Shay and Pat Bennett for the first time in months. Lou visited with Joe Specht about the books he is pitching to A&M on Texas music. He wants to do a book on Oil Patch music. They have a series on Texas music. He wrote a book on Abilene in music. We picked up 5 copies of Quotable Texas Women because we are out. They told us that it is going into a third printing. Lou talked to Janet Test with the Abilene Library and others.

She wore her self out and had to sit in a chair while I got the car. She and I both napped when we got home. Lou commented that she doesn't have problems now sitting in chairs. For a while she had to bring a pillow for her back. So her back is doing better and we need to pray for the cancer to go away.

CA125 CHANGES PLANS
We got the CA125 results today and it jumped to 235 resulting in Dr. Hancock cancelling the oral chemotherapy and scheduling a new appointment for Oct. 1. Lou figures he will go back to the injection chemotherapy of carboplatin that has worked in the past. She is resigned to losing her hair again one way or another. Lou has a great attitude and is handling the pain with Aleve, and an occasional Vicodin. She walked again this morning to the front gate and has been working on her email and trying to write on her memoir. She still plans on making the Abilene Book Festival tomorrow and visiting the book booths and going to the luncheon to honor Don Graham. She said she doesn't plan to stay for the gospel singing session because of her limited energy. She has really enjoyed that part the past two years.

DOCTOR VISIT & BD PARTY IN FW


Wednesday Lou had her checkup with Dr. Hancock in Fort Worth where he decided to have her do another round of oral chemotherapy with etoposide. We will know what the CA125 results are tomorrow. He predicts that it will not be worse but not a lot better. We will see.



While we were in FW we were able to attend a birthday party for our granddaughter, Ashley, who was surprised because her birthday is not until Sunday. She and her husband, Ross, had just come from a meeting to lease their new lot for Barnett Shale drilling. They bought a house and lot in FW about a month ago and got the mineral rights. A oil company wanted to lease their neighborhood to drill and offered $15,000/acre. Their lot is .41 acres so they will do well. They really needed that because she has to spend this semester on an internship for her Family Life certificate and is working on Saturdays for Cook Children's Hospital as her only income. Ross is a nurse who is working two jobs to keep them going this semester. She told about her activities watching surgery on children this week. She is the only intern who hasn't fainted during surgery. She is well suited for her job.

I am still learning how to upload photos and can't get them where I want them. Here is one that I thought I got loaded last time. This is Lou's birthday apple pie after we ate some.

We enjoyed it for three days after.

LOU'S BIRTHDAY

I even have photos of Lou's birthday celebration that I will try to post. It has been a wonderful weekend with Mark and Mary Kathryn and Dottie coming in Friday night. MK brought me a new book to read. TWELVE MIGHTY ORPHANS by Jim Dent. The story of the football team of highschool students who were members of the Masonic home in Fort Worth in the Thirties. I look forward to reading it.

Saturday Mark and MK took Lou to eat at one of her favorite restaurants in Abilene. Copper Creek is an upscale restaurant and we enjoyed our meal. As we drove back thru Abilene to make some purchases at HEB we saw some of the old cars, hotrods, and low riders that were participating in a Cruise night sponsored by a local radio station.

I again will try to post some photos from the birthday celebration.

MK made a birthday pie for Lou at her request. Lou also requested only one candle to blow out.

CELEBRATION PHOTOS

My son sent brought his photos from the celebration and I want to share some of them if I can figure out the process.

I got two photos of Louise Brogoitti posted so I haven't figured out how to do this well. But Louise deserves to be seen twice. She was the first guest and walked in at 2 p.m. She drove herself from Aledo that afternoon.

These three are me and two old GD engineers who worked on the B-58 wing design.

Sue and her sister Sue are the two here.

Another photo of Louise with us.

UPDATE ON LOU
My birthday was also the day that Lou took her last oral chemo pill. I had hoped that she would then start getting her energy back. Sunday morning she woke with a bad pain in her abdomen and took two prescription pain pills that worked. Monday morning again she had the pain and only took one pain pill but each day this week she has walked to the front gate and back. That is 2/3 of a mile. Tuesday morning she took two Tylenol for pain relief. This morning she went back to the prescription pill. She has been very productive in writing notes to the people who have sent gifts to the church in our honor. I am behind on sending email thank you's. I will try to catch up.

Today was my day to replace the bottom element in our hot water heater. I started it draining before we walked and opened the connection on top so that it would drain after we got back. It was drained by 11 when I started trying to remove the old element. I failed. I couldn't get it to release with all the effort I could put into it. So I decided to take the plumber's advice and just expect the drain to clear out some calcium. But I know that that element is covered and the bottom is full of carbonate. I have seen it before. I put it back together and we have hot water, so I am not worse off. I did treat the pond and plan to buy some Koi after watching the RFDTV channel where a pond expert said that Koi eat the algae. For years I used to buy Koi on my birthday. I would generally get four or five hoping to get breeding pairs. I found that the Great Blue Heron loves big fish like Koi.

