History Adventuring

As someone who has always enjoyed what I call "urban hiking", I've spent a lot of time around panhandlers, which just means people who are out in public asking for money. And if you're puzzled about what to do with panhandlers, I think that I can help. At least if you're in Peoria, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) in 2021. Let's be clear here, asking for money out in public isn't illegal in Peoria. Think about it, if it was, the Salvation Army wouldn't be allowed to ask for donations in front of stores during the holidays. And since you're probably already wondering it, no, being homeless or being a transient isn't illegal either. Well, not in Peoria, Arizona, where I spend most of my time pedaling around nowadays. These things are controlled by the local laws, and are enforced by the City of Peoria police. But if you're considering panhandling, or being a transient, you'd be wise to know that there are several things that can get you in t

It's Monday, May 31st, 2021, and if you're wondering if you should fly the American flag, I encourage you. It's Memorial Day. This is the day that America sets aside especially to remember those who died in military service. And while those people should be in our hearts every day, Memorial Day is an especially important time. And if you're a bit confused because of the history, both old and new, I think that I can help. First of all, just to clarify, you can fly the American flag every day. It should be taken down in bad weather, or if there isn't a light shining on it at night, but otherwise rest assured that it's OK. And you don't need to be a veteran, or to even have one in your family, to honor the memory of people who died in service for your country, which I'm assuming is the United States. I live in Arizona, specifically Maricopa County, which has had the eyes of the world on it lately with denial of many things, including the presidential electi

As a lifetime learner, I'm a big believer in starting learning about something by learning what it's called. And this can often be very difficult. Just yesterday I learned what the GWR is. It means the "Gilbert Water Ranch" and it a place in Gilbert, Arizona where people who love to watch birds (nowadays called "Birders") love to go. The full name of the place is the Gilbert Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch, so at first I was puzzled as to why it wasn't called GRPWR, but my best guess is that people were used to calling it the Gilbert Water Ranch, and as they got more and more used to it, it just became GWR. I haven't lived in too many different places in my life, but wherever I've gone I've tried to learn what things are called. To me, it's more than just the beginnings of learning, it shows respect. Names of people and places are very important to people, and in my experience people are happy to help if you let them know that you're

I like coffee, but nowadays if I were to order tea at my local coffee shop, chances are very slim that I would be tarred and feathered and run out of town. But in Deerfield, Massachusetts in 1776, I wouldn't even think about drinking tea, and especially brewing it where my neighbors might smell it. I know that my family in Deerfield, Greenfield, and Cheapside were revolutionaries, not loyalists, because they were on what was called a "Committees of Safety". No one there at the time was the right age for military service, but people like my gggggrandfather Daniel Nash would have been keeping an eye out for for anyone who showed that they disagreed with the local political views. The American Revolution was very popular, especially in the rural areas, but of course there were people who disagreed with it. I've done as much research as I can on my family in Trenton, and I have my suspicions about them, they may or may not have been loyalists. But in Deerfield you really

I'm a pretty easy-going guy, and if you use a word incorrectly I'll let it go, usually saying to myself "I know what you mean". I may cringe a bit, but I'm no grammar Nazi, and I'll just let it go. What I've discovered lately is that there are limits, even for me, and if you're misusing the word patriot, especially in the United States, I'm gonna call you on it. I'm a patriot. I love and support my country, which is the United States of America. My ancestors have all been patriots, after the forming of the country in 1783. Before that, they were revolutionaries. That is, British colonialists who overthrew the existing government on the American continent. And that's why every July 4th I say that my family weren't patriots, they were revolutionaries. They couldn't be patriotic to the United States, it didn't exist in 1776. When it did, they were. So let's be clear here. If you're interested in overthrowing the American go

I was talking to a good friend of mine a few years ago about health, fitness, and weight loss, and I finally got fed up with his bragging. He, of course, had no idea what I was being defensive about, but he was talking about how robustly healthy he had always been, even slightly chubby as a kid, and overweight by his thirties. This conversation happened in the 21st Century, and he's younger than me, and really has never had much interest in history, so ya gotta forgive him. He just didn't know! Being underweight, or skinny, didn't really become associated with health until fairly recently. Before the 21st Century, people who were fat were described as "pleasingly plump". Emil Ganz, in the photo at the top of this post, sitting in his office in 1915 at the First National Bank of Arizona in Phoenix, would not have been described as fat, just prosperous-looking (and he was prosperous!) and healthy. Healthy babies, like puppies, were fat. The only people before the ad

