September 19, 2007
The fall curtain finally came down yesterday. Went out for a bike ride at six and had to return to the house to get long pants. Shivering. Must have been down in the lower sixties!

Ha.

In case you didn't quite understand the context of the response from Fred Nolan in yesterday's post, here is the email that prompted Fred's response:

Kid Krazy Korrespondence, Part IIa.
"I didn't look for sloppy parts in your book, I just read it and liked the hell out of it, thank you for the good read. Sharpe is not a friend, we have only email a few times.

"Let me try to explain where I am in this;

"I look at life as a blessing that I get to enjoy from horseback, in Lincoln County. I've met some wonderful people because of Billy the Kid and I am grateful to the little guy. I met Boze, who I really enjoy and love his art and W.C Jameson who believes different but we've drank whiskey under the NM stars and he's a good friend. Joe Micalizzi who is a hoot and I've come to respect. I've met Bill Kurtis a film producer who has a side to him that makes me laugh and Jay Miller who has whipped me like a redheaded stepchild in the press but who I like. I also have had guys threaten to shoot me and I had someone shoot a round into my office. Does it get any more fun then that?

"I am not and never will be the researcher or historian that you are, you're not the investigator I am, we focused on different things, come at it from different angles. We see the same story from different eyes. We both have a skill that applies to this story.

"We know what you do and have done, here is what I bring to the dance. My whole investigative career I've been trained to look at a scene differently. I know that in every shooting there are inherent things that happen and it never fails. We know how the body reacts and why and what will happened in different situations. After doing the CSI at the courthouse I know what happened there, and why. I can tell you there were meaning to the words of the Kid when he said he "had" to shoot Bell and didn't want to.

"I have stood where Morton and Baker where shot down and think I can show you where their bodies are along with McCloskey. I have attached a picture of the spring. I can take you there. I would love to put together a bunch of us and go and throw it around what I know, what you know and solve this damn mystery. There are other places I'd like to take a team and do the CSI because evidence is still out there.

"I can show you what I believe happened Maxwell's house with Garrett and the Kid and show you something that left me wondering 'what in the hell', when the science was explained.

"You wrote, 'Although the proposition is impossible to prove, even the most conservative interpreter of the these events would conclude Poe and Garrett were covering up the truth.' pg XIV in the Garrett book. But the 'proposition' is not impossible to prove. I believe you are right in your belief I stand beside you in that belief. You saw it through the eyes of a historian in the documents, I saw it through the eyes of a cop in the evidence that you did not have available to you, but we come to the same conclusion from different angles.

"I want to put the guns down. We may see it differently but I do not wish to fight, I want to work. We seek the same truth. I hope someday to meet, talk. You know the Kid is laughing at us."
—Steve Sederwall

They got into this exchange after a guy reported on the location of the Sant Fe jail where Billy the Kid was held in 1880-81. Fred Nolan growled about "sloppy" reporting and the fact that it's been reported and known about long before, and Steve Sederwall (who is the prime mover behind the movement to dig up the Kid and once and for all decide where he's buried) responded. Hope that makes some Kid sense.

Classic Onion Headline de Jour
My Daughter, Who Lives At 152 East Medgar St. Apt. 4, Can't Keep Her Damn Legs Crossed

Worked hard yesterday on the Outdoor Channel shoot, then came back to the office and had an editorial meeting with Meghan Saar and Jason Strykowski. Went over editorial calendar for next year.

Got home around seven, tired. Didn't want to do my six sketches but forced myself. Actually I was inspired by something I read in The New Yorker about Charlie Chaplin:

"Unless I write every day, I don't feel I deserve my dinner."
—Charlie Chaplin