Author: michaeldexterhankins

Trying to remember complicated English rules for grammar is getting to be more difficult as the years slide by. English composition is considered the hardest to write because of so many complex rules. Add to this, advanced age with a pinch of male senility, and it becomes a toxic recipe for incessant typos.

With several books on grammar in my library to go by, stopping in midsentence to research what’s right and what’s wrong slowed me down considerably. I constantly needed help until eventually finding some.

Not long ago, I subscribed to an artificial intelligence (AI) program that helps catch the smallest mistakes. All I have to do is copy and paste my work into this site and it does the rest. The program is called Grammarly, but I named it Miss Purdy, after a character from the Jerry Lewis movie, “The Nutty Professor.”  Miss Purdy in this film is played by lovely actress, Stella Stevens.

Along the way, Miss Purdy has attempted to change my literary voice to match hers. If I strictly followed Purdy’s suggestions I’d be sounding more like “R2D2’ than anything. For “Star Wars” fans, they’ll recognize that alphanumeric name as the likable robots.

What I like most about Miss Purdy is that she helps me with semicolons, comma placement, apostrophes, capitalization, verbs, nouns, conjunctions, discombobulation, and archaic sentence structure. It’s like having my own English teacher or tutor sitting beside me. The cost is minimal and well worth the price.  All I have to do is “Charge it!” and her services are mine.

I pick and choose what changes I’ll accept which allows my voice to still come through, if ya know what I mean. For information’s sake, after running this article through her program, Miss Purdy sniffed out “ya” like a trained hound dog. My fictional tutor instinctively recommended that I change it to you. I didn’t.

For several years now, me and Miss Purdy have rendezvoused privately in my office or on the road while traveling. Songwriter and singer, Billy Paul, had a similar affair, with his 1972 tune titled, “Me and Mrs. Jones.” In Billy Paul’s song, two immoral souls meet each morning in of all places, a café. Hopefully, they order the chicken fried steak, scrambled eggs, and hashbrowns, because I hear it can’t be beat.

A tune about my plutonic relationship would be much different than Billy’s.

“Me and Miss Purdy.

Got a thang goin’ on.

I type out my words.

She points out those wrong.”

They say artificial intelligence can write complete sentences, paragraphs, and even articles with some initial direction and guidance. I’m sure Miss Purdy could do that for me but I’ve never asked her to.

When the day arrives that my submissions are totally error-free, with no slang tossed in for added effect, you’ll know that AI completely took over. My wife hopes there’ll come a time when little Miss Purdy’s smart enough to clean the house and cook.

With the speed at which AI technology progresses, that might be closer than she thinks.

Tragedy through accidents hasn’t escaped Arizona over the years, nor has it in the other 49 states. It seems every day that we read of some horrific event taking place throughout the country.

Several years ago, I wrote a lengthy piece about two locomotives colliding near Franconia, almost directly across from where the Pilot and Love truck stops are on Highway 95 and Interstate 40. Five railroad crewmen were killed in that 1901 accident, while 19 other railroad employees and passengers were badly injured.

There was no official memorial at the site, with me making simple wooden crosses for each railroad worker, and having their names written in black marker. They were then placed in soft sand at this approximate location. Hopefully, the crosses still remain, with it now illegal to visit this property.

On July 5, 1973, a large propane tank on a railroad siding exploded in Kingman, killing 12 people and injuring another 80. The shock wave from this explosion was felt well over 5 miles away. Remnants of the tank ended up over a quarter of a mile from the blast. There are at least 3 memorials in Kingman for those who died during this incident, if not more.

Most everyone in the country has heard of the Yarnell Hill Fire taking place on June 30, 2013. This fire took the lives of 19 firefighters. A memorial can be found at the exact location where they died, including one in Yarnell called the Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial Park.  Another large memorial is in Prescott at the courthouse, along with others throughout the state.

On January 8, 1944, an accident occurred in Kingman that took the lives of 28 cadet soldiers stationed at the Kingman Army Air Field. I’d never heard or read of this tragedy until just recently. While doing some research on the base, I came across several articles written about the incident in various newspapers back then.

At that time, it was the worst transportation accident to ever hit Arizona, until two commercial airliners collided over the Grand Canyon in 1956 killing 128 people. Despite this, it still holds the macabre record of the most killed in an Arizona motor vehicle accident.

1944 newspaper accounts paint a horrific picture of the Kingman train and bus crash, and I’ll attempt to tone things down a bit in my description. Several of the soldier’s names were also corrected by me by using their gravestones for accuracy. I also identified their middle names by using the same.

