Wild Woman Weekend!

Country Mailman

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Tune in every week to read about the adventures of Buck Buchanan, fictional country mailman, delivering mail out of Starz, Texas. He takes his job seriously and knows that customers count on him to deliver every piece of mail entitled to them. He is all about customer service. With a willing ear and a helping hand, Buck Buchanan goes the extra mile.

*  *  *

 

Gus Richardson, the postmaster, hung up the phone and cleared his throat. The conversation had not been long and since he only said a few words into the receiver, I didn't have any idea who the caller was. I kept on sorting the mail at my case, but knew Gus wanted to tell me something. The man took awhile to get his words out, but a throat clearing sound always prefaced them.

"That was Jenner at the mortuary. A body from out-of-state is missing."

I raised my eyebrow, but continued sorting. This had something to do with me or Gus wouldn't have bothered starting the explanation. He is a man of few words.

"The driver from a New Mexico mortuary brought a customer over, but when he opened the back door, the body was gone. He lost it somewhere between here and the state line. "

I still flipped envelopes into the slots, waiting for how this odd situation affected me.

"Apparently the driver got lost and went over some rough, dirt roads. He thinks the doors might have come open. Jenner wonders if you'll keep an eye out."

I nodded as if spotting an errant corpse was an everyday occurrence and kept on sorting. Finally, I couldn't keep it in and started laughing. But I laughed alone as Gus didn't even look up from the computer screen. He rarely saw the humor in anything.

The November day was cool, low seventies, and I rode with both windows down to enjoy the weather. It is a good day for a body to be missing, if there is such a day. The cotton gin ran at full strength and cotton dust settled everywhere. Cotton module trucks traveled the roads continually and we avoided each other courteously as they went back and forth from fields, depositing their loads on the gin yard.

Harvest time is a busy time. The gin runs twenty-four hours, only stopping for repairs. This year promises to be a boom year for cotton and that means lots of traffic on my normally untraveled dirt roads. Rain has been scarce in the last two months, causing scrub-board texture to form in the ruts, making my tires bounce when I go too fast. In some places, I have to slow to a crawl and I noticed the large trucks do as well.

When I saw the glimpse of white in the ditch, I immediately thought of Jenner and reached for my cell phone. Driving closer I saw it was just one of the tarps that fit on top of the cotton modules. It must have fallen off a pickup or blown off a module. Half a mile past, I braked to a stop. What if the tarp had fallen onto the body?

All kinds of big ideas were going through my head and had been all morning, concerning the lost corpse. And they were big enough that I turned around, went back and saw that indeed, the tarp was just a tarp. I tossed it in the back to drop off at the gin and continued on the route. On Farm Road 1870, I saw the dull-colored shape beside the road and reached again for my cell phone to call the funeral home. As I drove closer, I put the phone back in my pocket and rolled up the window to keep the flies out of the car. Someone had hit a feral hog during the past evening or night, probably one of the module trucks.

On County Road 3890, half a mile from the big curve when I saw the brown form in the ditch, I left my phone in my pocket. It was only an abandoned sofa that I had noticed earlier in the week. The miles passed and I was aware of every shape and object lying near the ditches along the roads. I had never noticed the stack of rocks alongside James Larkey's section that appeared to have once been a fireplace in a house - probably the old home place. And I never noticed the two crosses surrounded by a low metal fence on Adam Howard's place. Brown vines were entwined in the wire and dead weeds hid most of the area from my view.

I stopped when I saw the bull standing in the middle of the road. This wasn't free range and fences were erected to keep livestock off the roads. The animal didn't move. He either belonged on the Hudson Ranch or the Lazy B, but there was only an ear tag and I wasn't about to get close enough to see.

This time I dialed the sheriff's office. "Mandy, this is Buck. Tell Jake there's a bull loose on County Road 3890, five miles east of the big curve. I don't know who he belongs to." I nodded when she repeated the information back and then hesitated before asking. "Have they found the lost body yet?"

Again I nodded before putting the phone in my pocket. Still no body, but the story made more sense. The driver had not been wearing his hearing aids and wouldn't have heard if the body fell out of the vehicle. Still, the situation was odd. Why would the door suddenly fly open? But then I thought of the back glass in my car. Occasionally, when I go over a bump in the road, it flys open. The catch is stubborn and full of dirt.

