Magic Kingdom opened October 1, 1971. EPCOT Center opened on October 1, 1982. Disney’s Hollywood Studios opened May 1, 1989 and was the third of four theme parks built at Walt Disney World in Orlando FL. Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened on Earth Day, April 22, 1998, and was the fourth–and to this date the last new theme park built at the resort. They have expanded and added on to their existing properties, closing some or adding on to favorites.
Cape Canaveral 1976
My first visit to Disney’s Magic Kingdom came during the summer of 1976 during my month-long bicentennial bus tour of America. DisneyWorld had opened just five years previously and at that time, only one park was completed. I remember the weather in June was hot and wet. The park was fun, affordable and my friends and I enjoyed it for the day before we took a bus to Cape Canaveral and the Space Center there.
Over the next 21 years three more parks opened, the final one, Disney’s Animal Kingdom opening in April of 1998.
My wife and I stayed at one of the resorts for our honeymoon in January of 1998. We only have few pictures from that time, and truthfully my memories are somewhat dim, but I know we had a great time visiting the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood-MGM Studios (as it was named then). I remember there being virtually no crowds in January of that year.
For our 25th anniversary we went back to DisneyWorld. Much has changed since our first visit and, due to their new reservation system, we weren’t able to visit two of the parks. We did enjoy Epcot and the Animal Park.
In 1997-98 DisneyWorld was celebrating their 25th anniversary; it’s a bit of symmetry that our 25th was celebrated while the parks were still decorated for their 50th anniversary, our silver and their golden. This time I took plenty of photos and we brought home an assortment of mementos and commemorative knick-knacks. Added them to the box labeled “wedding stuff” but I guess I need to update the label.
Pandora, the World of Avatar at Animal Kingdom, Orlando.
We’ve visited the parks twice before with family, for my 60th and then my 65th birthday. In 2017 Pandora-the World of Avatar had just opened and we were able to experience an area that looked remarkably like the landscape from the movie Avatar, as if the movie set had been brought to stunning life. When we visited again this year, the wait time to ride either experience (Flight of Passage or Na’vi River Journey) was two hours. We had dinner in the canteen, shopped the offerings in Windtraders store.
I have seen and read so much about the Star Wars-themed area in DW Hollywood Studios (Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge) and the new Galactic Cruiser immersive experience (hotel) I was really excited to see them. However, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios remain their two most popular theme parks and reservations were not available during our stay. Just as well: when I saw the cost of staying in the Galactic Cruiser for two days, I was pretty shocked. It seems like it would be a fun place to bring the grandchildren, very immersive experience. But as I talked it over with my friend Dave later, the family could spend a week at a “fully immersive” Dude Ranch in Colorado for half the cost. Something to think about when planning our next adventure. Galaxy’s Edge, or riding the range in the mountains of the Old West? Got plans for the summer?
Mark asked me why I took so many photos of places, landscapes, trees, buildings: was I planning on being a professional photographer when I got out of the Army? Really. I hadn’t really given it that much thought. “Why do you take so many pictures of people?” I asked him. Thirty plus years later, I think I am beginning to know why.
A Baroque church somewhere in GermanyMontmartre in ParisMatterhorn Zermatt SwitzerlandMittenwald train station
My time as an enlisted soldier stationed in Heidelberg, Germany during the mid-80s was a great time to get out, see the world. Who knew if I would ever be back there again? As circumstances have played out, I haven’t returned. But my brief two years there were filled with work and travel. England, France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein: these were all a bus tour or train ride away for a weekend visit or a four-day vacation.
Fading away. It’s not just the photo prints that are beginning to fade. Mark convinced me to switch from print film to slide film. The slides from that time still look bright and crisp; the prints have begun to fade, the colors blending towards yellow. Scanning and a bit of photo editing has brought back much of their original color, I think, but I’m not sure.
Trier AmphitheaterMarkGasthof in AustriaWho are all these people?
No, it isn’t just the colors that have begun to fade. It seems I never was one to label things or write on the back of photos (thank you Mom for the photos you captioned years ago!) Looking back, younger Me must have thought he would always remember the names of places he went and the people he went with. And certainly he would have remembered those dates! Not so, not so.
Since the advent of the iPhone, I have used its prodigious data collecting capabilities to help me remember where and when my photos were taken. With facial recognition it helps me search for pictures of my granddaughter or other family members, even geocoding where the picture was taken.
