Dick
Cheatem is perhaps better known for his sculpture and frescoes of Coronado.
I love his landscapes. I was rifling through some of his un-mounted work
one evening and came across a West Texas landscape. "That's your best
yet." I told him. He said "Yeah, but I doodled a quail hunter
on it and now I can't sell it." That was the very one I wanted. That
poor sucker is trying to walk up a covey of blue quail in 20 sections of
sagebrush! Been there and done that. I bought it on the condition that
some day he would do a windmill and bird dog as a companion piece. Years
later, Dick set up his easel in Ralph Spencer's drafting room. The picture
looked like Buffalo Landing near the dam on Lake Tawakani. Daddy Doyle
and I caught a ton of crappie out of that fishin' hole. Dick put a potbelly
and Buddy Holly glasses on the fisherman, titled it "Norris at Tawakani",
signed it and handed it to me. Better than a windmill picture.