 I honked the horn repeatedly until the large animal ambled into the ditch, leaving me to continue on the route. When I reached the Jones house, I was nearly finished with the mail run and still no sign of a body. The poor fellow. To hear about a missing corpse is amusing, but the family wouldn't think it so funny when they learned about it. I pitied Jenner having to relay the information.

Then I spotted it. Half a mile up the road, a white rectangle lay in the ditch. Pressing the accelerator firmer than usual, I reached it quickly. Drat! Just a piece of cardboard from a freezer box flattened and sun bleached. I paused for a moment, got out and lifted the edge with my boot just to be sure nothing was underneath. Just as quickly, I jerked my foot away and stepped backwards, hurrying to get back inside the car. The cardboard moved and I waited and watched. After a full minute, a porcupine waddled from underneath the cover and headed down the ditch.

One more mile and I'd be on pavement the rest of the way into Starz - little chance I'd see a body. I still kept my eyes peeled, but nothing alongside the road screamed errant corpse and when I walked into the Post Office, even Gus looked up expectantly at me. I shook my head, deposited my outgoing mail into the tub and signed out on the sheet. Neither of us said a word - there wasn't a reason.

I paused at the corner, still not able to give up the thought of a body out there somewhere. I turned toward the funeral home. Jenner might need help. As I walked into his office, he talked on the phone and motioned me to sit in one of the leather chairs opposite his desk. His tone was serious but I could tell that he wanted to laugh. He kept contorting his face to keep from it. Finally, he hung up, began laughing and had to pull out his handkerchief to wipe the tears from his eyes. I patiently waited because I suspected the call had something to do with the body. Jenner would have been a bit more worried if not.

"This morning the driver stopped at that rest area near Muleshoe and went inside to the bathroom. A group of high school boys saw the gurney and thought it would be a great joke to take the body. The car wasn't locked, they took it and after the driver left, they propped the...corpse in one of the stalls. The caretaker nearly had a heart attack when he went in to clean the place and found it."

"And the boys?"

"One of them felt guilty and called the local sheriff to tell him where it was. Seems as if his grandfather passed not too long ago. But the caretaker had already found it."

I smiled at the prank. "Brings back old times," I said.

He held up his hand. "Don't remind me." He pointed his finger at me with mock seriousness. "You swore."

I stood with the smile still on my lips. "Don't worry, Jenner. Your secret is still safe. I haven't even told Babe about that night you got the key from your father's keychain, took old Mr. Knight from his coffin, stood him up in front of the principal's bedroom window and made her faint. But I'm nearly certain your father knew you had something to do with it."

He answered the smile. "He didn't like old Mrs. Gunkle either."

Yucca, Yucca, Yucca

Country Mailman

Tune in every week to read about the adventures of Buck Buchanan, fictional country mailman, delivering mail out of Starz, Texas. He takes his job seriously and knows that customers count on him to deliver every piece of mail entitled to them. He is all about customer service. With a willing ear and a helping hand, Buck Buchanan goes the extra mile.

*  *  *

 

As I piled the boxes into the back of my car, I couldn't help but wonder why Toby Williams was getting a dozen toilet seats. Folks order all kinds of things, especially ones who live out in the country and don't go into town often, but twelve of anything is a lot. He doesn't have rental houses; at least, I'd seen no indication of it in the past twenty years of delivering his mail. Since retiring two years earlier, he has received odd items from time to time, but these twelve boxes take the prize.

The rest of the parcels aren't unusual. Amy Wright gets make-up regularly. Shirley Mont is getting another box of New Mexico wine. Rebecca Vasquez has five parcels, probably shoes. The lady must love shoes or her feet are hard to fit. She returns nearly as many as she receives. But these seem to be the kind with built-in orthotics. I noted the brand on the box. Babe, my wife, is always complaining about her feet hurting. Ed Notting is getting his standard fruitcake. He starts in on them in October and doesn't stop ordering until way past Christmas. I don't think he buys them for anyone but himself because that’s about the time he stops wearing jeans and dons the overalls. Holiday food does that to some folks. Jimmy Parker's son has a parcel, probably baseball cards. He’s a collector. I stowed Charles Melendez's heavy padded envelope on the dash. His silver coins arrive monthly along with the Numismatic News.

