History Adventuring

One of the things that I often hear about Phoenix is that since it's grown so big, people don't greet each other by name anymore. And if you've ever lived in a small town, you know that it can be a good thing, and a bad thing. Speaking for myself, I like it. I like walking into to my favorite coffee shop and recognizing faces, and having those faces recognize mine. They may not remember my name, but they recognize my face. This type of recognition wherever you go makes it difficult for people who want to sneak around, and tends to make people kinder and more honest. It's human nature - people tend to be nicer to people that they know, they'll hesitate to steal a car from Bob, who lost his wife last year, and would much prefer to steal it from someone they don't know. Of course, there are still real stinkers, who will be real stinkers no matter what. But in my experience these people are such a small percentage that they can be discouraged by locking your...

If I pointed at you and laughed, called you a Booby, and said that you belonged in a Booby-Hatch, you would probably question my mental stability, and figure that I needed to be placed in a Mental Health Care Facility. Or you could call me crazy, and say that I should be in an Insane Asylum. The language has changed. I doubt whether you, dear reader, are old enough to have ever called 24th Street and Van Buren in Phoenix (which is where the Insane Asylum has been since the 1800s) a Booby-Hatch. I wouldn't have ever been familiar with the term if I hadn't read a James Thurber story, in which a man's wife tries to get her husband sent to an insane asylum, and she ends up going there instead. The punchline of the story was "Never count your b__bies before they're hatched", which is a play on words for "never count your chickens before they're hatched". Funny then, but in modern language, very confusing. In my lifetime I've never hear the w...

OK, admit it, there's a thought that's crossed your mind at some time when you've looked at an elderly person and you wondered if they were ever young? It might have been when you were wondering how someone could get so old and cranky, or how someone could be so wonderfully wise, but it can be difficult to imagine old people as young, which of course they were. Everyone who is old was young at one time, and everyone who is young, God willing, will be old someday. As a person who's interested in old photos, I enjoy seeing people of all ages, and as a time-traveler in my imagination I try to get a feel for what their life was like, young and old. And I do something kind of unusual sometimes - sometimes I look at someone and imagine them many years in the future. I especially do this when I see young parents. I'll see if I can explain, time-travel with me. I have coffee every morning at my local McDonald's and the regular crowd that shuffles in, mostly from...

I've been feeling old lately. As long as I can remember, this feeling has hit me every once in a while. I remember feeling old at age 25 at ASU, as an "old man on campus", because it took me about seven years to get my four-year degree. I don't recall any 19-year-old coeds holding me by the elbow to help me up the stairs, or calling me sir, but I knew that it was time for me to move on. And of course, feeling old is relative. Now I look back at every time I felt old and wonder why I thought that way? I guess it has to do with things that we associate with old age. So now I'm wondering about feeling old in old-time Phoenix. As a man who's enjoyed such robust health that sometimes it feels as if I were going to live forever, I've been aware of people who haven't been as lucky as me. And the first thing I think of is teeth. I've been lucky - I selected my parents well, and had the benefit of excellent dental care all of my life. And when I imag...

The way that we use the language changes, but people don't. Birds do it, bees do it, let's do it, let's fall in love, in old-time Phoenix. Now calm down here, the word "love" has been used euphemistically to imply physical intimacy for so long now it's kind of embarrassing to see it used for what it really means - a feeling for someone deeper than ordinary friendship. If I sent you that box of candy in 1921, and it made you feel all mushy inside (for me, not the chocolate), people would call us lovers. I might strum my guitar under your window until your father sic'd the dog on me, and as you defended my serenade, you would have told him that I was making love to you. That is, I was expressing that emotion deeper than friendship. Yes, the language has changed since then! Once a word has been used euphemistically there's no taking it back. Personally, I find that kind of sad, as it creates a barrier of understanding of the past. And since I lo...

