Dudleys Diary

from the doctor. Dudley found out the test was negative and he does not have Pompe disease. This is not the news Dudley was hoping to hear. This means there is no treatment for Dudley and no chance of stopping the progression of the neuromuscular disease that Dudley is fighting. Every day, Dudley wakes up a little weaker than the day before. It has been a long journey up to this point and it looks like the rest of the trip is going to be tough. Dudley will just keep doing what he has always done, doing the best he can with what he has and keep on fighting until he can't fight any more.

for a time. Dudley's wife and daughter left earlier today for East TX to go visit the in laws. Dudley has fed and watered the dog and cat and is watching the news. Frank was around the house most of the day. He washed and waxed his pick up. He went and got us some BBQ sandwiches earlier. He left to go hang out with his friends and came by later to get his swimsuit. Said they were going swimming over at some girls house. Told him I would see him in the morning and to be careful and don't do anything stupid. Dudley watched the Rangers win again against the Astros. Looks like the Rangers may get the Silver Boot once again. The Rangers are playing a day game tomorrow. Hope the Rangers win again. One of these days, Dudley is going to buy some tickets and go see a Ranger game in Houston at Minutemaid Park. The first MLB game Dudley ever went to was back in the late 60's when Dudley saw the Astros play the Cardinals down in the Astrodome. Dudley was around nine years old at the time and it was quite an experience.

running buses all over the country. Dudley remembers riding on a Trailways bus a few times growing up going from Wichita Falls To Fort Worth or vice versa to visit his grandparents or his father. Dudley always rode the bus without any other family members and at times Dudley remembers there were some scary looking people on those buses. Dudley always sat up toward the front and tried to sit by himself or tried to pick out the least scary looking person to sit by. Dudley would have much rather ridden on a train but sadly passenger train service was pretty much dead or dying by then. Once Dudley turned 16 and got his first car, he thought his days of riding on a Trailways bus were over. They pretty much were except for one last bus ride from Hell. When Dudley was away at college, he got Mono and got sick as a dog his Junior year. Dudley lived off campus by then and lived in an apartment with three of his friends. Dudley remembers being too sick to drive from Nacogdoches to Fort Worth so his mother drove over and picked him up and drove him back home. Dudley missed two full weeks of school and when he got well enough to go back to school, spring break was starting. Dudley wanted to go get his car but could not get anyone to drive him to Nacogdoches. Dudley remembers going down to the bus station and buying a ticket. He got on the bus, up toward the front and the bus started going east towards Dallas. Dudley knew he was in trouble when the bus did not get up on the turnpike to go to big D but instead stayed on the old two lane highway that linked the two cities. The bus stopped at every light and there must have been a hundred of them. it also stopped at as many bus stations at every little town between Fort Worth and Nacogdoches. The bus left around two in the afternoon and did not hit the outskirts of Nacogdoches until almost midnight. A trip that normally took Dudley about three hours in his Camaro had taken almost ten long hours! Dudley remembers getting the bus driver to stop within a few blocks of his apartment. Saved him from having to get a cab ride from down town. Dudley went inside the apartment, it was empty, all of his roommates had gone home for Spring Break. Dudley had thought he would spend the night in the apartment and then drive back to Fort Worth in the morning. Dudley opened the refrigerator to find it empty and Dudley said what the hell, grabbed his car keys, hopped in his Z-28 and hauled ass back to Fort Worth. Dudley made record time and got back to Fort Worth in about two hours. Continental Trailways went out of business not long after that trip from Hell. Gee, I wonder why?

of Zorro Aggravator spinner baits. Dudley was a young teenager and this was prior to his getting a drivers license. The spinner baits were black and yellow like those above on the right and left sides of the photo. Dudley had gone down to the Will Rogers Auditorium in Fort Worth to attend a seminar put on by B.A.S.S. This was during the early seventies and the Bass Anglers Sportsman's Society was in it's early years. Ray Scott spoke as did I believe Bill Dance, Stan Sloan and Bob Cobb. May have been a few others. They showed a movie, filmed in Florida I think of big Largemouth Bass striking and feeding underwater. The water was crystal clear and I remember one scene of a big Bass picking off a baby duckling that was swimming behind it's mother. Now that was cool to an aspiring bass fisherman. They also showed a movie about Treasure Lake down in Cuba and the incredible bass fishing there. Stan Sloan was a convincing salesman. He described how he would cast a lure up into the top of a tree out in the yard and then reel it through the branches without a snag. Dudley showed the lures to his dad one day and we soon went fishing out to Lake Arrowhead near Wichita Falls. We went to the west side of the lake one afternoon and fished from the bank and did not have any luck. We then went around to the east side and in a few hours, we managed to catch three bass in the 2 to 3 pound range. The very next day we went back to the same place and we each caught a bass over five pounds! Dudley was thrilled and he will remember that day as long as life lasts. The spinner baits in the above photo are currently on sale on EBay. Dudley is going to try to snipe them and add them to his fishing lure collection.