I am so happy that living in this little town has allowed me to do those things I have loved the most — play music with friends and ride horses with friends. This was our music group more than ten years ago, with our great pastor Chuck Crane, who started the group. We have played in some of the most wonderful places — church, fall fair, at funerals and the birthday bash of a 97 year old fellow who had been a bomber pilot in WW2. such a joy to join with others in making music. If I had stayed in the city this would not have been possible. Back row left to right — Kim Donoho, Tom Bomer the reknown fiddler, Mark Hall, Kathy Lewis, Bottom, Church Crane, me Diane Causey. I am grateful they let me play with them.

Me, June and April in the middle. I have so few good pictures of the marvelous and amazing Evelyn O’Hara because she’s always in that big helmet!

That’s us on the Rio Grande, Arrmando our guide on the right. We’ve gone so many places— New Mexico, Big Bend, Palo Duro Canyon, the lovely country around Huntsville, and of course locally — Hooter Clayton’s place especially and I remember when June and I discovered Robin Springs there in a box canyon — hundreds and hundreds of robins flying past us, and we followed them, and there in a terrible drought was a tiny spring trickling from pool to pool — they knew where it was. They were flocking to it, thirsty on their journey north.

Above, we rode across the Rio Grande very briefly and then turned and galloped back. Thank you my dear friends for a rich, wonderful twenty years here in this tiny town. Or, we all live outside the town itself but let’s count the outliers.

There has been nobody to talk books with, I’ve of course been outside the Texas literary establishment, which is urban, so very urban. But I wouldn’t trade all this for the awards and cocktail parties and the seminars and the other various gatherings. These above were my girlhood dreams — adventures on horseback, playing all the old music that moves me so much — listening to Tom play or sing ‘Wayfaring Stranger’, Diane and Tom’s duets on piano and fiddle, singing in harmony with Kathy and Kim and Mark — what a joy! Diane and Tom had a deep sense of the old music and its structures and inner architecture, we all came from that culture.

But I must say Diane and her husband Tommy were great fans of my books and read some of them in manuscript. Also Rick Miller is a great fan of all my books and often asks questions about them, and his brother- in-law Deputy Sheriff Bruce Page is also an ardent reader of my books.

Like Wanda Waters — read News of the World in manuscript — stood up for me during the Woke Attack, a true and loyal friend.

I just feel a lot of gratitude.