What Comes Next?

Napoleon's Return from Elba
Charles Auguste Guillaume Steuben

When I was younger, I wanted to write a book about World War II. So I finally did that. Writing the prequel was a bonus thing, it's of a more amorphous nature because I'm not following the calendar as I did with Almost A Lifetime. No, the prequel is more of a "as the mood dictates" kind of thing. Which is why there are characters and settings from Norway on down to North Africa, from France in the west to Russia in the east.

A bit more than I intended to cover, but the ride has been fun so far. I like this writing thing.

The War in the Wild grew faster than I originally intended, as I mentioned in the comments yesterday, the French and Indian War was meant to be a prelude to the American Revolution followed by the French Revolution and the Wars of Napoléon. The stories would have the same families running through it in multiple threads.

So yes, I'll get to my favorite period of history yet, the years of Napoléon Bonaparte. Probably a symptom of an early exposure to the Napoleonic Wars through a book I picked up in junior high school. (They don't call it that anymore, do they even have books on warfare for kids that age? Something makes me doubt that.)

I've already done a bit of writing in that area, covering the Waterloo campaign. You can read those here:

• Opening Moves
• The Eagle Soars, Yet Falters
• Off to the Races
• La Rêve Passe

I have to write this one, because as much as I like juvat, I really don't want him haunting me. (Read the first comment on the last post above.) Can you imagine, having the ghost of a fighter pilot roaming the hallways telling all those "There I Was ..." stories?

Truth be told, I can think of worse things. Still and all, I am going to write the Napoleonic book, even if no one else cares for it, I will.

That's important, I think ...

A very interesting period in history, though, as ever, YMMV.

Be seeing you ...

About Those Tanks ...

(Source)

Probably much of what follows will be of little interest to many of you. But to understand what it was like to serve in an armored unit, you have to be able to picture what the inside of a tank looked like.

Some vehicles used in World War II set standards which are still followed today. Lethality, survivability, mobility, and ease of logistical support are all key factors. One thing less looked at is crew comfort and how easy it is for the crew to use and maintain that complex piece of equipment we call the tank.

The Chieftain also has a video covering the design and such of each of these three vehicles. But one can see quickly what a tank looks like from the outside, it's the inside which is of interest to me, at least as an author of historical fiction.

The PzKw III plays a large role in the prequel (Part I). It was a very useful tank, especially the basic hull, throughout the war. Early in the war it was, as LTC Moran mentions, perhaps the most advanced tank in active service.

We encountered the French Char B1 in this episode. It was well-armored, but crew comfort was an afterthought it seems.

The Germans captured a number of Somua S35s and used them in Western Europe and in Russia, but not as front line machines. They suffered from the same poor turret design as the Char B1. One guy gets to command, lay the gun, load the gun, and fire the gun.

French tank commanders must have been as busy as a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest!

At the 1:15 mark in the following video, you can see two Somua S35s being used by the Germans during the liberation of Paris in 1944.

That's it for now, sorry juvat, no tanks blowing up today, maybe tomorrow.

On Friday (an off day pour moi) I incorporated a bunch of edits in Almost A Lifetime while waiting for the oil company to show up to tune the boiler. They never showed.

But I got a lot done.

So I've got that going for me.

Interregnum¹

Portrait of a Scribe
Bartolomeo Passerotti
c.1560 (PD)

Those of you who have visited this page, should recognize the painting above. It is where I keep links to the historical fiction I have written, not all of it mind you as I quickly discovered that creating all of those links was rather time-consuming. As I am naturally lazy (I am a firm believer in Newton's First Law of Motion - at rest is my natural state), doing extra work is something I assiduously try to avoid. Which, you might gather, is interesting. If I spent as much time and effort doing something, as opposed to not doing something, I could probably get a lot more accomplished.

But to what end?

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well.² But who decides whether or not a thing is worth doing? Aye, there's the rub.

