She’s In Her Happy Place

Miss Terry has put a lot of her things on hold the last few weeks to help me get my new book, Big Lake Hoarder, out. She is my first editor and proofreader, and I would be ashamed to send the first draft of a manuscript to Judy and Roberta, my other proofreaders, until Terry had an opportunity to polish it up for me.

With that out of the way, she’s back in her happy place, working on her loom. This massive twist of beautiful yarn is going to be two lap blankets with different color schemes. She is weaving them double-width, something she hasn’t done before, and she tells me she’s nervous about that. But I’m not. I know that Terry can do anything she sets her mind to.

As for me, I didn’t do very much that was productive yesterday. I spent a little bit of time promoting the new book on social media, I spent an hour or so talking to a couple of author friends of mine, and then caught up on some email I hadn’t gotten around to yet. Then I did an online jigsaw puzzle, and that was my activity for the day. Yeah, I know, I’m about as useless as a slug.

I was happy to see that yesterday Big Lake Hoarder had reached number #23 in Amazon’s Hot New Release list for mysteries and police procedurals. It’s already gotten one five star review! Thank you to everybody who has purchased the book, shared links to it, and told me how much they enjoy it.

Someone asked me who Dudley Lewis is, the man to whom this book is dedicated. I first met Dudley in the late 1970s. He was my mentor and we became friends almost immediately. He was a fearless lawman, an amazing shot with a pistol, a cowboy poet and musician, he made custom holsters that are highly regarded among single-action western shooters, and he was one of the most loyal friends you could ever hope to have. He was also a man not to be crossed, and he did not tolerate thieves,  fools or bullies. I have seen what happened to people who tried to do wrong when Dudley was around.

When we were in the Phoenix area back in February, I went to see Dudley. He was in at-home hospice care at the time, and we spent a while visiting. When I left, we both knew it was the last time we would see each other. We talked on the phone a few times after that, and in our last conversation, Dudley told me he always thought I was a good man to ride the border with. From an old cowboy like him, that was a hell of a compliment, and I told him I felt the same way about him. We lost Dudley in September, but he will always have a place in my heart. Rest in peace, my old friend.

Thought For The Day – Walk away from people who don’t value you. They might not know your worth, but you should.