August 5th, 2009

Sales for Thunder Over the Prairie continue to drop off aas quickly as visits to this site. And talks with Walter Hill have stalled while the remaining funds to make the film are being raised. We have partial funding, but getting another entity to committ to additional money is slow going. We are told quite often that “Western movies don’t sell.” If you can’t open a picture with the kind of revenue a film like Harry Potter makes it isn’t worth the studio’s time. It’s exhausting. This pneumonia I’ve had since July 14 continues to drag on. My condition was further aggrevated yesterday by a close family member who insists I “let go of the past.” She was referring to my brother. It is a past event to her and those around her. Her investment in the tragedy is a letter to Rick every now and then. There is no real emotional tie and no respect for the devotion I have for him. My brother is not gone yet. He languishes in a prison, hurt, with broken teeth the prison will not allow me to help fix. Since his beating his teeth have been broken and all efforts to get him dentures have failed. In fact, the prison dentist told Rick that she “would confiscate the teeth he has remaining if he didn’t shut-up about it.” That kind of treatment makes it hard for me to put this “in the past.” Of course, my loving family don’t get the calls about such hardships and hurts. I believe when she says “let go of the past” what she is really saying is “don’t mention this situation to me anymore because it interferes with my life.” The situation with my brother is my past, present, and future. His continued care is my responsibility. Where he lives, if he lives, is of utmost concern to me. I won’t let him be tossed out onto the street to be thrown into the gutter. And so we learn that aunts, neices, cousins, grandmothers, do not want to be bothered with your hurts. Their motto is “Don’t deal, forget,” and their family crest is a drawing of several people sitting around a television, never dealing with what is. So I shall leave them to themselves. I think I’ll make a trip to Custer’s Last Stand next month. I have more research I need to do on the book about Elizabeth Custer. For a little while maybe I can surround myself with people who know how difficult it is to leave things in the past. At the very least I have that in common with Libbie.