History Adventuring

It's 1909, and we're in Phoenix, and we're looking at the newspaper. Let's take a look at the For Sale - Miscellaneous section. Let's see, do I want to buy some cabbage and cauliflower plants? Seems like it would be a good price, 10 cents per dozen, 50 cents per one hundred, or $4 per thousand. I don't suppose I have room to plant all of those, and besides, this John McDonald lives too far away to make it worth the effort. He's four and a half miles north of the Insane Asylum, that's the foothills of the Phoenix Mountains along the Arizona Canal [24th Street and Lincoln], so I'll pass on that. But you know, I really like cabbages and cauliflower. Maybe I'll send him a letter asking if he ever sells his plants here in town. He gets Rural Free Delivery, so he should get a letter in the morning, or maybe the next day. Not sure how long it takes to get a letter out to the country? How about a bathtub? 18 dollars seems like a lot of money...

As someone who has always had a great affection for the Noblest Game (among the worldly possessions that I brought to Phoenix when I was 19 was a small set of golf clubs), I like to think of how people played in old-time Phoenix, in the days of the mashie, the spoon, and the gutta-percha ball. Let's go play golf at the Arizona Biltmore in the 1930s. I must say that I look dashing in my knickerbockers, although I'm wondering if the Argyle socks were too much? You were wise to wear your sponge bag trousers, I don't think you have the same good-looking ankles as the rest of the foursome. And the bow tie is a nice touch! I'm not sure from looking at the photo if those are mashies, or mashie-niblicks. I suppose that it really doesn't matter. It's your honor! Yes, you can use one of your woods, I'd recommend the driver. A golf tee? What's that? See that box of sand over there, you just scoop some out and put your ball on a little sand hill. I suppose ...

Nowadays I know that when you get a letter from the United States Census, you fill it out and mail it back. It helps with all kinds of things that the government needs to know, like how many people live in a certain area, their ages, if they have children, that sort of thing. When I first moved to Phoenix, at age 19, I knew none of these things, and even a couple of years later I was still clueless. So in 1980 I got an official visit. What I learned is that if you don't respond to the letter, then someone has to come and visit you. Yes, they still do that today. And in 1980 I answered a knock on my door that didn't have many visitors. Yep, it was the Census. And I was pleased to have someone to talk to, especially on my favorite subject - me. The number of people in that particular household (my apartment) was one. And when I was asked for my birthday, I just said "today", proving it with a driver's license. Yes, it was my birthday, and I was alone, just h...

Growing up in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the 1960s and '70s, I saw a lot of bugs. And not just mosquitos (although there were plenty of those!), but Volkswagen Bugs. I saw a few of them when I moved to Phoenix, but not quite as many. The engines were air cooled, and so didn't have a radiator, so my best guess is that they could be kinda tricky to keep healthy in the heat. I had a MG, which did have a radiator, when I moved to Phoenix in 1977, and on hot days I kept a close eye on the temperature gauge, which went up even if there was a long stoplight. If you've ever driven a car like that, you know that one of the ways to get the engine from overheating is to get the car moving, and turn the heater up to full blast. I often did that when it was over 100 degrees! Anyway, I really never had much interest in Volkswagens. I like small cars, and cars that get good gas mileage, but the look of the Volkswagen Beetle (which is what it was supposed to be called) never appeale...

I collect old photos of Phoenix, and with the help of my PhDs (Phoenix History Detectives) I try to identify the locations and dates as precisely as possible. In the photo at the top of this post I recognize the mill on Mill Avenue in Tempe, and of course the 1955 Chevrolet Belair pulling the float. The filename that I have for the picture is 1954 Homecoming Parade, Arizona State College (ASU didn't become a University until 1958, by the way). I've had this image for many years and I really don't remember how the date came to be identified so precisely. I must have gotten some help, as I would probably have just labelled it 1950s. But it very well could be 1954, in spite of the fact that there's a 1955 car there. 1955 Chevrolet Belair driving south on Mill Avenue in Tempe. It just has to do with how new cars have been dated by manufacturers. The new cars always are called by the next year. So the 1955 Chevrolet Belair was available in 1954. When I was a kid...

For my friends who grew up in Phoenix, the idea of an "endless summer" sounds awful, but to me it's the most wonderful thing in the world. My endless summer began in Phoenix in 1977, in August to be exact, when I was 19. Yes, it was hot back then. Phoenix has always been brutally hot. It may have been a few degrees cooler, like maybe only 110, not 115, but it was nothing that I had ever experienced before. I certainly wasn't prepared for it, but heck, I was young. My car didn't have air conditioning, and my apartment had something that rattled and made noise, which was supposed to cool the place. But as I recall I really didn't care, I was just so happy. Of course the summer of 1977 didn't start in August for me. It started in Minnesota. The snow starts to melt about the time of April showers, and the May flowers are definitely in bloom by then. June is warm, but not nearly as warm as Phoenix, but it can be humid. Real humid. Anyway, the dream of ...

