Happy Father's Day to Allen P. Bell

 June 15, 2025

   I've been thinking a lot today about the guy who gave me my bullheadedness which has saved me and served me, many times. That would be this great Norsky farm boy.

Allen P. Bell with me and Blackie, the stray dog he took in at the Whiting Brothers Gas Station he ran at McConnico, below Perfume Pass in Mohave County.

   And yes, he is the guy I acknowledge as the real "66 Kid" in the memoir by the same name.

Al Bell goofing in front of his Mobiloil Station

at Peach Springs, Arizona, 1946

   I also dedicated my "Bad Men: Outlaws & Gunfighters of the Wild West," to him as well with this dedication: "Dedicated to my father, Allen P. Bell. A good man by any measure."

"The father washes onto the son. He lives inside you as an aspiration, a disappointment, or a fear. Afraid you will never be like him or afraid you will be; he is there in the bones of your emotions. In the voices in your head. In your expectations of yourself. In the shadows of your weakness and strength. No matter how good the relationship, there is a tension between father and son."

—Boyd Varty, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life