August 1, 2006 Bonus Blog
Instant response on "that word":

"I was raised a Kansas farm girl in the 40s and 50s, and only heard the f... word a few times when my father slipped (Mom straightened him out fast on that) and out at the coal shed at school. The up-bringing took, and I hate the use of that word to this day.

"I remember one evening we were having supper (not dinner) where I reached with my eating utensil and embedded it in the macaroni-and-cheese. (Table manners were not as enforced as swear word usage.) I meant to say 'I got my fork stuck!' but it came out 'I got my stork f....ked!' I was so embarrassed I promptly left the table and went to the barn. People today will not believe this to be true, will they?"
—Sharon Tally, Manhattan, Kansas

Well, they probably won't believe it in Manhattan, New York, but in Manhattan, Kansas, oh, I think so. In addition to "supper" there really is a stoic sense of decency that I find admirable in the midwest. Or, I should say, "f---in' admirable"?

We've got a new poll up about our Westerns coverage in True West. Please go take it right now!

Next week I'm scheduled to go up the hill to Prescott and speak about my cartoons at the Phippen Art Museum. Evidently they ran the event in the Prescott papers because I received the following photos from a fellow University of Arizona alum. Janet Childress. She was a Gamma Phi and she dated Terry Anderson (the blond guy at left in both photos). Terry and I played in a soul band with Faye Shaw (pictured in center) and the Generation. We played lots of frat formals, pledge parties and drunken orgies that would make a professor from Manhattan, Kansas blush (the Sigma Chi's were the worst, or best if you are into rolling in wine soaked mud). Terry was also from Kingman, also a Lutheran (his mother and mine were best friends) and we also raced motorcycles. Pictured are a trio of Triumphs (mine was a 500cc Tiger). Note the custom Cerrinani (sp?) forks. The guy on the right was from Casa Grande and I want to say his name was Dave Dial, but I can't be sure about that. Yes, that's me in center of both photos. Those are the Catalina's in the background and both photos were taken in March of 1969. Not long after this photo was taken I drew draft lottery number 267, but Terry got nabbed for Nam. He survived and builds straw bale houses (in fact, he built Janet's home in Prescott). No one knows what happened to Faye. She was from South Phoenix and I always keep an eye out for her when I go to social clubs on west Broadway (as in Funky Broadway, which we played by the way).

"There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, til all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime."
—Some guy who was high at one of our dances