Riverton Nebraska Now and Then...

My McSorley's Story

The plague of 2020 is raging and we are all doing our part by cowering behind locked doors, avoiding social contact and watching our backs and step to elude an invisible enemy that has been haunting our dreams and fueling a paranoia that relegates almost every unmasked stranger you pass in the streets as a potential vector of pestilence to be avoided.   It has been a strange and disorienting time best treated with alcohol and withdrawal into the safe space of introspection and reminiscence,  time to look toward the past for comfort.  Been missing NYC like crazy and thinking about my times there.  This story about an afternoon at McSorley's a long time ago has drifted into my thoughts lately.

Anyone who has spent any time drinking at McSorley's probably has a story.  This is mine.

Had my first beers here in 1967  with my college friend Billy Eisman (Green man) toward the end of the pre-historic era when McSorley's was still a men's only bar and most of those men were either lonely old guys with no place to go spending fading afternoons nursing beers till it was dinnertime, local craftsmen and small industry workers stopping in for a quick one after work, and college students from NYU or Cooper Union sharing deep thoughts or bawdy tales late into the evening in the dimly lit, creaky cobwebbed mustiness of what was then one of countless beer joints in NYC at a time when working people still lived, worked, and drank in the city.  It was still a time when bars like McSorley's did not serve women and for the most part they had no interest in such places.

Until 1970 or so, when the women's liberation went to court and it was adjudicated that it was their constitutional right to invade the sanctity of a wide variety of men's only establishments and so it was that for the first time in 120 years or so, women could belly up to the bar and a glass of McSorley's pale or dark beer, the only 2 choices available you could get there.  I have the feeling that most of them didn't even care that much for beer, but that wasn't the point.  At the time the world there was turned on its head, and there was still only one bathroom, basically a long galvanized trough about 6 feet long to piss in, and one toilet that you hoped you wouldn't need the use, because if you saw it you'd know why.  That would have to change, but the management was in no rush.

In the summer of 1970, me and my friend Eugene were in the city to an Eisenstein double feature at the Janus theater, Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky.  Loved the power and groundbreaking cinematography of Potemkin, had trouble sitting through Nevsky which came second and felt a little or maybe a lot too long and slow.  Eugene was not a city guy but we needed a place to go and talk and McSorley's was close by so in we went and had some beers.  By this time women were allowed in and although I didn't really notice, at the table next to us in the corner of the front room were 2 kind of intellectual looking guys and a nice looking blond haired woman.  Somewhere around the time Eugene and I were finishing our 3rd or 4th beers, a group of 4 or 5 guys who looked like high school football players from New Jersey, which was no place you wanted to be from back then, came in and sat at the table next to us, which placed me and Eugene directly at the middle table of these two diverse sets of human beings.  For a while all was well.  The Peter Paul and Mary group were engaged in conversation and the football players were swilling beer and starting to get loud.  Soon they were becoming quite verbally abusive toward the blond haired woman who they thought had no right to be at McSorley's and were about as crude as you might imagine in their comments toward and about her which became hard to ignore, so having had enough, the blond stood up told them to go fuck themselves, and heaved her mug at their table, bathing us in beer and hitting one of the football players in the head.

As a well practiced front line, the players came howling over our table like marines storming a hill, knocking our beers all over us and were on top of the threesome in a flash, inflicting minor damage on the group before things were broken up and they were all thrown out.  Eugene and I were happy to have come through this unscathed and to have our beers replaced and to have lived through a bit of NYC history when women earned their hard fought right to have a beer or three at McSorley's.  A few years ago, Jackie and I were down town and although she doesn't care for beer, wanted to see the place, so we went.  It was quite crowded with a young crowd of NYC up and comers who were there because it has become a place to be.  We found a spot at the end of a long communal table of youngsters and talked.  Somehow it came up in conversation that I mentioned that there was a time long ago that women were not allowed in McSorley's, only old lonely solitary men nursing beers killing time and local workmen knocking back a few for the road,  It really was quiet back then and a little depressing.   They had no idea, and told me I was a real historian.  I said no, I'm just old.