The three large boxes belong to Rebecca Hunt. She is redecorating her bedroom. I've had a tough time with the workmen parking in front of the mailbox. That's a taboo as far as mailmen are concerned and I don't deliver if I don't have access. Well, that's not exactly right. If there's a package that won't fit in the mailbox, I'll take it to the door and leave it on the porch. Justy Marlin and I got into it once about her packages. She called the postmaster and accused me of tossing her parcel on the porch and not ringing the doorbell.

I didn't dispute the story but my reasoning was that the parcel held diapers and it wouldn't hurt anything to pitch it onto the wooden slats, especially since my knee was hurting and there were four steep steps to climb. It happened to be naptime and I sure didn't want to ring the doorbell and wake up any of those three little ones I thought might be sleeping. I knew she was home because I saw her big suburban in the drive. Rain wasn't in the weather forecast, so her diapers were safe.

It was a quick assessment of the situation, but after twenty years of delivering mail, my instincts are honed. After a discussion with the postmaster, I agreed to always ring Justy's doorbell when I leave a package. And the next time, I did just that and rang it hard - didn't want her to think I wasn't adhering to instructions. After three deliveries, she caught me at the grocery store, a bit red-faced, and asked me not to ring the doorbell any longer - I was waking the kids from their naps. But I shook my head and said my orders come from the postmaster and she would have to talk to him about the situation. I guess she did because my instructions concerning Justy Marlin's mail were to ignore the previous instructions. We aim to please; at least I do, so there are no hard feelings. Some people just find it hard to decide what they want.

Harvey Hanks was the same way. After he moved in, I took a package to the back door because there is a protected alcove where I could leave it. He happened to be mowing at the time and not expecting anyone. Said he nearly had a heart attack when he saw a stranger out of the corner of his eye. Again, I had strict instructions to leave all packages on the front porch and to ring the doorbell. And again, I laid heavy on the little white button. Since they are one of my first deliveries and they get a multitude of packages, I was ringing at nine thirty in the morning. Seems as if Mrs. Hanks likes to sleep late so it didn't take long for Harvey to decide it was okay to leave all packages in the alcove and bypass the doorbell. I'm not sure why people think they know my business better than I do.

Some folks don't want packages left on their porch for all kinds of valid reasons and I respect that, leaving the little pink slip in their mailbox. The Jenson's travel quite a bit so I never leave anything on their porch. Ms. Haddock visits her daughter sporadically, so I put pink slips in her mailbox. I usually know who is home and who isn't and I know who has company. I know when Carli Wilson's mom and dad come to visit because their motor home is parked beside the back door. I also know they have a little terrier who hates me so I never get out of my vehicle when he's loose. It's best. Creates fewer problems.

I honked as I drove up to Toby's house. I saw his car and thought he might want the twelve boxes in his barn instead of the house. He opened the door and motioned for me to drive toward the back. Toby is slightly built, has a full head of white hair that anyone would be proud to have and the greenest eyes I've ever seen. He stands straight and always wears starched white shirts and jeans with his boots. Toby is a friendly man, always interested in what I am doing, but not so interested that he delays me on the route to talk. I see him at the gas pump occasionally, but generally, we don't travel in the same circle. He pointed to the open barn doors and I backed the car in a few feet.

"I wondered when they would get here," he said with a smile on his face.

I scratched my head and tilted my head in question. "I can understand one or two, even three toilet seats, but twelve?"

He laughed and picked up six of the boxes. "Follow me. I'll show you what I'm doing."

I entered a room, enclosed within the barn, paused and stared. "Well, I'll be....."

I had no words for what I saw. One solid wall was lined with carved toilet seats. Odd faces, funny faces, old faces, young faces and weird faces stared at me. Carved lids were still attached to the ring, which looked like a frame around each carved portrait.

"The ones I just ordered have a thicker lid. I'm hoping to get more depth to the faces."

I put the boxes on a table and walked closer to the wall to inspect the work. Clearly, the man is an artist and an excellent woodcarver. Some sculptures were painted, some merely stained. All were impressive, even the grotesque ones that only had one eye, half a mouth or a disfigured nose. I looked at him in awe and he just shrugged.

"Needed something to do after I retired. Beth told me to get out of the house - I was driving her crazy."

I shook my head in wonderment, still amazed. "What will you do with them?"

He shrugged again. "Fill the barn, I guess."

"Why toilet seats?"

"Seemed like a good idea. I've never seen a carved one."

