MONDAY/TUESDAY

Actually I think it is Wednesday morning, the early hours thereof.  I am up tinkering with the computer trying to fix a problem, so have been going back and forth on the system restore.

The snow didn't last long.  First thing on Monday the car was buried under a few inches of it but by lunchtime it had all melted away, and by Tuesday I was out and about again in tee shirt and cardigan. 

Looking at the picture again of the baby on the ping pong table (and I looked it up on You Tube where it has gone viral, as they say) I thought that perhaps someone should draw James' attention to it,  his baby daughter might be a ping pong prodigy.  Years ago when he, Pat and I were visiting Dad in Ireland there was a ping pong table in the hotel, and James asked if we would like to play.  Pat got up saying "I will give him a game".  I smiled inwardly, knowing what was going to happen, and when she came back defeated 5 minutes later and threw herself into a chair I told her he was the best player in Eastbourne College.   Do you remember that Pat?

Pattisue is feeling a bit better after her chemo last week.  We talked of going to a recital this evening - Tuesday evening - at OBU which looked quite good, but she picks up her grandson from school at 8.30 which cuts into her evenings, and I didn't bother.   I should have done though, I am sure I would have seen people I knew when I got there but I just seem to have so little energy and motivation.    

As it is the middle of the night though I am going to motivate myself to the YMCA pool at 5am.   Someone at the Senior Centre asked me today if I was still exercising, she'd missed me there.  I told her about my crushed toes which had been very painful, but are now beginning to feel better, I can certainly go round the water walkway.   I am not sure about getting back to my virtual walk across America, going round tracks, racking up miles on my pedometer.

I am not quite sure what this plate is supposed to mean (it is on the front of a car, they only have licence plates on the back here).  OU is Oklahoma University, the picture on the right is of Pistol Pete, the athletics mascot of Oklahoma State.  State universities are subsidised by the states and the tuition fees are lower than those of private universities.


Pistol Pete is the mascot of OK State, New Mexico State, and the University of Wyoming.   He is based on the character Frank Eaton, a real legend of the Wild West, the kind usually portrayed by Clint Eastwood, John Wayne et al.



When Eaton was 8 years old his father was shot in cold blood by six former Confederates, and his father's friend told him to avenge his father's death, showing him how to handle a gun.  Eaton set off when he was 15 and went to Fort Gibson in Oklahoma to learn more about handling a gun, and he outshot everyone at the Fort.  After many competitions the Fort's commanding officer gave Frank a markmanship badge and the new nickname of Pistol Pete. 


Frank/Pete began serving in the Indian Territories (which became Oklahoma in 1905) as a US deputy marshal when he was 17.  His territory extended from southern Kansas to northern Texas.  He said it was from the start of his career as a lawman that he began tracking down his father's killers and by 1887 he had killed five, the sixth was shot by someone else in a dispute over a card game (no wonder this is called the Wild West).  During his teenage years he was reputed to be faster on the draw than Buffalo Bill.  He could throw a coin in the air and shoot it before it hit the ground.


When he was 29 he joined the land rush to Oklahoma Territory and settled near Perkins, OK where he served as sheriff and later became a blacksmith.


He was married twice, had nine children, 31 grandchildren (how did he keep up with them) and lived to see 3 great-great-grandchildren.    He died in 1958 at the age of 97.