History Adventuring

With the help of my top history adventurer, who prefers to remain anonymous, I'm really enjoying the images in the 1884 book "History of Arizona Territory". And today I thought that it would be fun to time-travel and visit Simon Novinger. This residence was on the 160 acres owned by Mr. Novinger, which is where 19th Avenue between Harrison and Buckeye is now. The technical name for that area is Section 12 Township 1 North Range 2 East or T1NR2E. Here's a map from 1904: There really weren't any roads that far out of town back then, but you can see that Novinger's place was along the Salt River Valley Canal, often called Swilling's Ditch, so it would have been easy to get to - just follow the canal, which also went past Phoenix (or what we would call downtown Phoenix today). In our imaginary journey, we'll start from Center (Central Avenue) and go west along Van Buren, traveling along Swilling's Ditch. It's a healthy walk, but we're young and...

How we use the language changes over time, and nowadays the word "conservative" politically has come to mean what I would call "radical". That is, way out on a particular edge, in this case "right wing". And I accept that the language changes. Heck, I remember when "bad" meant bad, and then it meant good, and it probably means bad again. Back in the eighties if someone had told me that their dog was "bad sick" I'd have called the vet. I've always been slow on the uptake. I wonder if people still talk like that? Anyway, I'm a conservative investor, and always have been. I learned the basics of it as a kid, because of 100 shares of a Mutual Fund that I was given by an uncle when I was born. When I got old enough to read, I started reading the materials that were mailed to me regularly. I learned what a Blue Chip stock was, and I learned what conservative investments were, often including investing in both Coca-Cola and Pepsi. ...

It's Thursday, April 29th, 2021, and on Sunday I'll have hit fourteen days since my second COVID-19 shot. My risk of getting this nasty disease will drop tremendously, although it will never be 100% (that's not how it works), and I will continue to mask and social distance as I wait for my juniors to catch up with me. And then, of course, some people never will, and I'll just have to live with them. I've lived in Arizona, and Southern California, for all of my adult life, and I've lived with a LOT of people who don't share my beliefs. It could be something like having a different religion, or it could be the conviction that asparagus is an appropriate food for breakfast. The list goes on and on, and I've enjoyed living with these people, and have learned how to keep my distance if necessary, but it's rarely necessary. It's fascinating. And don't worry if you yourself have never done this, I can accommodate you, too. Yes, I know that profiling...

Since I collect and share old photos of Phoenix, Arizona, a lot of people jump to the conclusion that I'm pining away for the old days, when times were simple, etc., etc. But I'm not. I'm time-traveling, and I enjoy seeing the new, just like this QT that I've been watching under construction here in Peoria (a suburb of Phoenix). At the risk of sounding like a commercial for QuickTrip, this place will have wide, safe places for cars, and people. Parking spots will be clearly marked, and there will be no need for people to puzzle which way to go, or where to park. It will be thoroughly modern, and even someone like me, who uses pedal power, will find it easy to use. And I just never tire of enjoying the modern, because I've seen what happens when cities try to squeeze modern life into antique places. It's awful, and I'll start with where I grew up, in Minneapolis. My neighborhood in Minneapolis was built in 1926, and by the 1970s it was such a tight squeeze th...

Yesterday I noticed that one of the people that I follow on TikTok, whose opinions I value, talked about something that no one nowadays seems to be talking about: how the word "patriot" here in the USA got so distorted in recent years. Someone had commented on the fact that he had included the word "patriot" on his profile, and questioned how that could be possible since he supported Black Lives Matter, stuff like that. And his challenge was for people like me to take back the word patriot, which I'm doing. I also have an American flag on my profile, and an American flag flying on my house. And in April of 2021, I know that it can confuse people, but I'm taking back the flag, and the word patriot. And I am soooo proud of America! We've rolled up our sleeves, and got shots into arms here on the home front. I compare this to the building of a great war machine, with the enemy being COVID-19. The eyes of the world are on us, and we're making it happen. ...

