July 15, 2005
Finally knocked out a decent illustration of Morgan Earp lining up his last pool shot on this planet. Had excellent photo reference of Jeff Morey and Jerry Weddle playing pool at the Larian Motel office in Tombstone. That was in May of 1993, and I just got around to utilizing it. Ha.

Gus, Meghan and I wrestled with the layout and copy for the magazine version of the killing. Last night I whipped out several loose washes of Marietta Spence and her mama, both of them with shiners (left eye on both, which would make Spence right handed). Decided to put that in the cutline. I’ve been feeling saucy lately, and want to stick it to some of the uptight Earp nuts.

Went home for lunch and painted Frank Stilwell’s Midnight Ride, depicting Frank’s alleged run to Tucson after the killing of Morgan. Stilwell was spotted in Tucson on Sunday morning, which means he had to make the 70 mile trip in about seven hours. Not impossible, but still . . .nice effects of nighttime lighting and dust. Stole liberally from Frank Tenney Johnson. You can see Contention in the middle distance, lights twinkling along the San Pedro, and just a smattering of lights up the hill at Tombstone. Frank is blowing by Mescal Springs, a location that will become a hot spot several days later.

Got everything scanned and put in place around three and sighed a sigh of relief that all my stuff was finally finished and I could relax a bit. Sam came on my phone intercom and said Tomcat is in Mexico and needs my help. Christina forgot her passport and they are stuck in Tijuana, Mexico and can’t come back across. I wished them well and gave them a real estate agent's name. "Thanks father," Tomas said, but he still wanted to know if I could go home and look in Christina’s brown bag for her passport, then Fed Ex it to James Radina in San Diego and he’ll drive it down to the border tomorrow so they can come home.

I went home, looked in Deena’s room, found the bag, dreaded the search (I hate looking in female’s handbags because you just never know what you may find there). Found a small, mumified Shetland Pony. No, I found the passport in the first pouch, called my son in Mexico, got Carole and Samantha at the office to get a packet ready for Fed Ex and shot back up to the office.

Tomcat said, "I owe you bigtime Father Goose,” and I said, “Hey, I was 22 once. You don’t owe me anything. I’m the dad."

Somehow I remember someone told me that the universe gives us what we can handle.

The Arizona Republic asked me to write up a short solution to the Tombstone’s problem (they are getting so shlocky, they may lose their historic status). My comments will appear in the View Section of this Sunday's edition. Ironically, a tv show hosted by Marshall Trimble called "Arizona Backroads" will also run Sunday at 6:30 PM. They interviewed me and it runs on AZTV 13 and on 27 Broadcast.

"Don’t hurry. Don’t worry."
—Walter Hagan