History Adventuring

No matter where you live on planet earth, there will be pests. Mine is the attitude of a gardener, and I try not to let myself get too upset with pests. Over the years I've learned different techniques to keep them as far away from me as possible, but I know that there's really no such thing as "extermination" of the pests that plague my neighborhood, including human ones. Here in my suburban neighborhood there really aren't too many pests. I discovered Amdro to control the stinging red ants, and I've never seen a scorpion here in over twenty years. I have block walls, so rabbits can't get into my garden and destroy my plants, but I know that in different areas of the valley, those pests are a consideration. As far as human pests, I haven't seen much either. Once many, many, years ago, while I was talking to a neighbor of mine, who had recently been bloodied up by getting in a fight with the people who were in a house nearby selling drugs, it occu

Today, as usual, I will walk with the Hohokam people. Well, where they lived - the Hohokam people left the Phoenix area hundreds of years ago. They left behind their adobe buildings, of which all that remains is what has been preserved in places like Pueblo Grande, at 44th Street and Washington. They also left behind gigantic canals, which were still very visible through the 1920s. If you've ever had to learn about them in school, you know about that. But the Hohokam people didn't just live over by the museum at 44th Street and Washington, they lived all over the Salt River Valley, including where I live, near the McDonald's at 67th Avenue and Peoria. No, there's no museum, or velvet ropes there, but if you walk there you'll be tracing their footsteps. And I'm not trying to be mysterious here, if you walk anywhere in the Salt River Valley, from Tempe to Peoria and far beyond that, you'll be tracing their footsteps. They were there. Even hundreds of ye

When I lived in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles in the 1980s, there was a popular song "Nobody Walks in LA", and it really was true. Because if you listen to the lyrics of the song, it says "only a nobody walks in LA". And I was a nobody. Walking there was awful. I can only hope that things have gotten better, because Los Angeles, California is a wonderful place to walk. The sun shines, it hardly ever rains, and overall it's just gorgeous weather. Where I lived, in Canoga Park, which is on the western end of the San Fernando Valley, the weather there is pretty much the same as in Calabasas, where some of the wealthiest people in the country live. I've always liked to walk - I call it "urban hiking". Usually I'll have some small reason for it, walking to the store to buy a Coke is my favorite, but mostly it's about just strolling along, looking at stuff. Of course you have to realize that real estate is valuable in California,

It's 1901 and I'm off to visit Diana Dee, the world renowned Astrologer. Yes, I read it in an ad in the paper, so it has to be true. Come along with me, and maybe she'll tell you your future, too! According to the article, "Madame Dee is the daughter of the celebrated Astrologer, Dr. Henry Dee. She can tell you just what to do. If you are in trouble, seek her. If in ill health, she will diagnose your case and cure you with her wonderful magnetic healing powers. Will give you lucky days, months and years; tell you when is your successful time for any ventures. (Locating mines a specialty). Madame Dee makes no charge unless readings are satisfactory." Well, that sounds perfect to me. I see that consultation is free, and if she can tell me where that Lost Dutchman Mine is, I'm sure that it would be worth fifty cents, even a dollar. She's at 22 S. 3rd Avenue, which is just south of Washington on 3rd, so we can walk over there. Watch your step, the stree

I have mixed feelings about listening to people talk about themselves. Like everyone, I enjoy talking about myself, and I realize that everything about me is interesting - to me. But it's not necessarily interesting to other people, so I ponder that before I speak. When someone lolls back in their chair, takes a deep breath, and says, "that reminds me of a story..." I have two reactions, one being that hopefully they'll talk about something I can relate to, such as what Los Angeles was like before the freeways were built, and the other being that I hope that they're going to buy me another beer, so I can just wait it out and stare into space until they're through talking. So please do tell me about what it was like back in your day. I want to walk the places you walked, see the people you saw, through your eyes. Please don't share intimate details (which seems to be almost irresistible to some people when telling a story) but please do tell me how y

Although I never told him so, I wanted to grow up to be like my dad. He wore a shirt and tie, and was part of the management staff at the Ford Motor Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was mostly a blue-collar environment, and I worked on the line the summer I was 18, and he would walk over and take me to lunch. I still remember how much the "guys in the overalls" hated management, and how strange it felt to sit in the executive lunch room in my overalls with my dad. I wanted to be like him, and someday I would work for a big company and wear a shirt and tie. I did. My first corporate job was in Los Angeles, at the headquarters for Blue Cross of California. And then my next one was in downtown Phoenix, at the corporate headquarters for Bank One, which is now Chase Bank. I was just a graphic designer, never a manager, but I dressed in a shirt and tie, and wore them with pride. Of course, there are challenges to wearing a shirt and tie. Luckily, in California it never g