I've always thought that dying rich was an awful shame. To me, it's like leaving an amusement park with tickets that only work in there, without using them. Of course, no one really knows when their need for tickets will expire. It's impossible for me to look at old photos of Phoenix and not occasionally think that everyone in that photo is now gone. Yes, it's a sad thought, but it's reality. And then I wonder how many of those people died rich. Of course, as you know, no one ever considers themselves rich. I've known some fabulously wealthy people in my life, and to themselves they're just doing fine, and maybe thinking about another investment that might give them a higher rate of return. Many of those people know what it's like to be poor, and they got into the habit of saving and scrimping, and then woke up one day to find that they had a LOT of money, with more of it pouring in all of the time. No of course I'm not going to name names, ...

Since I grew up in Minnesota, I know about friendliness. It's something of a cliché, Minnesota friendliness, similar to the friendliness that Canadians are famous for. Of course, not everyone there is friendly, there are some stinkers, as I'm sure that they are actually some friendly people in France. That's the way that stereotypes work. Much of what we see is actually based on our expectations. I've only lived three places in my life: Minneapolis, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. And I've found people to be friendly there about the same. I've never been back east, but I have friends who grew up there, and while their friendliness is different from mine (if you ask them what time it is, they ask you if they look like Big Ben to you?!), it's just in subtle ways of communication. As I was looking at the 1950s ad at the top of this post about making friends in Mesa, Arizona, I'm reminded that people tend to be more friendly if they think they'll get so...

As much as I love Phoenix, I'll admit the summers are awful. They aren't just unpleasantly hot, they're roasting, as in "who in their right mind would live there?" Well, a lot of people do, but I often think about the children, who have no choice. Speaking for myself, I grew up where the summers are wonderful, Minneapolis, Minnesota. My childhood memories of summer are all about riding my bike around the lakes, and seeing the girls in shorts instead of in parkas. I had the Beach Boys album "Endless Summer" and it wasn't until I moved to Phoenix that the idea of an endless summer seemed anything but wonderful. So I ask people who were children in Phoenix what it was like. And if you're wondering what "old-time" means here, it means anything from 1870, when Phoenix was first platted, to the childhood of the next person that I talk to who grew up in Phoenix. I've lived through a lot of Phoenix summers, but not as a kid. By the...

If you've ever lived in Los Angeles, and driven around there, you have seen some of the most amazing drivers there are, people who have driven those streets and freeways for years. I only lived there for a short while, but I'm still amazed at how good most of the drivers in Los Angeles are. Now calm down there, of course there are exceptions. Not everyone who drives in Los Angeles falls into the category of amazing, or even good, but the vast majority are. And there are reasons for that. The first reason that I discovered as why Angelinos are such good drivers is that they aren't overwhelmed by the traffic, like most outsiders are. I've ridden with people who grew up there, and their degree of calmness is just amazing to me. They deal with such wildly complex traffic that it would have my nerves jangled! But like I say, it's what they know. Another important factor in Los Angeles is that that there are very few tourists. The vast majority of people drive th...

As long as I remember, one of those ridiculous things I'd always heard was to bring a knife to a gunfight. And at first glance it does sound like it wouldn't be a smart thing to do, but when you think about it, it depends on the man. Phoenix was never a wide-open town with a lot of gunplay. If you want to read about that, Google Tombstone, Arizona. It was. Phoenix was mostly law-abiding, and had some serious lawmen, like Henry Garfias. You can Google him if you want to, he was good with a gun! And while most men could handle guns in old-time Phoenix, then as now, guns cost money. And bullets cost money. And speaking for myself, I'd had been reluctant to spend that much money if I had a knife. And knives were very common in old-time Phoenix. No self-respecting man would be without one. You never knew when a knife would come in handy in the ordinary course of the day. And I'm just talking about cutting stuff, not about violence. My older brother taught me safe gun ...

This morning I'm listening to the sounds coming through window of my house in Glendale (a suburb of Phoenix). It's a quiet morning, and I can hear the sound of my neighbor's cars starting up, going by, some birds chirping, and off in the distance I just heard a train whistle. I live not far from the Sahuaro Ranch and often I hear the peacocks. And it's got me to wondering about what old-time Phoenix sounded like. When you look at old photos, of course they're silent, so it takes some imagination. And the first thing I think of is horses. I know nothing about horses beyond what I've seen in movies, and they don't seem to be particularly loud animals. The sounds they make seem gentle. Of course there would be dogs, and chances are they'd be barking. I can't image old-time Phoenix without plenty of dogs. In fact, when I watch old movies, I often wonder where the dogs are? I suppose dogs aren't easy to control on a movie set, but you gotta know ...

