That's good news! I have unfortunately been off my old Trudeau story for quite sometime due to other pressing matters, some sad, that have taken me in different directions. However I was recently contacted by Garry Trudeau with some interesting information, including a beautiful hi-res image of his g-g-gf in buckskin painted by J W Audubon c 1840.

I remember that pic of Mallory House that you provided a few years back and have given you credit for the image in the photo caption in my yet-to-be-published monograph on James deBerty Trudeau. It is my intent to wrap this up in 2010, along with the story of my dad's service in Arabia in 1934-35 as an aerial photographer and airplane mechanic with Socal/Casoc. And oh yeah, there's another story on a 1920s barnstormer that's in the hopper too. The thing that really adds pressure is the fact that a few very old people in both of these cases would like to see these stories completed really soon, and I'm just so struggling to get everything done.

But it's these little nuggets that pop up that regenerate interest and move stuff to a front burner amidst all the other stuff that's constantly tugging at our mental sleeves!

If you'd care to share, I would love to know what you've found about the Mallory House / Camp Jackson mystery.

Interesting stuff is surfacing. A recent issue of the American Aviation Historical Society Journal has an in-depth article about Union balloon activities in the New Madrid area during the time of the siege at Island No. 10. They also had another great article on Confederate ballooning last year if I remember correctly.

cheers,

Mike