This last photo is of me in the late 80's when you could still have a smoke wherever you wanted.  After a long day of cycling through the city taking pictures I met up with Brian Malloy at the end of the day at McSorley's.  In this photo, I happen to be sitting at the very table in the corner of the front room where the intellectual threesome was sitting on that fateful day so long ago.  That shifty looking guy to my left was some Russian who was talking to me and asking a lot of questions that made me feel interrogated, like he was looking for some sort of  nefarious info, I have no idea what, but felt relieved when he got up and left.  We left soon after for the long drive back to Albany.

Pablo

Las Vegas to Santa Catalina Island (at last!!!) in 2 weeks...

Just about all of our trips to the southwest begin with a flight and 2 or 3 day layover in Las Vegas,  because it is centrally located to just about any SW destination we plan for.  And since it is in the middle of the desert, the car ride where ever we go is always an interesting adventure.  Also the run down streets of old Fremont Street area of Vegas have always been a cornucopia of seedy motels and sketchy, down and out people high and hiding from the sun and selling themselves to the lowest bidder.   The edgy tension was unmistakable, the desperation palpable.  But recently the millennials has been moving east to where it all started and the area is coming back into fashion with a vengeance.   Things have changed and disappeared, and they have solved the problem of the unclean, unsavory and unwanted segment of society who lived there and sold their wares on East Fremont in the usual way, urban renewal with bull dozers, fences, and just tearing things down, thereby rousting the unwanted the remnants of the past left to dry in the sun and die.  Since we were there 3 or 4 years ago it has been going fast.  But the stars were in alignment for one last go at it before it was gone.  It was a rainy morning, overcast in the afternoon, but with persistence and breaks in the clouds I found this treasure at the end of the rainbow on lower Las Vegas Blvd, and the next one is probably the last picture I will take on East Fremont Steet since it no longer exists in its former state...See posting East Fremont Street, Disposable Architecture Disposable People...7/2/15 on this blog for my last and most productive outing...

Many of the original motels are gone, empty lots, and those they haven't torn down have been repurposed into auto repair shops (for now) or flea markets and the only thing you will score on Fremont are some new tires, a catalytic converter, or a pockmarked 275 lb girl literally falling out of what barely passed for clothing.  Most of the landmarks of the 7/2/15 posting are gone...

Weather has been an issue for much of the USA this November and has been for much of our trip.  We have spent a good deal of time dodging storms, heavily overcast skies, and flood warnings, so photo ops were few and far between, but you work with what you have and be thankful for a few good shots...The clouds broke now and then in the Mojave Desert, while we were traveling to Long Beach, long enough for a few good shots and to snap this one...I don't always do that well with landscapes, but this is a good one...

   

They say it is the journey, not the destination that is the thing, and we usually agree with that, and there is lots more to say about our 2 1/2 weeks out, but since Catalina Island was the thing this time around, it's time to just get there and save the rest for another time.

Jackie and I are island people.  When we travel, we gravitate to islands.  Any place that requires a ferry to get to is our kind of place.  We have a niece who teaches on an island and and she is probably sick of hearing me tell her that any job that you need to take a ferry to get to is a great job.  Growing up at a boatyard on an island, knee deep in the mud feeling for clams, brings visceral attachment to the water that comes with the place, although like a fish in water, it was easy to lose sight of our enchanted place in the world, especially when you're stuck in a traffic jam on the Long Island Expressway.  So you might think it was a big deal to spend a few days on Catalina Island, and it was.  The main and only town on this primarily undeveloped dot in the ocean is a place called Avalon, a mythical name that perfectly embodies the magical gaggle of shacks, bungalows, and mansions that rise from the mists of the sea and then flow back side by side down to the water in this man made act of imagination 26 miles across the sea from LA on Santa Catalina Island - a place we have dreamed about visiting...and after all this time, we are here, living the dream!!!

If there was one photo of one place I took that embodies the magical state of mind that is the product of imagination called Avalon, this is it, half way up the hill on Catalina Street.

The gatehouse to an unseen palace that is now a spa.

