25
Make A Wish on Route 66
Seligman, Arizona is a small town off the 40, along old Route 66. Passing through, you can fill up your tank and hide out from the 115 degree heat. You might run into Ken, graduate of Monrovia High, who'll offer to photograph you in the driver’s seat of his Silver Rose ’50 Ford sedan.
As you head into town, the Seligman Cemetery is down a short road on your right. An old fence surrounds it, and it appears to be abandoned, but it's not. You have to want to be here, as there's nowhere to sit, no shady trees to protect you from the merciless sun.
Frank Shankwitz wanted to be here, and I'm going to find out why. There’s a laminated photo of him: Old Nevada co-producer. Founder of Make a Wish Foundation. Wishman is engraved in the concrete frame around the grave. He was only in his 70s, taken by esophageal cancer. He’d cheated death before, many years ago. Still work to be done. Mr Death could wait.
Frank was chasing a drunk driver on his Arizona Highway Patrol motorcycle when he broadsided a second drunk driver who cut him off. His partner tried but failed to revive him, declaring him dead at the scene. An off duty nurse, who happened to be passing by, miraculously brought him back. A counselor urged him to use the experience as fuel for a higher purpose. Two years later, Frank found that purpose when he crossed paths with a seven year old boy whose dying wish was to be a motorcycle cop like his heroes on CHiPs.
That was over forty years ago. Here on a desolate stretch of ghost highway, Frank Shankwitz comes to life yet again. His foundation is in fifty countries. Half a million wishes have been granted to critically ill children. Mr Death came back, but all he got was the body.
Stop and Smell The Gasoline
I love the smell of fuel, whether it’s White Oak at Colt Grill in Cottonwood or 100 octane low lead at the Prescott Airport. And then there’s the fuel of every day living, like Sandy and her ornaments. She flew out from Jersey to take care of her 94 year old mom for a while. She teaches art to seniors in the old folks home. Anna is the young owner of an antique shop. Mike is a nationally renowned radiologist and Navy vet, who took up flying a couple of years ago. He’s one of the few people you’ll meet who grew up in Arabia and worked for a time at Gulf Oil in Angola. Bob and his wife moved to Cottonwood from California, and now Bob spends a helluva lot of time feeding wood to those big offset smokers behind the restaurant. Celeste at the art movie theater was eager to promote the Sedona International Film Festival, and Ken used to live up the street from me years before we moved there. Now he’s a fixture around Seligman with his Silver Rose ‘50 Ford.
Tomorrow, we head back to Cali by way of Jerome, Prescott, and Salome. I’d stop time if I could, and take a side trip to Dotch Windsor’s Painted Desert Trading Post. Visit Mark Berndt in Santa Fe. Follow the 89A to Saint George. Explore some dirt roads between Vegas and Palm Springs. Those adventures will have to wait. In the meanwhile, I’ll be burning a couple tanks of fuel on the way back home, then several bags of lump charcoal, white oak, pecan, cherry, and alder till it’s time to load up the car and hit the road again.
Networking + Boat Cruise!
Sue Brooke of Alignable is hosting an epic networking and boat cruise event on August 3 down in Long Beach. Sue is a rock star networker and teacher, one of the original Alignable Ambassadors, and she’s traveling the nation in an RV helping small business owners build their referral networks. Come join us for happy hour and a cruise!