Hope Thanksgiving was much better for you

than t’was for the turkey,

And may Christmas, Hanukkah and the New Year

top lots of good stuff with good gravy.

Spent part of the passing year catching up on what has piled up, getting used to missing Mom, and trying to find the old cowboy... Consequently, I rode into a 25,000 acre corner of New Mexico and worked the Hartley Guest Ranch, a working (not a Dude) ranch. While Dip Stick tested my will and muscles, wrangler Mike smiled, spit and added, “He ain’t really been broke yet.”.. and told stories about running crazy, uncontrollable horses into trees and over a cliff -- Mike bailed first. All the cowboys were almost as sensible. Herded, threw calves for branding, let the boss castrate --- still not manly enough for some things, bounced canyons on all terrain vehicles, rode shotgun as boss lugged 100 cattle and two horses in a semi’s low gear to the high ground. Satisfied my belief that t’was a cowpoke in a previous life. The Hartleys, however, think I was just a designated eater.

Real cowboy is in baseball cap.. other is wannabe...

New Mexico was a good choice for me not just for the great people at the Hartley Ranch (let me know if you ever want to taste your choice of any level of cowboying), but because it meshed with my detective role. Yes, I’m still trying to find something to do when and if I grow up, and my detective job had me in Mexico to check up on my Magnum PI subject... Also later enjoyed seeing rest of country on Amtrak, thanks to my lap top and the view car, although some other parts of Amtrak weren’t as enjoyable.

Nine months after Mom was beamed to heaven in that one hour of sunshine that January of 97 sent to San Francisco, Marlene’s kidney’s failed. On the one year anniversary of her being on kidney dialysis, Marlene got the call that she had been hoping for. The Pacific Medical Center had obtained a cadaver kidney and pancreas for her. The ten hour operation left Marlene free to eat anything she wanted without taking insulin. (Hope you have all signed organ donor cards.) There were a few complications along the way -- like an infection and probably drug complications that had her hallucinating. Like: “I can’t talk now... the nurses, you know, they are part of the conspiracy.... I had breakfast with Hillary yesterday. She knows about the conspiracy...” Since she stopped having breakfast in a long wing of the White House, the kidney and pancreas have been working perfectly, albeit with about 40 pills, drugs and anti-rejections steroids... Unfortunately, she now sees very little from her one working eye.

Hope you and yours stay as fit and as healthy as possible in the New Year.

If you are one of my Excel long distance, paging or on-line customers -- thank you. If you are not, why not? Excel/Teleglobe’s price, service and might is right, and whoever you now have probably doesn’t send this kind of Christmas mail... Lucky for you, eh... J If you have e-mail, send me your address. If you don’t excelonline.com is great, and I can set you up... Thanks again... God bless...