Like many people, I upload quite a lot of photos to a third party site “in the Cloud.” I have been using Shutterfly not primarily for photo storage but to print out photo books of our trips and family events. For me they have replaced the ancient slide carousel (remember those?) and the boxes of prints that seemed to never make it into a photo album. The books are piling up on a shelf, and I know the children will likely throw them out when I’m gone, but for now they help to stave off the effects of fading memory. Our trip to Spain is up there on the shelf as is my 60th birthday celebration at DisneyWorld. Well, my 70th birthday is also up there, but who is counting birthdays anymore?!
Old photos fade, memories fade, events recede in time and eventually fade from our recollection.
“The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8
We lived in several houses growing up in Reno. Until my parents divorced we lived near Wooster High School. Later after my Dad remarried, we lived in a small home off Peckham Lane in the Smithridge area.
In the living room of both homes we had a fireplace and over the fireplace hung a painting. George Carter painted many Nevada scenes during his lifetime, some of which may have been inspired by Nevada magazine covers. The view of desert and mountains that we have was purchased from him in 1964 while Mom worked at Brundidge’s in downtown Reno. It now hangs in our guestroom and of all the paintings, photos, and memorabilia—this painting most reminds me of Nevada. The dark layering clouds over snow-covered mountains, mountain peaks catching the light, the scent of sagebrush in the dry air.
In my Dad’s home we had a different painting hanging over the mantle. Painted by my stepmother’s sister, Maxine Randall Peters, it depicts a red barn surrounded by gold-leafed trees in autumn, snuggled up against the foothills of Mount Rose. It’s a readily identifiable location in Washoe Valley. It appears Maxine had painted a lake or pond up close to the building in order to reflect the brilliant yellow trees and that gorgeous red color.
The two paintings capture two very different views of Northern Nevada, one looking possibly towards the Sierra in the West, the other a view of the foothills from Washoe Valley, both areas I was familiar with growing up.
Though I now live in Virginia, my wife and I return often to visit family in Reno. I’ve joined a number of Reno and Nevada-interest Facebook groups, most of which feature photos of the amazing landscapes for which the state is known. Some of the sights are new to me (wild horses seem to be everywhere now, rarely seen when I was growing up there); other photos are of familiar areas such as Pyramid Lake, the Truckee River, or Lake Tahoe.
But I stopped immediately when I came across a familiar image on Facebook last month. Incredible! The red barn from my aunt’s painting, pictured in all the golden glory of fall, in a group of photos by an FB group member. Impossible! Maxine had created her oil painting back in the 60s. The barn was old then, how could it still be standing?! I’ve framed the photo and it now hangs in my Nevada-themed guestroom. It’s a brighter version of the scene Maxine painted years ago; the cottonwood trees dominate the image and nearly obscure the barn at the center of the photo. The barn isn’t red like our painting; perhaps it never was, maybe that was just another embellishment of the artist. I like it.
While I was searching online for more photos by Lee Molof, I came across another painting by George Carter dated sometime during the early 1960s. And then another. A third and now a fourth.
All five images bear striking similarities: the pyramid-shaped mountain in the middle ground, mountains to the left of the image, sagebrush in the lower right foreground. All of them are overshadowed by immense cumulonimbus clouds. Of the four, I prefer the overall coloring in ours: the coral-tinged mountains are a little closer to the viewer; the arroyo or dirt road in the center has a slate grey that mimics the snow covered mountains in the distance. Orange flowers dot the foreground and place the image as perhaps early spring, snow hasn’t yet receded from the mountain peaks.
I’m curious to find the original location that Carter used as reference material. If it is indeed from a Nevada magazine I would like to get a copy of it, perhaps a nicely framed photo to go with our painting. If civilization and the expansion of Northern Nevada suburbs haven’t destroyed the view, I think it would be great to pair the photo and the painting in the same room. It’s a bit of Double Vision, a nod to the past as well as the present. I like it.
Just to be clear, I don’t own the four paintings in the collage above. All of them were found on online art auction sites. In most cases, Carter oil paintings sell in the mid $500-800 range. Mom says she paid $30 for ours and bought it directly from George Carter when he would come in to Brundidge’s for art supplies or to have paintings framed.
I was in 10th grade when I first started to make hand-lettered signs. Professionally that is; before that I had been your go-to guy for all types of posters and blackboard art in school. But it was in high school that my career, as it was at the time, really took off.
My journalism teacher at that time and her husband helped out at the local Little League baseball field. He may have been a coach though I don’t really recall much other than boxes of sporting equipment in their garage and station wagon. My job however, was hand lettering the many advertising signs that were mounted to the fence surrounding the playing field. 4ft x 8ft plywood signs, mostly painted white, hand lettered with your business name, perhaps a logo, and a phone number and an address. Occasionally we would put two businesses on one board and the text got a bit smaller, but overall it wasn’t a difficult job making four inch letters look legible from the outfield.
