This was the West Virginia.

Cold weather, wounded cat, water-gun warrioress

Poor DT lost a fight — stitches, broken tailbone, probably bruised all over but you can’t see it because of the fur. Three days at the vet’s, the horrible Cone of Shame collar and locked into the guest room for recovery. There have been two stray dogs wandering this part of the mountain, seeking whom they may devour and they just about did for DT. So I went and bought a ‘paintball’ gun (it actually shoots water pellets) and it took me FOREVER to learn how to put it together.

It looks very outer-space. Hopefully if I see them I can approach them sneakily and blast them with my interplanetary deadly-water weapon and maybe they’ll go somewhere else. If not, more serious measures ensue. This goes for coons, squirrels stealing all the black-oil sunflower seed etc.

What to read? I am ordering The Iliad. I have never read it. Have read The Odyssey several times over.

Cold weather has arrived; 50 degrees today and down to low 40s at night. So looking forward to the Tren Maya trip.

In Mexico, all those graduating from Mexican universities in the profession must spend a year in a remote village practicing — including doctors, vets, dentists, teachers, etc. Elvia’ s niece Danielle, who just graduated in dentistry, just finished her year in a very small village and here are Elvia’s memories of her ‘year of service’ and I found it so lively and interesting I included it in today’s post.

“I went last weekend to my generation party(I don’t know the word in English) in Orizaba,, a very nice city not far from Coatepec. We celebrated sixty years we have left the teacher school. Can you imagine that?? We finished school sixty years ago and we disemmenated around the whole Veracruz state. We were young, inexperienced, foolish, fatuous, unwise etc. But we had to face the situation and learning how to live in a little, little town without (sometimes) electricity, water, etc., and far away from your dad and your mom, jaja. And you WERE the teacher, you had to teach. I remember we had to walk three Km. from the bus stop to my school. The school had a well, so we got water using a small bucket tied to a rope because teachers and students had to clean the classrooms. I took my task so seriously that when we finished my hands were bleeding because of the rope. Anyway the party was really nice and it was a lot of fun to see my old friends — gordos, enfermos, canonsos, rengos, sordos pero muuuuuyyy felices.”

“My reading workshop goes beautifully, last week we read LOS SORRENTINOS by Virginia Higa, un Argentine young writer who was very successful with her provincial story. I didn’t like her book. It was well written but very forgettable. This week we have ATONEMENT by Iam McEwan and I am really enjoying the story. Okay I leave you, I hope you are ok and the Johnsons too big hugs and kisses Elvia.”

Her group was reading Katherine Ann Porter and I suggested they not neglect Porter’s best story, The Thief, or Theft, I forget the title exactly, have to look it up.

Sid is giving a concert at Lonehollow, his last one was very successful. This time Tom will be playing as well, and they are both musical geniuses and their performances are not to be missed. I’ve had the honor and pleasure of playing alongside both of them; (have to brag).

November 2nd we had six inches of rain within a few hours, so our group was rained out of playing at the fall fair and all the booths and activities were absolutely drowned. Shelly Summers and her husband Lee had their booth awning collapse on them. Shelly and Lee are singing in cantata and I heard about it at cantata practice. But the rain was miraculous — we were in the last stages of drought just before we took on the appearance of the Gobi Desert. There are so many beautiful old trees down — just dried up, gave up and fell over. Trying again for Fall Fair on the 23rd — we already had our practice for the 2nd at Diane’s house, decided on songs, we have our scores, so it’ll be easy.

Christmas and my mailbox is overflowing with Christmas catalogues. Such a waste of paper! Mostly they go in the trash.

A writer friend in Canada asked me my opinion on the lack of working/rural people in contemporary literature — storytelling — and contributed his own — so I spent some time on the internet and lots of people are asking that question. And have been for years.

So the POV is almost always from the urban observer. “They” appear as dreadfully disadvantaged, poor, ignorant, abused hungrydesperateinferiorfaultydefectivestupid. Here’s the blurb for Tillie Olson’s Yonnondio ‘ “A life devoid of joy for a young girl, father drinks, mother always pregnant, all happiness destroyed.”

I never read it; who would? Yikes. It’s like bondage porn or something. Many eons ago when I was teaching a creative writing course at Philips Andover I pinned up a picture of one of my cousins and said, “Okay write something about this person and her life.” I happened to catch Macy sitting on the long front porch of her and Bill’s trailer, in a big floppy skirt, red hair flying out like a coronal eclipse — and every one of them wrote how she was longing to get to the big city, her husband beat her, she had ten kids, their truck was repossessed, she sobbed all night, they ate grits and fried alligator, her dad was a drunk, etc., you can imagine. Every. Last. One.

A fun place to go to research the LITERARY aspect — and I emphasize LITERARY (novels, stories, films, poems… LITERATURE) is TV Tropes, and you’ll have fun fun fun until your daddy takes your T-bird away. Look up ‘working-class hero’ — and there you will find said all that needs to be said and to heck with all the knowing clever and boring Guardian etc. articles.

Moths are not just the gray things flying around your lamp; I have found many in brilliant colors, or muted, delicate shades, and in the bright sunshine flying circles around one another dressed in sunshine yellow.

When it rains it seems, no matter what time of year, things bloom. My lantana under the big Spanish oak in back burst into flower after the Noah-level rain we got and is being sweetly assaulted, kissed, blessed and extravagantly loved by butterflies. Yellow ones; very yellow with the sunlight directly on them and then oddly greenish when backlit.

And one drab unglamorous fellow ignoring the gorgeous ones, nom nom nom on the floral banquet.