In a life filled with lucky breaks, two of the best happened to me in the early nineties - I started working at Valley National Bank in Phoenix, and I was there when it became Bank One. And if you worked for VNB at the time, you may recall it as the best of times, or the worst of times. For most of the people that I've ever talked to about it, there is very little in between. For me, it was the best of times. When I got the job at Valley Bank, in the Marketing Department as a graphic designer, I was very happy to have landed another corporate job, in my profession, in a large company. My last job had been at Blue Cross of California in Los Angeles, and I had developed a taste for the corporate life. And all I saw at VNB was that - offices, shiny windows, break rooms, 401Ks, paid vacations. What I didn't realize at the time was that I had just come aboard a sinking ship - Valley Bank had been in terrible financial condition for a long time. Some of the old-timers told me what wa...

Although I don't do it anymore, there was a time when I just loved house-sitting for my friends who had a more luxurious lifestyle than mine. More often than not these people had large houses, beautiful landscapes, and spent very little time there to enjoy it themselves. So I did! Of course, I wasn't always invited to places in spite of my dropping not-so-subtle hints, but today I'm invited myself to H. H. Linville's Ranch in 1884, and sure, you can come along, too! Let's time-travel to Phoenix, Arizona. Linville's Ranch isn't part of the original 1870 Phoenix townsite, it's on the Linville Addition, at where 5th Street and Grant are nowadays, just east of where the Carver Museum is. Not really waaaaay out in the country, just a short walk from the Court House. Here, I'll zoom in on the drawing so you can see the Court House, which is in the same place as the Historic City Hall is now, at 1st Avenue and Washington. You're looking northwest, and f...

Unlike race, which is a nonsense concept, tribes actually do exist. And that's because they're a social construct, like any type of group created by people, like nationality, or people who like to drive MGs. And since I can time-travel anywhere in this blog, today I thought it would be fun to go take a look at my tribe, the Anglo-Saxons. It's been a very long time since that tribe existed, and really, you're talking about two tribes combined together, the Angles, and the Saxons. Yes, that's where we get the word "England". It could just have easily been "Saxonland". And of course my people didn't call themselves Angles, they were just "the people" - all tribes are "the people" to themselves, only outsiders give them names. Of course, I have no written documentation that I'm from these tribes, I just know that my ancestry is from England, going back to the 1640s. In the days of King Arthur, there was no written language...

It's April of 2021, and today I went over to my local Walgreens and got my second COVID-19 shot. And I thought that you'd be interested in what it felt like. Getting a flu shot isn't something that I usually write about in my history adventuring blog, but this particular one is a piece of history, and I gotta tell ya, I was underwhelmed today. Don't get me wrong, I was pleased to have it done, and appreciate the Herculean efforts on the part of the people who made it possible, from the researchers, the developers, the people who drove it to here in Glendale, Arizona in of them big-rigs, right down to the nice lady who jabbed me in the arm while I babbled about my wiener dogs (I'm a typical tough guy who doesn't like needles, and my technique is called "refocusing", which means thinking about something else, and looking away). But to me, it was just another shot. I get a flu shot every year, and I'm sure that I got a lot of shots as a kid. I'm a...

I've never been much of a rule-follower. Even back in high school, I really had no clue what the rules were, like how many classes you could be late for before detention, or how many classes you could skip before you were expelled. I just showed up for class, did what I needed to do to pass, and moved on. I've always been lazy, and memorizing a bunch of rules has always been way too much work for me. Some people are very good at it, rattling them off the way I remember my friends who could do baseball statistics. And I would listen to these people until I could find an excuse to go wander off. I'm glad for people like that, but it's not me, I just can't seem to follow it. Of course, the rule-following people knew exactly how close they could cut things, and to them it made life more interesting. Most of the rule-following people wanted to break the rules, as they saw rules as oppressive, and in order to show defiance for the rules, they had to know them. I've al...

It's April of 2021, and I've spent the past year being fascinated by the different responses to the idea of wearing a mask during the current pandemic. I'll admit that I've always had a fascination for those kinds of things, going back to trying to understand why people chose to not wear seat belts (long before there was any law requiring them to do so). And like the no-seatbelt people of my youth, I'm fascinated by the no-mask people who are following their faith. I have to admit to being a little jealous of people who have such great faith. When I learned to drive, in the mid-seventies, I had a basic understanding of physics, and imagining my face slamming into the windshield on impact was all I needed to convince me to wear a seat belt. No one ever grabbed me by the lapels and convinced me, and I was never threatened by anyone, it just seemed to make sense to me. I had a good friend who never wore a seat belt and who simply said, "If it's my time to die,...