Since this is an interesting time in history (which is a curse), I've been paying special attention to how the people around me have been responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. And it recently occurred to me that I hadn't mentioned people that I call "the innocents". And maybe it's because I've always looked out for these people that I just take doing that for granted. Most people do, but not all. The main categories that I've determined lately are the vaccinated (that's me), the disbelievers (people who are convinced that there is no such thing as a global pandemic), and the divines (people who believe in the pandemic but are protected by their faith, needing no medical intervention), and of course the innocents. The innocents include, of course, children. But they also include anyone who simply doesn't have the capacity to understand what's going on. Now calm down there if you think that I'm accusing these people of being stupid, they'r

Time-travel with me back to the year 2021, when self-driving cars were still being developed. I know that it's difficult to imagine, but this blog is about journeys of the imagination, so please try. This won't be pleasant, but looking back in history often isn't. I'll try to keep it as straightforward as I can. Let's imagine a quiet Sunday morning in suburban Phoenix, in a place called Peoria. I enjoy pedaling around in the mornings, and although it's a very safe neighborhood, with very little crime, and no wild animals wandering around, I'm preparing for danger. The danger, as you may have guessed, is that the cars are not yet self-driving. That is, people have to control them, keep them between lines, stop at lights, yield for pedestrians, that sort of stuff. And as we all know, people aren't really good at that sort of thing. They're much better doing more human things, like being creative, or caring for other people. And things were very dangero

Although the word "fan" is actually just a shortened version of the word "fanatic", over the years, it has developed a more gentle meaning. Someone can be a fan, for example, for a sports team without being a fanatic. Of course, like everything else that people do, there are levels, and extremes. In my opinion, being a fan of something is healthy, and good for the human spirit. I myself am a big fan of Phoenix history, and of wiener dogs, and hamburgers at the Chuckbox. I'm not a fanatic, and if you're a fan of something else I won't engage you in fisticuffs, and if you prefer sushi instead of hamburgers I won't throw myself in front of your favorite restaurant. That's being a fanatic. I attended ASU, a LONG time ago, and since the only football game that I remember watching was when I was sitting up on "A" Mountain, you really can't call me a serious fan. I have a lot of tee-shirts and sweatpants with my school colors, but I really

A term that I had to learn during the outbreak of COVID-19, in 2020, was "virtue signaling". It's a sarcastic term aimed at people who go out of their way to show that they're self-righteous. And like everything else people do, it's open to wide interpretation, depending on how a particular person views the the world. Apparently I've always been that guy. And the extent to which it irritates people depends on how strongly they feel about whatever I may do that might make them feel foolish. Those types of people have always been around, and always will be. They'll see me wearing a bicycle helmet, or eating veggies, and they'll think "Ha! He thinks he's better than me!" But my virtue signaling has never been intended for them, it's intended for different people. The man that I wanted go grow up to be was the kind of person the bad guys just hated, but everyone else could trust. I've stood tall, with a steady gaze, and am quick to sm

As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me

When I started writing this blog I had no idea that there would be an interesting historical period in my own lifetime, which as you know, is a curse: "May you live in interesting times!". But it's May of 2021 and I've long since been past my two-weeks-after-my-shot for COVID-19, and am watching the world around me deal with life after the vaccine. Well, my little world in the United States, specifically in the Phoenix, Arizona area. As I look around me I see three categories, which I am calling "The vaccinated, the divine, and the disbelievers". And if you're wondering if you can tell them apart by looking at them, you can't. I am, of course, in the first category, the vaccinated. I can now wander freely around without having to wear a mask, although I do put one on when I go into a place of business. The "divine" are what I actually call "Divine Immunity", and their protection comes from a supernatural place. They never wore mas

Lately I've been talking to people about their experiences with what I call "career beggars". That is, people who make a very good living by asking for money from strangers out in public. I saw a lot of it when I lived in California, where you could actually watch someone park their Mercedes to walk over and find a place to sit and panhandle, but for many people it comes as a surprise. Yes, it's a con. Now calm down there, I don't mean that EVERYONE who is coming up to you in public asking for money is a phony, there are plenty of people who have genuine needs. I'm talking about the people who make a TON of money at it, and do it disguised as the genuinely needy people. And it's sad, because it makes it impossible to know who is genuine, and who isn't, so people like me who've seen a lot of it tend to just keep walking. My phrase is "No thank you", which acknowledges them, gives them a chance to see my smile, and implies that they want to

