Ever since man first set foot in this land called Arizona, he has felt compelled to name every river, waterhole, mountain pass and trail. Inspiration was usually drawn from great natural spectacles and awesome beauty, but not always. Among Arizona’s fabulous mineral laden mountains lie the skeletal remains of storied ghost camps of yesteryear, born in boom and died in dust, the fragile wooden walls, concrete ruins, monuments to hopes and aspirations that didn’t always pan out.

These ghostly reminders of the past were generally populated by a variety of boisterous, rough and tumble miners generally characterized as unmarried, unchurched, and unwashed. They named their temporary abodes after former hometowns or countries, girlfriends, local geography, dappled with a liberal touch of tongue-in-cheek humor.

There are very few distractions along U.S. 70 as it winds its way through the cotton fields and flatlands at Fort Thomas in southeastern Arizona. Mount Graham is a blue-gray mass on the horizon and a few other peaks rise gently from an otherwise level landscape. But suddenly, on the western edge of the community, a spire rises more than 50 feet above the semi-desert. What makes it unusual is that it’s standing there all by itself, with no church attached. A quick stop for an inspection reveals that it’s a memorial to Melvin Jones. Since a 50-foot obelisk doesn’t just pop out of the ground all by itself, this raises the question…

Today’s question: I’ve seen roadrunners running around with lizards in their mouths, but recently, I was surprised to see one grab a small bird, bash it against the ground several times and take off into the desert with the body. Is this normal?

Grabbed it and bashed it on the ground several times? I hope this doesn’t give my masters any ideas. Yes, what you saw was perfectly normal, at least for roadrunners. They cannot live by lizards alone. They also eat scorpions, snakes, rodents, small birds, eggs, insects and a few berries and seeds every now and then just to keep regular.