Since I collect old photos of Phoenix, and post them on the internet, I often see comments from people that express a real appreciation of those times, when they were younger. And today I'm thinking about the 1980s, when I was in my twenties in Phoenix, and Los Angeles, as a lonely stranger. If you've ever been a young, lonely stranger in a strange town you know what it's like. If you haven't, well, I guess I can see why it's difficult for you to understand. And I'm not going to try to explain it. If you've been there, you know, and if you haven't, you don't. Traveling thousands of miles to go live in a place I'd never been before was a decision that I made the year after I graduated from high school. Something told me that I needed to go west, and grow up with the country. No one forced me to do it, it was my own decision to be a stranger in a strange land. And then I did it again when I moved to Los Angeles, just looked at a map and went...

The first time I ran into the concept of "carry", I was very confused. I knew what it meant to carry something, like a sack of potatoes, but what financially carrying was wasn't even a part of my world. And it just means that a business allows someone to pay over time, without interest, on goods or services. That is, a customer gets, for example, a soda at a drugstore, and the price is written down on a tab, and then some time in the future the customer pays the entire bill or parts of it, which can span over a month, or whatever. In my world, when I started paying for things in the 1970s, this simply didn't exist - at least not for me. If I saw a sign on a building that said "Cash and Carry", I just thought that they didn't accept checks, and that you carried your purchases out. Not really. Cash in this instance could include a check, and it simply meant that the goods or services are paid for right then and there. I've never been allowed t...

It's the 1960s, I'm in Phoenix, and I'm a sharp-dressed man in this imaginary story. I'm crossing Adams at Central by Raskin's Jewelers. I'm not sure what day it is, or what month (although it's probably not summer), but it's 1:45 in the afternoon. You know, when you look good, you feel good. And I know that I'm looking good. I'm wearing my favorite suit, just like the one that Sean Connery wore in the latest James Bond movie. I may not be as tall as he is, but I can be just as stylish! I just got a haircut, and although the women don't seem to be looking at me, I know that they've noticed me. I suppose they're busy talking about their modern hair-dos, or their miniskirts, or something. Maybe they're talking about how stylish I am? I'm glad I got this suit, although it does seem to be a bit warm today. Got it at Hanny's - they're the best. They also sold me the tie and the matching socks, not to mention the...

Since most of my friends in Phoenix grew up there, and have always been fairly upscale, the most common complaint I hear from them is when another subdivision, or apartment complex, is built. And it's usually a bitter complaint about how close the houses are, or how crowded together everything seems to be. And while none of these people would consider themselves rich snobs, really, they kinda are. Growing up in Minneapolis, I remember my mom saying that the houses were so close together that people could pass dishes between the windows. That neighborhood was from the '20s, and she often wondered out loud why, with so much available space back then, and land being so cheap, why the houses were squeezed together like that. When I grew up, I figured out that it's all about return on investment, and mostly the best way to maximize profits on land is to get as many people as possible to live on that chunk of land. Unless, of course, you're designing luxury homes, which...

Let's time-travel back to old-time Phoenix and get drunk. Well, I suppose we could call it "getting tight", or "tipping a few", but I have a feeling that we're going to drink just a little bit too much tonight. Hop in the buckboard, let's go have some whiskey! I'll pay for the bottle, just lend me a nickel, will you? Better make that a dime, I want to get the good stuff tonight. Why are we drinking? Well, I've had a great week, and want to celebrate! You? I'm sorry to hear that. You can drown your sorrows. Here we are at the local saloon. What? ID? Have to be 21? Come on, this is 1911, none of that matters. Let me see, yeah, you've got a little stubble on your face, that should be enough. Is that a mustache, or did you have soup for lunch? Oh, you may want to get the cat to lick that off... Barkeep! A bottle of Sunny Brook Whiskey and two pony glasses, please. Here you go, keep the change. Ice? No. A mixer? No, we're taking...

A friend of mine was telling me yesterday that he would need to get glasses, but only to correct one eye. In a joking way, he said that he would get a monocle, and it got me to thinking if I could find a picture of someone in old-time Phoenix wearing a monocle. The image at the top of this post is from the Phoenix newspaper, in 1912, and whether the model was local or not I don't know. But obviously the article was promoting the idea of wearing a monocle, and for women. This surprised me. And here's the blurb that goes with it: "Her Monocle. Fashionable women, a certain element of them at any rate, are using the monocle. It marks an effective ornament attached to a jeweled chain and can be used at any moment to stare down an adversary. The illustration shows one of these monocles worn with a pretty afternoon gown of lace and net and a little taffeta coat." So there you go - wearing a monocle in old-time Phoenix!

