Route 66 no longer exists except in the hearts and minds of aficionados of a bygone era of television and movie adventure shows. Route 66 started out in the 1920's as a federal effort to connect existing state roads into a motor pathway from Chicago to Los Angeles. These pathways were the first "interstate" for its time and resulted in many twists and turns through now defunct state highways as evidenced by our finding signs for "Historic Route 66" in Santa Fe NW as well as into Southern California desserts and mountains. The route Toby DeWoody and I traveled in 1962, and that pictured in song and story, we took, returning from the Seattle World's Fair via the Pacific Coastal Highway, Pacific Palisades CA, across the Mojav Dessert to Flagstaff AZ and onto Winslow AZ and the Bar T Bar Ranch. The 1950's version of Route 66 was a clearly delineated highway by then. The picture represents a remnant of "66" near Winslow AZ. Our present Interstate system was the vision of President Dwight Eisenhower who as General Eisenhower admired the pre WWII German Autobaun. In answer to a question by David Grim, the bridge you queried is within 100 feet of Interstate 40, a steel bridge similar to one might see of the 1930's era, and a copy of which I had with my Lionel Train set.
The Bar T Bar Ranch is also a bit of historic and contemporary "Americana". The Ranch began in the 1930's as a partnership of Cleveland Ohio business people I believe as a tax shelter. The original ranch was joined with several surrounding others until -T- was/is the second largest cattle ranch in Arizona. The lead person forming this ranch was Burton Tremaine whom I believe had a nick name "Sky," was a descendent of "Johnny Tremaine" of American Revolutin fame. Sky Tremaine was the Cleveland Ohio business person whom I had met in his waning years in Pacific Palisades CA before Toby and I headed for the Ranch. Toby's mother, Nancy, was a Tremaine who married Charles DeWoody a Cleveland attorney. Toby is a nick name for Charles Tremaine DeWoody. At the Ranch I met Earnest Chilson the ranch manager of many decades. I say this as I met and rode horses with Earnest Chilson along with the DeWoody Family. I learned about the remaking of the ecology of mesa cattle ranching. Large D-9 Caterpillar tractors would travel in pairs, linked with a one inch diameter cable and traveling over the mesa they would clear the shrubs that soaked up the precious water and nutrients of the soil. While out riding, I watched as the ranch hands lit the brush piles with flares producing a bonfire and a pungent odor. After the brush was cleared and burned, the rocky soil was seeded with a genetically modified grass, producing three stalks instead of one. More feed grass means more cattle. Prior to modification of the mesa, the 300,000 acre ranch could support 3,000 head of cattle, now, 15,000 head. There are 5 ranch hands (cowboys) for the ranch. At dawn, I met them at the bunkhouse, the cook made a breakfast of steak, eggs, flapjacks and black chickaree coffee. After breakfast, the ranch hand would walk into the open pasture towards his horse, feedbag in hand, slip the feedbag over the horse's head, lay on the saddle, cinch it up, when the horse was finished feeding, the feedbag was slipped off and the bridle slipped on, cowboy would climb aboard and ride to the day's work. The horse could have bolt and run free, but didn't, there was a partnership of shared expectations.
I re-encountered a disturbing piece of historic and current Americana beginning around Joplin Missouri and carrying into Southern California. The old Route 66 and current Interstate 44 and 40 traverses large Native American Reservations. For over a 1000 miles there were abandoned dwellings, subsistence living isolated houses, trash, junk scattered around, chain link fences around many, dilapidated siding, roofing, doors and windows, all reminding me of what I had seen some 47 years ago. New for me, was seen at exits , a combination casino, gas station, convenience and souvenir store. In the gift shops were painting of Plains Indians, all portrayed on horseback. There did not appear to be signs of Native Americans activities prior to the arrival of the Spanish at the beginning of the 16th Century. The Spanish brought horses from Europe. There were no horses in North America prior to the Spanish. Horses were few and far between for the Spanish, and horses that had escaped from the Spanish were the ones available to the Indigenous People. Since mares may have 3 to 4 folds in her lifetime, I imagine that horses were not plentiful to the Plains Indians until the late 18th & early 19th Century. By the middle of the 19th Century many of the Plains Indians were already on reservations.