It's 2021, and it's been four years now that I've lived without a car. I sold my car in 2017 to a nice young man, a Vietnam veteran, who had always admired it as a "cream puff" with very low mileage. And even though I had rarely used it, it was a difficult decision to make. I like cars. Owning a car, and driving every day, is something that was very important to me. Getting a driver's license was the beginning of my freedom in life. I bought my first car when I was 18, and it was the car that brought me to Phoenix a year later. Over the years the cars that I owned (only one at a time!) were an indication of where I was in my life. I "graduated" from tiny two-seater cars in my late twenties, and moved into more reliable cars as I got older, and by the time I was in my fifties I was more impressed by the tremendous air conditioning in my GM car than anything else about it. That was the car that I sold in 2017. Honestly, that car was awesome - even if i

Phoenix has always amazed me at how modern it is. I moved to there from Minneapolis in 1977, and it was as if I was suddenly in the future, and it's remained that way for me. I follow the new, and the modern. Of course, since I collect old photos of Phoenix, many people imagine that I want Phoenix to not be so modern, to keep the old buildings, the old roads, the old stuff. But I don't want that, I lived in that kind of neighborhood, and to me it was awful. I'll see if I can explain. The neighborhood that I grew up in, in Minneapolis, was built in the 1920s. By the time we moved there, in 1964, it was well on its way to being overwhelmed, and by the 1970s, the tiny streets and tiny businesses were absolutely jammed.  I learned to drive on streets that were painfully narrow, and always lined with LOTS of parked cars. Then I moved to Phoenix. Everything there was so new, so big, and so clean! I quickly discovered that the roads were always going to be under construction, bein

Although the term "Karen" is fairly new, the concept is not. If you're not familiar with the slang term of a "Karen", it's a derisive term used to describe someone who insists in a public place, usually very loudly, to defy the rules, nowadays usually refusing to wear a mask (it's May 10th, 2021, during the time of COVID-19). And my heart goes out to the wonderful people out there who just happen to have that name, but know to cover their mouth when they cough, wear shoes and shirts in a restaurant if there's a sign requesting it, and thousands of other things that keep a society, well, social. I would hate to wake up tomorrow to find that a "Brad" meant something I didn't want to be, the way the name "Poindexter" did, and doubtless many more. If you're old enough to remember what was once commonly used as a nickname for Richard, please don't comment on this post, thank you! There really is a fine line between standing

This morning as I was passing one of the gigantic power poles on 67th Avenue and Cactus Road, in Peoria, a suburb of Phoenix, I noticed there were numbers on it, so I took a photo and shared it with my top history adventuring researcher (who prefers to remain anonymous). I wondered it the numbers meant anything, and I'll tell you what I found it - it has to do with how everything in Arizona is measured, with two points called meridian and baseline. Long before any roads were built in Arizona, it was measured and divided up. The marker for this is on top of a mountain right next to the Phoenix International Raceway, which is on Avondale Boulevard and Baseline Road. Yes, that's where the name of Baseline Road came from - it's the baseline for the state. Everything is measured from there. So this pole is fifteen miles north of the Arizona baseline and six miles east of the Arizona meridian. I'm going to continue my research on these power poles, when they were put up, and

It's May 8th, 2021, and I just finished my early morning ride around Peoria, which is a suburb of Phoenix. Since I like to ride first thing in the morning I go north by northwest, keeping the blinding sun behind me, and turn back around southeast to go home when the sun is a little higher. This is Arizona, you know, where the skies are not cloudy all day! And this route often takes me into an area that I like to describe as the "Divine Immunity" zone. And it's been puzzling me for a long time now, and I think that I'm just beginning to understand. I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota and went to the Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church. And even as a kid I considered it a dull and dreary place to be. We would stand up every once in a while during church service and sing in the blandest way possible, then we'd sit down, and at some point the service would be over, and it would be time to start thinking about dinner, which we always had at 1 pm on Sundays. Other than

