Jimmie Walker, his pony Peanuts, and my brother Dennis. Jimmie had a whole series of pets: dogs, goats, birds, lizards... Once I dreamed he had pet dinosaur. His uncle Jiggs was Real Cowboy. He rode all the way from Texas on his splendid palomino with tooled western saddle in full cowboy regalia to spend some time. His favorite game was telling us to run away and then he'd rope us with his lasso, he never missed. He gave us rides on the giant horse, down to the market where he'd buy Baby Ruths... for the horse!

Jimmie tells me that Uncle Jiggs didn't really ride all the way from Texas after all, but it made a good story for the neighborhood kids! Jiggs Walker was a well-known cowboy on the rodeo circuit and organized calf roping in Northern Virginia while he was there. He was a Navy Frogman in the early 1950s, and wrote the book A Texas Cowboy Remembers.