History Adventuring

For me, 1996 was the best of times, and it was the worst of times. It's the year that I resigned from Bank One Arizona and began teaching graphic design at the Art Institute of Phoenix. The requirements were to have a Bachelor's Degree (which I had, from ASU, in graphic design), and I had to get certified to teach, which I did. But by far the most important thing was to know the world of graphic design, especially the current software, which I did. That part of it was easy for me, because it was all I had been doing all of my professional life, and I was especially enthusiastic about the latest software. The part that I didn't like, at the time, was the challenge of public speaking (which I'd never done). By the way, to avoid any confusion, even though I had worked for a bank, it was in the marketing department, and I was a graphic designer. Yeah, big companies have graphic designers on staff. Before that I had worked for Blue Cross of California, but don't ask me a...

Every once in a while I see someone say, either in a humorous way, or in a ranting way, that they're surprised that people don't know how to drive a stick-shift car. That is, a car that doesn't have an automatic transmission, that requires you to know how to use a clutch and a gear lever. And since I'm a time-traveler, I decided to compare it to some other things that many people don't know, like hitching a team of horses to a wagon. In my lifetime, which has now spanned a little over 65 years, driving a car, even a stick shift, has pretty much been expected of everyone. I'm sure that there was a time, back when cars were a brand-new thing (even before my time!) when seeing someone control one of those machines was amazing, and even thrilling. And that would have been about the time when the most basic thing that a young man could know would be how to hitch up a team of horses, or put on a saddle. As I time-travel into the future, I see the ability to even drive...

As a typical city boy of the 21st Century, I don't see much death, except abstractly. I may read an article about someone dying, or someone may tell me about someone's death, but that's all. As a time-traveler, I realize that most of the people in the old photos that I have are all dead (especially in this one, from 1905), but it isn't something that I dwell on, or talk about. But I want to talk about it today. I've never watched anyone die of old age, but I know that a lot of people have, and still do. Only a few generations ago in Phoenix most people died of old age at home, not in a hospital, or at a nursing home. And their family got to see the process. The closest I'll ever come to watching someone die of old age is seeing my dog grow old. Very, very old. She's healthy, and strong, but there's a limit to her little doggy life, and I'm watching it very slowly ebb away. Her hearing and vision are fading, and even her super doggy nose isn't wha...

Lately I've been pondering how much society defines women by the family around them. We hardly even notice when a newspaper article describes a woman as a mother of three even if it has nothing to do with the reason for the article, for instance if she just won the Nobel Peace Prize, or something. And in my conversations with women who are, ahem, of age, I find that they see themselves as grandmothers, or widows - although the old-fashioned term of describing yourself as, for example, "Widow Jenkins" has gone away. And all of this made me wonder if it applies to men, and the only example I could think of is a bachelor farmer. I've seen the term "bachelor farmer" many times, and although it's not very scientific, my test is if something just sounds weird to me, and bachelor farmer doesn't. It just seems perfectly natural for a farmer to have a wife, and of course children to help with the chores. There's no reason that an unmarried man couldn'...

Since I do most of my time-traveling in and around Phoenix, I thought that I would stay there, but elderly people being swindled isn't limited to a particular time, or a particular place. And if you're already getting huffy about my using the term "elderly", I feel comfortable using it, since I turned 65 this year, and if you don't like it I'll go find one of 45 records and smack you over the head with it! I might even be able to find a couple of 78s! Where was I? Oh yeah, elderly people being swindled. And I use that term, but I could also use the term "conned", or maybe "convinced to give up their money and get nothing in return". But waitaminute, just because young people can't see a value doesn't mean that there's no value to elderly people. If a restaurant wanted me to give them good money for some raw fish wrapped in seaweed, I wouldn't even consider it, but I know a lot of people like that, and to each his own. By the...

As someone who enjoys talking to people about old-time Phoenix, it suddenly occurred to me that I may have recently accidentally angered someone who had been lying to me, or "stretching the truth". I'm inclined to think that if someone thought that I had called them a liar, I would risk a punch in the nose. So I try to nod and smile, wish them well, and wander off. I don't call people, out, and I sure as heck don't call them liars, even if it's obvious that they are. I like my nose un-punched! My first experience of accidentally calling someone a liar was back in the 1970s, when I owned an MG Midget, and had just moved to Phoenix. Naturally I was eager to talk to people who also had a passion for classic British cars, and of course their care in sickness and in health. So when someone that I was talking to mentioned that he had restored a 1950s MG, I was very interested, and I said, "Positive ground?" to direct the conversation, but the conversation ...

Time-travel with me to a little after 5 am this morning, when I stopped into the QT on Thunderbird Road and 75th Avenue in Peoria, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. It's Sunday morning, and don't worry, nothing bad is going to happen, in fact, just the opposite. There was just enough sunlight for me to ride safely, and when I walked into the QT I was the only customer in there. The morning rush would happen soon, but for now it was very quiet. And I heard the laughter of the two young men behind the counter, joking around the way that young men do, always have, and hopefully always will. When I complimented them on their cheerful attitude so early in the morning, they answered a question that I was about to ask. It really wasn't Sunday morning to them, it was more like late Saturday night. They had been there all night. And when I politely inquired about a knee brace that one of them was wearing, he laughed it off as just one of those things - the way that young men do. And whe...