Most of the people I know have friends. It may only be one, or two, or a handful, but I've never met anyone who faces the world entirely alone. They may be friends with people in their family, or their childhood friends, or people who have the same political views or interests that they have, or they may just be friends with their dog. And this has got me to thinking about making friends in the modern day (during the time of COVID-19), or during the beginning of the modern era (which is my own arbitrary date - when I moved to Phoenix in 1977), or back in old-time Phoenix (which goes back to 1870). If, for whatever reason, you decided to move to Phoenix when it was new, let's say in the 1870s, you would probably be interested in making friends. It could be because you're starting a business, like selling ice, or maybe you're looking for romance. The reasons are as endless and varied as there are people. Speaking for myself, I moved away from where I grew up, Minneapolis,

I enjoyed reading the book "Territory of Arizona", which was originally printed in 1884, and reprinted in 1964, which I found at the Glendale Main Library. Well, I can't say that I actually read it, more like skimmed over the text, mostly I just looked at the pictures. I saved them as high-resolution images, and with the help of my top history adventuring friend, who prefers to remain anonymous, I identified the exact locations. Today we're going to time-travel back to Washington and 3rd Street, and visit the Lemon Hotel. Although the caption of this drawing says A.D. Lemon and Son, Proprietors, that's definitely not his son there. I'm assuming Eliza Lemon is his wife, but I haven't done the research yet, so I don't know. It could be his daughter? If you know, please tell me and I'll update this post. By the way, I apologize for the fact that the top of this photo curves, it's a big book and that's as flat as I could get it without risking

Something that has always amazed me about Phoenix is what I call the "mini-freeways". That is, the incredibly-wide streets that go all of the way back to the founding of the city, in territorial times. And it's just one of those things that makes me wonder what in the heck they were thinking, what did they expect? They must have been unrealistically optimistic about how much Phoenix would grow. And it's worked out wonderfully. Take a look at Washington Street in territorial times. Now look at those tiny things there on the streets - horses and buggies. And even when cars started using these streets there was room for multiple lanes, along with the street cars. And the width of this street, along with other ones, was set it 1870. And as the population of Phoenix grew, the wide streets accomodated traffic, lots of it. And those "mini-freeways" kept traffic away from the neighborhood streets, the same way that freeways do in places like Los Angeles. I've li

Let's time-travel back to 1884 and go visit James Morgan Gregory at his hotel, called the Gregory House, in Phoenix, Arizona. This drawing is from the book "History of Arizona Territory" published in 1884, and reprinted in 1964. I found it at the Glendale Main Library. And with the help of my top history adventuring friend, who prefers to remain anonymous, I found out some interesting stuff. Let's go! First of all, let's meet J.M. Since it's 1884, he's 55 years old. He's had an interesting life, beginning with what he considered a humdrum existence in Canada, and including taking the Panama Route to get to California in 1854. Just to clarify, it was a route that you walked, or rode a mule, there was no canal back then. An interesting adventure! I found more about him on the Library of Commerce "Chronicling America", which has wonderful old newspapers. Here he is mentioned as the Phoenix contact for a San Jose, California nursery, which specia

It's Sunday morning, the 14th day after my second COVID shot, and I just got home from riding around Peoria, a suburb of Phoenix. I ride every morning, and it gives me some quiet time to think, and I've always especially liked Sunday mornings. And of course on Sunday mornings I think of people going to church. Like most of the people I've ever known, I attended the church of my parents. It was a respectful thing to do, and we kids were cleaned up and sat in the congregation with everyone else. That is, after finishing Sunday School, which lasted until we were 13. At that age, I was confirmed into the Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, and after that I just recall looking forward to communion (we got to drink grape juice!) which broke up the boring monotony of hearing our minister repeat the same things that we had learned in Sunday School, often in things that were recited. I've never been much for review, and hearing the same thing over and over, every Su

It's May 1st, 2021, I live in Arizona, where I plan to spend all of the rest of my days, and I'm fascinated by the different reasons why so many people here refuse to believe that a deadly disease, called COVID-19, actually exists. And today I'd like to address the people that I've always admired, the fiercely-independent people of the American West. I've always surrounded myself with these people, who are very quick to push back at anything that even hints at taking away their fierce independence. These people are very quick to take offense, and they fight, both physically and verbally. If you're familiar with the old term "chip on their shoulder", you know these people. Personally, I've always been too lazy to get involved with what they enjoy doing, like standing up and looking for the bus way down the street at a bus stop, but I'm glad that they're there, fighting the good fight. They will make the bus stop for me. For my whole life, go