On Thursday, January 6, 1944, 34 aviation cadets (A/C), along with their instructor and a driver, approached the Santa Fe Railroad crossing at the Kingman Army Air Field entrance. Witnesses say the bus stopped, yet lurched onto the track for whatever reason just as a train was coming. This wasn’t a bus by conventional standards. It was a semi-truck pulling a trailer converted to carry passengers.

The soldiers were all returning from night gunnery training, undoubtedly looking forward to hitting their bunks for some rest before the next grueling day. With the diesel-powered locomotive doing some 45 miles per hour, it easily tore through the bus, strewing bodies everywhere. The Kingman mortuary was overrun with corpses, with many of them sent to Needles, California. Most of these guys were in their early 20s.

Thousands of soldiers volunteered to donate blood, but because of the severe trauma incurred by those unfortunate men on the vehicle, there was not much need. Only 8 survived the crash. Oddly enough, the base commander, Colonel Harvey P. Huglin, absolved the military of any responsibility in the accident six days later. This was despite a railroad crossing agent flagging the military bus to stop.

On January 20, two weeks after the tragedy, the Arizona State Highway Department announced bids were being accepted for a new crossing that wisely placed this dangerous section of road underneath the tracks. Sometimes, it takes a tragedy to get things done, and this was precisely the case here.

I found no memorial at this site for those unfortunate 28 soldiers. To honor the deceased for their service to our country, I’ll bring to light after some 80 years, their names and hometowns one more time.

Some residents living in Lake Havasu City may be related to them. These young and brave warriors who lost their lives while preparing to go off to battle during WWII should never be forgotten, and are most deserving of a permanent plaque or monument!

Second Lieutenant Altemont Roscoe Britton Jr. – Hamilton, Alabama.

A/C Robert Lloyd Johnson – Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

A/C Seymour Kahn – Bronx, New York.

A/C Donald Bernard Keller – Minot, South Dakota.

A/C Kenneth Lawler Kirk – Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

A/C Alfred Mahler Kite – Waynesboro, Virginia.

A/C Robert Joseph Knapp – Davenport, Iowa.

A/C Robert Whittemore Knapp – St. Louis, Missouri

A/C John Henry Kubiak – Olean, New York.

A/C Chester Stephen Kulpa – Chicago, Illinois.

A/C Donald Louis Kusnerek – Little Falls, Minnesota

A/C Norman Frederick Leap – Riverside, California.

A/C Arlo Quinten Leavitt – Bunkerville, Nevada.

A/C Herbert Arthur Lewis – Schenectady, New York.

A/C Norman Levine – Long Island, New York.

A/C John Paul Liddell – Lackawanna, Pennsylvania.

A/C Niles Earl Long – Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Private Frank Edwin Smith – West Point, Iowa.

A/C John H. Stiltz Jr. – Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.

A/C George Theodore Stine – Aliquippa, Pennsylvania.

A/C William M. Stolle Jr. – St. Louis, Missouri

A/C William Frank Swadener – Indianapolis, Indiana.

A/C Joseph C. Taylor – Atlanta, Georgia.

A/C Alfred Hannis Tees – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

A/C Lewis M. Thompson Jr. – Hollywood, California.

A/C William R. Thornell – Metuchen, New Jersey.

A/C Fred Charles Vogley – Canton, Ohio.

A/C Robert Keith Tingley – Marshall, Illinois.

Type of military bus like the one used at Kingman Army Air Field

My wife and I recently returned from a lengthy driving excursion through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. It was not unlike other trips that we’ve made over the years, with thankfully, no major incidents. Our two Amazon parrots, Jess and Aldo, rode along making things quite interesting and noisy. They’ve been entertaining us now going on 35 years.

Jess and Aldo were not happy from the git-go being forced into smaller cages. Their larger metal homes wouldn’t fit inside our RV so they were left behind. Angry birds the whole way, they tried several times to bite the fingers that fed them. I’d probably be doing the same after enduring day after day of bumpy roads while standing on wood perches. Joleen and I had cushy seats so we wouldn’t exactly know how they felt.

The purpose of the trip was for my wife to reconnect with her brother, aunt, and cousins, along with displaying our old 1950 Chevy pickup at the McConnell Air Force Base, “Frontiers in Flight Air Show” including the Chapman, Kansas, “Labor Day Car Show.”

Getting to our destinations, we traveled a good many miles on rural highways. There were interesting things to see on this route while meeting some down-to-earth people in cafes, restaurants, and truck stops. I talked politics with a couple of truck drivers, including doing the same with an Amish family in Kansas. Amish people generally don’t vote, but these folks are fully aware like most of us of what’s going on in the country.