The Descanso Beach Club at the edge of town butting up against the wild life preserve which covers close to 90% of the island.  We were there off season so the cabanas were empty and there were only a few of us at the club to enjoy the November sun in the seaside cafe nestled in a sheltered cove overlooking the sea.  Jackie had a hamburger, I had a mild buzz from a couple of pretty great Bloody Marys and shared Jackie's fries.  Lifestyles of the rich and famous for the cost of a burger.

The 1920's yacht club and Casino also at the edge of town.  The casino was never a gambling place but was meant for entertainment with a gleaming Art Deco Ballroom, movie theater, and other venues to keep the islanders amused with some of the biggest names in Hollywood performing and vacationing there.  It is still in operation and in pristine shape, or so Jackie tells me since she took the tour while I was out trying to get a few good pictures.

We stayed at the Atwater Hotel originally built in 1920 by William Wrigley who bought the island in 1919 and need a luxury place for people to stay in what was then still very much a frontier kind of town.  The hotel was completely and beautifully renovated and reopened in August of 2019 just a few months before we arrived and it was carefully restored in a manner evocative of the time it was built.

And here is Jackie sitting in the lobby...

Jackie drinking coffee on Thanksgiving morning...

And the pier at the center of town on the rainy morning we were heading to the dock to catch the ferry back to Long Beach.  Tried taking this shot the day before but the pier was packed with people and the bright sun made for a very contrasty image, so this worked out well as a parting shot of Catalina!!!

Pablo

Portland Maine and the Holy Donut...

                                  Boots on the ground in Portland Maine !!!

Having traveled what feels like every square mile of the USA, and satisfied my need see what needed to be seen, I have started to revisit places I have been, but in hindsight, feel I did not see as well as I thought I could have, and was left with the nagging need to return.  Portland was one such place where there was some unfinished business, namely a return to Holy Donuts, a very popular and well known place on Exchange Street that advertises making a "potato based donut" which I did not try or take all that seriously last time I was there, probably because I don't care for donuts all that much.  But adding to the sense of importance this time around was my nice little photo essay on Voodoo Donuts in Portland Oregon and the need for a comparative study of these two bi-coastal cousins.  Also, I have been craving a bowl of the amazing fish stew at this little dockside place called Gilbert's that looms large in my memory.  So return to Portland we did, and much to my surprise, little if anything had changed in the past 4 years since we were last there, and  in fact the 4 places I had in mind to visit were all still there, in the same place, and were just as good, if not better than I remembered.  One exception was the donut place which I didn't experience first hand last time around, but which still looked good, was quite crowded, and held out great expectations.

My first clue that I might be in for disappointment at the Holy Donut in Portland Maine was the reaction on a local guy down by the pier.  When I asked him for directions, his first reaction was "Why do you want to go there?  They're not too good.",  but he did point me in the right direction.  I got a similar reaction from another local who, after asking me if I was ok since I appeared to look lost and confused on some street corner, which seems to be happening a lot more frequently lately.  I told him I was fine, just trying to find Holy Donut.  He told me not to bother, but pointed me in the right direction nevertheless.

So far, so good.   The place was packed, the products were colorful and appealing looking.  Jackie got a lemon glazed donut which she found heavy and dry, making her feel like she was eating a day old donut.  Jackie overheard a woman sitting near her expressing displeasure with her donut which she said tasted dense, old and not all that good tasting, although she did like the taste and feel of her husband's blueberry donut a lot better.  So it's mixed reviews on Holy Donut.  Maybe next time around, if there is one, I will buy a couple to taste test, although I didn't have one at Voodoo in the other Portland, so what would be the point. 

YES Books, a great used book store was still there unchanged, stocked with great old editions, and redolent with that unique smell of mustiness and old leather characteristic of a good purveyor of old editions.  I'm sure if you dropped me off blindfolded in a good used book store, I would know where I was.  The owner was still a man of few words indifferent to small talk if it's not about books since conversation with chatty tourists just looking around doesn't pay the bills.  Realizing this I did make a few purchases.

