Ebro is off Highway 20 straight up Highway
79 from Panama City Beach. There's a dog track there.
You can also bet on
horse races through simulcast wagering and play casino poker, whatever that is.
* * *
Loney Sperty's Breeder's Rest dog kennels and writers' colony was near Ebro.
Blaster Al drew a picture of Sperty, James Jones, Old Folks, and Crowbar Nestle with
Jim Thompson in a Frosty the Snowman suit, Christmas, 1951.
All Blaster Al's female figures had breast-shaped pears.
Jones had
just published From Here to Eternity and was a pretty happy camper.
Loney Sperty was very possessive of Jones. Luckily, Old Folks was spared the full
focus of her attentions.
27 years later Crowbar would bring out Old Folks's
40th novel, Forty.
That was the last book-length book Old Folks would
have published until Bukowski Never Did This.
* * *
Jim Thompson assured his wife his books would be worth some money 15 years
after he died.
They were.
Same with Phil Dick.
Old Folks
wasn't sure any of his books would ever be worth anything.
He wasn't even
sure Bukowski Never Did This was going to make it through the obstacle course.
He had quit his job to promote and sell the book.
He didn't have a book to
promote and sell.
Had he counted his eggs before they were hatched?
There's many a slip twixt cup and lip.
