May 4, 2007
Worked until 8:30 last night. Got a big, flashback sequence going on the Top Secret Project. One of the main characters in our story was at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863 and was badly wounded as his unit, The First Minnesota, charged the center of the Confederate line, sustaining the highest casualty rate of any unit in the war. I got this info from Wayne Jorgenson, who is from Minneapolis, and he found me online, came out last week and took me to El Encanto to talk about Al Sieber and the First Minnesota.

Of course, I immediately became intrigued (and obsessed) by the Gettysburg episode and pulled out all of my books on the Civil War and even put Gettysburg, the four hour movie, 1993, on my Netlix queue, got it yesterday and put the disk in my computer after work, isolating scenes I wanted to poach from. Got some good stuff, printing out a dozen stills and took them home to start my drawings. Did my six and finished at about 8:30. Long day, but my kind of fun.

Lew Jones, of Tara's Mineshaft fame, came in a few minutes ago and handed me my pocket watch in a truncated sock with a bread tie around the neck. This is the classic silver Waltham pocket watch presented to me as a gift from my staff several years ago, and it has never worked properly (someone in my house knocked it off the night stand onto a cement floor). Mike Melrose sent it to a watch guy in Iowa and he did an overhaul on it, which didn't take, then Kathy found a guy up in Carefree who took a run at fixing it, but to no avail. When Lew and Tara came to our house for dinner a couple months ago, Lew said, "Let me take that to New Mexico. I know a guy. . ."

The guy is in Alma, New Mexico, just down the road from Lew's cabin and it took him some time, but the damn watch is right here on my desk and it's still working an hour later ($60 cash).

I told Lew about the Kit Joy gunfight I'm working on and how the outlaw ended up hiding in the mountains northeast of Alma and how the law dogs couldn't get any cooperation from the locals in Catron County. We both laughed because the law still can't get any cooperation in that country. The lawmen up there know who all the drug dealers are, but they can't get a conviction because everyone is related, in love, or former neighbors. Lew told the story of a gas inspector he knows who visited a ranch and inspected the gas heater connections on the exterior of the house. The rancher rode up and said in a drawl, "You better get in your pickup and go back to where you come." He did. Ha.

Nice to know some things never change. That country around Reserve is rough, rough, rough. I'm going over to stay with Lew on my way to End of Trail in June. I offered to take the watch repairman to dinner, but Lew said, "Nah, we'll eat at my cabin. Food over there is awful."

It's a priveledge to know guys like that.

Onion Headline de Jour
Slowly Rotating Pie A Metaphor For Trucker's Failing Marriage

"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."
—Bill Gates