It's 1915, and I'm looking at the paper for business opportunities. They're on the want ads page, under "Business Chances". I'm not so sure that I like that word, chances, but I guess it's really true. In the 21st Century advertising wouldn't be quite so honest, and maybe use the word "opportunities". But like an uncle of mine always said, "You pays your money, and you takes your chances!" Let's see, looks like I could invest in a Confectionary. I guess that means a candy store. I don't know anything about candy, except how to eat it, so I'll pass on that one. OK, now, it looks like $1,500 cash will get you 20 acres on the street car line. Who in the world has $1,500 cash? Even in the 21st Century that would be a lot of money to just have sitting around. Still, 20 acres for that would be a good price. In the future you'd probably be able to double your money, if they built houses there. There's ...

I've always been fascinated with growth. I like seeing plants grow, I like seeing people grow. To me, growth has always been a good sign, a sign of health. But I understand why some people are saddened by the growth of a city that they love. It's a bittersweet sadness, and it's of the heart, not the head. People who comment on the photos of old Phoenix that I post on the web often say that "it's a shame, really" or they do the crying face emoticon. And I understand. It's like looking at a child and wishing that they were still a toddler, even though it's been decades. Of course, we know that that would be weird, but it's still a bittersweet thought. I sometimes think of the little girl in my neighborhood who wasn't allowed to cross the street on her bike, and would just go back in forth on the sidewalk in front of my house. She's all grown up now and married, which is how it should be, but it still kinda makes me sad. I guess it would ...

I like ordinary people, and that's fortunate because it includes everyone, like me. But it seems to puzzle a lot of people who think that the only people who count are the ones who are rich and famous, whereas the rest are just "nobodies". And it's a lesson that I learned after I moved to Los Angeles from Phoenix. I didn't go to LA to become rich and famous, or to break into the movies. I went there simply because it's the closest big city to Phoenix, the same way that London is to Liverpool, or New York to (well, I don't know any places back east, but you see what I mean). I wanted to see what I could do in the Big City. What I learned is that everyone is an ordinary person, even people who are rich and famous. Some people may have big bank accounts, or their pictures on billboards on the Sunset Strip, but they breathe the same air (which is awful in LA!), they have families, had pimples in high school (probably) and the list goes on and on. Once I...

Today I'm thinking about a friend of mine. This isn't an imaginary story, I really knew him, and still do. I'll call him Miguel (since that's his name) and he was born in Mexico, and graduated from Arizona State University the same time that I did. I met Miguel in 1982, and we both graduated the next year, in the Fine Arts Department, as Graphic Designers, which was a kind of new program at the time. And as overwhelmed as I was, being a kid from Minneapolis, at ASU, looking at it from Miguel's point of view made it seem as if I were comfortable with it. And he that thought I was. Growing up in Minneapolis, I had never seen an Hispanic person. My schools had some Black kids, and even some Asian kids (we called them "Oriental" in those days), but other than seeing the Frito Bandito, and Speedy Gonzales on TV, I had no experience with Miguel's world. I had studied some Spanish in High School, but it was Castilian, not the Spanish that I learned t...

I've been lucky, I grew up in an ordinary neighborhood in Minneapolis, and I now live in an ordinary neighborhood in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. But I've rarely seen anyone else who has my point of view. I'll see if I can explain, by including a little bit of Phoenix, and Los Angeles, history. When I lived in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, in my late twenties, I had been pondering the difficulty of buying a house. I had a great job with a big company, and was earning a good wage (not making quite my age, but close), but I realized that there would be no way that I could do what previous generations had done. In a single generation, the neighborhood around where I worked had absolutely exploded with home values. I talked to some people whose parents had bought a house in Woodland Hills for $50,000, which were now valued at $500,000. And it made me sad. When I try to explain how terrible this is, most people think that I'm kidding. But it's just awfu...

As I was paging through the old Phoenix newspapers at the Library of Congress site, an ad for the Blue Bird Store caught my eye. I had seen references to the Blue Bird store, which was an appliance store. They sold vacuums and automatic washing machines. And finding an ad like this also helps me to determine where everything was located in old-time Phoenix, in this instance on Adams, west of Central (then called Center). Next to Owl Drug, which was on the southwest corner, and across from Valley Bank, which was its location after they moved from Wall Street, and before they moved into the Professional Building. Anyway, when I posted it on Facebook I noticed that it was the line "freeing more women from their greatest drudgery", which to our modern eyes sounds ridiculous. I mean clothes still had to be washed! But I thought it would be fun to time-travel and see it from the point of view of young women in 1919, which is the year that this ad ran. My grandmother had a...