HUMOR

If you can laugh when the barn is burning, ...it ain't your barn!

DID FOLKS IN THE WILD WEST LAUGH? YOU BET THEY DID. A sense of humor was clearly a valuable commodity in Arizona's Territorial days. Jokes taken from newspapers published before Arizona became a state in 1912 have been assembled into a book by WitWorksTM, a division of Arizona Highways, titled Never Stand Between a Cowboy and His Spittoon. You'll find jokes that are classy, jokes that are crass and jokes that clearly stand the test of time.

JUDGE: "How did that man libel you?"

APPLICANT FOR WARRANT: "He called me a beggarly politician, yer honor."

JUDGE: "The word beggarly is hardly libelous."

APPLICANT FOR WARRANT: "It ain't that, yer honor. It's the word politician that I want satisfaction for."

NEVER STAND BETWEEN A COWBOY AND HIS SPITTOON 144 pages. Softcover. #ABLPO $6.95 (plus shipping and handling) For further proof that the historical can also be hysterical, pick up a copy of the WitWorksTM humor book Do You Pray, Duke? Cowboy humor receives a new spin in this delightful book featuring text and cartoons by Jim Willoughby. Widely regarded as the best of cowboy cartoonists, Jim coined the phrase, "If you can laugh when the barn is burning, it ain't your barn!"

DO YOU PRAY, DUKE? 144 pages. Softcover. #ADDPO $6.95 (plus shipping and handling) There's a lot more to laugh about in other WitWorks™™ humor books.

TO FIND OUT MORE OR TO ORDER A BOOK, visit your favorite bookstore or call toll-free 1-800-543-5432. In the Phoenix area or outside the United States, call 602-712-2000. Or visit our Web site at witworksbooks.com.

getaway weekend FLAGSTAFF'S COLORFUL PAST Including Almost Becoming Hollywood Remains Evident on Walks Through the MOUNTAIN TOWN

IF NOT FOR A CHANCE SNOWSTORM, FLAGSTAFF might've become the movie capital of America. I'm standing outside the town's red sandstone train depot, now restored to its 1889 elegance, imagining that unlikely bit of history, which, truth be told, isn't all that unlikely. In 1912, two young filmmakers and a company of actors and crewmen came to town by train, hunting for a place to build a studio to make a movie called The Squaw Man, one of the first feature-length Westerns. As the story goes, they stopped at the old depot and had a look around Flagstaff, but blowing snow convinced them that northern Arizona's weather would leave too many down days for filming. So they re-boarded the train and continued west to a then-obscure California hamlet called Hollywood. One of the men was Cecil B. DeMille, who, of course, went on to become a movie-making legend.Part of the fun of visiting downtown Flagstaff comes in the imagining. It is a place with a rich history and an exciting present that includes dining at sidewalk cafes or white-tablecloth restaurants, shopping at a variety of specialty boutiques and strolling tree-lined streets with the San Francisco Peaks as a backdrop. Start with a 90-minute walking tour, using a map available at the chamber of commerce's visitors center and the guidebook Flagstaff Historic Walk, written by retired Coconino County judge Richard Mangum and his wife, Sherry.

The book contains a number of engaging stories of saloon shootings and other Wild West hijinks, and points the way to 28 historic plaques that adorn many downtown buildings. I was surprised to learn that Route 66, called Front Street in Flagstaff's infancy, had its own "whiskey row" in the late 19th century. At one point, the town had one church and 21 saloons. The frequency of trouble in those scotch and sawdust parlors was evident when city fathers, in 1915, ripped out the wooden sidewalks and found them riddled with bullets.