History Adventuring

Let's time-travel back to March of 1929 and go to Hartford, Connecticut. I found this beautiful image on the Duke University site, and with the help of my top history adventurer, figured out the exact location, and date. Well, I figured out the date, by reading it, because it's written on the photo, and my friend figured out the location - he's better at that kind of stuff than I am. I can also tell you that it's 10:22 am, because I can read the clock! We're looking towards the southwest corner of Main Street and Pearl. When I saw the year, I got to thinking that this was the end of the roaring twenties, which would go out with a crash on October 24th, 1929. I wonder if anyone in this photo had any idea that they were just a few months away from the Great Depression? Hopefully not, I'd like to think that they had more cheerful thoughts on their minds. Speaking for myself, my eye was caught by the restaurants! The Kings looks good, or if you're really hungry

It's really true about out here in the West, people have guns. It's always been true, going back to the Wild West days, and it's still true. Guns and very popular in Arizona. Many people collect a LOT of them, mostly kept in storage gun lockers in their homes, but some like to carry them around in public, and walk around the streets of Phoenix carrying them. I won't go into the legality of it, I'll let you Google that, but I'll tell you that it's a good assumption here that anybody might be carrying a gun. I've seen them riding on hips, and when I haven't seen them, I assume that they're there. And dealing with people who carry guns is a very fundamental thing for me, going back to when my big brother taught me gun safety when I was about twelve - always show respect, and assume a weapon is loaded. As a person who has long had an interest in the old west, I've looked into it. And it's one of those things that's the West of the Imagina

Let's time-travel back to 1919 in Hartford, Connecticut. I just came across this wonderful image at the Duke University site, and since it's similar to another image that my history adventuring friend and I figured out a couple of days ago, I know where we are. We're looking north on Main Street at Morgan. No, none of these building exist anymore, if you stood there today you'd just be looking at a parking lot. But we're time-travelers, and we're in 1919. At least I'm pretty sure we are - the Duke site was very specific about the date, which they wrote as September 23rd, 1919, but if you see a car that seems chronologically out of place, let me know and I'll update this post. This does look earlier than the 1925 pic that I found. Anyway, let's look around! I'm just loving the old cars, especially that vehicle there on the right, the big one, next to the man who's reading the newspaper. Looks like you could carry a lot of stuff in it! I think

It's January 27th 2021 as I write this, and although I'm still too young to be in a priority age group for the COVID-19 vaccine, I have several friends who are, and I'm pleased that the system, although administered by the government, seems to be working well. Even my friend who uses the VA has already gotten his first dose. And I've been seeing positive statements about the administration of the vaccine by several of my friends on Facebook here in Arizona.  I'm in Arizona, which currently leads in COVID-19 cases, and it's gotten me thinking about the anti-vaxxers, which is a general term that describes anyone who refuses a vaccine, either for themselves or for their children. I've lived in Arizona for a long time, and I think that I have a good understanding of these people. They're afraid. I'm afraid, too, but not of vaccines, or of any modern medicine. And fear isn't always false evidence appearing real, it's a way that we protect ourselve

Let's time-travel back to 1976, and go to the Ford Motor Plant in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I experienced what it was like to work on an assembly line. I built 1977 Ford LTDs. I still have a paystub, and I still have the memories of what I learned, much of which has helped me in my professional career, and in life, although I only worked on the line for one summer. And that's how you can tell that I worked there, I know the lingo. We simply called it "the line". And if you've never built cars on an assembly line, you may have a distorted image of what it was like, maybe influenced by TVs shows that that show one single repetitive thing done over and over. Yes, it was repetitive, but there were a lot of things to do. I described my station as putting in the "fuzzy bumpers", but I did much more. First of all, there was a work station where you made assemblies that were attached to the car. At my station I assembled the hood release mechanisms, and then of

Let's time-travel back to 1925, and visit Hartford, Connecticut. And if you're wondering why I chose that time and place, it's because while I was browsing the Duke University Libraries Digital website, this image caught my eye, and it's beautiful. Duke identified the location as Hartford, but I'm always suspicious of information on the web. Was this really Hartford? I've never been to Hartford, and if you live there, you may be saying, "What? That's Hartford?!" and I don't blame you - not a trace of what's in that photo exists today. And that may have you wondering how I know it's Hartford, and that's where the history detective stuff comes in. I gave this assignment to my number one history detective (who prefers to remain anonymous) in spite of the fact that he has to connection to the place. He's just very, very good at figuring stuff out, and I thought you'd enjoy seeing the evidence that he found. The first clue is Cal

As I was looking through the wonderful collection of old photos on the Duke University website, this image caught my eye. Not because I know anything about Newark, New Jersey (which I don't!) but because it's a beautiful image, and what I like to call a "slice of life". For those of you who aren't familiar with the Landay Hall building, you're looking at the southeast corner of Broad and Park, in Newark, New Jersey, at 3:37 pm on November the 4th, 1946. I can be this precise because the building is still there, at 726 Broad Street, the date of the photo is at the lower left, and there's a clock there at Berger's Jewelers. But what really caught my eye about this image is that there is a candy store and a reducing salon in the same building. A "reducing salon" is an old-fashioned term for a place that women used to go to lose weight. The candy store, Fanny Farmer, was very popular also (my grandma loved Fanny Farmer candies!) and just kinda fa