With the death of my father, and of Kobe Bryant, in the last few days, my mind has been straying to the thought of being a widow. It really is a bias that we tend to define women by their relationships with other people, and men by their careers. I hadn't realized that I had that bias until I read an article in the newspaper many years ago that gave a sample headline of "Mother of Five Wins Nobel Peace Price" whereas for a man it would be more like "Business Executive Wins Nobel Peace Prize". And maybe that's why it's hard for me to think of a man as a widower (and I do know a few) but easy for me to think of a woman as a widow. Times have changed. I came of age in the era when women threw off the shackles of defining themselves by their husbands. So many women didn't take their husband's last name that it often got confusing for me. Come to think of it, it was always confusing for me - the return address stickers that my mom had didn'...

This morning I was showing a friend of mine my new phone, and in the course of conversation I mentioned that I got it "on easy terms". That is, I'm making payments on it for the next two years. I like phrases like that, and since he's from Australia, he remembered buying something like that as "appro", which is short for on approval. I remember my grandmother calling it "buying on tick" (although I really don't know why). For her, buying something on tick, on credit, or on any easy payment plan, was a shameful thing to do. She was a proud woman, and her husband (my grandfather) earned a nice income, so they never bought anything on tick, including their house, and their cars. Oddly enough, the company that sold me my phone had terms of zero interest. I added up the number of months multiplied by the amount that I would pay per month, and of course it was more expensive than if I'd paid cash outright, but I found it fascinating that it...

In a long life, I've never argued about politics. I have discussed politics, but only with people that I trust. There's a subtle but well-marked difference between arguing with strangers and discussing things with friends, and if you don't know the difference, you'd be wise to just stay quiet, and say nothing. Arguing with strangers about politics is extremely dangerous, and it always has been. Let's time-travel back to old-time Phoenix. By the way, by "politics" I mean what usually springs to mind, which is elected officials, or nominees for office, that sort of thing. I know that politics has a wider meaning, but right now we're going to argue with strangers about whether the Sheriff should be re-elected. It's 1914 and I'm going to argue with strangers about the incumbent Sheriff, Jeff Adams. From the careful research I've done on him, by glancing briefly at an ad in the paper, "He has made good". That's good enough ...

I was talking to some friends of mine about automotive repairs today, and the subject of diagnostics was discussed. One of my friends, who had been a mechanic for Chevrolet, was in favor of the value of diagnostics, which includes not only hooking up a modern car to a computer, but also includes having someone with a high level of expertise look at the problem. My other friend, who gives more of a layman's point of view, asked, "Why do they charge for that?", and sees no value to it at all. And I can see both points of view. If you're like me, you've done most car repairs by doing your best guess at what's wrong, going to the auto parts store, buying a part, attaching it, standing back, and hoping that it fixes the problem. If it doesn't, you go back, buy another part, and so on. Auto parts stores do a brisk business in this, and even offer simple diagnostics, and lend tools. This is called "hanging parts." Hanging parts as a technique fo...

My father died today, he was 96 years old. I just called some friends a few minutes ago, posted it on Facebook, and no one asked "what did he die of?", which would be just silly. He died of old age. And it's a reminder that you can be robustly healthy, and at some point your life will end. That's how it works. I try not to think too much about death, but since I'm interested in history, and collect a lot of old photos, it sometimes strikes me that everyone there is dead. I like looking through the old Phoenix newspapers, and wonder about people's lives back in the day, and of course they're all gone. How long people lived back then, other than being less than nowadays, isn't clear to me. You could point me to graphs and charts and actuarial tables, and I'd know less after looking at them than before. But I do wonder at what age people wouldn't ask, "What did he die of?", maybe the age that I thought all old people were when I ...

In a longish life, I've never killed anyone, either on purpose or accidentally. At least as far as I know. And I'd like to keep it that way. As I get older I've found it more difficult to sleep at night, and the last thing I need is to see someone's surprised expression when they realize that they shouldn't have done that! Of course, life has risks, and you can try to be as careful as you can, and you may still kill someone. I've known people who have done that, and it haunts them. Nowadays there are all kinds of things that no one ever dreamed of in old-time Phoenix, like seat belts in cars, or bicycle helmets, and so many things that we take for granted that it seems as if it would be very difficult to kill someone, but people do all of the time. This makes me sad. Let's time-travel back to old-time Phoenix and see how easy it would have been to kill someone. And I'll start with what probably jumps to your mind when you think about the subject ...

