This is Wilson Arz. When my kids were small, I used to play a bedtime game with them. They would tell me a letter, and I would make up a nonsense song with every word starting with that letter. One that I still remember is -- “Bungling Bearded Burglars from Broadstone Beach”

Just a whimsical song with lots of alliteration.

We used to sing it as a round with me starting and then they would come in. Here’s my recreation of it.

Stingaree Gulch

A Ring-Tailed Roaring Good Time

By J. J. Mounts-Miller

Fleeing a rigged boxing match and a deadly mob ultimatum, legendary promoter Tex Rickard arrives in the Nevada boomtown of Rawhide to build his ultimate masterpiece: Stingaree Gulch, a sprawling empire of vice. As the silver rolls in, Tex sets his sights on an impossible dream—staging a controversial heavyweight championship for Jack Johnson. But in a town built on illusions, Tex meets his match in Vera Locke, a brilliant "widow" executing a devastating con. Stingaree Gulch is a high-stakes historical thriller of boomtown greed, masterful hustles, and the explosive, championship prize fight that ultimately forced a millionaire into exile.

My Dad delivered batteries all over hilly Seattle. Drove a truck. Lead-acid batteries. Batteries for cars. Trucks. Fishing Boats. Picked up old ones. Delivered new ones. The acid ate his clothes. Scarred his hands.

He had done the Army during Viet Nam. We lived in Ballard, near the locks. Upstairs in a once-Victorian house. My Mom worked at the doughnut shop. Coming in at four. Frying dozens and dozens.

In 1981, my Dad went to night school to learn welding. He wanted a job at the Navy Ship Yard, but they wouldn’t hire him because he had done drugs.

So they loaded the 1968 Chevrolet station wagon and headed South. But at Rice Hill, Oregon. It died. Broke. No job. No place to go.

Then a hippie guy in a pick-up truck offered to take us to a hippie commune. No charge. Doing it because of humanity.

So that’s where I grew up. My Dad was never a hippie. Just a good place to make things out of metal. To fix things. To make a living.