History Adventuring

After I wrecked my MG Midget, in 1979, I decided that it was time to buy a larger, more reliable car, so I bought a Saab Sonett. And I know what you're thinking, that a Jensen-Healey would have been more logical for me because of my relationship with Delta Motorsports, but I never really liked the look of those cars, and besides, if I was gonna have a 907 engine I wanted a Lotus around it (which was way beyond my budget!). But Delta did factor into the decision. The Sonett on Wonderview Road on Camelback Mountain One of the Delta Motorsports (there were three, hence the name) suggested a Sonett. He owned a Sonett II, and when I saw a III I was convinced. It was beautiful! It also had a hard top, and air conditioning (well, a button that said air conditioning and a compressor, but it really didn't do much of anything). In 1979 I wasn't a teenager anymore, and I felt the weight of my years pushing me into getting something more practical. Seems like I've always felt the w...

I have no documentation to prove that I went to the Playboy Club in Phoenix, no photos, no receipts, nothing but memories, so I was reluctant to write this, so you're just gonna have to believe me, and I'll stick with what comes back to me after all of these years. I had a neighbor at the Saguaro Apartments who had a Playboy Club Key (membership), and one evening he invited me to come along with him. As I recall he was just a little older than I was, because in 1979 I was 19. Of course, it could have been 1980, when I was 20, but it was definitely before I turned 21, because I recall that the drinking age hadn't risen to 21 until after I turned 21. Whether I was 18 or 19 I don't recall. The point is that I was old enough to go into a bar, and drink. And that's what the Playboy Club was in my memory, just a bar. I have absolutely no memory what I ordered to drink, but since I wasn't a drinking man back then I may have just toyed with the drink or given it to my f...

Like most people, I knew everything when I was 18. The next year, when I turned 19 and moved to Arizona, that confidence started slipping away, and by my mid-twenties, in 1982, as I learned more and more, Arizona had transformed me into a dog person. Of course, it could be that it was just that I was being exposed to a different world than the one I grew up in in Minnesota, but since this is my Arizona memory, I'm going to give the credit to Arizona. And things were very different in Tempe than in Minneapolis. If you've never lived anywhere except where you grew up, this is probably just gonna sound like google-dee-gook, so I wouldn't be surprised if you tuned me out. But I'd like you to stay with me. No, Arizona wasn't all that different from Minnesota in most ways - people drove the same cars (although with less rust), and talked pretty much the same. The same big "corn-fed" Scandinavian people lived there, as well as the beautiful blondes, that I figure...

Let's turn the wayback machine to 1982, and go to Tempe, Arizona! Actually, I really don't have a wayback machine - all I have is a 64 year-old memory, and some old Polaroid photos that I scanned in, and the undeniable fact that I was there at that time. My diploma from ASU is from 1983, but only because I finished up my credits in the winter, and the diplomas weren't printed until the next spring. So I will be focusing on truthful, and verifiable, stuff, but I'll be looking at through rose-colored glasses, of course! It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Of course over the years I've tried to give the impression that I did all of the typical things that ASU students did, like go to concerts, or games, or restaurants, but it's really not true. I was on such a limited budget that even buying film for my camera meant that it was a special time. That darned car (which I loved) was always breaking down, and it alone sucked a large percentage of the mo...

If you want to understand the history of Phoenix, Arizona, you have to follow the water. And it's not difficult to do, as the Salt River Valley (where Phoenix is) has been flooding since the end of the last Ice Age. Yes, a desert city was built where there was, and still is, plenty of water. It comes from the melting snow that falls on the mountains north of Phoenix every year, and then comes rushing down through the valley. If you didn't know this, that's understandable. People built canals, and channeled the water, going back to the days of the Hohokam people. Like everything else, the technology has changed, but people remain the same. Those guys were good! And here's the part that so many people seem to get twisted, and I kind of blame historians who want to label everything, like for a test or something. If you're wondering what group, or race, built the canals, it was people, because there's only one race - the human race. Some of these people had darker, ...