If you've ever wondered about the meaning behind the name of my favorite city, Phoenix, yes, it's based on the legendary Phoenix bird, which rises from its ashes to be reborn. And it's a cool name, and a cool image, which is often confused with a Thunderbird, but they're different, and once you see Phoenix through the eyes of the pioneers who saw it when it was first laid out, in 1870, the meaning becomes even clearer. Time-travel with me back to the Salt River Valley just after the Civil War, before the city of Phoenix existed. The valley is empty, no one lives there. If you're under the impression that the pioneers forced anyone out, it's simply not true. It was a "no man's land" between the Apaches to the north, and the Pima people to the south. Yes, it was visited by both tribes, but they didn't live there, no one did, and no one had for a very long time. But there had been people living there, as evidenced by what they left behind....

I spent some of the best years of my life in Southern California, from age 25 to 31. And while the 1980s really don't seem so long ago to me, actually they were. And while I have no intention of doing a "kiss and tell", or naming names, but I do want to share how wonderful the girls of Southern California were, and hopefully still are. The first thing you have to know about places like Los Angeles is that the ratio of men to women isn't even. Like all cities on Planet Earth, the greater the civilization, the greater the percentage of women. This is wonderful for men like Jan and Dean who sang "two girls for every boy" in the song "Surf City" in the 1960s, but it creates a dynamic that can become unpleasant for people seeking romance, and meaningful relationships. Of course women can go live in other places, like Alaska, where women tell me that the odds are good, but the goods are odd. OK, I'll get this out of the way, I'm a strai...

A couple of weeks ago, while I was out pedaling around near Skunk Creek in Peoria (a suburb of Phoenix), I saw a sign selling fresh eggs. I really didn't need eggs, but it was a good excuse to get myself on the property, welcomed as a paying customer, and see what the farm looked like up close. The eggs were interesting, as some were white, some were brown, and some were kind of greenish. I took a photo of the eggs before I ate them, and posted it on Facebook saying that I'd never had eggs from chickens before, only stores, and I wondered if they were OK? I just got some smiles and likes, but really I had no idea. Did they need to be pasteurized or homogenized or something? Apparently not, or at least no one said anything to me on Facebook. So now I'm thinking how wonderful it would have been to eat eggs in old-time Phoenix. I suppose I would have gotten my chicken feed from the Phoenix Flour Mills in Glendale. Of course if I were in Tempe, I'd have gotten...

I was talking to one of my top history adventurers yesterday and he mentioned, in passing, that he didn't remember much about the '90s in Phoenix. He said, "Did anything happen in the '90s?" His memories, and fond ones at that, were of the 1970s in Phoenix, and mine are of the '90s. So, if you'd like to time-travel back to Phoenix in the '90s, and see it through my eyes, let's go. I lived in Phoenix from 1977 until 1982, but I lived in California until 1989, when I returned. So, in round numbers I wasn't in Phoenix in the 1980s, and returned for the '90s. Mostly for the golf. No, I'm not and never was a particularly good golfer, but I had decided that I didn't want to live in a world of total work, so I decided to make working just a part of my life, and golf all of my life. In Los Angeles it was way too expensive for me to indulge in a golf lifestyle, but in Phoenix I could, and did. My favorite course was Cave Creek, and s...

In my lifetime, which now spans over six decades, cars have been easy to drive. Very easy. In fact, the car I learned to drive on, a '73 Torino, which I believe weighed several hundred tons, could be steered with one finger. To drive it, you simply selected "D", and to stop it, you touched the brake gently (it had power brakes). So, if you follow me here, the physical effort was absolutely minimal, which I didn't even realize until years later when a friend of mine lent me a vehicle without those things, and it took some serious muscle to turn the wheel at slow speeds. And today, while I was enjoying some coffee in the wonderful sunshine of a January day in Glendale (a suburb of Phoenix), as I was watching someone backing out of a parking spot who had just gone past me looking as if they could barely walk, I got to thinking about elderly drivers in old-time Phoenix. I enjoy going to the classic cars shows, and I often wonder how elderly people, who barely had th...

