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January 7:  Dallas, TX
New York Rangers vs Dallas Stars
American Airlines Center

Henry McCarty was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett on July 14, 1881 in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.  Henry is better known as the outlaw Billy The Kid.  I started this entry while 36,000' over Fort Sumner, NM.  It' s at this point the J-Boys Tour crosses the 24,902 mile mark, the circumference of the Earth.

Ben and I were inspired when my brother and nephew traveled around the world for a year a short time ago, as chronicled here:
Kombe-Jarvis: A Father-and-Son Trip Around The World
We are really proud of our brother/nephew, uncle/cousin.  Those guys are dreamers, but they're also doers.  That's a tremendous combination.  We're proud that we too have now been around the world......of hockey. 

The Lone Ranger had Silver, and Tonto had Scout.  Today Ben was on Pistol, and I was on Luke.  We're at Widowmaker Trails north of Dallas on a beautiful afternoon.  Our trusty guide David Alexander (on JimBob), is a tremendous host and riding coach.

We showed up at David's house at 3pm and he had us saddled up and trotting through the mesquite trees on his 1,000 acres, and the federal land that he's adjacent to, by 3:30.  A first timer, Ben was a natural on his 1/2 ton bay, with David's calm and encouraging support.  I bounced along behind on Luke, remembering years ago my rides on Stubby about 300 miles north of here.

If you're in Dallas and want to see Texas on horseback, definitely give David a call at Widowmaker Trails.

Let's play some hockey y'all!  "Hockey" and "Y'all" shouldn't go together.  "Hockey" and "Eh" maybe, but not "Y'all".  But we're in Dallas for some hockey.  Y'all.

This game was 1-0 Dallas at the first intermission, with shots even at 10-10.  At that point Ben and I predicted the game would finish 2-2 at the end of regulation, remaining there through OT, and go to a shootout.  That is exactly what happened.

Notably, New York scored a shorthanded goal in the 2nd period.  We had never seen that before.  We've now seen three OT or Shootout games on the tour and all three times the road team has won.  Strangely, those are also the only games we have seen where the road team has won.  Hmmmm.....

My mom remembers where she was when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  I think her whole generation does.  My brother Michael was one year old, and if I remember right, she was ironing.  I get it.  I have some of those too.  I remember a cold September morning when I was 12, getting in my dad's Mustang, I can still see it, the day Keith Moon died.

I have seen images of that motorcade, and the Zapruder film, all my life.  Standing on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Repository makes those images very real.  While the others walked the now museum and listened to historians retell the story, I just stared out the window, much like Lee Harvey Oswald did on November 22, 1963.

From the sixth floor of what was the Book Repository you can really put yourself in that time and place, John and Jackie's car turning right from Main on to Houston, and then a hairpin left onto Elm and right under that sixth floor corner window and Oswald's sniper nest.  Right below where we're standing.

Was Oswald alone?  I sure don't know, but it was interesting to walk back across Elm, right over where JFK was impacted, and up the path that bullet would have taken toward the grassy knoll.

Approaching the grassy knoll is just as breathtaking as standing on the sixth floor of the Book Repository.  What really happened here?  We'll never know.

That was all pretty heavy, we better go skating...

Ben is becoming an accomplished ice skater.  Karen bought him his first pair of skates for Christmas and he's already turning them into wings.  He is a tremendous inline roller skater, it takes my breath away.  (Actually, he scares me on those things, and I don't scare easily).  On our skate today I've committed to becoming an accomplished skater too.  I hope to see my friend Richard skate later on this tour, in a city to be named later.  Ben has also encouraged me to let him teach me to inline skate this summer.  He says "the key is to not be afraid".  I'm standing in a mall in north Dallas remembering telling him that, years ago, on skis.

I always feel fortunate that my son is into cool stuff.  And like his uncle Pete, he's a doer.  I don't know if Ben will be an author, a historian, a cartoonist, or a hockey goalie.  I believe he can be all of that and more.

And I am so proud of him.  We're heading home, the lacrosse season starts tomorrow....