History Adventuring

You really don't hear the phrase "population boom" much anymore, but when I was a kid, it was a very popular subject. I didn't grow up in Phoenix (which did more than just boom after World War II, it exploded), but even in the established neighborhood where I grew up, in Minneapolis, I remember our high school having "temporary" buildings in the parking lot, and even the church next door was used (the conference rooms, not the main church) for overflow students (like me!). And from what I've heard of Phoenix, it was just beyond crazy as the population boomed. Speaking of booming, I'm a Baby Boomer. Nowadays people my age are simply called "Boomers", and it spans from being born after World War II up through the mid-1960s. So even though I'm younger than most "Boomers", I'm still in that category, and I do have vivid memories of the predictions for the future when the planet would get so crowded that we'd run out of foo...

I've always been a defender of non-native plants and animals in places like Phoenix, Arizona. I myself am one of those animals, migrating from Minnesota in my teens. And since I love gardening, I have a LOT of non-native plants here around my home in Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix. There have been a lot of people who have always taken an opposing view, with a preference for only native species to live there, and of course that leaves me, and my daffodils, out. It also would mean no dachshunds, as canis lupus familiaris, var. wiener dog, is not a native animal to the Sonoran Desert. And when people say that my plants, animals, and myself are non-native, I guess I have to agree. We really don't belong there, in a place that gets so hot that even the roadrunners slow down a bit in the summer. And if someone is buying the beers, I'll smile and nod in agreement that the Sonoran Desert (where Phoenix is) should be left to the saguaros and the gila monsters. That is, if gi...

I'm not really an historian, I'm a time-traveler. I make no secret of the fact that the difficult research is done by my friends, whom I call "PhDs" (Phoenix History Detectives). I try to get the facts right, but mostly I'm interested in jumping back in time. And I can also go forward, as this is just a journey of imagination. Today I'm thinking of what Phoenix, and the world, will be like in thirty years. I was discussing this idea this morning with one of my top PhDs, and his first thought was to go back thirty years, which was 1990. We were both a bit shocked that 1990 was thirty years ago - where did the time go? And other than small details, it doesn't seem as if much has changed. The house that I'm in was already five years old (built in 1985) thirty years ago, and while it's not "ultra-modern", in the time I've been here (almost thirty years) it doesn't seem all that different from the houses that I see being built nowadays...

I live in Arizona, which is in the West. And I moved here twice, once in 1977 from the east (Minnesota) and the second time in 1989, from California, which is geographically west of Arizona, but really isn't the West. And if you're new to the West, you may be wondering how to be more comfortable there, and to get less giggles from the locals. You're probably wondering how you can fit in. But rest assured, you'll never fit in, and the more you try the more ridiculous you'll look to the locals. And as one of those people, I can tell you what has worked for me - embrace that you're an outsider. I call it being a "Stranger in a Strange Land", which sounds a whole lot better than what it really is, which is being a total goofball among people who are comfortable living somewhere. And I don't care how long you've lived there, you will always be a stranger. If people ask you where you're from, tell them where you grew up. They want to know why you...

I've lived in the Phoenix, Arizona area for a long time (longer than I care to admit!) and I like it here. I live in Glendale, which is a suburb, and I like to get up early and go for a ride, waving at people and saying good morning. I like these people, and I worry a bit about them, too. I'll see if I can explain. I've always had a fascination for marketing, advertising, and sales. I worked as a graphic designer professionally, and while it's really only on the fringes of that world, it's attached. Mostly I did promotional brochures, ads, that kind of thing. And I worked for good and upstanding companies, like Valley National Bank, who always did everything in an ethical way. You can be cynical about their interest rates on credit cards, but they actually tell you what you're getting yourself into. And that's different from being swindled. Now hold on there, I'm not a con man, and never was. I've always looked like one, but I made a choice early in ...

I had stopped in for my early morning coffee, during my ride, and couldn't help but notice that the young man behind the counter was having some difficulties understanding me through my mask and the plexiglass shield that separated us. I've learned to wait until I get eye contact, and say very clearly and distinctly "Senior coffee, two Splendas, please". The word coffee seems to go through, but the next part can be kinda tricky so I hold up two fingers, like a peace sign. I actually don't insist on the brand name of Splenda, it's just that it's easier for people to understand than "zero-calorie sweetener" or Equal. Sorry, Equal. That's usually all that I say, but this morning I asked the young man, whom I presumed to be in his late teens or early twenties, "I'm going to ask you a personal question - how old were you when the pandemic started?" It's not something that I usually ask, and I wouldn't have been offended if he...

If you're a young person (born after the time of the Civil War), you may be puzzled as to why people continued to fly a flag that represented the horror of support for slavery, and a war that almost destroyed the United States of America. And if you're a history buff, like I am, it may puzzle you that people who wouldn't dream of supporting the KKK or Jim Crow laws, found enjoyment in seeing the confederate flag. And in recent years, because of the internet, more and more people have come to realize that flying the confederate flag is almost comparable to having Nazi swastikas painted on your truck. But not quite, and to understand that, you have to time-travel back a bit. No, not back to the Civil War, let's go back to the 1970s. I was nineteen in 1977, and newly arrived in Phoenix, and I thought absolutely nothing of seeing confederate flags all over the place. The Dukes of Hazzard was a very popular TV show, and the main characters drove a car with a confederate flag...