I've lived in Phoenix, and Southern California, for all of my adult life. And if you're like me, today, January 25th, in Phoenix, the cold rain, while it's "good for the crops" is kind of annoying. I like to go out and pedal around, but it's been raining on and off all day, and it's only in the high forties. Brrrrr! But I just did a quick pedal over to my local McDonalds to get my coffee a few minutes ago, because I saw a break in the weather, and besides it only takes me a few minutes there and back, and I put on my nice thermal undershirt, and a shirt over it, and a jacket over that, and my gloves and braved the cold. And while I was standing there, leaning against the rail, facing the cold wind and sipping my coffee, I was greeted by some Canadians, who made this day much, much, better for me. And it's something that Canadians have done for me for the past forty years and more, they remind me how wonderful it is here. While everyone else I saw go th

If you love to share stuff, like photos of old-time Phoenix, like I do, I recommend Patreon. I've been a Patreon creator for many years now, and it fits my goal, which is to share. The format allows me to share a lot of stuff, with high-resolution photos, and I can also share videos, links, anything. It has the feeling of a "paywall" site, and can be used that way, but I instead have chosen to share for free, and if people want to support me financially they can, but they don't have to. My inspiration for doing it this way came from a museum that I visited a few years ago that was free. There was a place to stuff a buck or two into a box at the exit, but it wasn't all about that. It was free, and the whole idea was just to share the artwork that a family in Phoenix had collected over the years so that anybody who wanted to could see it. Unlike most museums, I wasn't inundated with things that made me feel bad if I didn't donate - I've always had shallo

I was talking to the administrator of the Facebook page "Arizona Memories", who told me that lately young people have been joining the group, but then dropping out, presumably because there's nothing that catches their attention. Most of the posts there go waaaaay back, like to the twentieth century, and if you're thirty or younger, those may be either hazy memories, or maybe you weren't yet even alive back then. But if you were alive twenty years ago, and you have an Arizona memory that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear it. As they say on TikTok, I'll go first. It's January of 2021 as I write this, so I'll my fondest memory of twenty years ago was my brand new Mercury Cougar. That's me up there in the parking lot of my parents' trailer park - oops, I mean mobile home community (they were very strict about that!) in Peoria, a suburb of Phoenix. And by the way, twenty years ago there was no connotation to the word "cougar",

If you've ever been to Glendale, Arizona, I'm sure that you've seen the football stadium where the Arizona Cardinals play. It's big, and you can see it from the freeway. I live in Glendale, and most locals just call it the Cardinals Stadium. As of this writing, January 2021, it's the State Farm Stadium, and when it was built it was called, believe it or not, the University of Phoenix Stadium. I'll see if I can explain. I'm no expert on football, but I'm an old marketing guy, and I know the importance of getting a company name out there, like on a stadium that millions of people see. It's worth a LOT of money, and companies are willing to pay the big bucks to get their name on a stadium. So when the football stadium here in Glendale was being built, many companies offered bids to get their name on it. The winning bid was from an online college called the University of Phoenix. This caused some confusion, and a few smiles from people like me, as the st

I've been visiting Weedville nigh unto thirty years now. It's only a couple of miles away from where I live, in suburban Phoenix, Arizona, but it's a world away. And when I go there I'm inclined to say things like "nigh unto". And yes, there are cows there. It's actually part of Peoria, specifically at 72nd Avenue north of Thunderbird Road. And you could go past it a million times and never know it was there. In fact, it wasn't until people starting seeing "Weedville" on their GPS that most people were even aware of it. It's been there since 1911, and it's still there, I was there this morning. No, of course the buildings from 1911 are all gone, but you can still feel the history, especially standing next to the Old Paths Cemetery, which is on Cemetery Road and 72nd Avenue, which is where I took the selfie about an hour ago. I tried to get the cows in the background. Moo! But beware, this isn't an historic area that's welcomin

Like all kids, I enjoyed watching construction, and unlike most adults I never grew out of it. Maybe it's because I enjoy seeing growth so much, and maybe it's because there seems to be a mystery to how it all happens, with the Tonka Toys, the machinery, the dirt, that sort of thing. There's a QT gas station being built on the southeast corner of 75th Avenue and Peoria, where the Walgreens used to be, in Peoria, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. And I understand the point of view of grownups, maybe that too many buildings are being built in Phoenix (gul-darn it!) or may be that they'll  be happy to have another place to buy gas (buying gas fascinates grownups!), but I just enjoy seeing it. I stopped and took some photos yesterday which are of things that have been very common since Phoenix began in 1870, construction. I'm interested in history, and since I took these photos yesterday, if I go past there today it will be different. In a month or so it will just look like

In a long and full life, I've known a lot of crazy people. Some of my best friends have dubious sanity, and to me that's what makes them fun. I've known people who have done things that have seemed insane to me, such as bungee-cord jumping, or eating sushi, and even ice fishing. My feeling about this insanity has always been to smile indulgently, and hope that their crazy behavior doesn't harm anyone. Of course, determining when insanity becomes criminal isn't up to me, and I'm glad of that. I have no idea how it's determined, but my best guess is that it requires people in white coats, and tests, and a lot of discussions, and lots of signing names on dotted lines. My personal experience with criminal insanity in Arizona came in 1999, when my car was stolen. I filed a police report and checked a box that indicated that I would like to know about the proceedings, which I wasn't obligated to be involved in at all. I was sorry to see my car go, but my insur