Signpainter
That skill helped me quite a bit when I took a job after college in San Diego. Working at Robert Keith Giant Inflatables, I was part of a team of artists who hand painted logos on twenty foot tall vinyl beer bottles and cans. (I wrote about that previously here.)
However most of my graphics career was spent in the screenprinting industry. The billboard posters I printed had a handshake relationship with old-school lettering in that the projected image of text was drawn by hand and then a stencil was cut by hand using an exacto blade. Those paper stencils were used to produce hundreds of identical prints, whether they were yard signs for elections or 30 ft billboards for casinos in my hometown of Reno. The screenprint produced a much cleaner, sharper image of text than my admittedly shaky brushwork ever could.
All of which brings me to our recent visit to Tennessee and the opportunity to enjoy two vastly different exhibit experiences which showcased basically the same material.
The Museum of Appalachia twenty miles north of Knoxville in Norris, TN is a wonderful collection of relocated early American frontier buildings, from one-room log cabins to sheds and barns filled with memorabilia. Several larger new structures are jam-packed with an overwhelming assortment of photographs, personal items, home goods and cottage industry crafts, guitars, banjos, dulcimers and small exhibits devoted to favorite sons such as SGT Alvin C. York (WW1).
Much of the collection appears to be pre-industrial revolution items or shortly thereafter. But what captured my attention wasn’t the time period or the quality of craftsmanship displayed: it was the sheer quantity of materials they had on display! And nearly everything came with a simple hand-lettered caption label. So much stuff! All labeled! Beautiful, shaky, fading-to-grey black ink on sepia colored cardboard labels. Admittedly they were hard to read, but they looked like letters or postcards from a forgotten era.
The next day we toured the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center in Townsend TN. A beautiful structure with engaging exhibits, the Center appears to be well funded. The exhibit casework is new and reflects our current design trend of color-coordinated thematic divisions. Essentially a book-on-the-wall exhibit experience, it is clean minimalist design. All the body text and object labels are printed (likely off a digital printer, those having superceded screenprinting technology) and there is a curated sense of purposeful arrangement to the items on display. The overall sense here is one of Story, what do these objects tell us about the past and the people who lived here.
The two locations are only 50 miles apart. They couldn’t be farther apart in their differing approaches to presenting and helping us to understand the past and how we are related to it. For all the years I spent in the museum exhibit design and production industry, I have a built in bias towards the clean uncluttered presentation style of the Great Smokies Visitor Center.
But I have to say, those hand-lettered display signs and labels on all that stuff at the Museum of Appalachia really have me reminiscing. And who doesn’t like the thrill of discovering something tucked away, much like going through an old trunk or your Grandmother’s photo album, only to find pictures of…you?
Virginia’s 57,867-mile state-maintained roads system is divided into these categories: Interstate – 1,118 miles of four-to-ten lane highways that connect states and major cities. Primary – 8,111 miles of two-to-six-lane roads that connect cities and towns with each other and with interstates. Secondary – 48,305 miles of local connector or county roads. Frontage – 333 miles of frontage roads. (VDOT)
And Google maps (Apple maps) has most of them readily accessible on your car’s navigation system or smart phone.
But there are just times when only an old fashioned printed map will suffice. Or save you from wandering endless backroads thru hills and hollows without internet reception.
A weekend drive to a recommended winery gave us an afternoon of exploring some of the most pastoral landscape I’ve yet seen here in Virginia. Climbing hills, green pastures outlined with white-painted fences, cattle at rest in the shade of oak trees or standing belly deep in a pond, a tiny church across from a well-tended cemetery—the type of scenery you might only come across in a Charles Wysocki 1,000 piece puzzle.
But on the way back, looking for another winery we knew to be located nearby, the road we had previously traveled seemed a little unfamiliar. Had we turned left at that intersection? Have we already gone past the farm with the two llamas out front? Did we go across this narrow bridge, I don’t remember following a stream (ooh that looks great for fly fishing!).
All the while the late afternoon sun is hidden behind a grey overcast sky and the road has continued to narrow. When the pavement turned to hard packed gravel, I knew it was time to turn around. “We’re not lost,” I thought, “just exploring the backroads of Virginia!”
I grew up with a map in my lap, calling out turns, intersections, bridges and land features as my Dad or Mom drove the family car on our family vacations. Long before an interest in aerial photography and the layed-out landscape would lead me to Army cartographic school, I was fascinated with the relationship between the constructed landscape and the natural. The patchwork of farmlands we drove thru as a youngster resolved into magnificent tapestries of colors and shapes bounded by roads or water features when I finally saw them for the first time from an airplane window. Those patterns and colors eventually found their way into my pencil drawings and water colors years later in college art courses.