Sadly, it’s amazing how much roadkill we saw on our journey. Raccoons, possums, armadillos, coyotes, and skunks had been a bit too slow crossing busy roads and highways. We generally smelled the skunks before and after seeing them. Hungry ravens, vultures, and hawks were usually circling above the carcasses. I honked our horn at a few on the ground so that the scavengers didn’t end up with missing feathers.

While away from home for any lengthy time, it never fails that our alarm system goes berserk, with it doing the same this time around. After a physical inspection, we were assured by the alarm company that no entry had been made into the dwelling through opened doors.

Strangely enough, one motion detector had picked up movement in the living room. With no ceiling fans left on, and it being too early for Santa to come down the chimney, a ghost evidently set things off.

The only problem we encountered while driving, was on the return leg coming down that steep hill out of Kingman. An 18-wheeler blew by us nearly sideswiping our RV on the final sweeping curve. In the process, the careless truck driver came close to running our vehicle off the road while he was traveling well over the speed limit.

After this happened, four angry birds were squawking inside our motorhome, with Joleen and I being the loudest. Wanting to desperately catch the driver, the tantalizing allure of a succulent Cinnabon roll at the newly opened Flying J truck stop just down the road in Yucca, quickly took revenge off my mind.

On our final push into Lake Havasu City, there were several RV’s sporting out-of-state plates behind and in front of us. They were most likely snowbirds making their way back to Arizona paradise to escape a forthcoming cold winter.

Hopefully, none of them became angry at the hotter-than-normal temps here. On a positive note, where getting the best RV parking spaces is concerned, these savvy visitors understand that the early bird catches the worm.

As far as Jess and Aldo the parrots go, they lost their angry bird status once back inside their comfortable and spacious cages. Something tells me they’ll opt to stay home next time or ask to sit up front with us.

I came across a 1994 movie the other day starring John Denver, called, “Walking Thunder.” In a nutshell, the storyline’s about a pioneer family, the McKay’s, traveling to California right after the American Civil War. John Denver plays the main part of John McKay, an East Coast shipbuilder looking to move his expectant wife and children west to start a new life.

A large bear attacks their covered wagon and begins destroying it somewhere in the rugged Rocky Mountains, with the wagon ultimately ending up with an unrepairable broken axle. My first thought after seeing this was quite sarcastic, “McKay should’ve purchased a one-ton!”  

Only 10 minutes in, I’d already decided to earmark the film as “hokey.” That’s a word I use to describe movies that hinge on being bogus or unrealistic. Seeing that my wife was enjoying things, I decided to quietly go along for the ride without complaint.

In the story’s beginning, the great-grandson of John McKay, Danny McKay, stays with his grandmother for a few days. Grandma Anne McKay wants her grandson to go through an old trunk in her attic that once belonged to their early McKay relative, Jacob.

Inside this antique trunk is an Indian dreamcatcher, a Colt revolver, and a journal written by Danny’s great-grandfather, Jacob, about the problematic trip to California. From that point on the storyline follows what happened next.

After the bear encounter, the McKay clan befriended a mountain man, Abner Murdock, and his Sioux medicine man friend, Dark Wind. Murdock gives the family some pointers on how to survive in the wilderness as winter is fast approaching. He also tells them what Dark Wind’s dreamcatcher is used for, after seeing that McKay’s two boys, Jacob and Toby, are interested in it.

In simplistic terms, a dreamcatcher is a circular wood hoop with webbing in the middle and feathers hanging from it. The weblike part of the religious item supposedly catches evil spirits and bad dreams during the night, and when daylight comes they dissipate. The feathers retain any good dreams.

As if dealing with a vicious bear wasn’t bad enough, three snarky-looking hide hunters come along, harassing the family and wanting their gold and silver. There were fights galore between the evildoers, McKay’s, and Abner Murdock, yet no one was killed.

Each time John McKay shot at any wild game he missed. It was only because of Abner Murdock having good hunting skills that they survived—although he was never shown killing or butchering any animals. They did eat well indicating that such events happened.

Where family movies are concerned this is a good one, with no f-bombs being dropped, drug use, excess violence, or explicit sexual acts. I seriously doubt this type of film is being made anymore, at least not in Hollywood. That’s a good part of what’s wrong with this country.

Lake Havasu City has a dreamcatcher of its own, although the city doesn’t rightly own it. “Dreamcatcher” is the name the Chemehuevi Indians gave to their Havasu Landing Resort and Casino transportation boat. This sleek-looking vessel transports folks across the water to their California desert oasis numerous times a day, and for only $3.00 roundtrip. Hands down it’s the best deal in town!

