There are times when I wish I still believed in hell.

There are times when I wish I still believed in hell.

This’ll have to be rushed. There’s a cowboy band about to kick off in the parking lot next to my hotel room, and I’ve wasted half the morning trying to get US CELLULAR (boo! hiss!) to explain how I paid $40 a month up front till Octobe and suddenly get cut off, incommunicado. I hope they rot in… well, let’s say a nasty, dark dangerous place – in extreme discomfort.

However... the sun is out, the parade has gone by, it’s cool under the linden trees, and I’ve cured my headache and my woes with a very American remedy: a breakfast of strong coffee and cinnamon rolls (thankyou, Jeannie) and an early lunch of hot dogs (which they’re GIVING AWAY over the road here) and Pabst on tap.

The cowboy band is of special interest to me as it features Jerry, the 6 foot 5 brand inspector. Some years ago he was playing the Olde Main Street Inn and invited me to a branding next morning. I had to decline - I had newspaper interview – but it was incidents like that, and other missed opportunities, that persuaded me to try and fix up a six-month stay out here. He tells me he’ll be at Gordon livestock auction Tuesday, and that they serve a free barbecue lunch - so that’s another date.

This is a festival weekend in Chadron, their Fur Trade Days, which celebrate the French trader the town was named after. Last night we had an excellent band out here,  playing a mixed bag of rock classics with an ever-shifting line-up, two impressive singers, and a mean old guitarist. One member of the band was George, who teaches music at Gordon High School and is married to Jeannie’s daughter. With him getting his kids up to play bass guitar, drums and one or two other instruments, and Jeannie’s mother looking on, the Goetzinger clan were represented by no less than four generations. Not your average rock gig.

It wasn’t a huge turn-out, but being nearly all family and friends, plus a few college kids, the atmosphere was intimate, and I got the chance to meet guys like Tony, a biker from Denver who knew Jeannie way back when, and Tom, a 64-year-old fitness freak, youth worker and part-time Revolutionary War fighter. He’s out at the black powder camp on the edge of town today, and I plan to run out there and see what’s going on. (Black powder, as opposed to the smokeless stuff they use nowadays.)

While I was chewing my free hot dog I took a look at the vintage car show – and took a bunch of pictures for my pal Greg back in the U.K. I hope he’s recovered from the last lot. He spent most of his working life in the motor trade and tends to get overwhelmed.

I’ve just had an email from Toni V Sweeney, the writer I met up with in Lincoln last weekend . She’s kindly featured this blog on her website. If fantasy – or erotica – is your thing, check her out at http://www.tonivsweeney.com/

Well, I’m not sure whether I’ll fit everything in that I want to do today, but if I’m to have a chance I’d better crack on.