History Adventuring

Let's time-travel back to 1917, and visit Phoenix, Arizona in a Hupmobile. Will you drive? I'm really better at sight-seeing you know. This photo, which is one of a series that was taken on a tour of all of the United States capitals to promote the rugged sturdiness of the Hupmobile, made me want to ride along, at least to Phoenix. That's as far as I want to go, thank you. We're on Washington looking west towards the Arizona State Capitol Building, which is on 17th Avenue. As usual, I'm trying to be helpful as a passenger, and I'm guessing that you're looking for a map, because I always get my directions turned around. The Hupmobile is running like a champ, and you're an excellent driver. I have no doubt that everyone is going to want a Hupmobile after they see us. I don't suppose you have a sandwich in there? It's kind of warm in Phoenix, but at least they have a lot of trees! If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of ...

It's April of 2022, and I've been thinking about the number of people here in Arizona who are fascinated with genetic purity. Of course it's not exclusive to here, and it's not exclusive to now. Historically it's been a very popular point of view all over the world. The first thing that springs to mind when I think of people who are fascinated with genetic purity is "White Supremacy". That is, the idea that people who have particular genetics are somehow better than other people, who don't have those genes. But of course it can be anyone who becomes fascinated by genetics, and since we all have genes, because we all have parents, it can be anyone in any group. People often call this their "race", and use it to differentiate themselves from other people. Of course, there's only one race: the human race, and as a species the last thing that we would want to be is genetically limited. And since we've been successful for a long time, much...

I was born in 1958, and graduated from high school in 1976, which makes me the generation of the Baby Boomers, which goes from 1946 to 1964. The next generation is called Generation X, and it starts about twenty years after the first Baby Boomers were born. And that makes sense, because an average generation is about twenty years - people usually have children in their twenties, become grandparents by their forties, and great-grandparents by their sixties. If you've done your genealogy you know that this is the rough estimate that you usually do, although there are exceptions (of course!). Where it gets confusing for people is when they define themselves by their teenage years, in which case someone who is still in your generation would have had a dramatically different experience. I'll see if I can explain. Although nowadays, in my sixties, anyone from 55 to 100 seems to be "about my age", when we talk about what was we remember as teens, the difference really shows....

I don't know where you were in the 1980s, but if you remember that far back, especially if you lived in a place like Los Angeles (where I did) you remember the constant sound of car alarms. Of course, if you weren't there, how I describe it might sound like the rantings of an old guy, but I'm gonna try here in this blog post.  The sound of car alarms was constant, all day, all night, 24/7, and it never stopped. It became something of a background noise. Sometimes the sound was up close, sometimes it was in the distance, but it was like a rushing river, it never, ever, stopped. No, not even at night - in fact it got worse at night. Back then car alarms didn't automatically stop after a few minutes. So someone had to be there to go over to their car and turn it off, or it stayed on until the battery died in the car, which could take days. And there were a lot of aftermarket car alarms which were so sensitive that if a mosquito flew by they went off. By the nineties, most ...

Like many people who never achieved much wealth, I always loved giving the illusion of wealth, going back to when I started my first corporate job, in Los Angeles in 1986. And I continue this illusion to this day, which is very convincing for people who don't know me up close and personal. And in a long life, I've learned that genuinely wealthy people don't do that, they do the opposite. I'll see if I can explain. When I got the job at Blue Cross of California, at age 28, I was not only self-conscious about people mistaking me for the delivery boy, I also wanted to be able to fit in to corporate events. I lived in a, ahem, "less than fashionable" part of town, which was all that I could afford (barely) before I got the job, and I stayed wanted to stay there until I could move into more expensive housing, which I actually never did. So I did the best I could with what I had. I washed and ironed my dress shirts, I scrounged discount places for clothes, and would...