Learning to drive, or rather, to navigate with the digital map on my iphone has been challenging. In the Boy Scouts and later in the Army, we were taught to orient the map to Magnetic North, then find your location and proceed. I find it confusing then to be following the moving locator on the screen’s map, it heading towards the bottom of the screen, when I am driving forward (up on the screen?). When my wife calls out a turn to the left or right, I’m tempted to ask if the map (digital screen) is oriented properly. My left? Your left? The iPhone’s left? I’m confused!
With a full tank of gas I’m not as concerned as I used to be with directions-eventually we’ll get there. Though in the case of the winery, well, we are saving that for another day. But I am concerned about my friends who drive EVs.
I talked on the phone to my brother the other day about his Tesla. Don’t you get Range Anxiety, I asked him? After a long discussion about batteries, the dual motor capabilities, the growing number of charging stations, and the rundown on their last bi-state road trip, he replied: No. His vehicle gets about 326 miles when charged up (nearly the same mileage as my Nissan Frontier, truthfully). Surely that’s sufficient to glide along any of the backroads of Virginia without worrying about a fill up, I thought. But still, aren’t you concerned about your onboard map/guidance system? What if the satellite coverage drops out? What if line-of-sight is obscured by mountain driving? What if, what if? From their website, I take some reassurance: As updated maps become available, they are automatically sent to Model S over Wi-Fi. To ensure you receive them, periodically connect Model S to a Wi-Fi network. OK.
Thinking about our transitioning to the new, all digital age: does anyone remember getting letters in the mail? Finding a collection of old letters carefully ribboned together and saved in shoeboxes, perhaps for generations? They were our maps and guide to the past, connecting us to people and places a text or an email never can. I’m looking at you, Major Sullivan Ballou (https://www.nps.gov/articles/-my-very-dear-wife-the-last-letter-of-major-sullivan-ballou.htm)
I wonder what we will leave behind in the way of ephemera, love letters, birthday cards, train stubs and such. Or will our future be one of the now, driving along our digital highways and not looking back. Never lost, always here.
If you are a map or data junky, Virginia Roads website has an amazing set of tools designed to create apps, or maps which incorporate their data. Again from their website: Build exciting new apps with no code. Story Maps are a great way to share your message interactively. Quickly combine your maps, analysis and data int a purposeful app – with no code!
That’s pretty exciting for me to see, the cartographic world was just beginning the transition to digital environment when I left the Army in 1986.
The holidays bring no end of opportunities for musical and dramatic presentations. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol seems to never run out of venues, whether performed at community theaters or touring companies. So it is also with The Nutcracker, or holiday sing-alongs to Hansel’s Messiah.
If, like many families, you have your collection of DVDs, then by now you may have already watched White Christmas or A Christmas Story. Or you may be more partial to new favorites such as Elf; How the Grinch Stole Christmas; or Home Alone. The Hallmark Channel serves up an endless supply of 25 Days of Christmas movies to get us all into the spirit!
It’s a Wonderful Life premiered in December 1946. It was not a commercial success by today’s standards (initial box office release places it near $3.5 million) and doesn’t fall anywhere near the top 50 highest-grossing Christmas films. (Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch (2018), at $512 Million takes first place, followed by 1990’s Home Alone $496 million. https://screenrant.com/christmas-movies-highest-grossing-box-office-mojo/
Yet it has taken its place on many Christmas movie lists as one of the most-loved holiday movies. Due to an oversight by the copyright holder Republic Pictures, It’s A Wonderful Life came into the public domain in 1974 and was shown repeatedly on television for many years. For many of us “boomers” WhiteChristmas and It’s a Wonderful Life are the definitive holiday movies.
It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (full-length version) It’s a Wonderful Life is based on the story, The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern and was adapted by Joe Landry in 1996. This past week we saw a wonderful performance of this charming holiday favorite by the Four County Players in Barboursville VA. The building is a beautiful historic school building from the 1930s filled with character. The stage of the auditorium of the Barboursville Community Center (formerly Barboursville High School) was transformed into the Manhattan radio station WBFR and side wings served as a “green room” during the play’s intermission.
The Players have been putting on a wide range of shows for over 40 years now. Looking through their website, musicals, comedy, and dramas abound and titles such as God of Carnage, The Laramie Project, and Chicago emphasize the wide variety and challenging pieces they have taken on.
It’s A Wonderful Life performed as a live radio play adds an extra depth to a story that has become very familiar over the years. The idea of watching actors, who are themselves portraying actors, who are telling a story set in the postwar 1940s makes this show both familiar and fresh. It’s as if we were being treated to a contemporary podcast, yet here the actions and expressions of the people on stage carry even more emotional weight than would a sound-only podcast.
