In Florida, I learned about Ponce de Leon, and the Fountain of Youth, and St. Augustine in my history classes. But there I was in South Florida, and there was St. Augustine in Northeast Florida. I could read about it, but I couldn't readily see it. We went there sometimes during my childhood, but the last time I could remember going was when I was reaching my late teens, when my paternal grandparents were with us on that trip, and even then it was relatively brief, although I do remember seeing the fort. But if I wanted to know more about it beyond those visits, there were the books. We didn't always have reason to go back and if it was a choice between that or Walt Disney World today, I would choose Walt Disney World first and then see if there was time later to travel on up to St. Augustine.
The biggest disappointment of moving from South Florida to Southern California, before nine years' existence in Southern California became the biggest disappointment, was that I only got to see Tallahassee, my state capital, once, and that was when we were driving out of Florida. That's where the legislature meets and that's where the governor's mansion is. I don't think I saw the governor's mansion on the way out, but I saw the Capitol. And that's all I saw of my seat of state government. In years to come, I want to go back to visit, to see how my old haunts have changed, and I'd like to see Tallahassee again, to spend more time, to have a closer look at what remained far away as we drove by.
It's because of that missed opportunity that I hold more dearly to me the pleasure of having history nearby in Las Vegas, some in Henderson, and in Boulder City. Mostly Boulder City, since it's my favorite place in Southern Nevada. I have here a book called Hoover Dam & Boulder City by Marion V. Allen, whose family lived in Boulder City, and who also worked on the construction of Hoover Dam (Boulder Dam back then). I always love receiving books from the Boulder City library because it's my favorite in the entire Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, although it operates differently in many ways from the rest of the libraries in that cluster, with a separate website for one, and you're given two extra days with any books you receive from that branch because of the distance. Boulder City is close enough to Las Vegas, closer to Henderson, but when you drive there, it feels like a different world, higher up in the mountains. Unlike the trapped feeling I always got in Santa Clarita, there's so much more to see here, so much more to wonder about.
Besides reading Hoover Dam & Boulder City out of my fervent desire to know more about the history of all that's around me, I'm looking for more information about Boulder City manager Sims Ely, who ran the town single-handedly during the construction of Hoover Dam. He was hired by the government to do so, to be sure that their investment did not go to waste, and I think there's more history of him to be found, more stories that should be told. To some, he was a despot, but that may be only because he didn't allow gambling or alcohol inside Boulder City. He strikes me as having been fair-minded, but there's not as much to be found about him as there should be. I hope to rectify that in time.
But more than any of that, I love reading about living conditions in Boulder City and Hoover Dam construction and know that I have been to both. I read these details and I know exactly what's being referenced, where it is, and what it looks like today. I'm not good yet with directions in Boulder City, which streets intersect and the easiest way to get to the Boulder City library, but I'll get there. I have lots of time for that. To be able to go to those scenes of history, to be there and remember what I have read and picture it right there is new to me. As mentioned, I didn't have the chance all that often in Florida, and there was very little history of Southern California that I cared to know, outside of Buena Park and Anaheim, and even then, I didn't get as deep into Buena Park, where other history might have been. So this is pretty much all new to me, always fascinating, and I don't think it will ever waver. Nor will the sheer novelty of the California-Nevada border being merely 35 minutes away, albeit with long stretches of road empty on both sides. Both my parents came from New York and therefore it was nothing to them to go into New Jersey or Connecticut and back again. The biggest thing for me in Florida in terms of travel like that was that it took only an hour to get from the east side of the state to the west side, from Pembroke Pines, where we lived many years before we moved, to Naples. Only an hour! And yet, there were no states to cross until you get to Northern Florida, and then out. The only time I had ever crossed borders was from the air, when we flew on Delta from Ft. Lauderdale to Newark in 1994, and all I noticed were mountains we flew over. I didn't even think of borders.
Now, when we're in Primm, especially at the lotto store to the left of the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, I can look right out at the roads and see the border and the signs right there, one welcoming drivers to California on the right, and the other welcoming drivers to Nevada on the left. That I can see that, and I can see where history happened wherever I want, and see what it is today and if aspects of that history have been preserved (beyond Hoover Dam, of course, and the Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum all the way in the back on the second floor of the Boulder Dam Hotel), at times means more to me than seeing the Strip just as often. I love knowing that others have been here before me and I always want to know what brought them there and how they reacted when they first saw it, and what they wanted to do when they got here, what they were looking for. Just another way of knowing that I really am home.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
A Genuine History Book
I love Daedalus Books. I love flipping through the catalog I get every two months, circling titles that I absolutely have to buy, and checking off titles to look up on Goodreads and mark as "to-read" in my account.
I only visit the Daedalus Books site to buy the books I want so badly. I never browse there because I'd vacuum out my savings account alarmingly fast (despite the company's always-met promise that you'll save money when you buy books from them), and I need a good portion of that money to buy or lease a car that runs after my family and I move to Henderson. In fact, I'm working again on putting a full stop to buying books, except for those that cannot wait, such as The Garden of Happy Endings by Barbara O'Neal, which is coming out on April 17. O'Neal's The Secret of Everything is what makes me want to go to New Mexico so badly, and I'm a fan of hers forever.