Something that I was fortunate to do, from 1989 to 1991, was to ride a bicycle to work in Phoenix. It sounds a lot more impressive than it was, as I wasn't one of those daredevils who bikes for miles and miles dodging traffic. I was lucky enough to have a job that was just a few blocks away from my apartment. I've always been an athletic man, but I like my comforts, so when people heard that I rode a bike to work, most of them thought that I was some kind of "Iron Man". And since most of the people I know had never done this, they really couldn't imagine it. By the way, I learned how to gently roll my dress clothes up and put them in a bag, and the place where I worked had a gym, which included a locker room. I wasn't drenched in sweat, I had merely pedaled leisurely for a few blocks, so I put on my dress clothes and rode the elevator to work. The place was called "Corporate Center", by the way, which was (and presumably still is) just north of Peori...

Although, of course, the vast majority of people who are homeless, both now and historically, have preferred not to be, today I'm pondering those people who do it out of choice. It takes quite a stretch of my imagination, as it isn't something that I'd ever choose to be. I was introduced to the writing of John Steinbeck in my early twenties back in Phoenix College, and I have to admit that he showed me a whole different world than I had ever imagined. My personal goal was to get a college education, find a good job, maybe someday buy a house. But he showed me that there's a world of people who prefer not to do that. Nowadays I really can't think of being homeless as being presented as glamorous, or interesting. But there was a time when some poor slob dragging himself off to a job that he hated, to pay rent or mortgage, would glance over at someone whose only belongings seemed to be a backpack and a sleeping bag, and wish that he could do that, too. These people did...

When it comes to money, my favorite expression about it is that "it's like manure, and really only works if you spread it around". I have never had much money, but what I've had I spread around, mostly spending it locally, encouraging the businesses that I want to stay in my neighborhood. Other than that, I have to admit that money has never been all that exciting for me. Of course if I lived in old-time Phoenix, I know that it would have been. Let's time-travel back to 1892, and find gold. You can be Sam Webb. If I had been with you when you found the gold, chances are we would have been VERY excited, maybe jumping around and shouting. We might have polished off the last bottle of your whiskey, and kept celebrating at the Central Hotel, until we were thrown in the hoosegow to sleep it off. That's the exciting part, and then it gets very boring. In fact, dull, dull, dull. At least from my point of view. That's because at that point it has to be weighed, an...

As I was browsing the Duke University site, where I usually look for images of Phoenix or Los Angeles, I decided to click on some images just to see the beauty of the old buildings, the cars, and the advertising. The Duke site is dedicated specifically to outdoor advertising, what we nowadays think of as billboards, but there was a time when they were more of an art form, and seemed to fit in with a city, rather than cover it up. This photo is of Manhattan, in New York, at West 57th Street and 8th. It was taken on February 16th, 1935. And all of the information is right there in the photo. You can see the sign for W. 57th, you can see the Columbus statue, which is still there, you can see that the movie "Great Expectations" with Henry Hull is playing at the Columbus, and heck, the date is even written in the bottom left corner of the photo. I like to identify date and location precisely, and this was easy for me, even though I've never been near New York City. I just love...

There's an old saying, "Good fences make for good neighbors" and it's really true, especially out in the west, where sometimes it can be difficult to know where your neighbor's property ends, and yours begins. But there really is much more to it than building a sturdy fence, it's simply about respect. I have that respect, and most people that I've met in a longish life do, too. You don't need to build a fence with barbed wire on top of it to keep me out. A simple marker will do, and if it's easy to see, you can just tell me. I will respect your property, I will not take things that don't belong to me. I also won't cheat, steal or lie. I'm a man of honor. Men, and of course women, of honor don't need to memorize a lot of complicated laws. They would know, for example, how many liquor stores that they would need to rob in order for the police to come after them (1), but mostly they just simply know how to behave as a good neighbor. Sp...

I just love seeing things through other people's point of view. I call it "looking through their eyes", and it's often very surprising what people see, even if they're looking at the same thing, like the city of Phoenix. I see it through the eyes of a young man, so that's what I'm thinking about today. Now, you may be saying, "Waitaminute there, Brad, didn't you come to Phoenix in 1977 when you were nineteen?" How in the world can you say that you have the eyes of a young man? Well, my eyes may have wrinkles around them now, but what I see, and what I look at, has never changed, and I'm beginning to believe that it really never will. OK, we're all adults here, but I'll keep this clean. The first thing that my eyes see are women. Or girls. Yes, I'm a girl-watcher. That doesn't mean that I have a dirty, leering attitude, it's just that women are very important to me. Young men know this. They walk a little taller around ...