Authentic American Indian dreamcatchers are popular tourist items in almost every Native gift store. I’ve even seen them in Walmart, yet with “Made in China” labels, I seriously doubt they’ll catch dreams. Undoubtedly though, they will catch dust.

The opposite of dreamcatcher is dreammaker. I’ve found that lots of things can create dreams, including fatigue, prescription medicines, and certain foods, such as pizza and spaghetti. I’m not the only person claiming that red tomato sauce makes them dream.

It happens to me all the time, especially after eating pizza from one specific location here in town. Don’t get me wrong, their pizza is delicious—I just wish it’d stop giving me nightmares.

With the length and severity of bad dreams, this food creates for me, I highly doubt an average-sized authentic Indian dreamcatcher would snag them all. I’ll need one about the size of a garbage can lid for starts.

There’s no room on our walls for a dreamcatcher this size, so maybe this eatery could be coaxed into placing one in their dining room. It makes sense to me that the bad dreams should be snared before ever leaving their front door!

Out of pure laziness to not bend over and slip on my sandals, the other afternoon, I decided to walk outside and check the mail while barefoot. Our thermometer showed 109. Knowing that asphalt is a killer in this heat, concrete didn’t seem like it’d be as hot. I made it to the mailbox with no problem yet the return trip had me dancing.

A 1966 song by Robert Parker, “Barefootin’” is about dancing without shoes and socks, yet there’s no mention of it being performed on hot blacktop or concrete. In my younger days, my brother and I often went barefooted in Alabama and Texas, being smart enough to avoid pavement.

I can’t remember us incurring any major problems other than sticker briars. After a summer of going shoeless, feet developed thick callouses that somewhat protected them.

A third-grade class photo I have shows a schoolmate of mine without shoes. I’m sure had Dad and Mom allowed me, I would’ve been barefoot in that picture as well. I view folks at Rotary Beach here in town shoeless or sandal-less all the time, with smoking hot sand being hard for me to take. Everyone must have a different pain threshold, with flip-flops being our saving grace when visiting beaches in Alabama or Florida.

The Arizona town of Salome has a slogan, “Where She Danced.” Many visitors to this small oasis in the desert inquire as to its meaning. There are two explanations. Supposedly, the newly arrived wife of Charles Pratt, co-founder of the town, Grace Salome Pratt, after first removing shoes during summer to try walking barefooted on desert sand, ended up dancing instead.

The second reason has to do with a 1945 movie called, “Salome, Where She Danced,” starring Yvonne DeCarlo. The famous actress plays the part of Anna Maria, a ballerina who escapes Europe during The Austrian-Prussian War after being accused there as a spy.

Immigrating to America, she hooks up with another long-retired dancer, Madame Europe. They’re set to dance together for the first time in a small western town called Drinkman Wells, in a musical play called, “Salome, Where She Danced. The town name is soon changed to Salome, to appease Anna Maria.

The actors and townspeople are robbed by a band of outlaws as the dancing begins, with Anna Maria taken hostage. I watched this movie for free on YouTube and found it somewhat entertaining, yet no scenes were filmed in Salome which would’ve made it better. Yvonne DeCarlo was quite a hottie in this film, unlike the character she played in “The Munsters” as Herman Munster’s wife, Lily.

If the late Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert (Siskel and Ebert) were still rating movies, they’d undoubtedly give the film two thumbs down for plot. It’s highly possible that writer, Laurence Stallings, came up with the screenplay name after visiting Salome.

On a negative side to barefootin’, I see people in town from time to time walking their dogs on hot asphalt in summer, with the poor animals dancing like I had to. A slow form of torturing these pets, I want to say something to the pet owners, yet know that any remark from me won’t help the suffering canines.

Pet owners like that are, unfortunately, a little dense upstairs, with their excuse being, “Well it has to walk and do its business somewhere!” Walking a dog on burning asphalt during summer in this town or any other proximity is never a valid excuse.

Just today, a fellow was out in front of Walmart soliciting money, while his dog lay on hot concrete with its tongue hanging out. My car thermometer read 106. Using crutches or a walker as a prop to garner sympathy is one thing, but bringing along an animal to do the same shows a callous individual. A few snowflakes might say I’m being judgmental here, but I see it as simply being observant.

I’ve had a couple of dogs in Havasu, finding that paw protectors, when soaked with a portable spray bottle full of water help considerably. I sprayed their fur down as well. Of course, having that important cell phone in one hand and a leash in the other makes that impossible for some pet owners.