Anyhoo, as noted at the end of yesterday's post, the first part of my prequel to Almost a Lifetime,³ is complete. It doesn't necessarily mean that the prequel itself is complete. As I leave Part One behind, it is December of 1941, Almost a Lifetime opens on the 2nd of June 1944. From New Year's Eve 1941 to 6 June 1944 is eight hundred and eighty four days. A lot of history between those two dates. Lots of stories to be told.

So I'm not quite sure where the Muse will take me next, but at least for a few days (weeks?) I shall leave the fictional writing "on hold." Something I desperately need to do is go through all of the great material my editors provided when I put the book out for review. Grammar needs cleaning up (unless it's a character speaking in some weird vernacular), spelling needs fixing (the whole "principle" versus "principal" thing of gestern springs immediately to mind), and there are other issues I need to clean up as well. (Can you say "holes in the plot?" - I knew you could.)

Now that last bit is work that I believe is worth doing well. After all, the end goal is to get published and perhaps enhance my revenue stream. It's doable, I'm sure, but the work has got to be put in.

I also need to compile the Prequel, Part One (for lack of a better name) to see just how long it is. If it's "long enough." then maybe it's a second book (in need of a title), or not. I could go back to work on my War in the Wild series, which petered out due to the writer's exhaustion with doing research and my own perception that interest in that particular series wasn't as high as I expected. (I require lots of hits and lots of comments to spur my not inconsiderable ego to keep working at something. I am, it must be said, rather self-centered at times.)

All that being said, things could change based on a whim, a soft breeze, or an inspiration from the Muse.

Stay tuned.

A while back I posted about some miniatures (Napoleonic) that I had purchased. I'm building up three armies: British, French, and Prussian. Discovered something that I just had to have ...

(Source)

Finally ordered them on Monday. I was informed that it could take up to four weeks for them to arrive.

Monday was the 17th, on the 18th I received notice that the package was on the way, from the UK. I figured, "That'll take some time to get here."

The package was in Indianapolis on the 19th, then it arrived on my doorstep on the 20th (today as I write, tomorrow as you read). To say that I was impressed is a bit of an understatement.

Well played UPS, well played.

So now Napoléon has his Guard ready to go into action, infantry AND cavalry.

Look out Wellington and Blücher, here we come.

Um, did I say "we"?

Why yes, yes I did.

Back tomorrow with something, whether it be fiction, ramblings, or fact, only the Muse knows for sure.

And she ain't telling.

Yet.

A bit o' Tull works for me at the moment ...

"As the white sea snaps,

At the heels of a soft prayer,

Whispered."

Now THAT is writing.

¹ Has multiple meanings, see here. You can choose the one you like. I'm going with #3, for now.

² Attributed to Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, 1774

³ The tentative title of my first book, suggested by one of the readers. I liked it, so I kept it. It's what you might call the "working title," but unless and until someone comes up with something better, it stays. And yes, I get to decide the definition of "better."

1941 Comes to an End

(Source)

His mother was in the kitchen, after telling his parents what it was that he intended to do, her eyes had gotten a faraway look. She had gone to the kitchen muttering that she would have to start getting dinner ready. It was obvious that she didn't want to, or perhaps couldn't, talk about the subject at hand.

He had come home to the small family ranch just outside Divide, Colorado when school had finished. He had talked to the principal at his high school, who was very supportive of what the young man wanted to do. The principal had also mentioned that the young man probably had enough credits to receive his high school diploma early, if he was insistent on his desired course of action. But the older man, a World War I veteran, had insisted the boy talk to his parents first, without their blessing he couldn't go forward until his 18th birthday.

Though his mother hadn't really taken it hard, it was obvious that she was upset. Rather than make a scene, she had retreated to her domain. She needed to stay busy, she didn't want to think at the moment what this might mean for her oldest child.

His father had nodded as his mother withdrew, "I somehow knew that you would want to do this. It is what I would do, were I a younger man. But it is war mi hijo,¹ I have seen war, it is nasty, it is brutal, and it could mean your death. You know that, yes?"

