A fond, fattening farewell; The Stock Show opens

Walking again. After exercise, we cleaned up and planned breakfast. I began to work on the sermon for Sunday. Heavens! When I finished it was about 29 minutes long. I worked for some time chopping things out. I still have a long way to go. I will have to cut out some of the responsive reading time. A kind lady offered to sing a solo after the previous service. I hope she doesn't want to sing this Sunday. We may have to spend the afternoon there. At 5:30 we went to Peppers Hamburgers and steaks with the Jones and Newcomer families. It is possibly our last gathering together since the Joneses are leaving and Sharon Newcomer is going to DC for a month of grandmothering. We liked the burgers and the Joneses surprised us by paying. We did have fun and lots of Shiner Bock. We returned to our house for some wonderful black forest trifle that Sharon had made. We then played the craziest game of dominoes ever. I remember a game called tegwar (the exciting game without any rules), but this had more instances of violations of any logical rules than even that one. But we all had fun. I forgot to mention that Tom's mother Gloria joined us for dessert and games. She noticed the plays became rather ragged.
On to Saturday. I went to the Gideon prayer breakfast and then returned home to get Evelyn. We went out to the RGV Stock Show to help with the Lutheran Layman's League booth. We are to give away Christian tracts and Bibles to anyone who wants anything. There are many items for children and an opportunity to win a picture of Jesus to anyone who fills out an entry blank. Actually, this is a way for churches to get their names and addresses so they can be contacted if they are unchurched. The names are shared with churches in the Valley near their homes. We had few visitors so we were able to watch the parade at 3:30. We came home and took a nap because we wanted to return for the ranch rodeo. These are competing groups from actual working ranches simulating activities they do ever day. Our favorite was an add on, however. One cowboy rides a horse and pulls a shovel on which another cowboy rides on his stomach without falling off. Pulled to the other end of the arena, the first rider gets off and another replaces him on the shovel for the ride back. The fastest team wins. One of the shovel riders must have spun at least twice: he rode the shovel and then the shovel rode him. He looked like he was spinning every 100 feet or so, but he hung on. I don't remember whether they won or not. Other events were calf branding, steer roping and tieing, cow milking, bronc riding and loading a steer on to a trailer. We enjoyed this more than the professional rodeos. Those cowhands were having fun. What a way to have it.