We talked a bit longer but I left still in wonderment of Toby Williams. I wasn't surprised often on my route, but today I was. What other customers had secrets I didn't know? And why didn't I know since I was part of their lives and had been for many, many years. A mailman is supposed to know about his mail folks and yet I didn't know about Toby Williams. I almost felt as if I had failed him.

Country Mailman

Tune in every week to read about the adventures of Buck Buchanan, fictional country mailman, delivering mail out of Starz, Texas. He takes his job seriously and knows that customers count on him to deliver every piece of mail entitled to them. He is all about customer service. With a willing ear and a helping hand, Buck Buchanan goes the extra mile.

*  *  * 

I sang along with the melody playing on the radio, just as loud as if I was singing in church. I don’t have any parcels to  deliver for at least two hours and that makes any mailman happy. And today is check day. Two people have already met me at their mailbox, glad to get the envelopes. Happy folks tend to visit and since the mail is light today, I don’t mind spending a little extra time catching up.

When I saw the figure walking along the side of the road, I exhaled sadly. “Aw, Essie.”

Driving up beside her slowly so as not to frighten the lady, I leaned over and yelled out the window. “Need a ride, Essie?”

The silver-headed woman was dressed in a blue nightgown and wore terrycloth slippers that were coated with dirt. The back of her hair looked as if she had slept hard and sparse tufts spiked in all directions. She peered at me suspiciously through black eyes that still sparkled even though age had taken the rest of the sparkle from her life.

“Do I know you?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m your mailman. I played basketball with your son, John.” I shrugged. “Many years ago,” I added, under my breath so she didn’t hear.

“I’m going to the café. Edna needs me,” she said as if she had never asked the question.

“Climb in. I’ll take you.”

She looked at me again, still standing by the window. “Do I know you?” she asked again.

I shook my head. “No, ma’am. You don’t know me. Can I take you to the café?”

“Will you take me to the café?”

I smiled slightly. “Yes, ma’am. I sure will.”

After ushering the older woman in the front seat, I hesitated to call the sheriff’s office to let them know I’d found her – seemed blatantly patronizing and even though the lady didn’t understand what went on around her, I just couldn’t do it. I’d call when I got to the café. It was closer than her daughter’s house.

After leaving Essie to drink coffee with the cotton gin crew taking a morning break, I called the sheriff’s office, feeling like an informer. Essie escaped several times a month, but rarely made it past the front drive. Her daughter had installed all kinds of alarms, but clearly, the old lady sidestepped them all this morning.

Essie Kling is a legend. Not known to many, she was a member of WASP. Essie didn’t know when the group was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal because her mind had already been lost to the unknown, but the ones who knew her appreciated the latent honor. Her daughter has the duplicate bronze medal sitting in the glass cabinet beside the front door. Only one gold medal was made, but all the members of WASP received a replica – at the time only a third of the group was estimated to be alive.

In 1943, Essie asked her father for five hundred dollars so she could get a pilot’s license. It was a lot of money at that time. She didn’t know how her dad managed but he gave it to her and she learned to fly. The license was a requirement for applying to the Women Airforce Service Pilots program and Essie wanted to see the world. She also wanted to serve her country during the war and that was the only way she could figure out how to do it.

Since her uncle worked for the railroad, he let her ride on the caboose down to Sweetwater, where she then hitched a ride out to the airfield. All the applicants had to get to the Texas training site on their own and she was lucky enough to live only a hundred miles away. Five foot, two inches was the minimum required height so she stuffed socks under her heels in her shoes to add an inch. Approximately one thousand young women finished the program, Essie being one of them. They weren’t military; they were considered civil servant employees. The program was instituted to relieve men pilots so they could participate in the war, leaving routine flight jobs in the United States to women. Thirty-eight of the participants were killed during the short two-year program in either training or routine flights and each time, their cohorts pitched in money to send the bodies home to families.

Essie’s first job was to ferry planes from manufacturing plants to military bases in the states. During one trip over Nebraska, smoke poured into the cockpit. Instructed to bail out, she hesitated because her parachute was too big. She very likely would have shot out of it and been killed, anyway. Staying with the plane that was only smoking, not flaming, she made an emergency landing and discovered some wires had been crossed, causing the trouble. A few hours later, she was back up in the air, delivering the aircraft as planned.