All of my adult life cars have been safe and secure places. That is, solid construction, windows that rolled up, doors that locked. It's what I call the "Lion Country Safari Effect" - once someone is inside of a vehicle they're safe. The car that I learned to drive on, a '73 Ford Torino, would have been safe to drive through a bunch of angry lions, and possibly could have taken some hits from a rhino. And all of this safety has created an interesting effect, which is that people feel safe to act inside of these vehicles in a way that they would probably never do so outside of them. I've seen a lot of road rage in my life. By the time I got to Phoenix, in 1977, it was already pretty common for people to express their displeasure with other drivers, from the safety of their vehicle, with the windows rolled up, and the doors locked. The "one finger salute" was common, and I still see a lot of it nowadays, if you can see through deeply tinted window...

I had lunch today with one of my top PhDs (Phoenix History Detectives) and he was talking about bowling in Phoenix, which he did a lot of. I myself know very little about bowling, although I have bowled, which for me is kinda like saying I've thrown a baseball. I really don't have a clue how to bowl. But I have a good imagination, and today I think we should go bowling in old-time Phoenix. Since we can time-travel, I thought it would be fun to start in 1911, and then jump around. We're starting at the Pastime Bowling Alley, which in 1911 was on Adams just west of Central, two doors down from Valley Bank (Valley Bank didn't move into the Professional Building until 1931, you know!). Since the Pastime is the only bowling alley in Phoenix, at least according to the ad, this looks like the place to go. There's $600 in prizes, so I'm hoping that you're pretty good! You are? Great! We can split the winnings and go to 1927! Here we are at the Gold Spot Bo...

When I turned 19, a year after I graduated from high school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I was so ready to leave, and see the great big world out there that I was practically shot out of a cannon. There was no hesitation, I didn't give a lingering look in my rear view mirror as I headed west. And I can remember that it was all the same to me wherever I went, at first it was gonna be Australia, then Utah (I have no why I thought that Utah was in a warm climate!), and then Arizona and California. And I knew the best thing to do when I got to these strange places was to meet the locals. I love the locals - the people who were born there, grew up there, and have lived there all of their life. I was so overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all that I found it very comforting to talk to people who thought nothing of palm trees growing everywhere, trees with green bark (palo verde), cactuses growing up right out of the ground, and oranges growing on trees in people's yards. The loc...

In my lifetime, which now spans over sixty years, cars haven't had fenders. Not really. So this morning as I passed some flashing lights and saw a car with some minor damage on it on a small side street here in Glendale (a suburb of Phoenix), it's strange that I would immediately think "only a fender-bender", which meant that it wasn't all that serious, no one was hurt, it just meant a hassle for that person, dealing with the police, their insurance, etc. So now of course I'm thinking of the time when cars actually had fenders, back in old-time Phoenix. Let's get into a fender-bender! You'd better drive. Times have changed, and fender-bender nowadays really aren't all that bad. But in 1942 they could be very deadly. Since it's 1942, it would be decades before seat belts were even offered on cars, and even a low-speed fender-bender, say at 25 miles per hour, would send someone through the windshield. And no safety glass! A fender, by the...

As an old marketing guy, and a graphic designer, I know that certain things happen with the best intentions. And making a loop around Old Town Scottsdale was definitely a good idea. But the confusing way that it was done almost seems as if they were trying to make things difficult for people who aren't familiar with the town, the tourists. But I'm sure they meant well! If you haven't driven through old Scottsdale recently, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Old Town Scottsdale has been preserved, and looks great. The bad news is how the loop was created, and named. With best intentions, the loop honors two people who are important in Arizona history - Herb Drinkwater and Barry Goldwater. Unfortunately, having two streets that kinda sound like "Something-water" to people who are not familiar with these names is a bit of a mistake. If I were a tourist and someone told me to take Drinkwater, I would see the sign that said Goldwater and figur...

