December 14, 2014
Back from Tucson and a book signing at the east Broadway Barnes & Noble. Whenever I walk into a Barnes & Noble, my first stop is the magazine section to see where a certain magazine is displayed. We request to be in the History section but, like here, we are lumped into the Current Events section. Can you spot True West in this crowded rack?
True West newsstand position at Barnes & Noble, Tucson
Okay, here's a closer look:
True West battling it out with Wild West and Time-Life's Greatest Battles (and, Cartoons of the Year 2014)
Had a respectable crowd and met some fine people, including this gent:
Flint holding out a custom made money clip he gifted me.
Afterwards, John Langellier treated Kathy and I to a dinner at Pastiche on North Campbell and afterwards we had a nightcap at the classy, old school Arizona Inn. It was a beautiful evening so we sat outside and had a B&B before we went back to our B&B (The Adobe Rose Inn).
Kathy, John and BBB doing a selfie on the patio at Arizona Inn
Last Wednesday evening as we were on our way to the Wingets Christmas party we came upon two cars blocking Old Stage Road. Come to find out several neighbors had heard a woman's screams and according to the driver of one of the cars, the woman was screaming, "Help me! Help me! Get a gun!" The women in the car, who I did not know, live about a half mile north of us and their quotes were confirmed by the woman who takes care of the horses at the old Van Horn Ranch. She, in fact, called the sheriff's office to come investigate. We drove further north and saw a guy out in his driveway and we slowed down to ask if he had heard the screams. "Yes, it was my grandson," the guy said matter of factly. "He fell in some cholla and was calling our for his grandma. She's got him fixed up and calmed down." So, apparently, "Help me, get a gun!" was actually something like "Help me, grandma!"
Cholla Rhymes With Goya and Coincidently, La Jolla
At any rate, cholla cactus, or, as we called it as a kid, "jumpin' cactus," is a diabolically designed cacti with 45-degree angle fish hook thorns that appear to jump because when you brush by, even slightly, and you snag even one, the whole cactus seems to follow suite and jump onto you. Another neighbor was riding his horse and tried to go up a steep embankment, the horse went over backwards into a stand of cholla and the more he tried to roll out, the more he got cholla in him. They called the vet, but they couldn't save him and he had to be put down. If you've never seen one, my whole front yard is full of them and everyone who lives out here, my family, the kids, the dogs and the chickens give this plant a very wide berth.
Cholla Central
"There are many reasons we broke up. There was a religious difference: I'm a Catholic and she's the devil."
—Adam Ferrara