  

Next stop was Gilbert's for a bowl of their fish chowder of which I had fond memories.  Sitting at the bar, a good place to sit when eating alone, and if there is a bar, I had pint of some local brew and more conversation than I counted on when it was noticed that I was not a regular and was probably just passing through. The woman next to me complimented my choice of the stew and telling me how very good it was, and indeed she was right.  It was extra delicious, better than I remembered, richer, a bit thicker, and with a definite hint of sherry which I didn't remember.  I am usually disappointed when reliving a dining experience.  Things are rarely as good as you remember, but in this case it was better.  Go to Gilbert's.

Would have taken a picture of the chowder, but as good as it tasted, it was just a white liquid in a white bowl with some oysterettes floating on top, and not at all photogenic, so a picture would not have done it justice.

On to The Standard Bakery which was also just as I remembered it.  Very solid, very standard, and no frills.  I'm sure the counter staff found me quite annoying, trying to ignore me and pretend that the idiot with the camera was not there, and then left without buying anything.  But they couldn't have know that I had just come from Gilbert's and couldn't eat another thing.  I can be very persistent when I need to be when I'm in my photojournalistic mode and usually get what I need, sometimes at the risk of harm to life and limb, particularly when it turns out that the object of my interest is an establishment owned by an immigrant.  The paranoia is quite understandable in this day and age, and I do feel guilty if I unsettle these people.  

And to round out this little whirlwind revisitation of Portland Maine are a couple of photos of things on walls, which does seem to be the thing I enjoy taking pictures of most.

A very interesting place, still very connected to the sea, but also home to a very artistic and active counterculture.  A place that tastes good and looks good.  If you go to Holy Donuts, blueberry seems to be the best bet.

                                                             Pablo

Bisbee to Boise in 3 weeks...

Lately my blogging habits have been erratic.  Either they flow from idea to page, words and pictures, in no time at all, or they are stalled by writers block caused by not knowing how to organize my thoughts, TMI, or the fear of not being pithy enough to amuse myself, since I am my greatest admirerer.  Sometimes Jackie will come in the room and ask what I am laughing about, and I will tell her I am just re-reading one of my blogs.  She is always amused at how amused I am with myself.  For some reason, I have been having some trouble getting off the ground with the Bisbee to Boise post which is of great importance because it marks our latest, and possibly last major road trip.  Good photos and a lot to say, but I don't know how to structure things, because there is too much info and I am more easily overwhelmed by complexity these days.  I am 72 and it is taking its toll.  Where to start, what to say.

But the people at Google, who have supported this blog for the past 9 years or so have lit a fire under me with the recent announcement that as of April 2, 2019, they will be closing down the Blogger platform, which has been a great service to me and others, and it appears that both the content and the blog itself will disappear.  At least that's what it seems.  So Jackie and I have been furiously printing out all of the postings that at least, partially, document our meanderings since 2011.  The last piece of business for me is to overcome my inhibitions, and in one form or other, finish this posting, which in some way ties a ribbon around our adventure.  This time mandate doesn't make it easier, but it makes it necessary.  So while the pictures speak for themselves, not as a comprehensive travelogue, but rather a repository of my impressions of things along the way, I will finish this last posting, but it will most likely lack the cohesion I would have wished for.  So here we go...

Our first stop out of Tucson on the way to Bisbee was Tombstone which we had passed through maybe 15 years ago and my memories of it were of a kind of honky tonk reconstructed roadside attraction which it kind of is, but it was better than I remembered, maybe because there were no people there or maybe because this photo catches it just right.

From there, it's boots on the ground in the magically reimagined one time mining town of Bisbee Arizona, once the largest city between Chicago and San Francisco, as we begin our first road trip of the year, a year in which the extingincies of life have weighed heavily on us slowing us down with preoccupations in many ways both good and not so good, but we begin at last to retrace our steps from journeys past and tinged with a sense of the need for closure of opportunities missed to the opening of new doors to and America yet to be discovered.  As always my photos are not meant to be encyclopedic, although they sometimes are, but rather just impressions and discoveries gathered along the way that may or may not elucidate, but are random data of the American experience collected from a time and place in the minds eye of the observer for what they are worth.    The reason for this particular itinerary is based on the sense of a lack of closure, our having been to many of these destinations before, but not knowing we were there, and left with the feeling we didn't see enough.  Bisbee...