Frank Kapra directed the movie, based on the 1943 short story The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern, at the end of WWII. James Stewart had just gotten out of the Army Air Corps and the themes of faith and family, along with deep emotional trauma, surely resonated in his performance. It is a strange coincidence that this play takes the stage again 75 years after the movie’s premier, also at a time when the US has returned home from war.
Yet just as moving was the poigancy that Ken Wayne brought to his portrayal of the drama’s character Jake Laurents, voicing the play’s character of George Bailey. John Holdren’s portrayal of the radio show host was very impressive, switching from host to numerous characters seemingly at ease. Using only their stage scripts as props, or perhaps fussing with the fit of a garment, the cast brought multiple characters to life on stage. Very impressed by Sara Conklin and Katie Hutchins! A great delight was the onstage presence of two Foley artists producing an array of sound effects–from the sound of shoes crossing the floor; broken glass; wind effects; doors being slammed; to the swoooooshing sound of deep waters rushing under the bridge our main character finds himself standing upon.
I had expected the drama to be a bit more “staged,” the actors perhaps just sitting around their microphones in a sound booth. Director and scenic designer Kerry Moran has laid out a beautiful set with the actors front and center. The actors were on their feet at the microphones most of the time, true, but the camaraderie and playful banter exhibited by their onstage characters brought a great deal of additional life to the drama. The action moves along at a quite lively pace. Our director knows there is an audience watching these performances: subtle yet at times dramatic lighting effects coupled with musical backgrounds fill in what could have been a staid production. And those costumes! Welcome to the 1940s.
This was our first time attending a Four County Players’ performance; what a great introduction to theater in Central Virginia and a start to the holiday season.
Actors take their places on stage. Green Room during a break. Intermission, the actors remain in character while I meet new friends.Stage set with an impressive array of sound effects equipment.George Bailey returns a changed man. “Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings. Love, Clarence.”
Book illustration by Scott McKowen from The Greatest Gift, published 1996 by Viking Penguin
We have found one of our favorite past-times during traveling is to stop in at antique and vintage shops and browse around. We seldom buy anything, and very often I’ll hear others comment, “Who would buy that?” Or more likely, “who would pay THAT MUCH?!” for a certain item. My wife will always give me a look, or a shush! but I’m sure it’s a common observation over what often seems to be random pricing in the second-hand retail market.
This fall we finally stopped in at a shop we have literally driven past for years. Finders Keepers is located on Main Street in Orange, Virginia and we see it nearly every time we head down to one of our favorite vineyards in Barboursville. Their website indicates they have been in business for over twenty-five years so I am surprised to see how long it took us to stop in. Needless to say, it was worth the visit.
While we browsed their extensive assortment of items, everything from furniture to lamps, prints and paintings, and home decor, I struck up a conversation with owner Bradley Toombs. We talked about how Covid has rapidly changed the face of retail, especially small businesses. During our conversation he mentioned that they also run an estate sale business and gave us his card to check it out later. Acorn Estate Liquidators offers online and in-person estate sales providing their clients with options to liquidate their personal possessions. It turns out, as many people are contemplating downsizing or moving away from the area, one of their greatest concerns is what to do with all of our stuff.
More out of curiosity than a need for anything, I checked out one of their online auctions.
WHAT A SURPRISE!
Here’s a brief list of some of the things that were available to bid on:
Antique furniture and lighting
Clocks, collectibles, paintings and prints
China and crystal, silver, pottery
Linens, quilts, and rugs
There were hundreds of items to bid on, most of which listed had an initial bid of $2. In some cases they increased by as little as $1 per bid. I’m struck by how little some of these items eventually sold for. There was a vintage Leica camera complete with additional lenses and a gorgeous leather camera bag that topped the bidding at $3,500. But that seemed to be the exception. Most of the lots closed at prices under $50.
So I jumped right in and started bidding! I lost the auction on most of listings I bid on, in some cases by as little as that $2 increment. But a couple of things that I bid on, I won.
While I’m quite pleased with having won the bidding on this sofa for $10, I think I might have gotten carried away bidding on this vintage children’s wagon. It looks great in the garden, I plan on filling it with potted plants in the spring, but the $27 that I paid for it was probably a little high. I am surprised at how many winning bids came in under $10. I suppose with an opening bid of only $2, it can take some time to reach a respectable bid offer. Yet there are always a few items that fetch commanding prices such as estate jewelry, fine art, or some of the antique furniture. Right now I have my eye on a beautiful wingback chair in great condition ($10) and an antique Victorian walnut marble-top washstand (my bid so far: $5).