Next, she towed targets behind a plane for artillery gunners to practice their shooting, using live ammunition. Perhaps because she had proven herself as being dedicated and competent, she began to fly B-26 and B-29 bombers from manufacturing facilities to air bases. Essie said it was the grandest feeling she ever knew. That alone was worth all the hard work and five hundred dollars she repaid her father.

As the war began to wane, the program was disbanded and Essie came home to Starz. She had not seen the world, but she had seen a lot of the United States. And she brought a soldier home with her, settling on the family farm and raising three sons and a daughter.

Records of the WASP program were labeled classified and sealed when the war ended. But when the Air Force began admitting women as pilots, the role of WASP was re-examined and Congress granted veteran status to the participants in 1977. Two years later, the pilots were awarded honorable discharges and finally in 2010, Congress recognized the valuable service the women played in World War II. The group as an entity was issued the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor that is bestowed. Now, there’s a museum dedicated to the WASP located in Sweetwater, Texas. It houses a little known story of the first American woman air force. I know about it because I live in Starz where Essie Kling will always be a legend to me. Some people you meet in your life are unforgettable. Whenever I see her, I picture a tiny, young woman in the pilot’s seat of a B-29 bomber. What a woman!

 

Country Mailman

 

!!!!Announcement!!!!

The book, Country Mailman, in both E-book and Paperback form will be available this week on Amazon. But not to worry, Buck will continue to appear on my blog every week (or not, if there is a holiday) until....well....until he doesn't. I am thinking about a sequel, Country Mailman 2, and if that reaches fruition, you will hear from Buck for quite some time. Happy New Year!

 

Tune in every week to read about the adventures of Buck Buchanan, fictional country mailman, delivering mail out of Starz, Texas. He takes his job seriously and knows that customers count on him to deliver every piece of mail entitled to them. He is all about customer service. With a willing ear and a helping hand, Buck Buchanan goes the extra mile.

*  *  *

Since my seventy-year old, afternoon coffee partner, Annie Oakley Grayson, is off visiting her son in Galveston, I pulled in to the café. Today, the mail has been extra heavy and I am ready for a break. Fifty-six parcels nearly set the record for any month that isn’t December.

Piper Smith waved as I walked in and I got ready for the corny joke. He’d tell it pretty quick. Sure enough, he motioned for me to sit down and as soon as Edna poured coffee in my cup, he let me have it.

“My wife heard on the radio there was a man driving the wrong way on South Loop 289 yesterday afternoon. She knew I was headed that way, called and told me to be careful and look out for a car going the wrong direction. I told her there wasn’t just one car going the wrong direction, I was seeing hundreds of cars and they were all honking.”

I smiled as I took a sip. Within five minutes, he’d work another joke into the conversation. But I was wrong. He got a text and left after putting two dollars on the table. Since no one else was in the café, Edna sat down at the table and pointed to LaSonda Robins’ driveway, in clear view from the window. LaSonda, the substitute postmaster, was due to start her annual three-month vacation next week.

“Guess whose car I saw going to see LaSonda yesterday evening?”

I paused, wondering if she wanted me to guess or if she just wanted to tell me. I was tired, though, and didn’t feel like guessing. “I have no idea.”

“Gus Richardson.”

My hand paused in mid-air before I set the cup on the table and looked strangely at Edna. “Could be all kinds of reasons for that,” I said. The postmaster who lived forty-five minutes away might have had business with the woman who takes his place on occasion. Even if it isn’t business, I wish the guy luck. LaSonda doesn't seem all that bright, and if you can overlook her obsession with nail polish and lotion, she is nice to look at.

She raised her eyebrow. “Do you know where she goes every year about this time?”

Again, I shook my head, not having the inclination to play the game well. “Not a clue.”

“New York. And do you know what she does?”

By this time, my patience was just about gone and I stared at Edna, thinking she’d get the hint that I wasn’t up to conversing. But she didn’t. The café owner must not have had much business today for she was bubbling over with information.

“She’s a hand model. She goes to New York to have pictures of her hands taken. And those strange cars I see coming and going in the evenings during the week – they’re students from the massage therapy school in Lubbock. She gets three hand massages a week and pays them to come to her house. Can you imagine!” 

