March 18, 2004
I was supposed to drive down to Tucson today for a trial but they are moving so slow I have been pushed back until Monday. Spent half of today waiting for the call, with my dress shirt and tie in the truck. Word finally came at 1:30 to stand down.

This morning, I wrote up two more scripts, both on chuckwagons. The Westerns Channel is going to tape me manana, but they won’t have the teleprompter so I’ve got to wing it. Need to do some high school play memorizing tonight.

At two I went down and got my coumadin levels checked (1.7). The nurse told me to knock off the salads. How did she know?

An old friend named Troy brought by about four boxes of used books several weeks ago. Finally went thru them this afternoon and picked out maybe 25. Found one treasure of ink drawings from the 1850s to 1950s. Now there is a lost art! Pen and ink was so strong in the late 1880s. Charles Dana Gibson (The Gibson Girl) was just a Master. Nobody in the twentieth century, or this new century has yet to match his draftsmanship and skill. Breathtaking really.

Came home at six and went to the creek and got a dozen stones. Buddy Boze Bell is hellbent on catching two ducks that have adopted the temporary creek bottom. Every day he leaps in after them, so full of enthusiasm and confidence. The ducks, of course, let him swim up to about fifteen feet of them and then they skitter up the creek another 50 yards (repeat all day).

"Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it."
—Robert Frost