It sounds like it could be a vicious cycle, me, a bibliophile, trying to stop buying books. I have so many in my room I can choose from, and once we reach Henderson, I'll have a library card and my book-buying habit will drop off precipitously. I'm only doing it now because I refuse to be part of the City of Santa Clarita's libraries, after the City Council cut ties with the County of Los Angeles library system, deciding to create their own, and causing the loss of a few million titles that were available through the County of Los Angeles. The Santa Clarita Valley is isolated enough as it is. This action isolated it further.
Getting back to Daedalus Books, I've found less titles to buy right away. This is no fault of the company, but rather my attempt at self-control, determining what books I can wait to read. And then there is one book, a genuine history book, that I needed so badly that, if I lived near their warehouse outlet in Columbia, Maryland, I would have rushed right over there and possibly even bought two copies, despite it being 640 pages, though thankfully in paperback.
This book, Sears, Roebuck & Co.: The Best of 1905-1910 Collectibles, is what the tablecloths at the Po Folks restaurants in Florida and Buena Park had. There were listings from Sears, Roebuck & Co. touting many items that probably were used by Southern people, my people. I looked at these drawings and read the copy of each item with pure fascination. Someone used this glass pitcher. Someone played that piano. Someone treasured that corncob pipe.
When I saw this book in the latest Daedalus Books catalog, I rushed over to the computer, found it on the website, and ordered it, having had an account on the website for almost a year now. I wanted to see what other items Sears, Roebuck & Co. had sold in its catalog. I don't know how Leslie Parr, Andrea Hicks, and Marie Stareck found these pages in good-enough condition to reprint them (I want to find out), but here they are. This is what families pored over, figuring out what they needed and what they wanted. An Edgemere banjo cost $3.80 back then. A Beckwith Imperial Grand Organ, 475 pounds in five octaves, and 550 pounds in six octaves was $46.75. That was a lot of money then.
Pulling this book out of the Daedalus Books box yesterday afternoon, I felt myself getting so close to history for the first time in weeks. There is a great deal of history in the book I'm writing about the making of the Airport movies, but it's a detached history. It's concrete. It happened. I can only get as close to it as my dogged research and interviews with people involved in the making of those movies will allow me, the people especially. I haven't interviewed everyone I've sought yet, and some may refuse for whatever reason. Here, in this Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog, these items were sold, the families who paged through the catalog are long gone, and so are the copywriters and the artists that drew the items. But I still feel them with me. I want to know who they were. Did the copywriter in charge of writing about clocks, perhaps, like his or her work, or was it just to feed their family? Did they aspire to write more than this? Did they want to work at a newspaper or write novels? And were those artists happy enough just to be able to draw, or did they paint on the side as well, or did they look to better also? Perhaps, like me, the copywriters and the artists did this job to bring in money while they pursued their true passions.
I want to know more about the people and families who ordered from this catalog Do some of those items still exist, owned by descendants? Did those who ordered violins and organs get exactly what they ordered? Did those who smoked the pipes listed here find great quality as advertised? Who were they?
This is only a sampling, of course. These reproductions only cover collectibles, or, rather, what are considered collectibles today. There were a host of other categories that Sears, Roebuck & Co. pushed. How did this catalog manage to do so much by sheer force of those behind it? What kept them going besides good old American commerce?
This line of thinking happens with a lot of things. I walk through the aisles of the Walmart Supercenter in this valley and I wonder who created the blueprint of the store, what architect is profiting so well from such ventures, what project they're working on now. I look at the lighting fixtures high up on the ceiling and I wonder who installed those, and what stores they had done in the past, and if they only work locally or travel around the country. It's the only way to make a Walmart seem interesting. I don't feel the presence of those who worked on this Walmart or the Target in Golden Valley or anybody who worked on the casinos that line the Las Vegas Strip. But I do think about them, about who they are, and I wonder where they are now.
I remember one late night at Fiesta Henderson in which I was walking around the casino floor and saw yellow tape surrounding four video slot machines clustered together. There were a few guys there who had put down a smelly tar-like substance, I guess to repair a few small holes in the floor or whatever it was that brought them there. They were sitting around, one guy texting, two talking, probably waiting for the substance to harden. They're the people I always want to know more about. Unless there's major repairs going on somewhere, you don't see people like them often. And you don't really think about them because you've got errands to do. In my mind, I can't help being surrounded by them. I want to know their part in my world, just like I want to know more about those who put together the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogs, and did what should be considered heroic work, because that looks like it was a lot to do, like gathering the universe in pieces and trying to put it together in some way that makes sense.
This book is going into my permanent collection, even without me having read it all. I know I'll be referencing it for years to come. The 1897 Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog is also available from the same publisher, so I think I'll be buying that one soon. I can't wait to wander fully through this history and learn about what people wanted in their homes and their lives.
