July 7, 2006
More clouds and wind, but little moisture. The hostess at Rancho Manana said they got some sprinkles around ten but we didn’t get any that I know of at the office.

Treated Sue Lambert and Abby Pearson to lunch at Tonto Bar & Grill at 11:30. Hard to believe, Sue has been with True West for four years and Abby for five. Good, solid workers, both of them and I told them how much I appreciated all of their efforts to make True West the best possible magazine in the West. All three of us had the half Cowboy Cobb Salad.

After lunch I came home and rooted through my morgue for the Tombstone set photos I took when I visited the movie set back in 1993. Finally found them (all 8) and took a good hard look at them. I spotted Buck Taylor (who I didn't know then), Kurt Russell and another one of the Vendetta posse members setting up for the scene that allegedly got Kevin Jarre fired.

I also found a good photo of Sugarloaf Butte just north of my house. I'm going to use it in the next issue of the Cowboy Chronicle, where I'm doing an illustrated piece on the return of the Sugarloaf Hatstyle, and I noticed on my trip to New Mexico, not one, but two different peaks along the highway also named Sugarloaf. Turns out there are Sugarloaf peaks all over the world, including the famous Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, and Sugarloaf hills in Wales, Ireland, Maine, Florida, Michigan (Michigan!) and elsewhere. Google listed 350,000 hits. I have always assumed the sugarloaf hatstyle was created in Mexico because the tall crown sombreros like Pancho Villa wore, is where I became familiar with the hatstyle. Then when I read that Billy the Kid wore sombreros he bought that came up the trail from Chihuahua, I really became interested in them.

Turns out the sugarloaf hatstyle goes back to the 1450s! I'll tell more about the history in the article but that was fun finding out all of that (Meghan did the Google search and found all the stuff for me).

Before I came home tonight I made an overture to make up with one of my Old West friends who I have been estranged from for several years. Felt good to make the first move. Didn’t want to (foolish pride) but ultimately remembered Marcus Antonius’s cogent remarks on the subject.

”Consider how much more you suffer from your anger and grief than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.”
—Marcus Antonius