May 4, 2026
I have some history in Prescott, Arizona going back to the sixties when my mother left my dad and moved over there from Kingman to work for the Arizona Highway Department in 1966. Ten years later, my best friend, Charlie Waters became the editor and publisher of The Prescott Courier and I often went there to hang with him. After my cartoon character Honkytonk Sue premiered in the National Lampoon in the summer of 1977, the New Times in Phoenix picked it up as a cartoon strip, thanks to this guy:
I pitched Jim on doing another character I had created, The Doper Roper, but Jim had seen Sue in the Lampoon and encouraged me to do The Queen of Country Swing instead. After the strip got going—I started getting a lot of requests for a comic book—so I called Charlie in Prescott to ask him where I should go to get a comic book printed and he offered the Courier's printing presses and he encouraged me to bring my Ford F-150 up the hill to make it happen. One fine morning in the spring of 1978 I did just that, getting to Prescott at 6 a.m. And, before they printed the daily edition, Charlie had his crew burn plates from my layouts and they quickly ran off 10,000 copies of the inside pages of the comic.
Me, the press foreman and Bugsas the guts of the comic came off the press.
Charlie, the prince that he was (he passed in 2014), charged me the price of the paper and I want to say it was about $800 and change.
The Courier crew quickly loaded up my pickup bed with the 10k copies and I was ready for the drive home.
Loaded for BearI remember I had a white knuckle moment on the I-17 drop off at Sunset Point when I had to pump the brakes to avoid going off the steep grade. I was definitely overloaded, both mentally and physically. Recovering from that near death experience I drove straight to Central Binding in Glendale where they collated the guts I brought them with the covers, which I had printed in Phoenix, and they put it all together to produce this:
I will admit up front, I have had some strange encounters doing rock and roll. There was that one time when I dropped a stick while playing the drum solo in the middle of "Wipeout" at the old Elks Lodge in downtown Kingman in 1964. And, then there was that other time in 2008 when I had a heart attack while playing the same solo at the same exact spot at an Exit band reunion. Then, there was that time we opened for the Beach Boys.
in front of 30,000 yawning fans!
Last Saturday morning I landed in Prescott after my gig in Seligman. I was there to do a celebratory gig at the Hazeltine Theater, which is within spitting distance of the Courier printing facility where they loaded up my truck 48 years before.
"The Black Cat Cowboy" Danny Romero texted me the day before and told me he had scored a drummer for the gig and that the guy knew me. When I asked how, Danny informed me, "Don Adams was the circulation manger for Charlie Waters when they printed your comic!" Wow. As Mark Twain put it, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
At four, the band loaded into the Hazeltine Theater to set up for the sound check and I helped Don load in (drummers everywhere feel underappreciated because those damn guitar players never lend a hand), a few moments later I heard a crash and when I looked over I saw that the drummer was slumped over his bass drum. Don later said he was on antibiotics and he had a reaction to the meds. He seemed woozy and unsteady, but we got through the sound check and I walked back to the Hassayampa to change for the show. When I got back I didn't know the band had decided Don would sit out the show. So when the show started and I was backstage waiting, I was alarmed to hear that there was no drums in the mix. On a bold whim, I snuck in the side and took over on the drums.
After two songs I realized I was getting close to another Wipeout situation (see above) so I got up and pleaded with the audience to find us another drummer. Out stepped Don, who bravely approached his drum set and we launched into "Route 66". It was touch and go and here is Danny, at left, encouraging Don to stay upright and strong!
We made it through with no casualties. Once again, for the record, no one died in either the physical sense, or the crowd sense (losing the crowd).
We were lucky this time but as our friends across the pond once remarked. . .
"Well, this could be the last time
This could be the last timeMaybe the last time
I don't know, oh no, oh no. . ."
Press kit, starved for entertainment.
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