As our two Pekingese got older and couldn’t take the heat anymore, they weren’t too old to train. I taught them both to do their business in the garage on a pee pad. A little Clorox bleach and water helped clean up any spillage.

Children are much like pets in some ways. Neither have any say in what parents or caretakers they’ll end up with. Some were dealt a good hand while others ended up on the losing end of the stick. Hopefully, my wife and I are deemed by our kids and departed pets as being good stewards where taking care of them is concerned.

One thing’s for sure, we never forced them to go barefootin’ on sizzlin’ hot pavement or locked our kids in a hot car. It doesn’t take a Harvard or Yale scholar to know that these inexcusable acts have serious and sometimes irreversible consequences.

SERENITY NOW

When I’m involved in doing something tedious or technical, I don’t want outside interference interrupting me. Building an engine for a hotrod is one of those times. Getting distracted, and forgetting to torque one measly connecting rod nut can spell disaster.

I’ve never made that mistake, yet tales of others doing it aren’t uncommon. On rare occasions, rebuilt engines put together by even professionals are prone to such mishaps. All it takes is a phone call, or someone wanting to stop by and chat during assembly for this to happen.

Writing is another area where I like to be left alone, with no distractions. Keeping the thought train going without entering the “Twilight Zone” seems to get harder the older I get. Telephone calls, trying to take care of social media inquiries, and of course, unusual noises such as sirens going off or outside disturbances can bother me to the point of temporarily curtailing a writing project.

There’ve been times when I walked into the kitchen for a specific reason, took an unexpected phone call, and then afterward wondered what was I doing in the kitchen to begin with. Walking back in the living room it suddenly hit me, to get a glass of milk.

In July, I decided to write a book, giving myself one year to finish it. The novel would consist of 49 individual stories about Alaska. My mind automatically went into stress mode just thinking about the tremendous amount of work ahead of me. My year was practically mapped out on other things needing to be accomplished, while undertaking such a large project seemed like overkill.

Deciding that I’d take things one story at a time, and place aside all other communication with the outside world, other than my wife, within 30 days I was finished. That meant burning some midnight oil along with working long hours from morning to evening. I shut down my Facebook account mid-project, so as not to be bothered there. It’s been so refreshing that I don’t know if I’ll return.

There’s still a way to go with tweaking things, but the main part where thinking and creativity is concerned, and typing out the 49 stories is all finished.  It’s amazing what can be done in a short period when having a goal, and a desire to accomplish it.

In my teenage years, cruising was the weekly thing to do in Anchorage, Alaska. Guys, gals, and cars would head out on Friday and Saturday nights with their hotrods, oftentimes ending up on Sand Lake Road for a grudge match.

Doug Miller had a 1967 Pontiac Firebird with a 400-big block engine. Street racing it one night, the engine tossed a connecting rod, destroying the block and crankshaft beyond repair. With a desire to go cruising the next evening, Doug and another good friend, Jeff Thimsen, did a marathon rebuild on a spare engine. They started around 1:00 a.m., removing the wounded powerplant, and by 5:00 the next afternoon a rebuilt one was in its place.

As a senior citizen, I can still accomplish interesting things in a timely manner, such as writing that book, yet mundane chores around the house seem to take me forever. In some cases, I could care less if they’re even finished. A stucco wall I started painting 2 years ago is one of those projects.

Building engines and writing stories, as mentioned, are two areas where I try to stay focused without interruption. Anymore, putting an engine together isn’t done like in prior years.

My number one distraction these days involves driving. I have to be more observant than in the past because peripherical vision has diminished. You won’t find me on the phone texting people as I drive, viewing that on the same level as consuming alcoholic beverages while endangering others.

Daily, I see folks behind the wheel doing their thing with electronic devices in hand as if nothing is wrong. These are generally the people drifting from lane to lane, or going 20 miles per hour slower than the speed limit. I try to stay away from them but they’re everywhere. Hopefully, I never meet one coming head-on.

There is a law in Arizona, that began January 2021, prohibiting drivers from using handheld mobile devices while driving, including texting. Has a ticket ever been given out for such? This law seems to be strictly followed like the speed limit is on 95.

Seeking serenity while living in towns or cities is hard to find. Other than turning off the television, unplugging phones, and installing earplugs, there’s not much else a person can do. Outside noise always penetrates the walls of a home, condo, or apartment. In an episode of Seinfeld, Frank Constanza found calm and peace in New York City by screaming out, “Serenity now!” I’ve tried it a few times finding myself laughing more than anything. Laughter is the best medicine they say.

