The flyswatter repairman at the Texaco station

When you are a beginning writer -- one who aspires to write for magazines -- it's difficult to recognize a story even if it hits you on the head. That was me a long time ago. Now, as a writer of many years, if something hits me on the head, I write about it.

What I want to tell you is about one of the stories that I bumped into long ago that I most regret not writing. It happened in Needles, Calif., a town best known for its sizzling summers and Snoopy's brother Spike.

I was on a road trip to the Midwest from my home in northern California. My gas tank was low so I pulled into a gas station. I think it was a Texaco station. It was unbearably hot -- a day you want nothing to do with sunshine.

THIS WAS A LONG TIME AGO when an attendant would pump your gas. Sort of like present-day Oregon. While my tank was being filled, I stretched my legs. In those days, gas stations did not have mini-marts, only Coke machines that dispensed a bottle for a quarter. So, in telling you that I was an adult in an era when Coke was a quarter, you know that I am old.

Quarter in hand, I walked toward the machine, which was near the big window of the gas station's greasy and messy office. Inside, an old man sat on chair. I couldn't tell what he was doing. But then on the window I spotted a hand-made cardboard sign: "Fly Swatters Repaired."

Sure enough, the man was repairing a fly swatter. I can't remember now how he did it because I wasn't curious about unusual things back then like I am today. But I do recall thinking that you could buy a brand new fly swatter for less than a dollar. So how could a person could earn any money repairing them?

I watched the man for a minute, then went back to my car, paid my $3 and drove away heading east on Route 66.

After a few minutes I began to think about the old man. I thought about turning back to talk with him, to learn more about repairing fly swatters. But as each minute passed, so did another mile, and turning around became a bigger commitment. I kept going.

I returned to Needles a few years later on another trip. I stopped at the gas station. The man was not there, and there was no sign advertising fly swatter repair.

I asked the station attendant about the man, but he said he had never heard of him. I suspected that's what he would say. Still, I was hugely disappointed in not learning about the old man, and how and why he repaired fly swatters.

High gas prices in Needles, California

Here is a tip for you: Do not fill up your gas tank in Needles, California. Needles borders Arizona near the southern tip of Nevada. It was a popular stop on old Route 66, which is now I-40. For west-bound motorists, Needles in the first stop in California. But take my advice: don't buy gas or diesel fuel there. It's a ripoff. I think it always has been.

Yesterday, I filled my motorhome's tank at an Arizona gas station just a mile east of the California border at Blythe. It costs $2.05 a gallon. Then I drove 100 miles north on lonely U.S. highway 95 to Needles. The same diesel fuel I had purchased early for $2.05 a gallon was now between $3.29 and $3.59. It was hard to believe.

Then, 100 miles or so north through mostly desert, I decided to top off my fuel tank tiny Daggett, a few miles east of Barstow: The price? $2.59 a gallon -- a dollar less than in Needles.

Needles has always been an unattractive town (it's honored many days of each summer as the hottest spot in the country), but it did have some great old motels in the Route 66 days. Now, most of the motels are gone or closed, and the main street looks anemic.

Just drive past the gas stations in this town unless you are running on fumes.

Lake Havasu City's London Bridge village is a ghost town

The London Bridge is the greatest thing that ever happened to Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Robert McCulloch, whose name you may recognize from McCulloch Chain Saw fame, bought it for $2.4 million, then flew it from England piece by piece and reassembled it in 1971 over a lagoon he carved right alongside Lake Havasu.

The town was a speck in the desert back then. McCulloch figured the bridge would be such a novelty that people would come to see it. He was right -- they came in droves, making it one of Arizona's most popular tourist attractions.

BETTING THE TOWN WOULD GROW like asparagus, McCulloch bought up gobs of land, and when tourists came to see the bridge, some decided to stay. They bought the land and built houses. In the dry desert, McCulloch was swimming in Green.

When the bridge was erected, so was a small English village at its eastern edge. Many tourists shops moved in, plus restaurants and even a hotel. For awhile, it was a beehive of activity.