I've really only lived in two places in my adult life, Phoenix and Los Angeles, so I don't know about the rest of the country, or the rest of the world, but people there have always given distance in minutes, not miles. So I've learned to translate that one minute means one mile. That means that if a housing development is thirty miles from a particular destination, it's described as "thirty minutes away". The assumption is sixty miles an hour on the freeway, with no traffic. In Los Angeles, that's an interesting theory, but I've seen traffic move so slowly that I've been lucky to go ten miles in thirty minutes there. Even in Phoenix, where there's a lot less traffic, the "minute equals a mile" equation seems to be kinda iffy. From where I'm writing this right now, near Glendale Community College, at 59th Avenue and Olive, I'm "thirty minutes away from Scottsdale" - that is, thirty miles away. But at this time o

Some of my fondest memories are of driving in California, specifically in the Los Angeles area. And since I've lived in Phoenix for such a long time now I'll often get met with "the look" when I say that, which means "is he kidding?" No, I'm not. But it has to do with what I've always defined as driving versus what I've learned over the years driving means to most of the people I've met. The car I owned in California was a Saab Sonett. It was fiberglass, had two seats, and was as light as a feather. It sat low to the ground, like a race car, and it was one of the most ridiculous things most people had never seen. When people looked at it, they asked me how I could carry stuff around in it, and I would just point to the driver's seat. Of course, there was no rear seat leg room, because there were no rear seats. The tiny hatchback was so low that not much could fit in there, maybe a gym bag, but not much more. It spent a lot of time

You really don't need to know much Spanish to recognize that the phrase "Los Angeles" means "The Angels". And that's a good start if you're interested in the history of L.A. But if you'd like to time-travel with me, there's more. When what is now called L.A. was first established in New Spain, California, it was given the impressive name of "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles", which translated into English means "The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angeles", which of course is Mary, the mother of Jesus. New Spain was a Christian place, and specifically Catholic, and the first Europeans who settled there permanently were Catholic priests, from Spain. If you know your California history, you know that a Mission was built about every thirty miles, which was an average day's ride for a horse in those days, from San Diego to San Francisco. And of course towns grew up around these places, especially if t

I had only lived in Phoenix for a few years when I learned that when water flowed under the bridges, they fell down. I remember being puzzled at the time, as the bridges that I remembered in Minnesota, usually stayed up when there was water below them, but of course that was the slow-moving Mississippi, and I'd yet to learn about the terrific force that water can exert when it's let go from a dam, which is what happens on the Salt River. This is a lesson that has stayed with me all of my life, and I learned that I really didn't have the patience that most people have. As the traffic jammed trying to get into Tempe across the river (only two bridges were left standing, Mill Avenue and Central) I'd wonder if there was a different way to do this. There was. I've always been good at gathering information, and I learned that there was a free shuttle bus that went from the State Capitol Building to Tempe. So I drove there, parked my car, and rode into Tempe, in coo

I don't have any photos of when the sign for Crossroads Plaza was new, in 1986, but I'm guessing that it made as little impression on people going by then as it does today. My interest in architecture often causes me to see things that most people never look at. I've talked about this all of my life, and usually I'll just get a puzzled look. Because I can see Crossroads Plaza, which is just across from Brittany Square, and Peoria Station. And those signs, which have been there since the 1980s, are still up, still very large, and mean absolutely nothing to most people. If you see the same things that I see, you know that Crossroads Plaza is in Peoria, and Brittany Square, right across the street, is in Glendale. In fact, the center of 67th Avenue there is the dividing line between the two cities. I've lived in Glendale for a long time, and I will often see the Glendale police cars turn back into Glendale (east on Peoria Avenue) and the Peoria police cars turn

I was at my local grocery store today, and used an app that allowed me to pay with my phone at the self-checkout. I had forgotten doggy treats from an earlier visit, and I was in and out of the store in just a matter of minutes. So naturally I got to thinking about old-time Phoenix, and remembered the painfully slow process of checkout at a grocery store in the 1970s, which is the first time I ever did it, in 1977. In those days, every item had to have a price tag affixed to it, which a cashier would have to read, and punch in the numbers on a cash register, one at a time. For example, if a can of beans was twenty-nine cents, the cashier would push a two, then a nine, and then reach for the next item. And of course, many of the items had price tags that the cashier couldn't read, so someone had to go back and find out the price. At age 19 I wasn't in any kind of particular hurry, but I found this to be ponderously slow. After that process, when the groceries were totaled u

As someone who always wanted to be an architect but couldn't do the math, I've always had a fascination with buildings, especially public buildings. And in my lifetime I've watched them become dull and boring. No, it's not a conspiracy man, it just has to do with spending taxpayer's money. Elaborate, expensive buildings had been getting a lot of backlash from taxpayers who were complaining that they were a waste of money, and by the 1980s, cities like Phoenix had heard. And the trend turned into seeing if a public building could be made to look as if it had been built as inexpensively as possible. This pleased a lot of taxpayers, but for people like me, it was a disappointment. There was a time, before I was born, when taxpayers were happy to have their money used to promote and beautify their city. The thought was that in the long run it would be good for the image of the city, and would bring in more business, more jobs, more prosperity. And as an old Marke

