I COULDN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP

Wednesday is the day the West News comes out..it usually hits the stores about 3 PM...Every one in West rushes to town to pick it up..some even have it delivered to their house. But then you get it a day later and no one can usually wait that long. Wednesday is also the day the new sales start at the grocery stores. So Babs and I usually go into town together and grab our papers, see what's on sale and buy what we need. This week wright bacon was on sale..The regular price is $3.29 a pound...it was on sale for $2.59....so this is me going through Community Grocery....................'BAAAAAAAAAAAAACON, BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACON.' It makes me laugh..I love that stuff..It's thick, meaty, and doesn't shrink down to nothing when you cook it..It's like pig perfume when you cook it in the morning...it lasts all day long...When I croak I want my coffin filled with Blue Bell Rocky Road Ice Cream, Dublin Dr Pepper and fill the rest of it up with wright cooked bacon...

Ok...I don't do the West News that often..maybe once a month or so...used to do it more often but got out of the habit of doing it...and I know I just did one...but like my title says...I couldn't make this shit up.You all know about the meteorite that hit by us and everybody and their ugly cousin are here looking for bits of the meteorite...Offering money and bringing greed to my little hamlet..So what should I find when I buy the paper yesterday? We now have a meteorite sniffing dog...I shit you not.So here's part of the article. (written by Larry Knapek and photos by same.)

"The hunters have come in all shapes and sizes, but it seems that one home-grown hunter may be able to keep her nose closer to the ground as she hunts for those all-so-valuable meteorites.

This local hunter is a canine by the name of Hopper and the Border Collie has become somewhat of a novelty in the meteorite hunting community as word of her finding a meteorite weighing 2.5 ounces began spreading locally.

As the story goes,(break you off a chaw, sit a spell and listen to the story of a meteorite sniffing dog named Hopper.)meteorite hunters Ruben Garcia along with fellow hunters Sonny Clary and Steve Arnold were knocking on doors of some of the landowners in he West area seeking permission to hunt for meteorites on their property.

One such hunter Sonny Clary, was knocking on the door of Pauline Alligood's mobile home when he noticed a black-colored rock(meteorite) on her doorstep. He immediately called Garcia and they set out to locate Alligood with the intention of possibly purchasing the rock, which only days earlier had been making its way through outer space.(insert theme from Star Trek here)

Alligood, who is employed at Sykora Family Ford(the entire family of about 37 works there) in West, said Hopper is still in the puppy stage and is always into everything. "She's always tearing something up. I noticed the rock on the porch but I never thought any thing about it until I got a call from Ruben saying it was a meteorite and he wanted to buy it."

So far that is the only meteorite Hopper has found and brought back.

Hopper is a stray which found her way to Pauline's home only a few months ago, but her recent exploits have given her some reason to feel she has found a home for good. "I've had some offers from some of the hunters to buy her," Alligood said, "but I don't want to sell her."

Garcia said Hopper has caught the eye of more than one of his hunting friends. "It's the first documented time that a dog has found a meteorite and brought it back to it's owner.

Alligood's fiance, Mitch Bynum, also doesn't want to sell Hopper, however he's not opposed to making a dollar or two on the meteorite-finding dog's bloodlines. If she has a liter in the future, they might be for sale.

After all, how many meteorite-finding dogs are there?

See.......I told you I couldn't make this shit up..

To top it, the West Volunteer Fire Department members are making the final preparations for their 16th Annual Barbecue Cookoff set for March 20 an 21 at the West Fair and Rodeo and Westfest grounds. So we'll have chili hounds along with the meteorite-sniffing hounds..

I have to go take a nap, this is just too much excitement for me ..First T.O.'s demise, then the fact that for the first time i almost 5 months I slept all through the night with out having a coughing attack..I've coughed a little today, but they aren't the fits I have been having...It may be my body's way of celebrating from the T.O. news..or ( I thought of this today) the fact that the wind has been blowing like a bastid for the past 3-4 days..So maybe it blew what ever was triggering my cough away..Hot dang.. But I've felt so much better..been out and about today..Went and got boxes for the library. Some lady I had met at the Dr.'s office and I had been talking and I convinced her to give all her books to the library. Nancy and I stacked up 6 boxes of Texas Highway magazines from the 70's to today into my truck so I can figure out what to do with them as they can't use them at the library. But we now have another 6-8 boxes of books to add either to the library or for the book sale..We'll be busy Saturday figuring out what goes where. Surprising how much better you feel when you get some sleep.

Oh....oh...as if I didn't have enough good news...next Thursday the Bold Springs Baptist Church (the ladies this time) are making cheeseburgers...Life is fucking good here in West, By Goddess, Texas.