But much of what’s offered looks like will bring in far less to the family than perhaps what they were anticipating. And that’s what really has me intrigued. When I look around our own living room, for instance, and contemplate what we paid for things like sofas, side tables and lamps, and all the decorative pieces that fill our rooms, and start adding up what I think they will get at auction, I begin to get a sense of real value versus cost.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-20
Sometime back I became interested in learning a little more about our family’s heritage. Not quite a deep-dive into research genealogy but something more akin to a survey of the places we had lived, the homes and schools we attended. Along the way, the faded photographs my Mother had saved of her childhood prompted me to try and find her homes and schools.
Mom was born in Colorado and before moving to Southern California (where my own family’s story begins) she and her growing family lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado. When they moved, my Grandfather’s Aunt Belle wrote in her journal at the time “Quite an undertaking with the car, trailer, six children, goat with two kids, canary bird, and cat and dog.”
The photo of children sitting with my Grandfather Orlo Willis in front of a small home launched my search for the house and school they had attended in the 1930s. Were those buildings still standing? Or had they been demolished only to be replaced by larger and more modern structures?
My Grandfather Orlo Willis with Mom and siblings, 1930
Not to my surprise, Mom remembered the street address of their home and the elementary school they had walked to. The 1930 census, available online, confirmed their street address. A quick search on Google maps revealed that the home is still standing, while further searching on Zillow showed pictures of a “charming Victorian home” built in 1892.
An online search for photos of the original school building came up empty but I did come across a fascinating website, http://coloradopreservation.org
Writing about their mission, the organization began as “43 citizens interested in preserving (their) state’s built heritage started this organization to encourage preservation efforts statewide.” An email requesting information on the elementary school was answered cordially but proved fruitless. However that lead me to finding a small publication, surprisingly available through Amazon, entitled “A History of the Colorado Springs School District 11”, by Harriet Seibel, published in 1975, with quite a bit of information regarding the school I was hunting.
The two story brick building was originally constructed in 1898 with additions coming in later years. It was torn down and replaced with a single-story building 74 years later in 1972. No doubt infrastructure problems (heating and cooling, electrical wiring) contributed to the decision to replace rather than renovate. However, knowing that the school had been rebuilt, Google supplied the address and contact information of the school’s Principal, who forwarded my request for information on to the school’s Library Technology Director. He was kind enough to send me several photos of the old Columbia School as well as photos as it exists today.
But what has happened with those schools built in the early years of Reno where I grew up? This summer on a visit home with family, I drove by all four of the schools I had attended. And surprisingly they are all still in use! All of them were built around the same time, from Greenbrae Elementary in 1955 to Wooster High School in 1962. They all share similar characteristics of mid century modern design: single-story concrete block construction, small windows, flat roofs with protective overhang. Most are devoid of any ornamentation and look like they were designed to last for generations.
Washoe County School District published “A History of Schools from Past to Present,” with detailed information and a photograph of nearly all the schools built in the area, from 1955 until 2012. Several schools have since been opened, but the comprehensive list builds on an earlier list compiled by Rose Bullis of schools built from 1857-1912.
Reno has several school buildings of great historical and architectural interest that are still standing. One of the oldest schools built, Mary Lee Nichols Elementary School in Sparks, was built in 1917 and is still in use today as a commercial building. Robert Mitchell Elementary School in Sparks NV was rebuilt in 1937 as a single story brick building. The art modern building, still in use today, is a far cry from the original two story structure that had been built in 1906. The original multi-story building bears a striking resemblance to my mother’s elementary school: both share the same style of imposing brick edifice that was later replaced by one story buildings. (photos from 4th Street Prater Way Project)
Cars park outside the Sparks Grammar and High School, which featured large entrance staircases on either side of the front façade, opened in 1906.
The new Robert H. Mitchell Elementary School, dedicated in 1939
Writing about the superiority of the smaller building style, “State Superintendent of Public Instruction reported to the Nevada Legislature in 1915 that mission architecture was chosen as it “is especially adapted to one-story buildings,” and he added “there is nothing better for school purposes than one-story buildings. The one-story plan eliminates the stair climbing so destructive to the nervous strength of pupils and teachers, and also renders danger from fire impossible.” (from Renohistorical.org) Reno built four of the Spanish Mission-style schools between 1910-12, two of which remain standing, one used as a school today (Mount Rose School)
Have you had any success in tracking down your family’s schools? I would guess that few remain from the early part of the 20th century unless they had a committed group of individuals determined to keep the buildings open, either as schools or repurposed as office space or commercial sites. In the case of the Nichols School, the fact that it was designed by Nevada’s premier architect Frederic DeLongchamps went a long way in securing its future. A 2002 Registration Form was filed with the Unites States Depart of the Interior, National Park Service, to place the Mary Lee Nichols School in Sparks on the National Register of Historic Places reads in part “Mary Lee Nichols School is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under criterion A for its role in the educational history of Sparks, Nevada, and criterion C as an excellent example of a modest educational building designed by Nevada’s pre-eminent architect Frederic DeLongchamps in the Mission architectural style.”
