Footnotes & Fantasies

 March 22, 2023

   Uno will literally eat anything, until I put a pill in it. Then he's Gordon Ramsey.

Thanks, but no thanks.

 

  Today is a weird but significant anniveresary for me. It was 15 years ago today I received a heart stopping experience while playing Wipeout with The Exits in the Old Elks Hall, in Kingman, Arizona. I want to thank the three members of the Exits who had just received CPR training prior to my wipeout and the quick acting paramedics at the Kingman Fire Department across the street from the Elks and to Dr. Michael Ward of Kingman Regional who saved my life, not once, but twice. Thanks to all of the above, I walked out of the hospital that killed my father and my grandfather. Also thanks to Ted Deitrich, Doctor's Hospital and Dr. Bhatt of Cardiovascular Consultants, I am still upright and ambulatory. If I saw all this portrayed in a movie, I wouldn't believe it.

   So, what have I done with the extra time? I lived to see my grandkids, I lived to write this blog post and I lived to see Japan win the World Baseball Classic.

   I also lived long enough to take another crack at the story of a certain one-eyed captivo.

The Village of 300 Widows

   On the hunt for the Apache Kid, an unlikely trio of searchers went deep into Mexico to bring back the head of the most wanted man in Arizona. They encountered quite a few strange and violent obstacles including a village near Opodepe that took the cake.

Daily Whip Out:

"Mickey Free, Tom Horn & James Young Approach The Village of 300 Widows"

Footnotes & Fantasies

   I have long despised footnotes. I hated using them in term papers and I have never used them in my books and I resented the slam from a recent reviewer of our Hellraisers book who dinged us for not having them. But, with that said, wouldn't it be a bit of a hoot if I used them in a story about the warping and distortions of history, utilizing oodles of faux footnotes to underscore the ridiculousness of them? And, what if these faux footnotes pointed to a bigger truth about history? Well, that would be just hunkydory in my book, literally.

"The footnote crowd took over."

—Elizabeth Small, wife of our founder, Joe Small, on what eroded True West magazine's broad appeal