The paintings available in the gift shops, reportedly painted by authentic Native Americans, unlike those at the Painted Dessert Lodge painted in the 1930's, show a limited spectrum of time and indigenous people activities. While in Sante Fe NM and the first mission church in what would become North America, the founders of the church came to the area with their Native American servants, numbering in the hundreds for the 92 Spanish individuals who made the first claims to the territory.
While in a restaurant restroom, I heard a man retching and vomiting in the stall next to me. I inquired if he were "all right?" He said. yes he was "... just a little hangover." I met him outside the stalls and saw a bloodshot eyed Native American young man. I wondered to myself if a hunting and gathering society had the cultural pre-requisites to survive now that the plains were fenced, the buffalo gone, and the rocky soil and available water can support few people, like the numbers that inhabited pre-Columbian tribes, 15 to 25 individuals. If one believes the Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics that more than 50% of Southwestern Native Americans are obese, 25% of these have Diabetes Mellitus; the complications of alcoholism is the number one killer of young Native American men, it occurred to me that a new paradigm is needed other than the current one which portrays a post-Columbian time, truncated to a 25 or so year period, of a mounted hunting and gathering society. Believe me, I do not have "the" answer. What I do know, is that what I saw as a young man in my travels in 1961, persists into the 2008. This realization casts a pall for me and perpetuates a continuing mind's eye dialogue with myself as Kathy and I continue on our travels.
Another piece of Americana, the murals in the now museum of a former lodge overlooking the Painted Dessert National Monument were painted by an Indigenous American artist during the Great Depression. Also in the lodge is a glass ceiling whose panels were painted by two Pennsylvanian artists, members of the Civilian Conservations Corps (CCC), 1937 to 1941, a Depression era "make work" program which included artists and artisans. Kathy identified the glass ceiling paintings as those of "Pennsylvania Dutch" designs. Who would have thunk it, way out here in Arizona.
Route 66 no longer exists except in the hearts and minds of aficionados of a bygone era of television and movie adventure shows. Route 66 started out in the 1920's as a federal effort to connect existing state roads into a motor pathway from Chicago to Los Angeles. These pathways were the first "interstate" for its time and resulted in many twists and turns through now defunct state highways as evidenced by our finding signs for "Historic Route 66" in Santa Fe NW as well as into Southern California desserts and mountains. The route Toby DeWoody and I traveled in 1962, and that pictured in song and story, we took, returning from the Seattle World's Fair via the Pacific Coastal Highway, Pacific Palisades CA, across the Mojav Dessert to Flagstaff AZ and onto Winslow AZ and the Bar T Bar Ranch. The 1950's version of Route 66 was a clearly delineated highway by then. The picture represents a remnant of "66" near Winslow AZ. Our present Interstate system was the vision of President Dwight Eisenhower who as General Eisenhower admired the pre WWII German Autobaun. In answer to a question by David Grim, the bridge you queried is within 100 feet of Interstate 40, a steel bridge similar to one might see of the 1930's era, and a copy of which I had with my Lionel Train set.
