There's a phrase I've heard editors use before-- "drown your kittens." Most stories require some kitten drowning at one point or another. That is, every story has a thousand precious details. And it's always a struggle to decide what to leave out.

Here are some of the details I discovered in my research about Hi Jolly -- details I fell in love with, but had to let go. I don't know how credible all of them are, but they're interesting:

-Paul Weiner is the guy in my story who called Hi Jolly the "legendary town drunk... a ne'er-do-well." I met him at the bookstore that he owns in Quartzsite. Throughout my entire interview with Paul, he was wearing a tiny blue loin-pouch and nothing else. He's a self-described nudist, and claims to have had the first male strip-tease act in America, back in the 1960s. He went by the name "Sweetie Pie."

-At some point during the great Southwestern camel experiment, the army was thinking of fashioning a sort of "Camel Express"-- a la the Pony Express but with camels. The army set up trials to test the camel against the horse. In one test, Hi Jolly's camel foundered and died part-way through the journey. Hi Jolly is said to have carried the sack of mail by foot across the desert the rest of the way.

-Hi Jolly applied to the U.S. Congress for pension funds in his later days, arguing that he deserved support after 30 years of service on contract to the Army. There's a small metal box on Hi Jolly's memorial that supposedly contains all the money he had when he died. Two silver dollars, a dime and a nickel.

-Hi Jolly's name is a saga in itself. The story goes that he was actually born Philip Tedro. At some point while he was still living in the Middle East he changed his name to Hadji Ali. Some versions of the story say this name-change happened when he converted to Islam, and made a pilgrimage to Mecca. Of course once he got to the U.S., his name changed once again. Nobody could pronounce Hadji Ali, and he became Hi Jolly.

-And speaking of name changes, Randy Sparks, who wrote the song "Hi Jolly," has another claim to fame. When a young folk singer named Little Johnny Deutschendorf came into the club Randy ran, there was a problem. Little Johnny's name wouldn't fit on the marquee. He was looking for a name with the same initials so he could still use his newly monogrammed luggage. Randy Sparks says he came up with the name John Denver, in honor of a hit song that Randy had written.

Through the years, I've stopped to wonder at "Hi Jolly's" grave several times. First time was in the mid 40's, right after WW2. Quartzsite did a bit of evolving through the years, too. Last time I passes through, 10-15 yrs ago, it resembled a two-three mile long 'swap meet'and RV park. A delightful place in winter with lots of colorful characters to "shoot the bull" with. I miss it. What's happening there these days, I wonder??