May 23, 2005
Today is the first day the saguaros in our back yard have started blooming. I was showing the multiple buds to our dinner guests on Saturday night and Roxie Bacon asked when they would bloom and I said, "Any day now." They started blooming a week or so ago down in Phoenix (1,600 feet) and then they slowly started inching northward until they started crowning out this morning at our house (2,200 feet). With the palo verde trees in full yellow glory, the desert has never looked more gorgeous. Too bad it’s too hot to enjoy. Ha.


"Suggestion for a Classic Gunfight: what about the Battle of Adobe Walls? The second one that is."
—Denver Kissinger

And speaking of gunfights, we got back a subscriber's True West today (Jesus Out West, June). The magazine came back from the Penitentiary of New Mexico and in addition to the magazine the packet contained a "Publication Review Panel Determination" form, on which the box Return to Sender was checked with the handwritten explanation, "Magazine promote(s) use of fire arms + photo of cowgirl pin-up. Make copy of pages #44, 47 & 90."

Poor prisoner Kirt L. did not get his True West. I wondered what awful, gun crazy pin-up filth the prisoner board had discovered.

So, naturally I looked at pages 44 and 47, which is, believe it or not, in the 2005 Dads and Grads Gift Guide. Page 44 has "personalized miniature branding irons," (alloccasionshopping.com), a book by R. Stephen Bloch called "A Hard Kept Secret" (www.ahardkeptsecret.com), a "full hair-on Cowhide Pistol Case" (www.dcleatherworks.com), A-1 beer advertisements (www.a-1beerprints.com), and a watch from Montana Silversmiths (info@montanasilversmiths.com).

On page 49 is a framed John Wayne print for sale (www.piecesofhistory.com), a "gunfighter coat", uh-oh, (www.frontierclassics.net), an ad for Western lighting, dinnerware, lariat rope baskets and bookends (www.AllThatCowboy.com), a Cobra Derringer (cobrapistols.com) and our newest t-shirt design "Ya’ll Killed Two Cowboys—Curly Bill". This is probably the one that put the big nail in the coffin. Well, that and the ad on page 90, with John Beckett’s "Painted Ladies." I commented to Bob Brink, "If this is the criteria, they must not let many magazines through at the New Mexico Pentitentiary." Bob laughed. I could go through almost every magazine from People, InStyle, Elle, Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, and find more skin. No derringers though.

"Good men must not obey the laws too well."
—Emerson