I realized my eyes had widened involuntarily. For years, I imagined much more about LaSonda than the simple explanation given by Edna. That certainly explained the overuse of nail polish and lotion, fruited ice water and diet shakes. It explained the monthly check from the New York bank and it explained the evening traffic. But it didn’t explain why the postmaster, who was always anxious to go home, would stop at LaSonda’s house. I didn’t feed Edna’s gossiping frenzy by acting interested so she put Piper’s two dollars in her pocket, refilled my coffee cup and left the table.

Gus and LaSonda. I should have known. He had asked her to come in for extra computer training several days in the last weeks. Well, it isn’t any of my business and what happens at the Post Office stays at the Post Office as far as I’m concerned.

I left the café, with only ten more stops on the route. A mile later, I saw the white bird perched on the low fence in the distance because it stood out against the dark gray clouds on the horizon. With the sun still shining, rain in the distance and a fresh smell in the air, I kept the windows down to enjoy the autumn afternoon. Suddenly, I wasn’t quite so tired. Perhaps it was the nearness to the end of my day or the caffeine in the coffee that did the trick, but I found myself relaxed and content.

As I got closer to the bird, I saw the coyote sneaking through the grass toward the fence. If I honked to startle the bird, the coyote went hungry. If I didn’t, nature took its course. Having plenty of time to think it through, I decided to drive on by and let the creatures work it out amongst themselves. Sorry, fella, I thought to myself as I drove past the white pigeon. Startled, I pressed the brake after seeing a reflection on the bird’s leg. It was banded and that changed things. The bird wasn’t raised in the wild. He was at a disadvantage.

A blur of motion from the grass erupted and just as the coyote leaped for its prey, the bird flapped its wings and flew straight toward me, escaping. I put my arm up instinctively, but felt silly after a moment and realized the pigeon was inside my car, perched on the back of the passenger seat, staring at me with warm, liquid brown eyes. We looked at each other for a minute and I didn’t see any sign that he held a grudge against me for not warning him against the coyote. The little guy even acted as if he wanted to stay. I didn’t see any harm in it so I headed toward the one house I knew might be of help.

Cole Adams had racing pigeons. I didn’t know if this one was his, but if the little fella was still in the car by the time I got there, Cole might know how to get him home. He clearly was lost.

I drove up the paved drive, glad to see Cole’s pickup. I honked; the sign for every person who lives in the country to come outside, and watched the lanky man come out of the barn. He leaned on the open window, saw the pigeon calmly perched at eye level and blinked in surprise.

“Well, what do you have here, Buck?”

“I’m hoping he’s one of yours. He flew through the open window and lit right there. He’s been riding with me for the past fifteen minutes. Seems content.” 

The pigeon acted indifferent as Cole picked him up with one hand and examined the band. “He’s not mine and I don’t recognize the number. You want me to take him?”

I nodded. The little fella wasn’t a bad riding companion, but I doubt people want bird droppings all over their mail. The car was safer than a low fence out in the field, but he’d be better off with Cole.

I left with a nice feeling in my chest. All was well with everyone except the coyote. But coyotes are survivors. Jake, the county sheriff, thought he hit something one early morning on the way to work, but couldn’t find a sign of an animal, living or dead, on the side of the road. When he came out of the coffee shop, he noticed a tail hanging from the front bumper. A coyote was wedged sideways between plastic and metal, eyes alert and ears up, but clearly stuck. Since the bumper was already damaged, Jake got a tire tool, bent the opening wider and that coyote hopped out like he had just been napping. The animal didn’t appear hurt, merely trotted across the parking lot and disappeared as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Animals are like that. No drama, just a get-on-with-life attitude that makes things appear simple. That coyote didn’t blame Jake for trapping him in his bumper and that pigeon didn’t harbor any ill will toward me for not warning him.

Maybe I can remember their good nature the next time I see a car driving in the left lane and not passing. It is a pet peeve of mine, an irritation when drivers don’t respect others on the road. A lot of people in Texas don’t know it is a traffic violation to cruise in the left lane of a multiple lane roadway with a fine starting at $200. Passing a car, turning left and avoiding a hazard are the basic reasons for not staying in the right lane. I keep reminding our county sheriff of that, but he merely nods and pulls at his earlobe when I happen on that subject. My wife, Babe, rolls her eyes when I start complaining about other drivers. I may go overboard on the subject, but when I’m on the highway I respect others and I expect them to do the same. It’s the right thing to do.

Pencil Drawing

This is a father/son drawing that I have been working on. Ben is my nephew and Keller is his son.