Dead guys not really dead in this cigar store

Here is a little story you may like. It's true.

In the fall of 1891, the town site of Everett, Wash., bustled with new growth and industry. The town's first undertaker, John T. Rogers, constructed a small building next door to new hotel and saloon. Stylish coffins lay in his back room. Until his business could take hold, Rogers sold newspapers, magazines and tobacco in the front of the building.

Late one night, Rogers was awakened by a customer in dire need of tobacco. Moments after Rogers let him into the store, the man spied five men in caskets. He ran from the store in fear, yelling to everyone in the saloon next door about dead men in the cigar store. When the noisy bar crowd clamored inside, instead of finding corpses, they found sleeping men who Rogers later referred to as his "lodgers." As an entrepreneur, he took advantage of the shortage of hotel beds in the booming town by offering his unused coffins as beds. His guests appreciated the shelter during the cold and wet Pacific Northwest winter.

Greedy gas pump

I have been sorting through my old photos, tossing ones that are just junking my house. Frankly, most of them were junk. But I got a good laugh out of this photo, which I snapped years ago during a previous gas crisis. The retired pump was along a back road in a small California town near Sacramento. I can't even remember the name of the place. Anyway, this was someone's idea of "protest art."

The urge to come and go with my RV

I don't know if I could ever be a full-time RVer. I like living a normal life where my house does not move. I also like living a life where my house (motorhome) DOES move. When I am home for more than a month, I start daydreaming of going away. Most of the time I dream of going away by motorhome. Day by day, the urge to go grows stronger until I must leave. Sometimes I just go camping close by for a couple of days. But this is like putting a Band Aid on a bad cut: it takes care of the immediately problem but is not a suitable long term solution.

WHEN I FINALLY do get away on an RV trip, I am happy as can be. . . for a couple of weeks, a month . . . somewhere in that range. Then gradually my thoughts start turning to home -- about my family and friends, my big and comfy Queen size bed that does not require a ladder to reach, my spacious (relatively speaking) house, and my computer with a screen twice as large as my laptop's. After about a week of thinking like this, the urge to return home becomes too strong to resist. So, wherever I am, I turn back toward familiar turf. To be honest, I usually race back like I am in a hurry, which is a big joke because I seldom am. After a few decades of behaving like this, I still do it.

A month after I arrive home, I want to go again. I guess I have a split personality.

What have you found along the road?

Here is a question for you. What is the best thing you have ever found along a road? I mean something you found that you couldn't return because there was no evidence of the owner. I have probably driven about 200,000 miles in my motorhomes. In all that time I have found a screw driver, a wrench, a ball of rope, and even a $10 bill. I've found some junky stuff, too, but I didn't keep it. I have probably found some other valuable things, but for the life of me, in my advancing age I cannot remember what they were. But I don't think I ever found anything better than what I mentioned above.

What about you? Have you ever found something really great? If you have, please leave a comment and let me know what you found.

Searching for a baseball bat for my RV

I was searching through a sporting goods store the other day for a baseball bat, not to play with but to use to smack against my RV tires to make sure they aren't flat. But do you know what I learned? I learned that it is hard to find a wooden bat. At least nine out of ten these days are made of aluminum. The wooden bat, it seems, is going the way of the wooden golf club and the wooden tennis racket. This is good for the aluminum industry and bad for the wood industry. It is proof, once again, that one's person's loss is another person's gain.

Truck with with funny (but true!) message

I followed this truck for a few miles on I-5 in Northern California. I liked the passing instructions printed on the back. Just in case you can't see the photo clear enough to read those instructions, here is what they say. The message on the green sign, which directs you to pass on the left, says "Passing Zone." The other sign, in red, points to the right and says "Suicide Zone." It's nice to see a truck with a sense of humor.

Mystery of slot machine woman never solved

I bet that you have never seen a slot machine like this one I photographed about 20 years ago in a casino in Virginia City, Nevada. When I visited the casino a few years ago, the machine was gone.

For awhile after taking the photo, I tried to learn where the machine was made. I wanted to meet the woman who modeled for it, or learn if such a woman ever even existed. If the slot machine was made in, say, the late '40s, then the woman was probably born somewhere around 1920. That would have made her about 68 back then, or 88 today.

Alas, I never found her. My guess is that the machine was the likeness of a real woman. I wonder who she was? And where is this machine now? Maybe one of her grandchildren bought it. Boy, that would be strange -- having an image of your grandma as a beautiful young woman on a slot machine in your living room.

If you own this slot machine and want to sell it, please let me know.