I only visit the Daedalus Books site to buy the books I want so badly. I never browse there because I'd vacuum out my savings account alarmingly fast (despite the company's always-met promise that you'll save money when you buy books from them), and I need a good portion of that money to buy or lease a car that runs after my family and I move to Henderson. In fact, I'm working again on putting a full stop to buying books, except for those that cannot wait, such as The Garden of Happy Endings by Barbara O'Neal, which is coming out on April 17. O'Neal's The Secret of Everything is what makes me want to go to New Mexico so badly, and I'm a fan of hers forever.
It sounds like it could be a vicious cycle, me, a bibliophile, trying to stop buying books. I have so many in my room I can choose from, and once we reach Henderson, I'll have a library card and my book-buying habit will drop off precipitously. I'm only doing it now because I refuse to be part of the City of Santa Clarita's libraries, after the City Council cut ties with the County of Los Angeles library system, deciding to create their own, and causing the loss of a few million titles that were available through the County of Los Angeles. The Santa Clarita Valley is isolated enough as it is. This action isolated it further.
Getting back to Daedalus Books, I've found less titles to buy right away. This is no fault of the company, but rather my attempt at self-control, determining what books I can wait to read. And then there is one book, a genuine history book, that I needed so badly that, if I lived near their warehouse outlet in Columbia, Maryland, I would have rushed right over there and possibly even bought two copies, despite it being 640 pages, though thankfully in paperback.
This book, Sears, Roebuck & Co.: The Best of 1905-1910 Collectibles, is what the tablecloths at the Po Folks restaurants in Florida and Buena Park had. There were listings from Sears, Roebuck & Co. touting many items that probably were used by Southern people, my people. I looked at these drawings and read the copy of each item with pure fascination. Someone used this glass pitcher. Someone played that piano. Someone treasured that corncob pipe.
When I saw this book in the latest Daedalus Books catalog, I rushed over to the computer, found it on the website, and ordered it, having had an account on the website for almost a year now. I wanted to see what other items Sears, Roebuck & Co. had sold in its catalog. I don't know how Leslie Parr, Andrea Hicks, and Marie Stareck found these pages in good-enough condition to reprint them (I want to find out), but here they are. This is what families pored over, figuring out what they needed and what they wanted. An Edgemere banjo cost $3.80 back then. A Beckwith Imperial Grand Organ, 475 pounds in five octaves, and 550 pounds in six octaves was $46.75. That was a lot of money then.
Pulling this book out of the Daedalus Books box yesterday afternoon, I felt myself getting so close to history for the first time in weeks. There is a great deal of history in the book I'm writing about the making of the Airport movies, but it's a detached history. It's concrete. It happened. I can only get as close to it as my dogged research and interviews with people involved in the making of those movies will allow me, the people especially. I haven't interviewed everyone I've sought yet, and some may refuse for whatever reason. Here, in this Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog, these items were sold, the families who paged through the catalog are long gone, and so are the copywriters and the artists that drew the items. But I still feel them with me. I want to know who they were. Did the copywriter in charge of writing about clocks, perhaps, like his or her work, or was it just to feed their family? Did they aspire to write more than this? Did they want to work at a newspaper or write novels? And were those artists happy enough just to be able to draw, or did they paint on the side as well, or did they look to better also? Perhaps, like me, the copywriters and the artists did this job to bring in money while they pursued their true passions.
I want to know more about the people and families who ordered from this catalog Do some of those items still exist, owned by descendants? Did those who ordered violins and organs get exactly what they ordered? Did those who smoked the pipes listed here find great quality as advertised? Who were they?
This is only a sampling, of course. These reproductions only cover collectibles, or, rather, what are considered collectibles today. There were a host of other categories that Sears, Roebuck & Co. pushed. How did this catalog manage to do so much by sheer force of those behind it? What kept them going besides good old American commerce?
This line of thinking happens with a lot of things. I walk through the aisles of the Walmart Supercenter in this valley and I wonder who created the blueprint of the store, what architect is profiting so well from such ventures, what project they're working on now. I look at the lighting fixtures high up on the ceiling and I wonder who installed those, and what stores they had done in the past, and if they only work locally or travel around the country. It's the only way to make a Walmart seem interesting. I don't feel the presence of those who worked on this Walmart or the Target in Golden Valley or anybody who worked on the casinos that line the Las Vegas Strip. But I do think about them, about who they are, and I wonder where they are now.
I remember one late night at Fiesta Henderson in which I was walking around the casino floor and saw yellow tape surrounding four video slot machines clustered together. There were a few guys there who had put down a smelly tar-like substance, I guess to repair a few small holes in the floor or whatever it was that brought them there. They were sitting around, one guy texting, two talking, probably waiting for the substance to harden. They're the people I always want to know more about. Unless there's major repairs going on somewhere, you don't see people like them often. And you don't really think about them because you've got errands to do. In my mind, I can't help being surrounded by them. I want to know their part in my world, just like I want to know more about those who put together the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogs, and did what should be considered heroic work, because that looks like it was a lot to do, like gathering the universe in pieces and trying to put it together in some way that makes sense.
This book is going into my permanent collection, even without me having read it all. I know I'll be referencing it for years to come. The 1897 Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog is also available from the same publisher, so I think I'll be buying that one soon. I can't wait to wander fully through this history and learn about what people wanted in their homes and their lives.
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