We will be celebrating Lou's birthday September 21 by going to eat in Abilene on Saturday the 20th with our son and daughter-in-law. Our daughter will be at the football game in Aggieland.

GREAT BIRTHDAY
Today was a great day. Started with me making pecan blueberry waffles and a thin slice of ham. They were good even if I did make them. When my daughter called she asked if I mixed them. She thought I would heat up frozen ones. I got phone calls from three grandchildren, son and daughter, and brother Bob. Got an ecard from brother, Walt. Kathy mailed me a package which is unusual because she is usually at least a week late. She included a great card that our French daughter had sent to her to give to us when she came for the party but she didn't get until she got back. She gave me a carrying case for memory sticks plus a 4GB Cruzer stick. Mark had given me T. Boone Pickens book THE FIRTST BILLION IS THE HARDEST. I agree with that. I gave up on the first and am still working on the second.

Lou was feeling better today. We didn't walk this morning because it was still drizzling but she felt good enough to go to Abilene to recreate our lunch at Lytle Land and Cattle Co. steakhouse. Lou likes fried catfish so she ordered that and we brought most of it home. I had the house specialty Sharon Allen's ribeye steak and ate the whole thing. It was great. We asked our waiter if he was in the Marine reserves and he wasn't. He didn't even remember 911 2001.

We then went to HEB where I recycled cardboard, newspapers, plastics and glass. Then we got Lou's Evista prescription and some other stuff. On the way out I decided I needed some chocolate dessert for my birthday so I bought a dark chocolate Snickers and shared it with Lou. I ate most of it and took care of my craving.

Lou wrote more paragraphs this morning on her memoir. Her desk is working fairly well but would be better if it would go one inch lower. She felt better today. She gets tired in a hurry when she walks, but her back isn't hurting too much. Tonight she took her last oral chemo pill. We called Hancock's office and was told that she shouldn't take any more until her appointment Sept. 24 when he may give her a different prescription. So she should hopefully get some energy back in a few days as this works out of her system.

We got a total of 1.25" of rain for the last 3 days. Looks like IKE will not bring much rain to this side of the state. But a cold front will lower temperatures this weekend.
We will pray for those in IKE's path. We were in Bryan when Carla hit in '61 I think. We remember seeing some of the rain but knowing what happened in Galveston and Houston. Looks like IKE will take the same path. Fortunately Sylvia Grider is going to a reunion in Pampa and will be out of Bryan for the storm. I answered Val and Guy Sheppard's ecard with an invitation to escape College Station and join us for the weekend. Haven't heard from them. Our grandson, Jim, said that Corpus Christi had a lot of evacuees. Our mailman said that Highway 36 was heavy with traffic coming this way. It starts at La Porte and ends in Abilene.

REMEMBERING 911
We are planning to celebrate my birthday tomorrow like we did in 2001. Of course we are planning to skip some of the events, like the twin towers not falling and the strange thing that happened here. That morning we had walked and were working on breakfast with toast being made when the radio reported the aircraft crashing into NY and as we turned on the TV the glass in our toaster oven exploded all over the floor. Strange. Never had it happen before or after.

We watched TV all morning but decided to go to Abilene for a special lunch. We got to Lytle Land and Cattle steakhouse about 2 in the afternoon. Our waiter was a student in the Marine Reserve and we discussed whether this meant we would go to war. He was expecting to be called up soon. We always wondered about him.

We started to go in today but Lou said she wasn't very hungry at noon so we will go tomorrow. It was raining and supposed to slack off tomorrow. We ate more of the leftovers from the party. A lot of good things in the fridge. Lou added some sandwich ham to the corn and I heated some of the spinach that MK left for me. We had salad and the last of the slaw. We finished off the Key Lime Pie from Mary Gaggino. Still have a lot of strawberry cake left after we froze some.

We read the Newsweek magazine article on cancer and it was discouraging. However Lou is handling the oral chemo well and will take the last pill tomorrow. She will then wait a week before taking it again. Your prayers are the best medicine she can have. We thank you for them.

She sent two manuscripts back to TTPress yesterday and started working on her memoir again. A few paragraphs and fighting the storage and backup. She finally fired her Lexar drive after it destroyed her files again. She is using one that she got from TWU. It has worked OK. She is using the new SCOOTER table from Levenger that I got her for our anniversary. It lets her sit in her chair and use the laptop.

