May 4, 2006
Got up this morning and finished the Whambam Overview painting. Got some decent landscape effects, but I missed on the actual forts-bluff area (the most important part). Can’t stop now though, got to keep moving. Got another ten or fifteen images to execute by Monday.

Sam organized a Subway lunch today and we all chipped in $5 and had a little feast in the conference room. We also celebrated Trish Brink’s birthday, which is actually tomorrow, but she won’t be here. We all sang happy birthday and demanded a speech, but she wasn’t buying (ironic as she’s the sales manager).

Beautiful Women With Great Taste Department
For my birthday this year my wife gave me first editions of your two "Classic Gunfights" books and "Bad Men," and I am awed. Each book is an example of *high concept*, the information is fascinating, the writing is first-rate, and the art is—well—*alive*. Great books, Mr. Bell, absolutely great, and I will read and re-read them for many years to come. (Looking forward to the book on Hickok and the one on the ladies.) Just a thank you to you for creating them.
—Sarge McClintock

P.S. Last year she gave me a new Corvette for my birthday; this girl knows how to give presents.

How Not to Preserve History
Last year the Cholila [Argentina] authorities, in a misguided effort to renovate the Butch & Sundance cabin, which was in a dilapidated state, leveled it and rebuilt a brand new cabin in its place. Most if not all (reports disagree) of the materials from the original structure were burned. Of course, in a few years the new structure will have weathered and few visitors will know the difference. A tragedy, nonetheless. The f***-up— quilombo in Spanish—cost the Chubut tourism minister his job.

We have a photos of the new structure (as well as of the old), in the event you think this might merit a TW mention. There's the true west, the old west, and the ex-west. File this under ex-west.
—Dan Buck

Yes, Dan, we want those photos. We are going to be running a new department on "Preserving the West" and we'll file this under how not to preserve. Thanks.

Another Old West Compadre Goes to Jail
Robert Lawrence Wilson was the traffic cop at the intersection of old guns and old money.

In high style, the former longtime Hadlyme resident plied his expertise in Colt and Winchester firearms into a lucrative, globetrotting career. He wrote more than 40 books, appeared on TV, tended the collections of powerful men, consulted with museums and made his name as a raconteur of the first order.

He brokered millions of dollars of trades in antique pistols and rifles, making himself a super-star in the world of 19th century firearms -- and arguably the foremost expert on old Colts.

His home office -- down the road from Gillette Castle -- was a Teddy Roosevelt-inspired shrine to rare-gun collecting, big-game hunting and the eccentric tastes of a man who bought Mario Andretti's 1983 Indy car and wheeled it up to the foot of his desk.

On Valentine's Day, the road led to federal prison in Lompoc, Calif., for the 66-year-old R.L. Wilson, as he is known on his book jackets, or Larry, as the regulars call him.

After pleading guilty to defrauding a client, Wilson is serving a sentence of one year and one day -- the same jail term former Gov. John G. Rowland received. In his field, Wilson's felony is a scandal akin to, well, Rowland's corruption.
—DAN HAAR; Hartford Courant Staff Writer

We excerpted R.L. Wilson’s book on Women and Guns (“Silk And Steel") and I met R.L. at Northfeild, Minnesota three years ago when Melrose and I went up there for the annual Defeat of Jesse James Days. R.L. brought along a replica of the Remington Rolling Block rifle that local hero, A. R. Manning, used in the fight with the James-Younger Gang, and I shot a roll of film of R.L. shooting in the reenactments, from under the stairs of the First National Bank Building. Nice guy, very gracious, and he looks quite a bit like A.R. Manning, to boot!

Favorite Onion Headline de Jour
Al-Qaeda Hires Public Relations Consultant Just To Shoot Him

”Those who face that which is actually before them, unburdoned by the past, undistracted by the future, these are they who live, who make the best of their lives; these are those who have found the secret of contentment.”
—Alban Goodier