History Adventuring

In my younger days I often worried about what kind of old person I would become. My opinion of old people was varied, from "yikes, I don't wanna ever be like that!" to admiration for how life had made them wise. And perhaps the most admired old people that I knew would be the ones who would embrace the modern world, not reject it. And that's the old person that I wanted to grow up to be, and it's happening. I wasn't in Phoenix when automobiles were invented, or when electricity arrived, but I like to imagine that there were people "of age" who embraced those things, and celebrated them. Of course the stereotypical old person is always saying stuff like "get a horse!" and that "candles are safer than that gul-derned electrical stuff!" Time-travel with me, and let's go to old-time Phoenix as old-timers. But not the stereotypical kind, but the kind that would be willing to go visit a friend on Millionaire's Row who had recent...

Time-travel with me back to 1986, when I had just moved to the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles when I was 28, and let's go to a dance party. Yes, you can come as you are, and no, you don't need to bring anything, just yourself. One of the things that has been true in Los Angeles for a very long time is the ratio of women to men, which is good for the men, not so good for the women. Jan and Dean sang about it in the 1960s by saying, "Two girls for every boy!", and it was still true in the 1980s, when I moved there. But I really wouldn't have realized it until I was invited to a dance party. And it all starts with a sales rep who used to visit the company where I worked who was answering the question, "Where are all the good men?" And apparently she saw them all of the time in her travels, and I was one of them. She herself was in a serious relationship, which she made very clear to the single men that she met, but she was on a mission to help her girlf...

Some of my fondest memories are of going to Joe's Cafe in Santa Barbara in the 1980s, and I always got rude service, which I liked. I'll see if I can explain. Now calm down there, you won't get rude service as a tourist. The rude service was only for the locals, and it wasn't as if they dumped my gin-and-tonic on my head, they were just kinda casual, because they knew that I was a local. No one working there ever snapped to attention for me, or asked if I liked my food, or if I was ready for my bill - that's how the tourists were treated. And I was very proud of being a local! By the way, the photo at the top of this blog post is from their website, it looks like it hasn't changed a bit. I always sat in one of the booths there on the left, unless I just came in for a gin-and-tonic, in which case I sat at the bar. I don't recall sitting at the tables, but I must have done, the place was always crowded! I always ordered an Omaha, which was on the menu, and sim...

It must be the desert air, or something, because people live for a very long time in Phoenix. And although I've often pondered getting old, and even getting really old, I haven't yet pondered getting really, really old, which I'm doing right now. We need to start with defining what "old" means, and I can tell you as one of the young people who was told "don't trust anyone over 30", that's what it was for me in my teens and twenties. And I remember the first time I read "Around the World in Eighty Days", when I saw that the hero was forty years old, my first thought was wondering why they chose to have such an old man do that trip? I live in Glendale, which isn't far from Sun City, which always gave me the "heebie-jeebies" when I went there back in the 1970s. When it first started, in 1960, you needed to be at least fifty, which I guess was considered "old" then. But whenever I went there, with my brown hair and m...

I'm sure that you've heard of the Code of the West, maybe from movies, or books, or anything with a story about cowboys. And if you really don't know how it works, I understand. It's like the Pirate's Code, more of a guideline than anything else. And it doesn't apply to everybody. Let's go back to the Old West and take a look. Men of honor lived by the code. Remember that back then it only applied to men, although nowadays women can live by the same code, and many do. Let's time-travel back about 150 years, when Phoenix was still very new. Since the Code of the West is unwritten, it isn't as if we can find a list in books, although some people did try to write it down. I've seen it described as a "chivalry code", used by Knights of Old, which makes sense to me, as it's something that men who consider themselves honorable have done throughout history. Of course, it doesn't apply to children, and it doesn't apply to women (rem...

I was talking to my brother recently and he mentioned that he had been lucky in regards to a job that he had gotten years ago, which led to some really good things in his life, and overall it's got me to thinking about luck, especially in old-time Phoenix, and even nowadays. We talk about luck so much that we hardly notice when we tell someone "good luck" on their test, or make a reference to testing your luck, by saying things like "You bet!" Luck is really just a form of superstition, and many people can be very nervous about doing things that might give them bad luck. I've been known to be shushed by people when I say that it might rain today, and they tell me to shut up before I jinx it! In my experience, I've found that luck favors the prepared. I'm more of an "odds" person, and I like to evaluate the odds of something being successful, as opposed to thinking that I might be in luck at any particular moment. I had to take a "dum-d...