The Arizona Office of Tourism a few days ago released this terrific video that features the Hackberry General Store in Hackberry and Angel Delgadillo in Seligman.
The first part of the seven-minute video interview is an interview with Amy Franklin, owner of the Hackberry store. I also love her neighbor Richard, who plays his guitar outside the store whether there are visitors or not.
The latter half of the video is an interview with Delgadillo and his daughter, Mirna. Angel is 94 years old, but “I choose to be 36, and nobody can tell me any different.”
It’s a delicious irony that Arizona Tourism is featuring Delgadillo a few decades after nobody in the state government seemed to want to listen him espouse Route 66 after his town was bypassed by Interstate 40. He persevered, founded the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona and became a one-man tourism stop for many travelers on the Mother Road.
Kudos to Jack Chapman, who directed and co-produced the film. He packed a lot into a small package.
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Good. I like Angel and hope he lives to 200.
Nice to see your personal thoughts and feelings in this Route 66 Video News Release, Mr. Ron. Kudos to you as well, sir,
Amazing video and the incredible stories. But I read a mistake; The name of Delgadillo is Angel not Juan.
Juan was the brother of Angel, but he is death in 2004