Famous writer, Henry David Thoreau, constructed a cabin deep in the woods as a place to avoid distraction, compose literature, as well as find solitude from the outside world. It was an experiment of sorts to see if he could exist without perks of the city. The land this cabin was built on, next to Walden Pond, belonged to his friend, mentor, and famous author, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

During Thoreau’s two years of solitude, the most important thing he accomplished in this small cabin, besides writing, was get closer to God. If that was the only thing accomplished in his life experiment, it was a huge success.

In Matthew 6:31-32, Jesus says, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest for a while.”

For now, my quiet place of solitude, away from city distractions, will have to be our small RV. I’m sure had Henry David Thoreau had the same back in 1845, it would’ve worked for him in achieving his goals, on the same level as that blessed cabin in the woods.

Recently, I asked my wife to come up with an interesting subject that I could write about. It seems like I’ve covered all bases here lately, with my ideas seemingly repeating themselves. Hearing nothing back from Joleen for a couple of days and finally asking, “What subject did you choose for me?” — her response was, “Nothing.”

At first, I wasn’t going to take this subject on, but after thinking about it for a few seconds, the television series “Seinfeld” came to mind. That show was about nothing and it was absolutely hilarious. My favorite episode was when Kramer came up with the idea for a coffee table book about coffee tables. I still chuckle thinking of the harebrained plan.

Out of curiosity, I looked to see if there is such a book and came upon several, one listed for $198 used. A few were going for less but not much less. Seeing that, I tried to dream up a similar idea, coming up blank. There’s no better worthless book than a coffee table book about coffee tables. Whoever wrote that episode is brilliant.

I could ramble on and on about going to the grocery store the other morning, forgetting it was senior discount day, and not having to ask the clerk for my discount. Looking back on things, was that an insult, or were they merely profiling me based on the clothing I had on? Most seniors don’t wear Lightning Bolt tee-shirts so that shouldn’t have tipped them off.

Opening my mailbox the other afternoon and finding nothing inside, which is unusual, could be considered nothing to some, but not to most of us older folks. We’re always getting junk mail such as reverse mortgage offers, credit card offers, offers of a free meal to attend a 3-hour seminar, and best of all, a nicely written and personal advertisement for funeral services or embalming.

That in itself brings up another valid question. How do these undertakers know that we’re reaching that point? Many older women lie about their age while we guys stretch things a bit. I’ve told a few young clerks just for grins that I was 90 just to get a compliment, ‘You sure don’t look that old!” I don’t know about other seniors, but that seems the only way I can get kudos.

A week or two ago I was towing a small trailer while Joleen kept hearing this ringing or dinging sound. Believing it was the radio at first, she turned the volume down. The dinging continued for her but I didn’t hear nothing. Tinnitus has a way of camouflaging certain sounds like that.

Finally getting home, one of the safety chains had fallen off and was dragging on asphalt. It was almost worn flat, indicating that the thing was loose for quite a few miles. Thankfully, the sparks didn’t start a roadside brush fire.

For some folks this is nothing, but for me, that was perhaps the most exciting event happening the whole month of July, besides having our windshield replaced while I watched.

Hopefully, in the coming weeks, a presidential debate or two will take place. That might not excite some but I’m quite entertained watching them. Joleen will nuke a bag of Orville Redenbacher popcorn, and we’ll sit back and make sarcastic remarks about the opposing candidate as if they can hear us. Undoubtedly, we’re not the only ones playing ‘the blame game.’

There are other things to tell, yet nothing tops those I mentioned. A song that I’m very familiar with is “Life in the Fast Lane” by the Eagles. For those knowing the lyrics to this tune, nothing in it really fits my early lifestyle. I strictly like the song title because it relates to hotrod cars.

You might recognize the following two lines from the 1976 hit that fit my current life to a capital T.  They go like this, although I changed words just a bit.

“She said, listen baby I can hear the engine ring, we’ve been up and down this highway, and you haven’t heard a ding-dong thing!”

Graveyards and newspapers go together like mashed potatoes and gravy. I’m sure most genealogists will agree with me here. When it comes to researching family history, there’s no better place to find information than old newspaper obituaries. Of course, the information on gravestones helps considerably in getting things started.

Over the years, I’ve relied on both entities to help unlock family mysteries never told to me by my parents. If my grandparents mentioned such, I was much too young or “unorganized” to retain all of the information. When I say unorganized, I mean writing things down and putting this information in a safe place.

Just recently, I was interested in learning more about a person laid to rest in Lake Havasu Memorial Gardens. Searching and searching, I came across absolutely nothing. It isn’t unusual for families to not write an obituary, which I find as being disrespectful to the deceased, including family and friends. Was that loved one not worthy of a few simple lines?