"Sí padre, lo sé.² But this is something I must do, this country has been good to us, she has been good to me. If I don't do this, I could not live with myself."

The father looked at his oldest child, his son, "I know Stephen, I know. When I changed your name from Esteban, it was meant to mark you as an American. You were born a Spaniard, now you are an American. You have my blessing, I will sign whatever it is that must be signed. Your mother knows that this is the right thing to do, but still she is sad. She knows war as well as I do. You were so young when we left Madrid, we tried to shield you and your sisters from what was going on, but you witnessed some of the horrors, even though you never spoke of it. We got out before things got really bad."

"Yes Father, now the Germans and the Japanese want to inflict upon the world what Franco inflicted upon Spain. I know that I must fight this evil, I cannot wait."

Hector Hernandez nodded sadly, he had raised his son a certain way, he was proud of the boy, but he would miss him terribly.

Seven days later, Stephen Hernandez enlisted in the United States Army.

Nathan Paddock, a plebe at the United States Military Academy at West Point, was anticipating the Christmas holiday. His last class was over and he could start packing so he would be ready for the train ride to New Hampshire in the morning. He looked forward to seeing his family. He also needed to have a serious conversation with his father.

Should he stick with West Point? Something deep inside of him wanted to leave the school and enlist immediately. But as his roommate had said, why leave now, it was going to be a long war, better to go as an officer than as an enlisted man.

Paddock wasn't so sure, he read the papers, he saw the numbers of men volunteering for service. He almost felt like a shirker being at school when the rest of the country was going to war.

He thought, Dad will know what to do, I'm sure Uncle Bill will have a lot to say as well.

Uncle Bill was his Dad's oldest brother, he'd been a Marine in the Great War. Wounded in the Argonne fight, he would have good advice. Then again, so would his father, he had been too young to go to war in 1917, but he was well-read and loved history.

He would speak of this to no one until he'd talked to them.

For now, he would enjoy the Christmas holiday.

"What the f**k did you just say?" Johnnie Mastriano said as he threw his cigarette into the gutter.

"I said I'm gonna enlist Johnnie, the country's at war, or ain't ya been paying attention?" Flavio Gentile was short and dark, the neighborhood kids liked to say that he was as wide as he was tall. He knew that his decision wouldn't go down well with the guys he ran with.

"Go off to war with those other suckers? I thought you were smarter than that paisan."

Gentile stood up and poked Mastriano in the chest, "This is my country paisan, I was born here, unlike you."

Mastriano bristled, he'd been born in Naples, Napoli as his parents called it, but he had come to America when he was a baby. "This is my country too, don't forget that. I just don't want to go fight the Germans or the Japs, or anybody. Life's too good here in Philly. Why you gotta leave?"

"I just have to, you might understand some day ..."

Two days later Flavio Gentile enlisted in the United States Army. Two weeks after that,  Giannini "Johnnie" Mastriano enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

"Frohe Weihnachten, Herr Leutnant.³" Unterfeldwebel Georg Hansen raised his canteen cup. Somehow the platoon's horse holder, Schütze Phillip Dessauer, had acquired a bottle of cognac. Von Lüttwitz suspected it had come from an officers' mess, but probably not within the regiment and certainly not within the battalion. Dessauer was very good at "acquiring" things the platoon needed.

Von Lüttwitz lifted his cup and said, "Prosit!⁴"

It was a quiet day before Leningrad. The Russians were conserving their ammunition, the intelligence von Lüttwitz was given was that a large Russian attack northeast of the city was expected, across the frozen Lake Ladoga. Russian efforts within the encirclement would most likely be directed at the German lines in that direction.

He couldn't complain, they might have a day of peace, even if the cold was enough to freeze your piss before it hit the ground.

It was his third Christmas at war, but the first that he had not been able to go home. He had written his family to let them know not to expect him. The letter he had received from his uncle, his mother's oldest brother, told him just how proud the family was of him. They understood the sacrifices he was making for the Reich.