I remember the day that I met Miss Sunnyslope, although the year, which must have been in the early '90s, is kinda foggy in my memory. But she made a vivid impression on me! She was in a thrift store in Sunnyslope that I used to go to, on Hatcher and Central Avenue, where I looked for antique cuff links, tie pins, and that sort of thing. I wore a suit to work, and enjoyed the slightly-goofy aspect of "accessorizing" with old-time stuff. I was on the lookout for Valley Bank cuff links, and never found them, but I found a lot of cool old stuff at that thrift store. And Miss Sunnylope of 1949. She overheard me talking to the clerk and approached me, saying that she had a whole collection of wonderful stuff that her husband had left behind. I asked her if she would bring them there to the thrift store, where I could see them, and possibly buy them. Looking back now, that wasn't really fair to the store owner, but I didn't know what else to do. She did. She insi

When I moved back to Phoenix, in 1989, I spent a lot of time driving around, just looking at stuff. I did find a job, and looking back it doesn't seem like it took that long, but at the time it seemed like all I was doing was waiting. So I noodled around town, looking at stuff, and was particularly fascinated by the Sunnyslope area. It had a natural beauty that made me think. If you're familiar with Sunnyslope, if you've known it all of your life, you may be wondering if I'm kidding here about its natural beauty. But I had just moved from California, and I was seeing it through a Californian's eyes. I'll see if I can explain. Natural beauty, whether it's a view of the ocean, or a mountain view, is at a premium where I lived in California. I remember looking at an apartment complex and the one (1) apartment in the complex that had even the tiniest view from the patio was rented at a premium. And you had to go out onto the patio and lean out, and look p

Since I'm interested in the True West, most people assume that I have no interest in the West of the Imagination. This is simply not true - I love them both. As I grew older and wiser I learned there was a difference, but both have a place for me in my heart and in my mind. Like most people my age, I grew up with Sunday afternoon movies that featured John Wayne. I've since revisited some of those movies, now that I'm older and wiser, and while I know that Texas doesn't look like Monument Valley, I'm willing to let it go. And by the way, if you think all John Wayne movies are the same, I suggest that you look again. Yes, some are outrageous and goofy, but some really do help paint a picture of the real West, such as "The Searchers". This one is actually fairly painful. For me though, the West of the Imagination hit its peak with "The Wild Wild West" which I watched as a kid. And even then I knew it was exaggerated, but I didn't care,

I'll admit it, I love the feeling of a sentimental journey. Most people love to go back and trace their footprints, looking back fondly on days gone by. Yes, I know some people scoff at that, but who needs them? It's a delicious feeling, and a very personal one. I collect old photos of Phoenix, and I'm usually interested in learning more about the history of Phoenix before I got there, which was 1977. But lately I've been indulging in some sentimental journeys, and sharing them on this blog. Mostly I've written about cars I've loved, and lost, and the good golf shots I've made (which weren't many!). If you're scoffing at that, I'm sorry that you feel that way. If you ask "what was I thinking?" I can just reply that I was young, and to me all is forgiven. Sentimental journeys are important to good mental health. Looking back at your life and seeing nothing but the mistakes you've made (and hopefully you've made a lot!) ca

I've always been interested in history, and in addition to reading about it in books, I like to ask people questions about what they remembered "back in the day". This has led to me to many wonderful people, who have patiently answered my questions, explained things, and showed me a world that I was too young to have ever seen. I can't thank these people enough, and in this blog I try to repay a bit of it, in what I guess is called "paying it forward", or "linear kindness". I can never pay them back, so I pass it along as graciously as I can. I was also fortunate to have met several people who became "power mad" when I asked them about history, and what they remembered. I discovered that these were people who had never really been asked anything of any importance, and this was their big chance to become power mad. No, it didn't start with Facebook, although I see a lot of it there, of course. I sympathize with these people, who

Like most people, I have a fascination with money. When I was a kid, of course, I had no idea how it worked, and I'm still learning. One of my brothers had figured that it came from grocery stores, as our mom would give the cashier a small amount of money, and get back lots more (change). As I write this, I have money in my wallet. Well, pieces of paper that other people will accept for goods and services. I haven't gotten any bitcoins yet, but I'll probably get some, just to do it. Just a bit. You have to be careful with money! And all of this is making me wonder about the attitude towards money in old-time Phoenix. Let's time-travel to Wall Street in Phoenix, Arizona, right around the year 1900. It's 1900, and we're young, and progressive, and we really have no memories of the "Greenbacker Movement" of the old days. But I know a lot of old-timers who wouldn't even think of accepting anything but silver and gold coins. I tried to give the