Any number of the schools recently opened look like they will stand the test of time, but as we all know…only time will tell.
Mary Lee Nichols Elementary School was built in 1917 and though smaller, it shared the more modest mission-style of Reno’s Four Sisters. (photo credit)
It’s been reported that the human eye can detect anywhere between 1 million and 10 million colors. Today’s LCD computer monitors can render 16 million colors. On the rainbow spectrum (ROYGBIV), green sits in the center of that array.
Many studies, scientific or casual observation, pretty much confirm what many of us know, or at least suspect. Among men, their favorite color is blue, followed by green. And among women, their reported favorite color is blue followed by purple. https://www.livescience.com/34105-favorite-colors.html
Color Chart with men and women’s preferences
Color wheel credit: A sample of 1,974 men and women were asked whether they preferred purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, or pink. (Image credit: Phillip Cohen Family Inequality)
All of this interest arises from a tour we had taken this summer at Henry F. duPont’s magnificent home and now museum, Winterthur, in Delaware. Apart from the extravagantly decorated rooms, it wasn’t hard to notice that duPont had a fascination for color and the color green specifically. According to the current exhibit “Outside In, Nature-Inspired Design at Winterthur;” duPont identified 48 shades of green in the garden. As to how many translated to inside the museum nobody knows, but as in his gardens, the many shades of green used indoors were intended as backdrops for color, whether from the flowers displayed in each room, or the assembled decorative pieces: furniture, carpets, paintings, ceramics and porcelain, a profusion of small and large knickknacks. The overall effect is quite overwhelming to the modern eye, yet harmonious and often inspirational.
Outside In: Nature-inspired Design at Winterthur
So it strikes me as a bit of a disconnect when we consider how we modernists have such a timid relationship with color. Gray: the most popular indoor paint color today is gray. “Agreeable Gray, by Sherwin Williams, is our most popular gray paint color because it’s the perfect hue for any living space, whether it be a family room or bedroom,” says Sue Wadden, director of color marketing at Sherwin-Williams. (Jun 30, 2020)
What happened to blue? Or green? A quick web search revealed nearly 497 million entries for the terms “psychology of color”. While we often think of the color red, for instance, as being associated with passion; the color blue with tranquility, peace, and often sadness; the colors yellow and orange with confidence, optimism, and happiness, I wasn’t surprised to see that green is often thought of as the color of growth (of course!) renewal and awakening. But Gray? Well, gray is described as secure and reliable or conversely, as sad, depressing, or unsettling. (Thealignedlife.com). I want color! More color! I want True Colors.
But I see your true colors Shining through I see your true colors And that’s why I love you So don’t be afraid to let them show Your true colors True colors are beautiful Like a rainbow
Cyndi Lauper, True Colors 1986
We have strong feelings about certain colors so it isn’t surprising to find many songs named after colors, or with a color in their title. Below is my effort at a color-coded playlist in order on the spectrum. Do you have a favorite color or perhaps a song associated with a color? Comment below!
A few years ago, on a visit to see my mother out in Oregon, we spent some time with her going through boxes of photos. I wasn’t quite sure what we would find, or even what to expect amidst that pile of envelopes, sleeves of brittle negatives, and assorted black and white memories. She’d had them stored away for years, pictures taken during her and my Dad’s honeymoon; photos from our brief time spent on the ranch in Smith Valley, Nevada; our first house in Sparks, Nevada, three boys playing in the yard. There were photos of a parade my brother and I marched in; for some reason we are wearing Hawaiian outfits, paper leis over our tshirts and cut-off jeans. I like to think of this one as the Sparks, Nevada answer to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Parade! *update 08/31/2021 Jack’s Carnival History page for more info on this event.
Ron marching in children’s parade, 1961
Sparks NV
There were a number of photos even older than these. Pictures of a blended family taken during the early 1930s, my Mother posing with three of her siblings in front of their home in Colorado before their move to Southern California. The girls are wearing light-colored dresses, bunched-up socks over black leather shoes, my Uncle Robert sits quietly with his hands folded in his lap. Mom wears a large, quite large, bow in her hair as she appears to study her nails. My Grandmother doesn’t appear in any of these. I have to imagine she was the photographer in the family as my Mom would later be in ours.
