This May, steam locomotive the Santa Fe 3751 will make two overnight stops in Parker on the way to and from the Grand Canyon from Los Angeles.

The excursion, operated by The Central Coast Railway Club under contract with Amtrak, BNSF and the Arizona & California Railroad, will take 6 days in total and comprise a night’s stay in Parker and a night in Williams.

The engine is a 4-8-4 “Northern”-type steam locomotive. The AT&SF once owned more than five-dozen such designs. The Santa Fe originally employed all of its Northerns for use in passenger service, where their blend of power and speed was suited just right on a railroad that stretched more than 2,200 miles between Chicago and Los Angeles, and whose main line was quite rugged west of Texas.

Santa Fe 3751 was spared the scrapper’s torch and donated to the city of San Bernardino where it remained on displays for many years before being restored back to operation by the San Bernardino Railroad Historical Society in the early 1990s. Today, the locomotive occasionally makes an appearance from its home in Los Angeles to pull excursions or help to educate the general public about railroads.

The excursion will be expected to arrive in Parker at around 9 p.m. on Monday, May 14th. Passengers will spend the night in area hotels/resorts, and Pullman passengers will stay aboard the train in their sleepers. The following morning (May 15th), the Santa Fe 3751 will leave Parker for Williams around 9:30 a.m. The return trip will stop for the night in Parker on Friday, May 19th and leave early on Saturday, May 20th.

Tickets can be purchased in segments, so that passengers can get on and off at any stop, including Parker. Passage from Parker to the Grand Canyon aboard the Santa Fe 3751 starts at around $475 (return). Info HERE.

Last week, I wrote that off-road fever was about to grip the Parker area. And grip it did. 240 screaming vehicles flew 425 miles across the desert floor, kicking dust into the atmosphere and giving us the excitement (and a great sunset!) to go with it. I covered the race from KLPZ’s Parker studio, helping the rest of the KLPZ team compile several different sources of race info into one live broadcast. By the end, I was exhausted, and I thought it was this fatigue that explained my sore throat by the evening’s end.

But then my wife Melissa arrived home, telling me that she’d come down with a head cold. This made it extremely likely that I was coming down with it too. Agh. Good thing I’d already found the cure for the common cold.

That’s right: several years ago I came upon the cure for the cold, and here’s a hint: it’s not Airborne.

Airborne is the big-selling common cold remedy, despite the fact that no clinical trial has ever proven it to work. What is it, exactly? Well it’s just a collection of vitamins, herbs and minerals, packaged and marketed cleverly enough to convince people that it works (it’s formulated by a former teacher, for the love of God, the logic of which evidently appeals to the masses). I’ve lost count of the number of people who swear that it worked for them.

What’s actually happening is that they are simply speculating that their colds would have been longer without Airborne. Colds are self-limiting and last only a finite period of time, so one may feel that the product they are using when it goes away deserves the credit for ending it. That would be an error in thinking. Most people are just so happy to be better that they don’t care anymore, until the next time someone gets a cold and they tell them to load up on Airborne. Anyway, a special magical formula Airborne is not, and I wanted something that’s actually been documented to work in clinical trials.

Does such a thing exist?

Well, it turns out that it does. George Eby is the world’s leading expert on the use of zinc (hold on, not just any zinc) to reduce the severity and strength of the common cold. Zinc helps to sustain all life on earth. It’s a metal, and a food additive. You may be aware of using zinc to treat the common cold; there are several such products available at the drug store and – because everyone gets colds and everyone hates them – they sell. But they don’t sell primarily because they work; they sell merely because people think they may work, and they don’t believe anything more likely to work is available. (Actually, the products which have the most pronounced ‘effect’ on the cold are pain killers, decongestants and antihistamines, but they aren’t ‘curing’ anything. They’re just relieving symptoms, and are welcome because of that.)

The formulation of zinc used in most cold products is Zinc Gluconate (a compound two parts gluconate, one part zinc). I walked around the pharmacy the other day looking for a zinc product in the cold and flu aisle not based on Zinc Gluconate; I couldn’t find one. The problem is that the ability of Zinc Gluconate to help is disputed by science. A 2000 systematic review by the Cochrane Library referred to the evidence of benefit as inconclusive. The Harvard Family Health Guide stated in 2001 that one study suggested that “zinc lozenges have little, if any, beneficial effect on the treatment of the common cold.”