His uncle had actually referred to Germany as "the Reich," not the Fatherland, not Germany, but by the term Hitler liked to use. Well, at least he hadn't referred to it as the "Thousand Year Reich," that would have been too much, even for his Uncle Otto.

The two men looked up as Schütze Max Ober came into the dugout, a brief gust of wind, laden with snow, came in with him.

"Snowing again, Max?"

"A complete white out, Herr Leutnant, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. It started just moments ago. The Major was going to come this way, 'celebrate Christmas with my boys,' he said, but he might stay at headquarters if this keeps up."

"Sit down Max, have a drink."

The three men sat in companionable silence, listening to the wind and the distant crump of artillery, each man lost in thoughts of home and better times. Praying that this madness would end some day, sooner rather than later.

End of Part One

¹ My son (Spanish)

² Yes Father, I know. (Spanish)

³ Merry Christmas Lieutenant. (German)

⁴ Cheers! (German)

Adjustments - Leningrad Front, December 1941

(Source)

Major Kurt Hassel stood in the trench watching his battalion moving forward supported by a platoon of PzKw IIIs. He rather hoped that the Russians didn't have any of their T-34s in the vicinity, the PzKw III wasn't really a match for Soviet armor like the T-34 and the big KVs.

But as he'd noticed with Soviet artillery fire, the Russians encircled in Leningrad seemed to be short of everything. Artillery ammunition, fuel for their Panzers, food, short of everything in fact other than raw courage. Your average Ivan had that in abundance.

Regiment had come up with a scheme to remove a small Russian salient which projected into their lines. It wasn't viewed so much as a threat but rather an annoyance. The Russians there seemed to come across every night, making life difficult for the Landsers in that section of the front. So the orders had come down, "Pinch off that salient, straighten the line."

Hassel realized that the fighting around Leningrad wasn't that much different from that he had experienced in the Great War. Extensive networks of trenches and field fortifications which the armies squabbled over day after day. Small gains measuring very little in the grand scheme of things, other than the toll in blood and suffering.

Sighing, Hassel turned to the commander of his 5th Company, Oberleutnant Ferdinand Busch, "Are your boys ready to go in? I gave the initial attack to 6th Company as your boys always seem to get the bulk of the dirty work. But I think Quandt's boys are ready, they've gained enough experience that they're not going to get themselves killed just by moving forward."

"I spoke with Adolf this morning, he was nervous, but his men are ready. So he assured me and I have no reason to doubt him." Busch wanted to be out there, leading the attack, but his men were tired, they'd been called out constantly as the battalion's "fire brigade." It was past time for another company to step up, he'd be content with a reserve role for now.

Hassel's eyes narrowed as he heard the chattering of Russian Maxim guns in the near distance. No doubt his men were even now fighting, killing, and dying as they approached the Russian forward positions.

(Source)

Kazankov shouted at his squad, "Aim low!"

Before he could say another word he heard one of his Ukrainians, Antonyuk he thought, shout out, "That's right lads, shoot the Fritzes in the balls, that'll make them think twice before coming to visit again!"

Kazankov shook his head, Antonyuk was irrepressible. Always ready with a quip, a story, or a clever remark. He liked the man, he was good for morale.

The Germans were getting closer, they were using cover well, moving from position to position. While one group moved, another provided covering fire, the fact that they had tanks made their task a little easier. Kazankov knew that the Russians had nothing to oppose the tanks with. Their own tanks had been pulled back and were being used as pillboxes along the main line of resistance. If they didn't receive resupply soon, he wondered how they could continue to resist.

Most of his men hadn't had a proper meal in days, he knew the civilians were suffering even worse. An old man had wandered into the lines the night before, begging for even the smallest crust of bread. They had found him this very morning, dead. Whether he had starved to death or simply collapsed and frozen to death, one couldn't say. Either way, he would suffer no more.