It has been a long while since I've published a posting and with good reason starting with apathy and entropy secondary to mild existential malaise, family health concerns and the recent birth of a grand daughter which reinvigorated my capacity for joy which I thought was long gone but kept us local.  All the while I did have Bisbee on my mind energized by my sense that last time we were there I just didn't "see" the place and I knew I had to get back. Renovated miners shacks and houses and more substantial old middle class 1910 homes all built on hills surround the downtown and it remains unchanged and authentic, artsy without being cute.  We stayed at the opulent 100 yr old Copper Queen Hotel in the center of town where all the important visitors have stayed.  Once we got there, I could see why I needed to get back!!!  The city is on one side of unimaginably vast open pit mines, now mostly closed, which fueled the growth and prosperity of Bisbee.

On the other side of the mine is the smaller town of Lowell which is struggling to stay relevant although not to the extent of Bisbee, but I have the feeling there will be a carry over effect.  There are a number of old gas stations and automotive repair shops there.

As I said, the rehabilitation of Lowell is a work in progress, but I am an optimist, and the laws of supply and demand may exert an overflow effect on Lowell.

On the road from Bisbee to Lowell which passes along the rims of the vast mines is an old trailer park, the Shady Dell, which has been repurposed into a newer trailer park/motel, with the rooms being old trailers refurbished and scattered around the grounds.  Unfortunately they were closed for the season when we were there, but we've seen it before, and it was worth while.

From Bisbee it was on to Phoenix for the night and dinner with my long lost cousin Emily, family historian and genealogist at the "best" kosher restaurant in town which was just kind ok at best.  Then onto a regular stop on almost all of our southwest excursions, Winslow Arizona, home of the famous "corner," one line in a 1974 Eagles song that has immortalized a town that would otherwise be on no ones radar screen, unless of course you knew about the hotel La Posada, a 1920's Harvey Hotel designed by Mary Elizabeth Colter for the Santa Fe Railroad which stops there.  

The famous "corner in Winslow Arizona" which appears to attract intermittently moderate sized crowds of people, often antiquated baby boomers on Harleys who stop for a while, maybe buy a tee shirt or refrigerator magnet or belt buckle and then keep going, because there's not much else there but an oversized idea that's been spinning around in people's heads since the 70's, unless of course they also had La Posada on their minds.

Love this picture because it is the color of the southwest.  Three blocks east of the "corner" it has been there unoccupied for at least the past 10 or most years, and has always looked exactly like this.  I always take this picture when we are in Winslow, but I think this one is the best.

This is a post card image of La Posada, a railroad hotel designed to replicate life in a Southwestern Hasienda.  It is a large, rambling, spectacularly evocative building the makes you feel fortunate to be there.  It is a magical place that almost wasn't here anymore, dodging the wrecking ball more than once and surviving malevolent efforts to degrade and destroy the beautiful interior.  Fortunately it has been saved and restored.  If you make it to Winslow for the "corner", go there as well, and while you are there, have a meal in their dining room, The Turquoise Room, also restored to it's former 1920's splendor, and while you are at it, have a bowl of their signature black bean and corn puree soup pictured below in a photo by Jackie.

While there are gaps in this last travelogue blog, we are trying to hit the high points.  On the way from Winslow to Monument Valley another spectacular stop we always try to hit while we are down there.  Jackie took this picture of me in the middle of nowhere, which pretty well describes most of the landscape between destinations, and that's just the way we like it.

The next three photos are in Monument Valley.  Just some highlights.  If you want to get a real feel for the place, watch a John Ford western.  Interestingly, most of Utah looks like this.

Jackie took the next picture and it may by the best one taken on the trip.  It is in the middle of our 17 mile automobile loop through the valley.

Our casita at Goulding's Motel.  We have always stayed in the original main building, but this time they assigned us to this little pre-fab at the edge of the grounds which had a kitchen and everything and turned out fine.  From there to Mexican Hat, a little town at the north end of the Valley where we always stop to look for a hat I lost 8 or 9 years ago and still can't find.  Then Provo Utah, and Salt Lake City.  If you look at the center of the photo, you can see the capitol building.  It was a clean nice city as you might expect, but very dangerous.  It seems like electric scooters are big there.  They can do about 20 miles an hour, and people, especially teenagers, have no qualms about riding them on the sidewalk and trying to kill you.  Wrote a strong letter to the mayors office, but got no response.  We went to the Mormon Tabernacle complex, looked around, and spent the better part of an hour talking to a Mormon woman who told us enough about the religion and its restrictions to make me wonder why anyone would want to be a Mormon, unless you were born into it.

