The Legend-News

Wednesday, 2010 March 10 : Volume 13, Number 2

What We Got Here

Searching for C.W. McCall
Convoy 2KX Update
C.W. McCall Is Not Dead
Old Home Café

Searching for C.W. McCall

Tom Claffey, author of 8-Ball, Corner Pocket, and Hoot ’N’ Holler, has been working on a new novel, Searching for C.W. McCall.

Tom was shopping for a publisher, and he has found one: ABQ Press in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The book is scheduled to be published in late May or early June.

Tom is also planning to be in Ouray on June 7th, to meet up with the drivers of Convoy 2KX. With any luck, I’ll get a copy of the book when I meet Tom.

Convoy 2KX Update

The Route, So Far

Alan (“Skywalker”) has been spending his free time with Delorme Street Atlas, and he’s worked out a first draft of the complete route for Convoy 2KX, from Santa Cruz, California to Wildwood, New Jersey.

Please note that this schedule is not finalized; check the Convoy 2KX page for changes and further details.

The schedule for the first four days hasn’t changed. Most of our driving will be on state and U.S. highways; avoiding the Interstates as much as possible.

Sunday, June 6: Santa Cruz, California to Rachel, Nevada. About 499 miles, 12 hours: Yosemite National Park is the “speed bump” of the day. We’ll stop overnight at the Little A’le’inn.
Monday, June 7: Rachel, Nevada to Ouray, Colorado. About 600 miles, 13 hours. Mostly desert driving, along US 50 into Utah, where we’ll pick up Interstate 70, head to Grand Junction, Colorado and turn south to Ouray.
Tuesday, June 8: Spending the day in Ouray.
Wednesday, June 9: Ouray, Colorado to Dodge City, Kansas. About 500 miles, 13 hours. No Interstate highway today, just scenery.

For the final three days, our route will be mainly on Interstate highways. Although that isn’t an ideal situation (the scenery is usually boring), it will allow us to travel faster. The state and U.S. Highways that are west of the Mississippi River usually have long stretches of road that are outside of towns and cities; but east of the river, those roads begin to pass through many small towns, and our average speed would become too low to make adequate progress.

Thursday, June 10: Dodge City, Kansas to Wentzville, Missouri. About 555 miles, 11 hours, not including stops. Some driving will be off-Interstate.
Friday, June 11: Wentzville, Missouri to Beckley, West Virginia. About 640 miles, 11 hours, not including stops. All day on the Interstate.
Saturday, June 12: Beckley, West Virginia to Wildwood, New Jersey. About 440 miles, 8 hours, not including stops.
We intend to take the US 9 ferry from Lewes, Delaware to Cape May, New Jersey, at 4:15 PM (if we miss that trip, the next ferry crossing is at 7:45 PM). The ferry time is not included in the travel time estimate of 8 hours. Upon landing in Cape May, the distance to Wildwood is about 20 miles.

Riding Shotgun

Skywalker is driving the entire way (west to east) and he’s looking for a co-pilot (or pilots) to share the driving and expenses. If you would like to make the Convoy 2KX trip, but don’t want to pay full price, contact Alan. He says “I’m an okay roomie, house-broken, and I’ll be bringing a lot of cool electronic gear.”

C.W. McCall Is Not Dead

Whilst trolling the interwebs for anything related to C.W. McCall, I found an article in the Saipan Tribune, “Good Girls Don’t”.

The author, Ed Stephens, Jr., reminisces about the popular culture of his youth. His recollections are interesting, until paragraph 13:

That’s the cool thing about pop music, it is like a little time machine: It can take you back to exact places at exact times. But it occurs to me that many of my favorites have met their demise. Patty Donahue of The Waitresses passed away in 1996. Robert Palmer, whose coolly suave and alluring rock music videos were popular in the mid-1980s, passed away in 2003. Waylon Jennings, Conway Twitty, and C.W. McCall are all gone now.

When I read this article, on February 19, I immediately realized that Mr. Stephens had not done his research. “…and C.W. McCall are all gone now”? Now, I may not be on Bill Fries’ speed dial, but I’m pretty sure that if he had passed beyond the veil, left this mortal coil and joined the Choir Invisible, then I would know within a day of that event.

So I did the research that was required. I sent an e-mail message to the man in question. (Okay, so I have Bill’s e-mail address and Mr. Stephens doesn’t. Many people who have wanted to make contact with Bill have found me first, and I’ve directed their inquiries to Bill. Mr. Stephens is not one of those persons.)

Subject: You’re dead, Bill. Would the news lie?
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:15:35 -0600

Bill,

Just read this (see the fourth paragraph from the end):

<http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?newsID=97346&cat=3>

Ed.

I awaited a reply, which arrived about two hours later.

Well, not quite, Ed. Maybe you, as my official historian, can set this obscure publication straight. They probably would not believe me if I told them Rena and I just celebrated our 58th wedding anniversary and my 29,660th day on planet Earth.

Bill

Well, there you go. Bill was alive and well.

So I went back to the website of the Saipan Tribune and found the contact information for Mr. Stephens. I sent a message to him, informing him of his error, and requesting that he correct his article. As of March 9, I haven’t received an answer, and the article still hasn’t been corrected.

Old Home Café

Since my recent clean-up of the web site (and it’s still in progress), I’ve had some inquiries about the stories of the Old Home Café. I haven’t written a story for over two years, but I’m planning to continue the amazing adventures in the near future. Not that my writing will ever get any bills paid, but you never know.

The Legend-News is published randomly by TechRen Enterprises, a façade for a phantom. Copyright 2010 TechRen Enterprises. Send subscription requests, unsubscribe demands, complaints, kudos, suggestions, news and other contributions to Legend-News@cw-mccall.com. Almost everything in The Legend-News has been written by Ed. Floden, except for the stuff that he blames on someone else. “I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe.”