Alan Peppard

When esteemed author David McCullough co-hosted a Dallas book signing for his daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson on Saturday, it was a case of a proud father supporting his child. But it was also a clash of generations.

The author of Truman, John Adams, 1776 and narrator of the film Seabiscuit as well as numerous documentaries, Mr. McCullough is one of the last staunch defenders of that quaint contraption – the typewriter.

"We gently suggest to him that he should use a computer," Dorie said at the party in her honor at the Dallas home of photographer Laura Wilson and her husband, author Bob Wilson. "He just says, 'No!' But we think maybe there is something magic about his typewriter."

Could be. With it, he has won two Pulitzers and two National Book Awards.

"I bought my Royal Standard typewriter in 1965," Mr. McCullough says. "It was second hand. I have written everything I've ever had published on it, and there is nothing wrong with it."

But isn't the process a little slow?

"People tell me I could go faster with a computer," he says. "I don't want to go faster. If anything, I want to go slower."

McCullough the younger (a.k.a. Dorie) is not ashamed of her writing method. "I have a computer," she says as emphatically as her father says he does not. The Wilsons' Strait Lane home was filled with old and new friends who'd come to get an autographed copy of Dorie's debut novel, Along Comes a Stranger.

Among the guests were arts patron Sharon Young and her husband, Michael, art dealer Kristy Stubbs, former neighborhood kid Katherine Perot who grew up across the street from the Wilson house, Eiseman Jewels dowager Louise Eiseman, developer Dan Boeckman and writer and political consultant Kevin Richardson.

This time of year, horse racing's famed snow-haired trainer Bob Baffert usually has his mind on the Kentucky Derby. But he detoured through Dallas last week to race the horse Bob and John in the Texas Mile Stakes on Saturday at Lone Star Park.

Though Mr. Baffert's horse was the 4-5 favorite, he couldn't beat trainer Howard Scarberry's Silent Pleasure.

If Mr. Baffert is in town though, it's just as much for the food as for the racing. He likes to go to Bob's, which is not named for him but for horse racing enthusiast Bob Sambol, who owns Bob's Steak & Chop House. Mr. Baffert came to the Lemmon Avenue steakhouse Friday night for his pre-race meal.

Thursday night, Bob's Steak & Chop House was the scene of another sports tableau. The Dallas Cowboys college scouts convened to analyze the draft over a steak dinner. Team owner Jerry Jones showed up just in time to pick up the check for the party of 20.

Dallas billionaire Kenny Troutt and his wife, Lisa, are headed to Kentucky next weekend. Their WinStar Farm bred and owns Any Given Saturday, considered a contender in Saturday's Kentucky Derby.

Those who know are giving favorable reviews to the colt trained by Dallas native Todd Pletcher.

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Albert Einstein