It's April of 2021, and that means on the 20th of next month it will be Chicken Day in Glendale, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix). And before I do the usual cautions about "celebrate in moderation", I'd like to tell you what I know about Chicken Day, which ain't much. I found a few articles, and ads, about Chicken Day at the Library of Congress site. It starts with the first issue of the Arizona Republican (later shorted to just Republic) in 1890 and ends when I guess the LOC got tired of scanning it in, in 1921. And since I, and my history adventuring friends, have looked carefully through all of the years, I've come to the conclusion that 1921 was the first year for Chicken Day. Whether it lasted even beyond that year I have no idea, but I know a lot of people who grew up in Glendale, as did their parents, and their grandparents, and no one I've ever talked to has even heard it mentioned. If you have, please let me know! I'm an old marketing guy, and I ...

It's April of 2021, and it's now occurring to me that I'm watching a massive war machine against COVID-19 being deployed here in the United States, and it's just astonishing. I've never seen the people of the U.S. rally around a popular war, but I know that it happened with World War II. That was the time when a sleeping giant suddenly woke up and created a massive war machine from practically nothing. I've read about it, and in addition to hard-bitten cigar-chomping G.I.s, there were people doing things on the home front. And looking back now it's hard to believe what a desperate fight it was, against an enemy that seemed unstoppable. But we did it. I will be getting my second dose of the vaccine in about a week, and it's actually kinda underwhelming to just go to Walgreens, sit in a chair, talk about the weather, and get stuck. Of course, that's just a minor front, but last night I got to see something that, if I had grandchildren, I would someday ...

I'm enjoying the book "History of Arizona Territory 1884", and especially the wonderful drawings. This one is my favorite, and I've asked my top history adventurer, who prefers to remain anonymous, to help identify these places as accurately as possible. Let's start with the view on Main Street, which is Washington. You're looking west at about 3rd Street. Ira Stroud's Livery is on the right, and the Gregory House is on your left. Of course, this is an idealized view of it, but Phoenix did have trees planted along Washington. Now let's take a look at the churches. A church that's still in the same place nowadays, although a new building was built in 1915, is St. Mary's, which is on Monroe and 3rd Street. St. Mary's Catholic Church is number 19 on the 1885 Dyer map The Presbyterian Church was built in 1889, and was at 3rd Avenue and Adams. The new one, built in 1927 at Monroe and 4th Avenue, is still there. By the way, the Presbyterians buil...

It's April of 2021, and as I've been following the story of the fight against COVID-19, it suddenly occurred to me that the United States, where I live, will soon be entering a world war against it. It's happened before, although never against a virus, and the U.S. tends to do what it does best: creating a gigantic war machine very quickly. When the United States was attacked by a foreign empire in 1941, the world tended to think of us as a sleeping giant. And it's true - the U.S. has really never paid all that much attention to the rest of the world, and to this day many Americans can't even find particular countries on a map. Americans focus on America first, which is sometimes called "isolationism", and I'm a typical American that way. I've never left the country (Canada doesn't count, right?), I've never had a passport, and I'm inclined to have no real interest in meddling in other people's, or countries', affairs. And as yo...

I've always been a friendly person. It was the way that I was raised, in Minnesota, waving at people and saying hello. I've always been a bit of a shy person, and I just like the idea of trying to turn as many strangers into friends as I can as I go through life. And I've suddenly realized that I particularly like being friendly with people who are doing the wrong thing. I'll see if I can explain. Like everything that people do, "the wrong thing" is open to interpretation. And I've never, ever, met anyone who hasn't at one time been a bit nervous that they may be doing the wrong thing. It may be intentional, or it may be a matter of ignorance. The best example that I can give is looking at the photo at the top of this post, from 1908, and wondering if the horse is parked correctly? And if it, uh, "does its business" do I need to scoop it up into a "horsey bag"? The list of these kinds of things go on and on. And sometimes it's a...