August 2, 2008 Bonus Blog Post
When I talk to history groups I often tell the story of how ignorant I was of my surroundings as a kid. I tell them how I sat in the office of my father's gas station with my lower lip sticking out, rolling my eyes at the "stupid" surroundings and longing to get out of Kingman so I could go find a place that actually had some history. To my way of thinking, NOTHING ever happened in Mohave County and certainly nothing historic ever happened where I was forced to sit every day after school!

I then tell my history-minded-friends, not-so-long-ago I got a call from a writer who was doing a book on Route 66 in its heyday. He had seen the article I wrote for Arizona Highways on my dad's gas station and he asked me, "What was it like growing up in such a historic place?"

A long pause, as my audience slowly gets the cruel irony of my ignorance: "I told him it was FABULOUS!"

Well, the author's name was Michael Karl Witzel, and here's the excerpt from his book on The Legend of Al Bell's Flying A:

http://michaelwitzel.com/wordpress/the-legend-of-allen-bells-flying-a-service-station/

I found this excellent bit of writing after Googling my name this morning to see if there were any links off of Charlie Waters' Las Vegas Review-Journal piece last weekend. I didn't find any, but I did find the above piece and also one of my first edition copies of "Low Blows," collection of New Times cartoons, which recently went for a healthy price increase: $14 new, just sold for $65.

This makes authors smile.

And, my painting "The Fighting Earps" recently sold at auction for $1,350

But enough ego crap about me, when it comes right down to it, what do YOU think about my stuff?

"All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. the big art is our life."
—M.C. Richards