So much for zinc in its ability to cure the cold, right? Eby decided not. He decided to try other formulations, and performed a study in 1984 using Zinc Acetate which showed that – bingo! – it reduced the duration of colds by 7 days. Not only that, but a British Medical Survey study supported his conclusions in 1987. Finally, a cure for the common cold!

(Incidentally, ten more studies have since been conducted on Zinc Acetate, and five of them found no benefits. How could this be? Eby went back to work. What he’s found since then is that the beneficial effect was limited to his Zinc Acetate lozenges containing positively charged ions. When the zinc ions were positively charged, they had the effect of significantly reducing the length and severity of the common cold, which explained why some of the studies showed that it didn’t work; they weren’t using the positive-ion formula. In fact, negatively-charged ions had the opposite effect by actually lengthening colds! He took this knowledge, and worked further on the size and dosage of the lozenges for maximum effect, et viola.)

Now, being the smart man Eby is, he immediately patented this precise formulation of positive-ion Zinc Acetate. And, being a scientist rather than a businessman, he had no idea how to market it in the way Airborne (“created by a teacher”) did. The result is that almost nobody knows that his scientifically sound product exists.

When I first read about it, I ordered a big bottle of it from Eby’s website. When I caught my next cold, I followed the directions and noticed that my cold was going away after only about 48 hours of my first symptoms. And ever since, I’ve hit Eby’s zinc every time I’ve caught a cold, meaning that I haven’t missed a day of work due to a cold in years.

Unfortunately, Eby has never been able to get mass production of the lozenges, and only has limited supplies available. So, this remains one of the world’s best-kept secrets.

You’re welcome.

John Wright
Day 3 – No sniffles

The Suns will host Town of Parker Community Day as they play the Memphis Grizzlies. Tickets are available at $40 each, with $5 from your ticket price going to the Town of Parker Recreational Equipment Fund. Transportation will be available thru the Senior Center.

In addition, people who purchase tickets from the town can choose to participate in the “High-Five Player Tunnel”. 25 members of our group will line up along the players entryway to the court and “high-five” the entire team as they make their way onto the court for the game.

Tickets must be bought by Wednesday (February 7th).

For more information or to purchase tickets, call Jackie Johnson or Tim Edwards at the Town of Parker: (928) 669-9265, or email pubsec@ci.parker.az.us.

Crews will intermittently stop traffic from Wednesday (Feb through Friday (Feb 10) to provide a safe work zone as crews pour concrete. ADOT advises motorists traveling between Parker and Lake Havasu to plan ahead and allow extra travel time.

What to expect during construction:

• Work is scheduled to take place weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Intermittent lane closures are planned during work hours.
• Workers will be in place to direct traffic through the work zone.
• The speed limit will be reduced to 25 mph in the construction zone.
• Law enforcement will be on-site to monitor speeds.
• Message boards will advise drivers of lane restrictions.
• No work on holidays or weekends.
• Outside work hours, traffic control devices will remain in place and speed limit will be maintained at 45 mph.

The project also includes drainage improvements, guardrail work, new pavement markings and a new access road to the Central Arizona Project (CAP) Mark Wilmer pumping plant.

This project is scheduled to be completed by summer 2012.

The indictment alleges that, on March 29, 2011, while Little was living with the mother of the six month old victim in Parker, Ariz., the victim was taken to the hospital with severe inflicted head injuries. After being sent to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, the victim passed away there on April 13, 2011.

A conviction for Second Degree Murder carries a maximum penalty of 30 years to life, a $250,000 fine, or both. In determining an actual sentence, Judge Martone will consult the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which provide appropriate sentencing ranges. The judge, however, is not bound by those guidelines in determining a sentence.

An indictment is simply a method by which a person is charged with criminal activity and raises no inference of guilt. An individual is presumed innocent until competent evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The investigation preceding the indictment was conducted by Colorado River Indian Tribe Police Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The prosecution is being handled by Dyanne C. Greer and Jennifer Green, Assistant U.S. Attorneys, District of Arizona, Phoenix.