Giving the gift of Phoenix history


I'm a believer in giving gifts. I haven't done a lot of it in my life, but it's always been important to me that when I give a gift, it's given "without let or hindrance", freely, to be used however the receiver desires. Absolutely no strings.

The gift I've been giving away in cyberspace for several years is digital images, like the one at the top of this post. I'm delighted when people like them, and I do it because I can. Collecting old photos is my hobby, and I can give them away without losing anything myself - they're not paper, they're digital. I don't do it for money, because frankly there isn't enough money in the world for the amount of work I put into it. I do it because I enjoy the collection, and the gift is just the icing on the cake for me.

Of course, not everyone agrees with what I'm doing. There are a lot of people who resent how someone might use a gift, whether it's displayed correctly, whether they give the gift to someone else (re-gifting), or whether it turns into something that makes money. I don't care. I don't have the energy to follow where my gifts go. If you print out a photo and hang it up in your bathroom, I won't be offended. If you make tee-shirts and sell them, I won't expect a commission, if you display it somewhere and charge admission, that's fine. It's yours to with as you please. And for people who disagree with me, and hold on tightly, I usually ask if they will share. Unfortunately, many of these people are so dedicated to making sure that nothing of theirs is ever used in a way that they would disapprove of, they destroy it.

And there are many ways of destroying precious pieces of Phoenix history. The most common way is to put things in boxes and forget about them, until some day they'll just be part of the landfill. They could be locked up in boxes and stored safely away. I often refer to the last scene of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when I picture things being boxed up and put on shelves. If you've seen that movie, you know what I mean.

I would like to continue giving away digital images, and I see no reason to stop, or even slow down. I'm a graphic designer, a Photoshop guy, and I'm comfortable in cyberspace, and with social media. And yes, structurally all of these things are designed for commercial purposes. But I've found a way to use it to give gifts, and it makes me feel good. And maybe that good feeling is my selfish reward? I suppose so. If that's the case, it's a good deal.

If you see anything here that you like, please use it, without let or hindrance. I know that even as I write this, a lot of precious history of Phoenix is being lost forever, so I'll do what I can, and I hope that you will reshare.

Image at the top of this post: Footbridge over the Arizona Canal in 1902, Camelback Mountain in the background.
Become a PhD (Phoenix History Detective) today on Patreon!

Click here to become a Patron!
History Adventuring posts are shared there daily including "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos of historic Phoenix, Arizona. Discounts for seniors, students, teachers, and veterans.

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