Dinner with a Local

I had dinner tonight with D. Lance Lunsford, a reporter from Midland who wrote a book, The Rainbow's Shadow, which is about the Jessica McClure rescue and does a wonderful job following up with the people who were involved. His grandparents lived just a few doors down from Jessica's Well, and he remembers his mother picking him up from school and talking her way past the police so they could get a good view of the action. He remembers watching Jessica come out of the well on TV, and then running outside to follow the ambulance down the street. After Jessica was rescued, his boy scout troupe marched in the parade.

There are a few grassfires around Midland, which are not being helped by the wind, so we decided to just eat at the hotel rather than brave the tempest and the smoke. I was too busy laughing at Lance's wild tales about Midland's long history of, how to put this delicately, "colorful characters" to remember to take a picture with him, but I did send him off with Kona coffee. He couldn't have been nicer to me or more helpful. He drove two hours just to chat with me, and then he bought me dinner.

Anyway, I learned all sorts of juicy gossip which was, of course, off the record, so now when you see the play you'll just have to guess what I made up, and what is real.