Information on stone tablets goes back thousands of years, while paper data has been around for hundreds. These two venues are now archaic in relation to this digital age. I often wonder how digital will hold up over the ages when a simple magnet or power surge can destroy things. What will genealogists down the road find while seeking information on Cousin Eddie?

Twenty-five years ago, some friends and I came across an unmarked cemetery in the ghost town of Iditarod, Alaska. Some rotten wood grave markers were remaining, yet they were all lying flat in the tundra and unreadable. Who was laid to rest in this desolate place?

There’s an online site called gravefinder.com where a person can look up cemeteries including the folks buried in them. I’ve used it often when writing stories or compiling information on my family and my wife’s. Iditarod Cemetery is not one of those cemeteries listed.

Being allowed to contribute to gravefinder.com, and knowing how much work was about to be undertaken, I hesitantly went ahead and brought the Iditarod Cemetery online.

After many late-night and early-morning research hours poring through archived newspaper obituaries and stories, I was able to add the 23 men, women, and babies buried there. A copy of the newspaper obituary or report on each of their deaths was included, with many of them quite sad, yet interesting just the same.

It was quite a task for tired eyes, but one that I’m now thankful is complete. I believe everyone buried there is now listed, unless, of course, someone was interned and not reported which is possible after 1919. That’s the year the “Iditarod Pioneer” newspaper ceased operation.

Lake Havasu City has a unique story that’s never been told where graveyards is concerned, or at least I’ve never heard anyone mention it. Our city when researched on http://www.gravefinders.com lists four graveyards, if I can still call them that. That ghostly term seems to be going by the wayside, much like so many others in this age of political correctness.

Community Presbyterian Church Columbarium, Grace Episcopal Memorial Garden, and Lake Havasu Memorial Gardens are the three largest cemeteries, combined, containing over 5,000 remains. The fourth, called McCormies Family Cemetery holds just one body. There’s no GPS or physical location for McCormies like the others.

The man supposedly buried in this singular plot is Edwin Glen McCormies. I looked that last name up and found no such listings on the Mohave County tax rolls. A St. George, Utah, obituary showed Mr. McCormies died in St. George in 2002, at the age of 81, with him being born at Glendive, Montana, in 1920.

In my research, I uncovered a disturbing story about McCormies that I won’t discuss. For those wanting to know more, this public information is available by searching an “Oakland Tribune” newspaper dated June 17, 1964 – page 21.

If Edwin McCormies was truly laid to rest in Lake Havasu City, as findagrave.com shows, just whose backyard is he buried in? It looks like another one of those jobs for veteran reporter, Lois Lane, to get to the bottom of!

For the past few months, I’ve posted side-profile photos of my car on Facebook. The photos were taken in several locations, such as stopped at a McDonald’s drive-thru or parked in front of Family Dollar, Safeway Grocery store, Denny’s, Walmart, a movie theatre, including other Havasu and Kingman businesses. No big deal you’d think, other than the fact my vehicle has a portrait on the right rear passenger window, of Donald Trump riding in the back seat, giving a big thumbs up.

That evidently doesn’t conform to Facebook’s community policy, with me getting a notice saying exactly this. I’m currently shut down from posting for 24 hours. When my jail time expires, I always make sure to post another similar shot, and sure enough, another 24 hours in the pokey. It’d be easy to just say adios, yet I keep hoping they’ll “86” me from the site instead. That would be worthy of a medal or blue ribbon at the very least. Some of my friends laugh, saying they can’t believe I’m still allowed on there.

Years ago, I sent editorials to a liberal newspaper in Anchorage, Alaska. The editorial page editor at that time, Michael Carey, eventually shut me down from getting anything printed. When I inquired as to why, he had no answer. Michael is a decent guy, as I’d met him one time. I had to assume he was merely trying to protect me from leftwing lunatics.

There were a few over the years taking a dislike to my opinions. I wore that newspaper “censorship” as a crown, only being outdone by my friend, Jeff Thimsen, for getting his point across without writing or uttering a word.

Jeff has a yellow “Anchorage Daily News” newspaper tube, that is mounted underneath his mailbox. He cleverly replaced the News part to read Lies. When Google Earth, photographed his neighborhood, that part of the picture was intentionally blurred. Jeff told me that people often stopped in front of the house, solely to snap photos of that tube.

It seems that on Facebook, if a person conforms to the left, or what I call the twisted side of things—all is good. Romans 12:2 tells me this: Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Simply put, this verse says not to be shaped by the wicked culture around us.

