December 11, 2007
Scrambling to finish the Frank and Gladys Hamer vs. Gee McMeans gunfight. Just got this from Mark Boardman:

“Just to be clear—Gladys Hamer participated in the shooting of her ex-husband, Ed Sims, putting a couple of nonfatal rounds into him. Her brother was the one who unloaded the fatal shotgun blast into Sims' back. So—to correct the blog just a tad—Gladys didn't kill Sims. She might have, given another moment or two. And it's clear that she wanted to.

“This was one tough woman.

“I expect some Hamer folks will also argue about Frank's permanent smirk and alleged cockiness. Most of the photos I've seen of the man don't show anything but a tough customer with no real emotion on his face. And the record seems clear that Hamer was self-confident but humble. He didn't discuss his accomplishments; in fact, he downplayed them and gave credit to others. He was one of the few Rangers of that period who got along well with blacks and Hispanics. He may have related to their situations because he'd grown up dirt poor. He wasn't without faults—some of his work as a strikebreaker in the '30s and '40s was brutal. And he hit the bottle pretty hard in his last few years.

“Yep, I'm a Hamer fan. I think the man was the personification of what the Texas Rangers want their men to be.”
—Mark Boardman

And to boot, it turns out that, although Gladys was married at fourteen, she had the shootout when she was an adult, so scratch the great caption. Man, I hate it when the facts ruin cool cutlines. Ha.

A Challenge to Tomas In Peru
Hey son, Charlie Waters, Dan Harshberger and I had an argument about who was Valedictorian of our high school class, so I went out in the studio and got my M.C.U.H. S. annual to look it up. On the next page is a full page photo of our foreign exchange student, who is from Peru! (the signature is hard to read and so is her town, but here is my best effort at deciphering her handwriting):

Peggy Corina Acosta Carrion

from

Tquitos (first letter could be an "F")—Loreto—Peru

—Father Bell

I got this from Thomas Charles this morning:

"Well dad, not much luck on the search for Peggy. The city is most likely Iquitos with an i. I'm checking the Peruvian white pages as we speak.

"Had a blast with Deena and Pati. Laughed the whole time, even when Deena was sick and we were tired as hell from traveling. It was really sad to see them go as I headed back to site by myself. It was just my luck too that after making a big speach about how for some reason you can eat the lettuce at Burger King I was sick by the time I got back to site. Since I know so well the symptoms of a bacterial infection I took a Cipro in the moring but threw it up two hours later. My doctor said to wait it out and see if my body gets rid of it on its own. Which it did after much sleep and peeing out the back end. I was even able to make it to Chivay yesterday afternoon to see the Wititi festival with the other volunteers.

"That's the news from here. Im sure Deena will give you more details. Can't wait to see you guys in August."
—T. Charles

"One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful."
—Sigmund Freud