If you want to start an argument, just try to describe any neighborhood that isn't expensive, or even middle class. OK, you start, I'll wait. Yes, I suppose "affordable" is as good a term as any. I lived in those types of neighborhoods, both in Arizona and in California, through my twenties. It was a choice I made, driven mostly by my anti-social refusal to share an apartment, or a house, and that I didn't have enough money for anything more, mostly because a big chunk of my income I used just to keep my car alive. And I like to describe these neighborhoods as "less-than-fashionable", a term I like that I learned from "A Funny Thing Happened to Me On The Way To the Forum". The main character introduces his neighborhood, with a wry smile, as "less-than-fashionable". I knew what he meant. There were some shady characters around, including a house of ill repute, in his neighborhood. To me, the first neighborhood I where I lived in

If you're a regular reader of these goofy little imaginary stories that I write about old Phoenix, you know about Ichabod, and Judge Ruppert, and maybe even about the Electric Belt that my imaginary time-traveling character sent away for in 1893. If not, please stay with me, and I'll try to explain as I go along. The most important thing to know about this is while the character I'm writing about is imaginary, everything else in this story actually existed. Especially Judge Ruppert, who was a big, big dog! Walk with me. It's 1901, I've had my Sanden's Electric belt for many years now, and it's cured my lower back problems. I've also been exercising, and stretching, and eating better, but I'm sure that it's the electricity and the magnets that did the job. We're walking along Melinda's Alley, which runs east and west between Adams and Monroe. We just crossed Center Street [Central Avenue] and since we've been walking for a whi

I've always like old people. When I was a kid, old people would mess up my hair, call me "Butch", tell me what a fine young man I was growing up to be, and just in general make me look forward to becoming an adult. You know, getting old. Some of my fondest memories are of old men teaching me how to shake hands "like a real gentleman", and the old ladies who admired my hair. Presumably these old people were in their twenties, or thirties. Although I'm far from old (just slightly past middle-aged, which how I plan on describing myself through my sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and one hundreds), I'm beginning to realize how important my age and experience is for the young folks, and how it can be squandered if I simply rant about the government, or talk about my aches and pains. I've always asked old people what it was like "back in their day". And while it might seem kind of insulting, what I'm asking was what it was like

This morning as I was enjoying my coffee, sitting in my backyard, I was listening to the call of the peacocks at Sahuaro Ranch, and mourning doves, and I could also hear the steady flow of dense traffic, which is so thick and consistent that it sounds like a river. And that river, fortunately for me, is a place I've rarely been in, either in Phoenix or in Los Angeles. I've been lucky, I haven't commuted much. When I lived in Los Angeles, the distance from my apartment to where I worked was about two miles. When I lived in Santa Barbara, my job was so close that I could walk to it, although I rarely did. My longest commute has been from here in Glendale to downtown Phoenix, about twelve miles, and that was for only a few years. Like I say, I've been lucky. Nowadays my "commute" is to my computer, and has been for years. Before that, it was just a few blocks to Glendale Community College, where I taught until 2012. Usually I drove there, but sometimes I w

When I first started running across ads for "Chicken Day" while looking at old Phoenix newspapers at the Library of Congress site, I immediately liked the idea. As far as I can tell, it only happened in 1921, in spite of how much the Glendale District Commercial Club made it seem as if it had been a celebration before that year, with the hopes of it continuing year after year. And as an old Marketing guy, I understand that it's just promotion. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. I'm sure that a lot of people were excited at the time. Let's time-travel back to 1921, and go to Chicken Day in Glendale. Come on! I've been looking forward to Chicken Day ever since I saw it in the paper, how about you? What? You've never even heard of it? Well, my friend, get ready for the greatest celebration that the city of Glendale has ever seen. It's today, May 20th! Chicken Day! Yes, I'm a member in good standing of the Glendale District

In a long life that has included a lot of dumb things that I'm glad I did, driving a Saab Sonett in Phoenix is one of my fondest memories, and worst nightmares. Time-travel back to 1979 with me. The car I drove down to Phoenix with, two years before, had been turned into a mashed-up little tin can by someone who tried to pass me on the left as I was turning left. Welcome to Phoenix! I only broke a leg, and it soon healed up. And for some reason, I wanted a Saab Sonett. My Saab Sonett on Camelback Mountain in 1979. Wonderview Road. If you've never seen one, or even heard of one, that's not surprising. They were cool-looking cars, and fun to drive, but mechanically awful, which is surprising because Saabs tend to be pretty well-made cars. My Sonett wasn't. The Sonett in 1979 at the Saguaro Apartments, 4201 N. 9th Street, Phoenix, Arizona. I spent every spare minute, and every spare dollar, keeping that car alive. The tiny little V-4 engine, which was