The Bar T Bar Ranch is also a bit of historic and contemporary "Americana". The Ranch began in the 1930's as a partnership of Cleveland Ohio business people I believe as a tax shelter. The original ranch was joined with several surrounding others until -T- was/is the second largest cattle ranch in Arizona. The lead person forming this ranch was Burton Tremaine whom I believe had a nick name "Sky," was a descendent of "Johnny Tremaine" of American Revolutin fame. Sky Tremaine was the Cleveland Ohio business person whom I had met in his waning years in Pacific Palisades CA before Toby and I headed for the Ranch. Toby's mother, Nancy, was a Tremaine who married Charles DeWoody a Cleveland attorney. Toby is a nick name for Charles Tremaine DeWoody. At the Ranch I met Earnest Chilson the ranch manager of many decades. I say this as I met and rode horses with Earnest Chilson along with the DeWoody Family. I learned about the remaking of the ecology of mesa cattle ranching. Large D-9 Caterpillar tractors would travel in pairs, linked with a one inch diameter cable and traveling over the mesa they would clear the shrubs that soaked up the precious water and nutrients of the soil. While out riding, I watched as the ranch hands lit the brush piles with flares producing a bonfire and a pungent odor. After the brush was cleared and burned, the rocky soil was seeded with a genetically modified grass, producing three stalks instead of one. More feed grass means more cattle. Prior to modification of the mesa, the 300,000 acre ranch could support 3,000 head of cattle, now, 15,000 head. There are 5 ranch hands (cowboys) for the ranch. At dawn, I met them at the bunkhouse, the cook made a breakfast of steak, eggs, flapjacks and black chickaree coffee. After breakfast, the ranch hand would walk into the open pasture towards his horse, feedbag in hand, slip the feedbag over the horse's head, lay on the saddle, cinch it up, when the horse was finished feeding, the feedbag was slipped off and the bridle slipped on, cowboy would climb aboard and ride to the day's work. The horse could have bolt and run free, but didn't, there was a partnership of shared expectations. 
I re-encountered a disturbing piece of historic and current Americana beginning around Joplin Missouri and carrying into Southern California. The old Route 66 and current Interstate 44 and 40 traverses large Native American Reservations. For over a 1000 miles there were abandoned dwellings, subsistence living isolated houses, trash, junk scattered around, chain link fences around many, dilapidated siding, roofing, doors and windows, all reminding me of what I had seen some 47 years ago. New for me, was seen at exits , a combination casino, gas station, convenience and souvenir store. In the gift shops were painting of Plains Indians, all portrayed on horseback. There did not appear to be signs of Native Americans activities prior to the arrival of the Spanish at the beginning of the 16th Century. The Spanish brought horses from Europe. There were no horses in North America prior to the Spanish. Horses were few and far between for the Spanish, and horses that had escaped from the Spanish were the ones available to the Indigenous People. Since mares may have 3 to 4 folds in her lifetime, I imagine that horses were not plentiful to the Plains Indians until the late 18th & early 19th Century. By the middle of the 19th Century many of the Plains Indians were already on reservations. 
The paintings available in the gift shops, reportedly painted by authentic Native Americans, unlike those at the Painted Dessert Lodge painted in the 1930's, show a limited spectrum of time and indigenous people activities. While in Sante Fe NM and the first mission church in what would become North America, the founders of the church came to the area with their Native American servants, numbering in the hundreds for the 92 Spanish individuals who made the first claims to the territory. 
While in a restaurant restroom, I heard a man retching and vomiting in the stall next to me. I inquired if he were "all right?" He said. yes he was "... just a little hangover." I met him outside the stalls and saw a bloodshot eyed Native American young man. I wondered to myself if a hunting and gathering society had the cultural pre-requisites to survive now that the plains were fenced, the buffalo gone, and the rocky soil and available water can support few people, like the numbers that inhabited pre-Columbian tribes, 15 to 25 individuals. If one believes the Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics that more than 50% of Southwestern Native Americans are obese, 25% of these have Diabetes Mellitus; the complications of alcoholism is the number one killer of young Native American men, it occurred to me that a new paradigm is needed other than the current one which portrays a post-Columbian time, truncated to a 25 or so year period, of a mounted hunting and gathering society. Believe me, I do not have "the" answer. What I do know, is that what I saw as a young man in my travels in 1961, persists into the 2008. This realization casts a pall for me and perpetuates a continuing mind's eye dialogue with myself as Kathy and I continue on our travels.
Another piece of Americana, the murals in the now museum of a former lodge overlooking the Painted Dessert National Monument were painted by an Indigenous American artist during the Great Depression. Also in the lodge is a glass ceiling whose panels were painted by two Pennsylvanian artists, members of the Civilian Conservations Corps (CCC), 1937 to 1941, a Depression era "make work" program which included artists and artisans. Kathy identified the glass ceiling paintings as those of "Pennsylvania Dutch" designs. Who would have thunk it, way out here in Arizona.
No comments:
Post a Comment