"All right boys, get ready to fall back, I don't want those tanks to get any closer to us than needs be." Kazankov thought that they had left it too late already. Majór Telitsyn had briefed him the night before that they were to resist for a while then give the Germans the salient. They had lost too many men already trying to hold it.

Busch was watching the progress of 6th Company's attack. He could tell that the attack seemed to be going fairly well. Quandt's men were advancing in short rushes, covered by the fire of their machine guns and by the cannon fire of the three Panzers supporting them. He had seen one or two men fall, his field glasses had lingered on those spots, almost willing those men to get back up. But they did not.

"Johannes!" he shouted to one of his runners, "take a message to 1st and 2nd Platoons, they are to advance in support of 6th Company when I fire a red flare. It seems that Quandt has driven the Russians back."

"Jawohl, Herr Oberleutnant!"

Turning to von Lüttwitz, Busch said, "I want your platoon to wait 30 minutes before moving up. I'm not sure if the Russian withdrawal is a feint, or if they are just shortening the line to free up men. It could be a trap, I don't think it is, but ..."

"Doppelt genäht hält besser.¹" von Lüttwitz checked his watch then nodded. "I'll have the boys ready."

Kazankov and his squad made it to the main line with no casualties, they had been lucky. Telitsyn's orderly Kolobkov had been hit, and the Major had had a number of men killed around him.

"Why must he always be in the thick of it?" Berezhnoy grumbled as he cleaned his rifle.

"It's the kind of leader he is, Valerian Dmitrievich. He leads from the front, that's his way." Kazankov explained.

"It's going to get him killed, then where will we be?" Berezhnoy refused to let it go.

"Why, we'll still be here, outside Leningrad. Still cold, still starving, and having to live off Party slogans and admonitions from the Leningrad Council of Deputies. That's where we'll be, Comrade Berezhnoy." Krasnoarmeyets Kyrylo Ihorovych Antonyuk pointed out the obvious, He understood what Berezhnoy was talking about. After all, Telitsyn was a very popular officer. But in the end, it was about survival, nothing more, nothing less.

¹ Literally "double stitched holds better," i.e. "better safe than sorry." (German)

On the Line - Leningrad Front, December 1941

Bundesarchiv

Von Lüttwitz was wondering if it was scientifically possible for it to get any colder. There was a small stove in the dugout he shared with his platoon sergeant and the platoon's three runners, which kept the temperature somewhat tolerable. Wrapped in his blanket, he was staring at the small thermometer on the table they had scrounged from a ruined building. He wondered if it still worked as it hadn't moved off of -15° since two days ago. When it had read -20°.

He decided that it was probably better to get up and move around than lie there shivering, so he shed the blanket and pulled on his greatcoat. Time to make the rounds of the squads under his command.

Just as he was moving the tarpaulin they used to keep the weather out aside, Oberschütze Otto Wandesleben bustled in. "Sir!"

"News, Otto?"

Wandesleben, who had just returned from battalion headquarters, did indeed have news. "We're at war with the Americans!"

That news brought von Lüttwitz up short, "The Americans? Why on earth are we at war with the Americans?"

"The Japanese attacked them at some place in the Pacific, so they declared war on the Japanese. Following that, the Führer declared war on the Americans. We have to support our allies, don't we Herr Leutnant?" Wandesleben asked, as if he truly didn't understand what was happening.

Taking his time before answering, von Lüttwitz finally said, "Of course, Otto. I'm sure Berlin knows what they are doing. Stay here, I'm going to inspect our positions."

As he left the dugout, von Lüttwitz had the thought that Berlin had absolutely no idea what it was they were doing. They were fighting England and the Soviet Union, now as if that wasn't enough, they would eventually be facing the industrial power of the United States. Didn't these politicians learn anything from history?

Oberschütze Hermann Dedekind and his assistant gunner Schütze Max Ehman were at their post, a semi-dugout open to the rear, overlooking no man's land. At least the dugout had a roof and the way it was constructed kept most of the wind and precipitation out. But nothing could keep the cold out.

