February 18, 2003
Excellent editorial meeting with R.,G., Jana, Meghan and Robert Ray. Went over some minor tweaking regarding bylines. Planned out specifics for the rest of 2003 and even did some jamming on topics for 2004. Very productive.

Gus and I layed out Classic Gunfights for May-June. E-mailed Joe Rosa in England to help with corrections. We’re doing Wild Bill Hickok at Rock Creek Station and the McCanles fight. Really a short one. Lots of myth going on with this one.

The Fred Nolan correspondence between me and him is now online and you can finally read all of his incredible research right here (see home page).

I have seen our future and it isn’t pretty. I had a speech out in Sun City yesterday and it was in one of those assisted living places. Six floors, 350 units a totally self-contained world with its own post office, beauty parlor, bingo room, restaurant, etc. As I gave my speech on all things Old West I would see old guys smiling as I scanned across the room, then when I came back around they would be asleep! They were dropping like flies. Yikes!

I talked to the directer and she told me they have 350 rooms. The oldest person they have is 103 and the youngest was 64 when she moved in. This is two years older than Dave Daiss! Yikes! Yikes! When I speak to kids I always look for me in the audience (what would I have been doing while some old guy is yakking). If I see a kid with his hands folded and listening intently, that's not me. If I see a kid, tapping his feet, making truck noises and flicking the ear of the girl in front of him, that's me. I finally spotted myself in the old crowd. Guy had pants up to his ears, kept nodding off and had a pretty significant drool coming off his bottom lip. When his wife nudged him, he woke up laughing, pretending he had been awake the whole time. Hello Bob Old Guy Bell, I said to myself. Ha.

“I want to die peacefully in my sleep, just like my grandpa, not screaming and yelling like the people in his car.”
—Old Vaquero Saying