Finding what's important to you personally in Phoenix history


I like to collect old photos of Phoenix, Arizona. At last count, I've lost count, and my collection continues to grow. And I love to share them, which I do, on the internet. It's a wonderful learning experience, and one of the most fascinating things to me is discovering what's important to each person.

Speaking for myself, I'm fascinated with the architecture. I never could do the math, so I could never have been an architect, but I've always enjoyed looking at buildings, and imagining them being designed and built. I also love looking at classic cars, so a lot of times the photos I find will fascinate me because of the old cars. Of course, it has to be something that I personally know a little bit about - I call that a "reference point". That's why old photos of someone's family are so boring, there's no connection to you, although it's fascinating to them.

The comments that I see will often tell me what's important to each individual - their reference point. The vast majority of people on my Facebook group are fascinated by the price of gasoline. I could post a photo of rampaging elephants on the streets of Phoenix (not that I have one!) and someone would comment about the price of gas in a sign in the background.

I've seen people struggle with finding any personal connection at all. I've seen people write "I know someone named Omar!" when I post photos of Omar Turney (that's him up there). And there are people who may have heard about something, but couldn't quite place it. And of course there are the names of things, like street names, or the names of schools. That becomes a personal reference point for people many times. There is, of course, a Turney Street in Phoenix, and it's named after him. Once you have someone's reference point, they can become interested in the fact that he mapped out the ancient canals of the Hohokam people

Without a reference point, learning about something can be just about impossible. If you sat me down to learn about a bunch of people living in a city I'd never heard of, I'd be trying to ease out there as quickly as I could. So I look for a reference point. If I can find one, you have my attention, if not, I'm outta here.
If you liked this article, and would like to see more, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! You make this happen!

 Click here to become a Patron!
History adventuring posts are shared there daily. The basic tier is a dollar a month, and the PhD tier, which includes "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos, is five dollars a month, and is discounted for seniors, veterans, and students.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more