And so let us quietly contemplate the arrival of Christmas without panic. Yoga kitty!

…was set upon the date of the armistice signed to end world war 1 on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11 o’clock European time. Thank you veterans.

I don’t know who put this up in the town square but it’s clever and lovely. They used carrizo cane and grandpa-beard vine fluff, Fall fair is in November, our group will play in the afternoon at the cupola. Also playing for dear Skip Doerr this coming Saturday, his memorial service, and then in late October for the competitive trail ride gathering on the Four Sisters ranch.

I had a good trip to the U of Mississippi Literary Festival, spoke on a panel with Elizabeth Crook, she’s a delight, and managed to walk several miles all told. I’m getting better!

It’s been between 102 and 107 F. for days now. But that’s August in south Texas.

I got to spend time in a police station in Hondo! A thrilling experience.

I was driving home from San Antonio where I had just had a wonderful lunch and talk and gossip with Jimjr and Nadine and grandson Jimmy (J-III) at a restaurant in The Quarry, coming through Hondo, about a mile beyond on Highway 90, when my temperature gauge suddenly shot up into the red. So I pulled over and the computer, which now afflicts all vehicles, shut the engine down so I had no air conditioning and it was about 108 on the highway.

Luckily a nice young lady stopped and called the Hondo police and a very engaging young policeman named Mario Martinez came out and solved all my problems mainly by calling a tow truck for me. This mean rousting out an unfortunate driver who was having dinner with his kids (it was Sunday evening) and he said it would be two hours before he could come, he had his kids, they had to go back to their mom — obviously divorced and this was his time with his children — so Officer Martinez drove me into the Hondo police station to wait in the air conditioning for the tow truck where I was offered a bottle of cold water and shown where the ladies room was etc., everybody very nice.

But my troubles were not over. Officer Martinez returned to his duties and I waited and waited for the tow truck. The police station was a manufactured home, as they say, and cool, and empty. After a long wait I went outside to look for the tow truck and the door shut behind me and I had just locked myself out in the terrific heat and there was nobody in the station.

I walked all around the station and called and knocked and sobbed and came near to fainting until finally another officer drove up and opened the door for me with his clicker thing.

Hondo is a lovely town and they have a famous sign. There’s a story behind it. Sometime in the fifties the town council decided to put up a sign that said, ‘This is God’s Country. Don’t drive through it like Hell.’ Huge uproar over the use of the word ‘hell’. Finally it was proposed that the sign say, ‘PLEASE don’t drive through it like Hell.’ And for some reason this was acceptable to the opposition. The word ‘please’ some how seemed to undemonize the word regarding the Hot Place.

Hondo is in the flat country, lots of agriculture and big ranches, there was a WW2 airfield for training there and one of the old Supreme Court justices was sent there during the war for flight training. He said the place was hot as hell. I shop there a lot, get my vehicle inspected at Moreno’s (a Texas Ranger referred them to me), it’s not too far from Castroville.

My long-time friend Woody of Lighthouse Island (Lennard light station, Vancouver Island BC) finally got another one of her delightful children’s books published, and the artwork is first-rate, and there in the background is the lighthouse on Lennard Island. Congrats Woody!!

I got a big package of mail from Harper-Collins, fan letters etc., from 2020 and 2021. How this happened I don’t know but apologies to everybody who wrote and I will try to answer all these soon. I guess it was because of Covid and also the strike at HC simply confused things. I get very thoughtful letters from people about my books and they deserve an answer and so I’ll type up a form saying that this was lost mail, only recently delivered and sorry and all that and then address the writer specifically. They’re from the UK, and just about every state in the union. News of the World touched a lot of people, and I am glad to hear from them, so I have some catching up to do.

My dear Buck is coming to the end of his life and I am going to lose him as well as Girl Dog. Am writing on the new far-future novel, have it printed out and in a binder so I can work on it laying in bed instead of sitting up at the computer. Spinal injections delayed until this coming Tuesday. I have my hopes up. Would love to ride again if only just around and around the house.

That was in 2016. He was 11. I had my checkbook in my hand and was ready to write out about any amount, and if the guy had seen the look on my face when I saw him the price would have gone up a thousand dollars.

Once we were riding in the Bandera State park and came to a difficult, almost straight up-and-down cliff, and the rest went up mounted but I was reluctant to try it on horseback, they had struggled up and the trail was a mess, so I got off him, took off his bridle, and said “Buck, go on up.” He went up straight and easy and when he got to the top turned and looked down at me, and waited for me, without a thing on his head. No bridle, nothing. I came up on foot and we went on. Lots of memories.

The beasts knocked over a can of pant and went dancing all over my NEW RUG and the newly finished floor on which that Rick Miller did such a beautiful job!!

But it was because Girl Dog wasn’t here. Even if she could barely walk or see she would still start after them — her nose told her where they were.

So Girl Dog has gone over the rainbow bridge as they say, she was nearly blind, almost wholly deaf and could barely walk. Also had lost control of bodily functions. I miss her very much. Every time I hear thunder I think, ‘she’ll be scared, have to get her inside’ or some particularly nice bit of leftovers, ‘she’ll love this’…

She was a great companion. Very quiet, not demonstrative, but simply and quietly at my heels every day. She was a rescue so I don’t know how old she was. My friend Evelyn O’Hara asked me to take her and I did and we have had many adventures over the years. . So I buried her with a penny to pay the ferryman. I had thought I was completely out of change, having given it all to the kid’s collection at church but just on a chance I looked into the change container and there in the middle of the bottom all by itself was a bright new penny. So she was meant to have it.