June 27, 2003
A long travel day. I started out with frost on my rental car window this morning in Ruidoso. Got a ticket coming down the hill (radar clocked me at 71 just outside Alamagordo, which frosted my. . .wallet: $69!). Got to El Paso at ten, went out to lunch with Paul and Jayme at Grigg’s (they bought). Paul drew me the map of exactly where Billy the Kid is buried in Fort Sumner (it’s not at the grave stone). Jarvis Garrett (Pat’s son) showed Paul when they went there in the early eighties.

Full plane, left at one, got to Phoenix at 1:10 (gained an hour, 103 degrees when we landed), Kathy picked me up. Stopped by Tonto to get a Cobb salad to go ($15 cash), got into office at 2:30. Caught up on biz. Read the new Wild West. Their piece on Wyatt in Peoria is quite good (didn’t like reading that). Also didn’t like seeing all the bylines of “our” writers. Guess we’ll have to pay ‘em more and lock ‘em up.

Early Returns Dept.: My mother called this afternoon and said, “Now don’t get upset with me Robert, but why did you draw that ugly picture of Billy the Kid on the cover of your beautiful magazine?” I thought of saying, “Basically because I hate your guts mom and I’m trying to do anything to hurt you in your old age,” but I didn’t think she’d get the humor. Instead I mumbled something about being a bad boy and it wouldn’t happen again (this month).

Speech in Ruidoso went quite well. Great crowd, mostly business owners so I was preaching to the choir (“Everything I learned in business I learned from Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp and Geronimo”). I actually think there is a potentially lucrative market for a talk like this (think “Who Hid The Cheese” with chaps and guns). Great response on several bits, especially the “most businesses fail because someone is reining in their horse in the middle of a jump.” For some reason that really hit home, probably because it’s so true.

“If you wish to be success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.” —Napoleon Bonaparte