TRIPLE CELEBRATION DAY

Our daughter-in-law and daughter plus their children worked like Trojans to plan and execute the celebration of our 59th Anniversary (9/03) my birthday (9/11) and Lou's birthday (9/21) from 2-4 at the Cross Plains First United Methodist church. The first person who walked in was Louise Brogotti from Aledo who went to work for GDFW in 1941 and retired in 1991. She and Lou share bad backs. Louise crushed hers in a car wreck but didn't let it stop her. Then other GD engineers came: Joel Brown from FW, Charles and Pat Herndon from Granbury who brought Barbara Majors with them, and Dr. Craig and Rahni Hansen from FW. Lou's coauthor and long time friend Dr. Sylvia Grider came from Bryan/College Station. Our former landlord Dr. Corky Henderson and Connie came from Lake Worth. Joyce Roach brought her mother Ann Gibson from Keller. Mary Carlton, Mary Kathryn's mother, from White Settlement. Rex and Mary Gaggino came in from Throckmorton, and Margaret Waring from Comanche. Sally McGregor (who said she keeps up with us from the blog) came from Baird. Lydia Williams brought her sister from Cottonwood. Sue Neal's son David and family came from Lubbock, her daughter Diana and family from Stephenville. Most of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren helped serve and watched the slide and movie show our son put together and projected on the wall. Our pastor, Margaret Friend and a lot of church members including Phyllis Harris, Becky Odem, Maxine Keller, Tom and Arlene Stephenson, Mary Barton, Hollis, Jr. and Cherry Shults, Sharon Ames, Judy Porter, Tim, Beth and Andy Byerly. From CP friends Janet Swanson, Charles and Kathy Chesshir, the Castanuelas, and I am sure I am missing someone because I am doing all this from memory. In addition to finger food, two huge cakes (enough for 96) and punch, and roses to decorate the tables, the party planners added quilt pieces for people to write their comments for a quilt for both Lou and me. Truly a day that will be etched in history permanently. We are truly blessed with family and friends.

To top the day off, the Aggies beat UNM and unless the Rangers blow it they are ahead of Boston 15-4 in the eighth inning.

ALASKA REPORT FROM LOUANN

Louann has returned to Alaska as it becomes big national news. She has become a fisherman as she reports in this email:

Hello, Everybody!I hope this email finds all of you doing well. I know some of you are having birthdays soon....happy birthday to Uncle Charles, Aunt Mossie, Oliver and Sara....if I left anybody out, please forgive me!

My experiences here in Aleknagik are continuing to be awesome. Since I have written last, as some of you already know, I have been fishing for silver salmon, rainbow trout and grayling. I was fortunate enough to catch three rather large salmon (11 lbs. to be close to exact...:)), but no rainbow or grayling. I have experienced fresh bait fishing, lure fishing and fly rod fishing. My favorite at this point is fly rod. I still have so much to learn about it all, but the learning process has been fun.

I also had the opportunity to go moose hunting. For this particular outing that simply meant watching for moose in one of the marshes along the lake. We had to wear net bug jackets which is a jacket that zips up over the head. The net allows you to be able to see, but also prevents the bugs from eating you. We didn't see any moose, but there was a gorgeous sunset over the mountains and eagles with their nest close by. So it was still an enjoyable evening.

Then on the way back to the boat someone falls in the boggy mud, but I won't say who.....yeah...fell with no way to stand back up without pushing herself farther into the mud...had to be pulled up...yeah..O.K....it was me....sitting helplessly in the mud with this rifle in my hands....wonderfully humbling sight. I am constantly doing things like that. Another one was setting off the school fire alarm by accident...yeah that was me, as well.

Friday we took all the kids, first through eighth, berry picking at a place called Tripod. One of the other new teachers and I ended up with the responsibility of driving the two school four wheelers with the trailers full of students. This was not a good thing for two inexperienced drivers to experience. We terrified the students because we couldn't get up a couple of hills without losing power and sliding backwards. Not good...... On the way back we unloaded the kids before the hills and reloaded on the other side. I think everybody learned from this experience, however. A bit traumatic for this girl. But.....no was hurt and that is what is important. That and the fact that that particular situation won't occur again.

Everything out here is all about the learning curve....and allowing space for it. Personally, I am finding that the hardest thing to get use to is the fact that there is no comfort zone here. Everything I do, everywhere I go I am out of my comfort zone. There is nowhere considered "safe" to go and lick my wounds, so to speak. So I am learning to deal with the hardships in a different manner....head on....no drowning out stuff with TV, food, shopping or the internet. You deal with them and move on. I am slowly but surely learning to accept the mistakes I make and my bouts of ineffectiveness as part of my learning curve. I am trying to ease up on myself a bit.....to realize that it is O.K. I can only do this with the help of my loves ones....some of you have really helped me through some difficult realizations and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I have also gotten to see bears along the side of the lake and rivers during my fishing excursions. That is always fun to witness. Sometimes they are just eating dead fish. Other times they are playing in the water. And...let see....oh.... I am learning how to steer a skiff. As a matter of fact, I am sending a picture of that. I asked the person teaching me if he would be going faster if he was steering. He said, " No, but I would be going straighter!" There ya go....another learning curve...what can I say?

Here are some pictures of my life out here. I hope you enjoy!I love ya bunches. Take care of yourselves and let me hear about you.Love, Louann P.S. Some

of the other teachers have started calling me Loulu....imagine that