Texas Postcard...

...postcard because these are quick jottings about our southern sojourn in Dallas/Ft. Worth, where I attended a conference on children's literature.

There WERE lots of armadillos, but it's probably a tie between OK and TX as to which state can boast the dubious distinction of having the greater number--they crawl all over our roads, too.

The conference very useful-- led by Peggy Sharp, a highly regarded, well known (I swear she has groupies among elementary teachers and librarians) professor of children's lit--I now feel quite up to speed on what's good, bad, indifferent in children's book publishing. One of the 'good' choices is a picture book called Cowboy And Octopus, seven stories of the friendship between a very articulate, accomplished octopus and a cowboy who is, shall we say, not the sharpest knife in the drawer. It has awesome illustrations. The stories are short--I will excerpt them for your amusement someday.

Went to the Ft. Worth Stockyards; had dinner at a cattlemen's restaurant--the kind of place with enormous portraits of prize livestock in gilt frames along the walls. One next to us was 'Lady Bang, 831st,' the something-something-something winner of 1956. Odd to paint for posterity something that one is going to turn around and butcher--reminds me of My Last Duchess.