But when I last visited a few years ago, the English village looked sick. Half the shops were gone. There were few tourists. And then, a week ago when I stopped again, it was worse: only a few shops remained. The only English-themed gift shop offered tee-shirts and uninspired trinkets. I wondered how long it would stay open.

I hope the city does something to get businesses back to the village again. It seems silly to me that hasn't already happened.

If you visit, camp at Lake Havasu State Park, which is a short walk from the bridge and downtown Lake Havasu City. All size RVs can be accommodated. . . Read a story about Lake Havasu City that I wrote back when the English village was looking good.

A sign in Needles honors Spike the Beagle

Sometimes if you know a little history of a place you can spot subtle landmarks that others would miss. As I was driving into Needles, Calif., I was thinking about the town, which is most famous for being the blowtorch of America on a bunch of summer days: the temp can reach 110 with no problem, even 120. And it does so day after day.

I was also thinking about Charles Schultz, the Peanuts' cartoonist who lived for a time in Needles as a child. I recently read Schultz's biography (he was a very complex fellow). Besides Charlie Brown his most famous cartoon character was the beagle Snoopy. But every once in awhile Snoopy would step out of the spotlight and his brother Spike would step in. Spike looks like Snoopy, but he has a mustache. And he lives in Needles. In the cartoons, Spike would usually be found in the company of a Saguaro cactus.

And so as I pulled into Needles from the south on U.S. 95, I immediately "got" the name of the street that's in the photo. It's a very minor road, but I bet it was named after Spike the beagle.

Inflation: Quarter horses now cost 50 cents

If you have kids, then this is likely a familiar sight. My daughter is now 17, so (needless to say) she does not beg me to ride these mechanical "horsies" like she did when she was four or five. The last time I looked at one of these electo ponies -- usually found outside supermarkets -- they costs 25 cents a ride. I used to call them Quarter Horses. But now, I see by this horse outside a Tucson, Ariz., supermarket, that a ride now costs 50 cents, which seems like a lot to me. Once, on a long family RV trip, we found horses like this for a penny at a chain of small Colorado supermarkets. My kid could ride forever for five cents. Yeah. . . the good ol' days.

Saguaro cactus by the thousands!

This is my motorhome in Saguaro National Park. There is not much to see in the park except thousands upon thousands of Saguaro cactuses. They are amazing! Did you know that a Saguaro doesn't even develop an arm until it's about 75 years old and that a cactus can live to be 150 years old? It's true.

They grow very fast in the Tucson area, which is the location of Saguaro National Park. And they are big fellows: some grow as tall as 50 feet. They don't drink much. In a good rainstorm, a Saguaro can gulp 200 gallons of water through its roots -- enough to last a year. The fruit of the Saguaro is made into jelly and wine!

BUT BAD NEWS: Saguraros are so valuable that crooks steal them to sell for big bucks. But the cops are onto these bad dudes and are implanting tiny tracking devices into some cactuses. They take their scanner readers to places where they suspect black market cactuses might be sold, hoping to corral a copped cactus. So cactus rustlers better beware!

I touched something older than the earth

You may wonder what this is: Well, it's a meteor from Outer Space. Its name is the Allende Meterorite and you can see it and even touch it at the Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona.

That's my hand in the picture. I have never touched anything so old and I bet you haven't either. How old? It was created before the earth was formed, and parts of it may be older than the Sun! Little round grains on the meteorite are bits of primordial matter that were once molten droplets formed from our solar system's original dust and gas cloud.

It was neat to touch the meteorite. But it was like touching any other rock. So don't drive to Tucson just to touch it.

The old man that really isn't an old man

At first glance this looks like a very old and (I think) sickly old man. But it's really a mannequin I found at a flea market in Quartzsite, Arizona. His eyes look real. Do you think he is based on a real person? Somebody did a good job making this mannequin. I don't think it was for sale. If it were, I might have bought it. But, gee. . . what do you do with something like that? So I guess I would not have bought it. If you know anything about this mannequin, please tell me about it.