Then, onto the Bonneville Salt Flats which has always been on my mind to visit, but has always been a bit out of the way.  Not this time.  The Salt Flats are just that, flat, and very smooth, and has been the perfect place to set land speed records in increasingly fast rocket cars, and for racing in general.  We got to the flats the day before race day when that were setting up and we were able to get out there and look around, which we did, and within a few hours, my curiosity was satisfied, and we felt we had been there and seen it.

Prior to getting to the flats, I didn't know how much time I would need there, so to be on the safe side, we booked a room for the night at the nearest town, Wendover, a town that actually straddles Utah and Nevada, which makes for a very interesting dynamic.  On the Utah side, where we had a room at the Best Western, the towns shuts down and people go to bed at 10.  If you walk 5 or 6 blocks, you are in Nevada where streets are lined with casinos, liquor stores and strip joints.  We ate at the great buffet at a recommended hotel/casino, and later settled in to a seat at a blackjack table where we were doing quite well until three loud, oversized, Texans clutching fists full of hundreds sat down next to me bellowing and blowing enough hot air to make me sweat and realize that my luck had run out.  Jackie had been wanting me to stop for a while, and rather than tempt fate which was no longer on my side, I collected up my chips, headed over to the cashier and we left winners, as always!!!

Wendover is also interesting for the basically abandoned WW2 Air Force base there with its old crumbling wooden barracks and hangars and administrative buildings, enough to give you a feeling for the extent and expanse of the place when it was operational.  Of interest as well was the fact that the crew of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb in Japan trained there.  From there it was off to Park City Utah, an upscale ski resort that happened to have a Chabad house there that was hosting Rosh HaShannah services and dinners which was part of the agenda of our trip.  Funny, but when I was writing this up, I completely forgot about this part of the trip and our 3 night stay there.  Below is a photo of me at the bar in the High West Brewery, having a shot or three of their very nice bourbon.

We had a good time there.  Jackie spent time dodging sneezers and coughers and other unwell people, saving the lives of old ladies almost crushed to death by falling objects, and taking in the sights.  I was surprised to find so many New Yorkers there, and spent a few hours talking with a woman who grew up in Far Rockaway, where my father grew up and where I spent a lot of time and it turned out that we knew the same places and the same people, like crazy Eddie and his insulated skin who used to hang out in front of this certain pizza place on Central Ave, and this certain girl named Rita.

With Rosh Ha Shannah over, the next and last stop on Paul and Jackie's adventure is ...Boise, ID.

Well, we did it!!!  Bisbee to Boise in three weeks!!!  We could have done it quicker but then we would have made the destination but missed the journey.  Here we are in downtown Boise, looking down North Capitol Blvd during rush hour in the middle of construction, a familiar senario for us, except that in Boise there is no traffic jam, probably because they have streetcars and lots of people ride bikes.  That's the capitol up ahead, and the yellow/gold building to the left is the Egyptian Theater, built in 1927 in the midst of the discovery of King Tut's Tomb.  It was constructed to look like an Egyptian temple with all the frills, and it kind of does.  Boise is a quiet, reasonably intact little city that missed the wrecking ball and holds many surprises.

I always like to find an interesting marker to note where we have been, and I was losing hope here in Boise where it was our last day before the trip back to NY, when I was walking down art alley around 3 pm and I noticed something I had seen earlier, poorly lit and with a car in front of it.  All of a sudden it was there for the taking, and I took it and ended this photographic and personal journey on a high note.  We have now tasted and seen Boise!!!  It is March 28...There is much to do.  As mentioned at the top of the blog, things may be closed down on 4/2, so I'm working fast to get this one in.  Our second to last big trip of 2018. 

Don't know what will be on 4/3, but we shall see.  Maybe this is goodbye!!!

                                                                    Pablo