It got interesting.

I've been debating if it is better to chop up the day into shorter posts or keep adding to the day as I've been doing. That makes for some long posts. Today I'm chopping a little so what follows is the continuation of the earlier one for today.

It’s been a busy interesting morning. The first thing we did was to stop by Jim McGillivray’s office. He was in and had one of those “oh God, what does he want” kind of looks when I walked in. We explained how the oil company had problems with my name not being accurate (because “Jr.” wasn’t on it) and wouldn’t switch over the mineral rights. Then we went over the other issues connected with my name not being accurate on everything else connected with the estate. I find it curious that Larry’s name was corrected, as in changed from Larry Westbrook to the legal “Thomas Lawrence Westbrook” but mine was not. Jim wasn’t real enthusiastic at first and stated that he didn’t know how to change it. As things progressed he seemed to figure out I wasn’t going to let it slide and finally called Patrick Duffey, our lawyer.

Seeing Jim’s artwork, which had mostly American Indian themes, I mentioned that he would probably like the Beverly Doolittle prints I had. This hit a chord as he was very familiar with her work. You often see me putting one of her paintings on this blog as is the one at the head of this entry. “That’s the lady who hides things in her pictures isn’t it” Jim exclaimed. Yep. If you look real careful at the one above you can find a wolfs head hidden in the arrangement of stones and land. Click on it to enlarge it and maybe take a step back to see.

We all talked for a while and I told him a short version of my life history with the coma and reunion with Cherie. That started when he asked me about my dad because it is technically his name everything is in. I covered how rocky that relationship was and how Minnie Lee (my grandmother who’s farm we now have) raised me from the age of fourteen. When I mentioned prison Jim seemed to feel better that I had gone because of drugs versus something else. I suspect this has to do with the poisonous words of my brother. We already know some of the stories he had told so there is no telling what kind of impression regarding me he left Jim with.

After we talked Jim seemed to be much more comfortable with me and desirous to help fix the problem. He asked me if I was going to preach again and I explained that it would be hard with the brain damage but I might teach again. Things left off on a positive note.

With that done we went over to the clerks office to register Westbrook Farms as our DBA. That didn’t take much, we just had to walk over to the tax office and get the form notarized and then pay the registration fee. So now we have an official business. It’s not doing anything yet but will soon enough.

After that we stopped by the bank to get some cash. I like to carry twenty bucks or so just in case. Then we decided to stop at Carrols for something to eat. That turned into quite a stop. I pulled up and turned off the truck. After we ordered we sat around waiting for the food to be made. A young lady got my attention through the electric window of her car that was just barely rolling down. She asked if I could give her car a jump as the battery was dead. “Sure, I’d be happy to” I replied with confidence, telling her I had jumper cables. Hopping in the truck I went to start it. Wrrrr,,,click click, was the only sound it made. My battery was dead. It was funny in a sad way. We laughed and shrugged our shoulders, seeing the humor, or at least finding it in the situation.

A Stanton cop had pulled up just when I was going to start the truck so I had asked if he could back his patrol car up so I could pull mine to the lady’s car. Now he’s laughing too and offers to jump start both of us. He gets mine running first and then we go to work on the young lady’s car. That didn’t work at all, not even a click. Seeing she had the cheap add on battery cable ends and that they were corroded I got my pliers out of the truck. Removing the wires I cleaned them as best I could. The policeman said that if we had some coke it is good to pour on corroded ends as the acid cleans them up. I never heard that before but it’s one of those cool little things to know. Hope I remember it. The girl bought a coke so we poured it on the ends. I held them with my hands cupped to hold the coke as the policeman poured. Putting it all back together the car started right up. The girl was visiting from a town two hours away and was grateful for the help. She asked “What do I owe you”. That caught me by surprise. “Nothing” I laughed. “Welcome to Stanton” I told her and the policeman added “Just be glad you ran into the friendly ones instead of the few soreheads” referring to Stanton’s motto and billboard approaching town.

I wish I could remember his name. When all was said and done I introduced myself saying “I don’t believe we’ve met”. Come to find out he is our neighbor living a half mile down the road. I’ve seen the patrol car parked there many times so knew a cop lived there. It’s good to meet him. I made it a point to look at his name tag and repeat his name in my head to try and remember but to no avail. His badge identified him as a sergeant, that I remember. It also had the strip of black tape across the face to signify recognition of the three officers who were killed in Odessa just a few days ago. I don’t remember if I mentioned it but the third officer just died in the hospital. Three men dead because of some lunatic tough guy wanna be wife beater with a gun angry cause the wife called the police. He will be lucky if he makes it to trial and then he will be lucky if he gets a life sentence. Personally I think a life sentence is better than death. Death is an easy out. Life in prison is a miserable existence with no hope of an end, except death.

Cherie has gone to Midland to do some more work at Janie’s. I poked around the truck to see if I could find a cause for the battery going dead. Couldn’t find anything. It’s been showing signs of problems as the truck has been slow to start on occasion. But the rest of the time it is just fine. I’ll go to Midland if it starts back up.