Though they tried to keep all of the machine guns on the line, they had to occasionally take them back into the living area to check that the mechanism was still functioning, the cold did funny things to machinery. Their gun had just been serviced so they were back on the line. Their platoon commander had managed to set up interlocking fields of fire using only three of the platoon's four MG 34s. Not only did this allow the weapons to be kept in shape, it allowed the gunners time out of the cold.

Although each man in the platoon was qualified on the MG 34, those who were assigned as the gunners were reluctant to let the other soldiers use "their" guns.

"You do know that the MG is the property of the Army, not your personal property, right Hermann?" Dedekind's squad leader Unteroffizier Paul Niehaus had remarked one day after Dedekind had been bitching that Emil Schaab and Viktor Adler had gotten the weapon dirty after their stint on the gun.

"Of course, but could you mention to those apes that the MG 34 is a precision piece of machinery, not some old rifle which you can drag through the mud and still have it function. Do those clowns even realize that their lives depend on this gun functioning as it was intended to function?" Dedekind had started to raise his voice as he unloaded his frustrations on Niehaus.

"I'm sure they do Hermann, but I'd be careful about calling Schaab an ape, he is, after all, a very large fellow."

"You know what I mean." Dedekind said, the anger still in his voice.

"That will be enough, Oberschütze Dedekind. Report back to your post."

Knowing he was going to get no further, Dedekind responded automatically, "Jawohl Herr Unteroffizier, zu befehl!"

Though von Lüttwitz tried not to show any favoritism to his old squad, no one in the platoon minded that he would often stop in to see them first when making his rounds. This day was no exception.

"Sepp, are you keeping these wolves well fed?" he greeted his old assistant, Unteroffizier Sepp Wittman, as he stopped by the 2nd Squad's alternate machine gun position. One of the men had once asked why they had multiple locations in which to set up the MG.

"When we're attacking the Russkis, what do we try and kill first?" he had asked the man.

"Well we try to kill their machine gunners, of course, that way ..." von Lüttwitz had been amused, though gratified, when the light had come on in Schütze Eric Lindauer's eyes. "So we move the guns around, making it harder for the Russians to predict where they might be!"

"Give the man a prize," he had joked with Lindauer's squad leader, Unteroffizier Hannes Kohl, "he pays attention. You might live through this yet Bubi.¹"

Von Lüttwitz noted that Wittmann was one of the men on the gun, the other was Schütze Karl Wachsmuth. Wachsmuth was watching the area in front of the gun intently. Von Lüttwitz tapped him on the leg and said, "Anything out there, Karl?"

"Nothing but dead Russians, you can't see them because last night's snow covered their bodies. It gets very eerie out there at night Herr Leutnant, sometimes you see things which may or may not actually be there."

"If you think you see something, Karl, look slightly away from it. Looking directly at something at night will just confuse your brain as it tries to make what you're seeing fit a pattern. Look away and that which was unclear will often become clear." he looked at Wittmann when he was finished.

"Uh, I knew that Sir." Wittmann said.

"But does the rest of your squad?"

"They will soon."

"Another thing, Karl. Your ammunition belt contains regular ball and tracer rounds, correct?"

"Yes Sir, I believe every fifth or sixth round is a tracer."

"Even without tracer ammunition, your muzzle flash is visible at night, correct?"

"Yes Sir." Wachsmuth was starting to wonder where all this was going.

"Say you're here on your post and you hear something out there at night. What do you do?"

Wachsmuth reached for one of the grenades they had on a shelf below the gun, "I throw one of these at where I thought I heard the noise. So I don't give away my position."

Von Lüttwitz nodded, "Only if it's an obvious attack and you can see lots of Russians moving towards you should you engage with your gun. Of course, everyone will be shooting by then and the Russians might be too busy to focus on your gun. But believe me, you are a target."

Wachsmuth nodded and resumed watching no man's land.

