For some reason I’ve found myself with a surplus of time. That being the case, I finally corrected the errors in Howard’s Haunts and uploaded the Third Edition to lulu.com. One of the errors I forgot to mention last time was calling Dennis McHaney’s Cimmerian Award winner of 2006 an anthology. He actually won for World’s Greatest Pulpster, the best book by a single author. I must have been having a flash of precognition when I did that; I’m sure he’ll take the best anthology award this year for The Man from Cross Plains.

While tinkering with Haunts, I almost inserted another picture on a page in the Cross Plains section, but then I remembered how much I hate it when one of my favorite bands includes one new song on a Greatest Hits CD which forces me to buy the darn thing for a single tune. So, I decided to post the picture here, instead.

One of the more popular attractions in Cross Plains the last few years has been Mark Finn’s and Chris Gruber’s presentation of “Fists at the Ice-House,” or something like that. It’s basically a discussion of Howard’s love for boxing and his participation in fights at the local ice house. Modern refrigeration techniques have, of course, made the old fashioned ice houses a thing of the past, and the place where Howard squared-off with the local roughnecks has seen better days, but the slab remains and is pictured above.

Maybe Mark will chime in with a bit more about the ice house; I’m not the biographer.