I’m back in town today after a brief trip to Lubbock, TX for the funeral of my grandfather, who died on Nov. 27th. I received the unexpected honor of being a pallbearer – something I’ve never done before. Most of my memories of my grandfather were visits to his farm in Lubbock when I was very young. I can remember sitting in his lap and getting to “drive” his big red tractor. He was an avid reader of history and told me lots of stories about ancient Assyrians and Egyptians and countless other early civilizations. I used to spend a lot of my time on the farm searching for horned toads (actually lizards) in the loose dirt of the corn fields. When you caught one, the best thing to do with it was to turn it upside down and rub its belly which seemed to hypnotize it. Looking back now, this probably just scared the hell out of them until they fainted. Sadly there are few horned toads left these days, partly because of extensive pesticide use in the 60s and partly because their diet consisted mainly of species of ants that have long since been displaced by fire ants. (although one theory holds that they are dying out due to malaria!)