November 29, 2004
Very cold here on the Sonoran Desert this morning. A reported 39 degrees in Phoenix and we always run about 10 degrees cooler out here (we're about 22 miles north), so you can imagine the shock to our systems and our thinned-out blood (I know this is wussy weather for all my northern friends, but it is quite oppressive to us Southwesterners).

We've got a new poll up: Has History treated Ike Clanton fairly? Yes/No Vote here.

Worked very hard yesterday and today on getting copy finished on my big list. Knocked off at least five or six (some are all but finished, but need a tweak). Home stretch. I can feel it.

Went down into the Beast (Bell Road) at 11 for a pro-time blood test (a coumadin gauge). Hit a 1.8 which is barely in the therapeutic range. Got a slight slap on the wrist from the nurse and left. Drove downtown into Phoenix to Gert Mell's house just off Central and Maryland. Ed Mell's mom had about five boxes of old books and wanted to know if I wanted any. I took them all. Just great stuff, full of oldtime illustrations which I love. And a big surprise: a book and several paintings by Mabel Cason! I asked Gert, she's 92, if she knew who Mabel is, and she looked at me like I'm a doe-doe head and said, "She was one of my best friends!" Well, it was Mabel Earp Cason who tried unsuccessfully to co-write Josephine Earp's memoirs, and it was her work that ended up as the only legitimate part of the best-selling book "I Married Wyatt Earp," by Glenn Boyer. Gert's family knew her as more of a painter. Amazing. Six degrees of separation indeed!

Ed and I went to lunch at the Dane Dog House on Seventh Street for hot dogs ($11 cash I paid). Never eaten there. Talked about art and our friends getting sick, and all the land we couldah, shouldah bought. Ed told of a friend who bought a lot in the McDowells for $640,000 last year and sold it this week for $1.2 mil. If you've read this blog for any length of time you know about the Zombie killer who followed some of my neighbors home at night and then set the carport on fire and shot them when they ran out (they lived, the shooter's back on his meds and in jail). That house just sold for $1.4 mil. I think he paid $150,000 for the place, then rebuilt it after the fire and shooting for $300,000, but don't quote me on that.

Is there an elitist attitude in U.S. universities? Of course. One of the academics who reads this blog (and the second to warn me that he is in "deep cover"), gave me this quote, which he claims he received from one of his professors upon graduation:

"Remember this, it's us against the barbarians."

My co-publisher, Theresa down at Tri Star-Boze, has uncovered some gems from the bowels of their storeroom. She has found 13 special editions of my Billy, Doc and Wyatt books that are quite rare (deerskin covers). Only 12 of each were printed and they are quite slick, each with its own linen slipcase. If you’d like to get one, call Samantha at (888) 687-1881, extension 201. If you get her voicemail, leave your vitals and she'll call you back.

"Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one.
—George Savile