Four of seven children sitting on rock wallThree boys at the piano, 1958
My brothers and I were not immune to posing for family photos. This might have been Easter, I can’t think of any other reason three youngsters would be dressed in their finest jackets sporting bow ties. Though the photo is dated August 1958, my Dad was known for taking his time dropping off film to be developed and printed. Quite a few of the photos have handwritten details on the back of them, dates or locations written to help identify them years later I suspect. It’s a habit I never acquired and wished I had. Today I rely on filing digital images in online folders with the date taken, trusting that the meta data stored with each photo will still be available years from now.
I had hoped to piece together more of our family’s history as we browsed through Mom’s collection. Not surprisingly, Mom remembered many details. The photos of my Dad and her posing with their 1936 Dodge Coupe at the Chandelier Tree in Leggett, California I found particularly interesting. The tree is still standing and many years back, my wife and son and I drove through it, stopping in the middle of the tree to take the same shot. Had I known of these photos at the time, I would surely have tried to recreate the look, Dad leaning casually back against the trunk of the tree, one leg resting on the car’s fender.
Hoover Dam, Nevada
The view of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco CA in 1948
Chandelier Tree with my Dad , 1948
Underwood Park (Leggett, California)
Chandelier Tree with my Mom, 1948
Underwood Park (Leggett, California)
It seems we have inadvertently taken many of the same photos as did my folks back in the late 1940s and early 1950s. California and Nevada have many natural and man-made sites that lend themselves to photo memorialization and there are several my family has visited. Hoover Dam (known to many when I was growing up in Nevada as Boulder Dam) is surely the most famous of the Nevada landmarks, and one that my folks had visited in 1949. It was many years later that friends and I visited the same place, taking nearly the same photo. Even our recent trip to San Francisco calls back to a snapshot my Mom made thru the windshield of their car while crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.
I had seen a trend on Facebook for a time that really caught my attention. Individuals would hold up an old photo—perhaps a faded Polaroid or a black and white print—of a location from some time in the past, superimposed over the same location now in the present. The passage of time caught between the two realities, separated by decades in some cases, has fascinated me. The photos seemingly bookend moments in a person’s life and invite comparisons and contrasts that we don’t normally expect to see.
One thing has become abundantly clear dash I have been browsing through these past moments captured on film. What to do with or how to organize what we have? And where are the “missing” photos? We have boxes of photos, some in black and white, most in color. We have several binders of Kodachrome slides in plastic sleeves (no dates or other identification); we have a number of photo CDs but they seem to be clustered around just a few years time; and increasingly, we have digital images scattered everywhere.
Kodak photo CD 2003
Shutterfly sends me an update periodically. This week it was: “Remember these memories from 13 years ago? Hi Ron, we thought you’d like to press rewind and relive these times.” And it seems my Apple photo account likes to do the same thing with the images I have stored on (in ?) the cloud.
I’ve got images stored on my computer (currently a Mac Mini) that have been transferred from the last four computers I’ve owned. I’ve got images stored on a number of external hard drives, some of which no longer work. And I have a lot of images on “read/write” CDs that I burned off back in the early 2000s when I switched over to a digital camera. Some of those CDs are no longer readable for whatever reason. Who knows what they contain. My plan to scan and digitize our remaining “hard copy” photos has been dealt a minor setback by the very medium itself. Once the photos are digitized, do I throw away the originals? Or pack them away somewhere, safe and secure for my kids to find one day?
Have we really found it easier to switch formats, saving our family photos on CDs, hard drives, or parked somewhere online? Do we view them any more often, or are they tucked away and forgotten like the boxes of photo albums I have downstairs?
Mom sorting through a pile of black and white photos
I haven’t found an easy answer for any of this, though early on I did decide to save all the images I transferred from my digital cameras with a unique ID based on the transfer date, for instance 20210825-001. But oh my, the images do start to accumulate! As I start to digitize many of our old photos, the process has begun to restore a sense of order to the beast, though most are still in photo boxes tucked away in plastic storage bins.
More recently I’ve begun to have photo books printed (Shutterfly.com) of our vacations and special memories. Our recent vacation to Nevada became a book as did my Mom’s 90th birthday celebration. Hopefully they will serve as a convenient way to browse old memories and a place to collect, store, and maybe one day pass on the photos we are taking now. They are certainly more attractive than a stack of hard drives sitting in the bookshelves!
High Grade Kodak finishing, available through Hilbig’s Pharmacy in San Bernardino, CA 1948
A Google search for “how to organize home photos” yielded about 369,000,000 results. Below are a few you might find useful in taking on your own projects. Good luck with that closet full of boxes!
My Retired Life 