The opening program to the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France, is an example of the wicked culture around us. Some non-Christians saw no harm in a bunch of perverted individuals making light of the Lord’s Supper. Had these French citizens done the same regarding the Islamic faith, those actors would have a price on their heads, and rightly so. It’s called blasphemy in their religion.

Facebook seems to be okay with leftist viewpoints being featured here and there on their site without censorship, yet the same can’t be said for articles written from a conservative perspective. The “anything goes” crowd, as I like to call them, seems to be able to get away with posting almost anything.

I highly doubt Mark Zuckerberg is sitting back watching what Michael Hankins posts. AI, or Artificial Intelligence, does it for him. These bots have to be programmed what to look for, with it quite evident a leftist slant and a dislike for Donald Trump is part of that programming.

Deciding to change things up a bit, and to be a bit more fair, along with humoring myself, I looked for a similar Kamala Harris photograph to place on the left side of my Jeep. Searching and searching through various venues, the one and only window sticker I came across of her is not flattering. If that’s all there is available, it’ll have to do for this experiment.

My plan is to start all over again, drive to the same places I took “The Donald” and snap pictures from the left side, featuring Kamala. Posting those on my Facebook page, it’ll be interesting to see what Mark Zuckerbot does this time.

All in the name of a laugh, because to me, that’s what Facebook has come down to!

Daily Lies

GOT BEER?

I’ve never been a beer drinker other than root beer. On average, I consume two cans a day of the delicious beverage, sometimes adding it to ice cream. I’m always intrigued whenever I go to a restaurant having a microbrewery and watching their canning process.

The canning machine used at College Street Brewery here in Lake Havasu City is a complex-looking monster, something that appears to need finetuning quite regularly. I suppose it’s the same with all of these mechanical devices.

My first encounter with a local brewery was in Anchorage, Alaska. This was in 1976. A German company, for whatever reason, decided that building a brewery in the All-America City was a wise financial decision. Reports say that 11.7 million dollars were invested to produce Prinz Bräu beer.

Fancy sounding as it was, most Alaska working stiffs couldn’t even pronounce the name. That was an early indicator that things wouldn’t go well. My friends called it Prince Roy just because it was much easier to say.

Prinz Bräu was described as tasting like mud when it first hit the market, with brew meister, Heinritz Reich, slowly perfecting the quality and taste. Unfortunately, by 1979, this brewery was bankrupt, with the equipment sold and the building leased.

My brother and I saw the potential for collectibles here, hitting nearly every liquor store in town, buying whatever stock of Prinz Bräu they had left. We ended up with perhaps three six-packs and only a few glass bottles.

I kept my share in the refrigerator for years, until Joleen tired of seeing them. At that point, I sold or gave them away, still having one unopened can. With it now 45 years old, that aluminum container looks as if it could explode at any moment. I keep it next to a Midnight Sun Beer – Pioneer Brewing Company bottle in my office that dates to the 1920s.

There are now several breweries in Alaska, with Alaskan Brewing Company in Juneau perhaps the most successful. They sell their beer in 25 states. A nonalcoholic beverage called Skagway Root Beer is also made by them.

I show three microbreweries located in Lake Havasu City. Barley Brothers Brewing Company, Mudshark Brewing Company, and of course, College Street Brewing Company. I believe two out of three sell their products outside of the city. I’ve seen them in several grocery stores throughout the state.

My wife’s grandparents, Karl and Josephine Schweitzer, made their own homebrew, with Joleen saying that she got to sample it as a teen. With her Grandpa and Grandma coming from German parents, of course, their beer would reflect such. She said it was dark brown and quite strong. I believe this was more along the lines of an ale.

Mom washed her hair in beer, saying that it helped keep things shiny and soft. Up until she passed away her hair was still thick and colorful. I’m not sure the beer helped but then again it could’ve.

One of these days, I’ll drill a hole in my prized Prinz Bräu can and drain the contents. It seems a waste to dump it down the sink.  I’m not for drinking the stuff, yet pouring a small amount on my head shouldn’t hurt as the damage has already been done.

Had German investors used local people to manage their company in Alaska, instead of relying upon a management team in Germany, and been a bit more diplomatic in dealing with people, I believe that Prinz Bräu Brewery would still be in business.

The large and powerful family that owned Prinz Bräu, the Oetker Group, could’ve learned a lot from the hands-on entrepreneurs starting Mudshark, College Street, and Barley Brothers, here in Havasu.

A good name plays a big part in new products, with these arrogant Germans in 1976 picking a real winner.