If you grew up in Phoenix, there's probably nothing more ordinary to you than a Hispanic person. It's not as if they're rare, and they've been around Phoenix since before there was a Phoenix. To me, they've always been fascinating, so today I'd like to take a look at being Hispanic in old-time Phoenix. As a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant guy who grew up in Minneapolis in the 1960s and early '70s, I knew nothing about Hispanic people. All I'd seen had been stereotypical views, like the Frito Bandito, and a comedian who used to say, "My name: José Jimenez", which apparently was hilarious, at least to the grownups. My high school had mostly Scandinavian people, like the Soderquists, or people like me, of mixed nationality but white, and of course the black kids, like Prince Nelson (I never met him, he went to a different high school than I did, and apparently spent a lot of time riding his motorcycle around Lake Minnetonka). The first Hispan...

During most of my adult life I've had longish hair, sometimes really long, but never really short. Well, a couple of times, and only very briefly. And the first time that I did it was in 1978 while I was going to Phoenix College. If you're wondering why this was important, I'll explain. You may already know. It's been so long since then, and it's something that people have rarely talked about, that young men wearing long hair in the 1960s, and through the early 1970s, was a political statement. It let everyone know that you were against the oppression of "the Man", and very pointedly against the War in Vietnam, which ended for the United States in 1975 when President Nixon pulled the troops out. I turned 18 in 1976, and had been quietly wearing long hair all of the way through high school. It wasn't just a fashion statement, like I say, it told people as you walked by that you weren't part of the industrial-military establishment. Of course, ...

When the Valley Bank Marketing Department moved back into the building downtown in 1992, I was thrilled. I had been happy working at Corporate Center, near Fajitas, which was very close to my apartment at the Greens, but working downtown in the big tower was a thrill for me. I like tall buildings, and I liked the history of Valley Bank. So it's not surprising that I would make an appointment to talk to Jimmy Dismuke. If you've never heard of him, that's not surprising. I thought I had a photo of him, but I guess I don't. He was really one of the big "movers and shakers" at Valley Bank after World War II. Valley Bank, and Arizona, did very well in that time period, as I'm sure you know. It was a time of explosive growth for the valley, and Valley Bank was there the whole way, giving out loans, usually on just a handshake. I really don't know how old Jimmy was when I met him, but I'm thinking early 90s. He really didn't have much to say a...

I took a photo of a telephone pole today. It's only a few blocks away from my house, and I'm sure that I've got passed it a million times. It's on a major street in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, and like most telephone poles it's completely invisible, and as near as I can figure, has been invisible for many decades. This neighborhood was built in the 1970s and '80s, and mostly the wires are hidden underground. But this one is right up there, just like telephone poles used to look. It does its function, and fades into the background, in spite of how big it is. Actually, I don't even know if it's a telephone pole. It might be electrical wires, but I just call everything that looks like that a telephone pole. Like all wooden telephone poles, it used to be a tree at one time. If you get up close to it, you can see the knots. There's a street light on it, so obviously there's electricity going to it. If you know about these things, please clu...

When I moved to Phoenix from Minneapolis in 1977 I had never seen a Circle K. The convenience store where I grew up was called Tom Thumb. As I recall, the sign said, "Tom Thumb". But it really doesn't matter what you call a convenience store, they all look pretty much the same, and they're the places that are open late at night. Of course, the Circle K sign didn't say Circle K, it was just a K with a circle around it, and an arrow. Over the years it just became a K. I remember a friend visiting from back east who suggested that we stop at "K". It just made sense, besides, names don't matter to convenience stores. As long as I remember 7-11s have been open 24 hours, not just from 7 am to 11 pm. But this morning as I passed by my local Circle K I could see that they were putting up new signs that said "Circle K". I mean, written out. I have to admit to being a bit disappointed, as knowing what to call the store was a proud mark...