Von Lüttwitz patted Wittmann on the shoulder, "Glad I can still teach you a thing or two."

Wittmann grinned as Von Lüttwitz left to visit the other squads. He knew they had a good officer, someone who actually cared about the men he led. They weren't all like that. Perhaps because von Lüttwitz had once been a simple Landser² like the rest of them, he remembered what it was like.

Wittmann noticed that the clouds were starting to break up towards the east. It would be sunset soon, if the night was clear, the temperatures would plummet. It was going to be a long night.

¹ Boy or lad. (German)

² German slang for a low ranking infantry soldier, similar to the U.S. Army's use of the term "grunt" in Vietnam.

A Great Weekend!

 Hi there, Chant Readers! Let me introduce myself.  I am referred to on this blog as MG.  My Grandfather asked me to fill in for him this week as he's had a VERY long weekend and he wanted a nap Sunday Afternoon instead of writing his usual Monday blog post.  You see, this past weekend was my First Birthday and he's kinda pooped from the festivities.  

You folks seem to refer to him as juvat.  I, and my family (Mom and Dad, and the 5 dogs, 3 Cats and 2 Horses) refer to him as Papa Julio, or PJ or Peej. I'm not sure why that is as I'm only a year old and evidently my Mom has been referring to him as that for a long time.  At least when she's not referring to him as "The Old Fart", I'm not sure what that means, but everybody snicker's when it's used.  

Except Papa Julio, of course. He doesn't think it's funny for some reason.

But, here I am, ghost writing a post for PJ. You may ask, how a 1 year old knows how to type and use Blogger.  Evidently, he spent a considerable amount of time teaching me the intricacies of Blogger.  I would insert a picture of that training, except my Visual Effects assistant is having "issues".

Here he is trying to fix the problem

But, in any case, we do have photographic evidence of the Gala Event this weekend.

I was introduced to Strawberries and Yogurt.  I liked it VERY much.  Please, Mom, Can I have some more?

We played Hide and Go Seek.  Little Juvat thought he had a good hiding place.  I found him immediately after I found my father. (He was hiding as a book reader.  Not a good hiding place.)

PJ thought I was going to take my first steps walking.  No, I was pulling the chair out for him so he could sit down. He was getting tired from taking all these pictures.

Then we went to Aggie Land Outfitters.  Dad and Mom say Aggie Indoctrination can not start too early. So, they bought me this.

 My younger cousin, who's in hospital but doing MUCH better, (Not intubated anymore, Papa Julio says that's VERY good news.) got this one.

For the Non-Texans, Here is a description of this slogan and its history.

Then we went out to dinner.  It was a very nice restaurant. Dad, Papa Julio, and Uncle Little J all had steaks.  I had pureed Blueberries and Beets.  I decided Hide and Go Seek would be a fun activity.

I bet you can't find me!

The next day, we had a special ceremony which was started by my Mom on her first birthday.  I'm not sure of the significance of this event, but I went along as the "Adults" (Quotation marks included because with all the giggling and laughing going on, I wasn't so sure about their Adult Status anymore.)

First, I was placed upon my throne.

Then the Court Jester (sometimes known as Little Juvat) ceremoniously brought in Dessert.

As with all Royalty, I was reticent to try it without the court Taster trying it first.  One can never be too careful.

His tasting was successful, so he presented me with the prize.  Apparently, I liked it and tried to apply it as lipstick.

Which must have been the My Loyal Subject's desired action as they broke out in clapping and laughter.  I was later informed that this was the same action my Mother had taken on her first birthday.

 

The Tradition Continues!

Very shortly thereafter, I, and my Grandfather, started nodding off on the couch.  We were escorted off to our various chambers and tucked into the arms of Morpheus.

Hope y'All  had a great week as well.  (Yes, like my Grandfather, I am a Texan. Unlike him, I'm a Natural Born Texan.  He's, as usual, late to the fight!)

P.S. My Audio/Visual Assistant came through at the last minute. Here's the training picture.