You really don't have to be an expert on how the economy of Phoenix works to know that it relies on tourism, specifically people who want to get away from the snow and cold in the winter. These people are called, affectionately and a little bit sarcastically, by locals as "Snowbirds". It's September 2020, during the COVID Pandemic, and of course everyone is curious to see what its impact will be on the annual return of the snowbirds, and the economy of Phoenix. Speaking for myself, I'm optimistic. I've had the privilege of observing the natural behavior of Snowbirds in their habitat, because my parents were snowbirds for many, many years. And while there are many types of Snowbirds, my parents were definitely typical of the type. My parents had a house in Minnesota, and a trailer (excuse me, a mobile home) in Peoria, which is a suburb of Phoenix. They had two of everything to minimize how much stuff they needed to haul back and forth - you know, two sets of po...

I have a particular fascination with how cities grow and change, which is why I like photos of Los Angeles so much. This pic, which is of Wilshire Boulevard looking west towards Normandie, shows how residential areas slowly become business districts. Before we go any further, I want to say thank you to the nice people at Duke University who scanned this photo, and made it available for us to study. Their site focuses on billboards, while my own personal interest is locations, so the location research is what I do, along with a little help from my friends. This photo has a lot of clues, including the Veloz and Yolanda Dance Studio, and of course that billboard back there which says "Chevrolet 1948", which is the date I'm using for this image. Of course it could be 1947 (new model cars come out the year before), but I like to err on the side of caution. Chevrolet would have continued to advertise their 1948 models all year. So this is post-World War II. By the way, I'm ...

I've always been inquisitive, which nowadays I call being "intellectually curious". And of course, everyone starts out that way. I'm sure that both you and I asked embarrassing questions when we were little kids, usually very loud, like "Why is that man so FAT, mommy?" and we rarely got answers. Speaking for myself, I was just given a "shush!", which I deserved. But I was so insistent on asking stuff that finally my mom gave up and showed me where the library was. And over the years I've toned down my questions, but I still ask them. And since I'm interested in the history of Phoenix, Arizona, if someone will realize that I'm not asking "Why in the WORLD do you live in Phoenix?", especially in the summer, I love to listen. And since many people simply say, "I was born here", I've extended the question to "Why do you live in Phoenix, and why do you stay there?" OK, I'll go first! I HATED the snow and...

I was looking around the Duke University site a few days ago, which specializes in billboards, trying to find locations that would interest me, especially Los Angeles. For this one, I recognized the type of tree there (although I really don't know what they're called - I just call them "Hollywood trees") which were typical in old parts of LA. And since there was a name on the building there: James Webb, it was identified as being on Wilshire Boulevard. I went on Google Street View, and the building is still there, and got the address: 3010 Wilshire. To be fair to the nice people at the Duke University, to them it's all about the billboard, which was clearly identified as for travelers cheques from California Bank. They don't id the exact locations, and tha's what I like to do, with the help of friends who are as fascinated by this stuff as I do. It's a lot of work, but it's a labor of love! You're driving east on Wilshire, and you have just pas...

As someone who has been drifting into his senior years for quite a while now, I'm comfortable being described as an older man. There's an important distinction between "older man" and "old man", and I would dislike being called an old man, unless of course you were a cheerful RAF pilot during World War II. And now I'm thinking about how it would have been to be an older man in old-time Phoenix. And my best guess is that it would have been about the same. When, exactly, someone becomes "older" of course depends on the ages of the people look at them. People didn't live as long back in the day as they do now, and with the widespread use of tobacco, and less dental care, I'd imagine that people started looking older, by our standards, younger, if you follow me there. If we time-travel back to 1904 (that's the Fleming Building there, on the northwest corner of Washington and 1st Avenue), and be older men, we may be respected by the youn...

One of the most common questions that I get about old-time Phoenix is "how did they live without air conditioning?" And I mean even before swamp coolers, before fans, before electricity. Phoenix has been there since 1870! It boggles people's minds, and I really do have the answer: mornings in the desert. If you're like most of the people I've ever known, the time right after sunrise simply doesn't exist for you. I call these people my "10-to-2s", which means that they're at their best between 10 am and 2 am. They're the people who were awake when the best bands started playing, and were glassy-eyed at work until they had a chance to wake up, at about ten. And I understand. Like most teenagers, I loved to sleep in, and that continued through my thirties. But in my forties, when I started working a different schedule, things changed for me and I saw something that had been invisible to me for many years - morning in the desert. If you already k...

Since I collect and share photos of old-time Phoenix, I often see comments that say that a particular person did just fine without some type of sanitary condition that we now take for granted. I'm not old enough to have ever seen cracker barrels, or food that was sold without much thought to sanitation, but I know that it happened. And I know that there are a lot of people who survived that, and can comment on it. And for those people, I simply smile indulgently and move on, as they have made a basic flaw in their logic, but they don't know it. Of course the people who are still alive and can say that they survived - the people who died can't say anything today, they died. I'm inclined to think that everyone who ever fought a grizzly bear with their bare hands and is alive today can say that they did just fine. Those who weren't quite so lucky really can't comment nowadays. I gotta admit that that pic of a meat delivery at the top of this post kinda blew my mind...