Went down the hill to Tom's house at about eight to deliver the paper and see how Picasso is doing. The latest on that front is that he tried to crow yesterday, so maybe he's a rooster after all. This has more twists and turns than a soap opera. In fact, I think we have here the latest installment of As the Coop Turns. Here's Kelly, Tom's daughter, feeding the boy in his new digs.
Started sprinkling right after this and Tom and I stood under the awning and talked shop. He has been doing research on Picasso and it turns out he's a French purebred (a Moran?) and that hens of his persuasion lay chocolate colored eggs (of course, so French!).
Got into the office about nine, just as a deluge of rain hit. Here's the view out my office window:
Really coming down (10:04 a.m.). Herman Dickson is coming by today. He bought the scratchboard I posted a couple days ago of Lon Megargee. Hermann has a business selling reprints of the famous A-1 prints, like "Cowboy's Dream" which hangs in my office. And he recreates the original rope borders for them. Anybody who calls themselves a Zonie should have the entire set.
Here's the scratchboard Herman bought:
White Hills Redux
Here's the irony of visiting White Hills ghost town, and for that matter, Oatman, Gold Road, Chloride and Mineral Park. Those are all "ghost towns" in Mohave County when I was growing up (Oatman and Chloride never went totally bust). When Dan Harshberger and I were playing among the ruins, we envisioned these buildings as being from 1881, but in fact, most of them were from the 1920s, 30s and even 40s.
All the above mentioned towns were active until WWII when silver and gold and other minerals tanked as investments. So the wooden (key word) buildings in the pictures are probably only about twenty years old. That's why they're still standing! I know this now, because I have a chicken house built in 1986 that looks exactly like this.
The moral: if it's wood, it ain't going to outlive a turtle. This is why ranchers went to pipe fences and corrals. Wood looks great, but it don't last for beans. End of sermon (for today). Ha.
"Historic buildings are by and large a mirage, hyped by the living to embarrass the dead."
—Old Vaquero Saying
