THE QUEST FOR PERFECTION

THE QUEST FOR PERFECTION

by | Apr 22, 2011 | Uncategorized

If an author is honest they can never take full credit for a book. There are always a multitude of people who contribute something to the finished work.
From the very inception of my latest project, a Route 66 encyclopedia and atlas, I knew it would be impossible to write it without assistance. Even if I were crazy enough to tackle it in Lone Ranger fashion accuracy would be an impossibility.
To that end I have enlisted the assistance of a few Tonto’s who have been reading over my shoulder. Then there is a small army of people that I have turned to for direction.
So even though we are still more than six months from deadline, and the word count has only reached 90,000 of a projected 120,000 to 150,000, I really needed to pause and say thank you to everyone who has taken time from their busy schedule to work with me to ensure the first eighty five years of Route 66 history is chronicled with accuracy, and to gently point out the error of my ways.
With that said, thank you Joe Sondermanhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=1968adventurer&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0738580295&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr, gifted author and archivist of fascinating post cards and photographs, Ron Warnick of Route 66 News, the proprietor for your one stop website for keeping abreast of what is happening along Route 66, and Scott Piotrowski, the only man I know who can decipher Route 66 in the Los Angeles area and is brave (or crazy) enough to seek the lost treasures found along its path.  I would be remiss if a thank you wasn’t also given to Dave Clarkhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=1968adventurer&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0738551384&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr, another gifted author better known to the Route 66 community as the Windy City Warrior.
Then of course there are the helpful folks at the various Route 66 association such as Carolyn Hasenfratz in Missouri, at the museums, and in the state archives. As a word of warning to each and everyone of you, this project still has a long ways to go so you haven’t heard the last of me.
The Route 66 encyclopedia is not so much a definitive reference work about an historic highway and the culture it spawned as it is about a community and how it developed and evolved. With this long preamble as a foundation, I would like to provide a couple of updates and appeal to the Route 66 community for assistance in my ongoing quest for answers.
In what year was Route 66 first referenced as the Main Street of America? I have newspaper clippings from early in 1927 that use this phrase in quotes from the US 66 Association.
In 1955, surveys were completed and a proposal for realignment of Route 66 was submitted to the Missouri Highway Commission. The plan called for moving Route 66 to the north side of Springfield, and running US 66 and US 166 together west of town through Mt. Vernon. This is roughly the course of I44 today. Were there other planned realignments that were simply merged into the interstate highway plan?
Joe Sonderman supplied a post card of the State Line Bar in Glenrio, Texas for the new book, Ghost Towns of Route 66http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=1968adventurer&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0760338434&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr. If you look closely at the card it shows an adjoining post office signed Glenrio, New Mexico. Any ideas?
Now, a few unrelated items. Regular followers of this blog will notice a few dramatic changes but there are also some subtle ones. Do you feel this is an improvement?
In addition to links in the upper right column for subscribing to Route 66 Chronicles via email and the Kindle reader, there is now poll. The monthly poll will  now be a regular feature.
The opinion bar has been moved to the bottom of the post in an effort to make it easier for you to have input. The comments are now at the top.
One item still on the to do list is the removal of links to the companion site, Route 66 Info Center. In light of the exciting new on line magazine being unveiled by John Spring, the wonderful Route 66 Chamber of Commerce website designed and maintained by Ron Hart, the return, we hope, of the Route 66 Alliance, and the excellent work of Mr. Knudsen at the National Historic Route 66 Federation, your one stop shop for the best Route 66 guide books available, it seemed redundant and as a result the plug was pulled.
Last but not least, next weekend is the annual Route 66 Fun Run Weekend, a three day block party and celebration of America’s love affair with that legendary highway and the road trip. This year the event will take on an international flair as tour operator Dale Butel of Australia has coordinated his spring Route 66 tour to include the Fun Run.
For the first time ever, the scheduled dates for the Laughlin River Run, a massive celebration of the motorcycle, and the Fun Run collided. This could be quite interesting. If nothing else it should provide a pretty good glimpse of what traffic was like on Route 66 before it was by passed by the interstate.
Will you be joining in on the fun? A full update with photos will be posted here the following week. Other upcoming items of note at Route 66 Chronicles include the final chapter in the Kingman Army Airfield saga, a contest to win a signed copy of Ghost Towns of Route 66 with accompanying 8x 10 print, and reviews of some new titles.

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IT REALLY DID SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA

by | Apr 22, 2011 | Uncategorized

At the time $50.00 seemed like a very fair price for the 1963 Cadillac. Sure, it had been hit on the side so hard the drivers door didn’t open and it rubbed your knuckles when turning the wheel. Okay, the upholstery was a bit rough having weathered more than 15 years without a window and there was a bit of a smell as cats had called it home for most of that time.
But it ran, once I bought a battery, and water pump, and fuel pump, and rebuilt the carburetor, and bought some tires, and a master cylinder, and four wheel cylinders, and a couple of wheel bearings. In fact, it ran so well that it seemed like a good idea to take a little weekend trip to Las Vegas.
The ticket really wasn’t that much money but it was enough to defund the weekend that then became a one day trip. The tow bill was what drained the wallet.
As it turned out the problems were quite minor. In no time at all I had it on the road again once I bought a transmission kit, and a distributor, and an oil pain gasket, and fixed the radiator leak. 
I only lamented not having a drivers door window on cold winter mornings. As the weeks passed and daylight began pushing nighttime into a corner, the weather became warmer and not having a window wasn’t really that bad. 
Getting in from the passenger side and sliding across the seat was an inconvenience but only when the seat springs snagged my pants or poked me in the backside was it really a pain. By early summer I had fixed that problem and made the car more enjoyable for long cruises on warm summer evenings with another idea that seemed good at the time. 
It started with a porch swing, a couple of cold beers, and good friends whiling away the late evening hours with discussions about girls and wistful thoughts of how nice it would be to have a convertible. It ended with a small upholstery fire and a cruise in the old Coupe DeVille under a desert sky littered with stars, and no top to impede the view.
My new convertible provided hours of fun that summer and I might have kept it for years if another good idea hadn’t come to mind. So, before moving to Flagstaff just in time for the first snow, I traded the Cadillac, and $100.00, for a 1963 International pick up truck.
The old truck was arrow straight and as rusty as a Brillo pad left in the sink for a week or two. But it had both doors, all its windows, a heater, and only burned about four quarts of oil in the 150 mile drive to Flagstaff.
About a month after moving to Flagstaff, which would be about two weeks before I lost my job, somebody had a good idea and stole my truck from in front of Alpine Pizza. How desperate can someone be to take a truck like that?
Well, with no job and no truck it seemed like a good idea to head back to Kingman where the snow wasn’t piled up about as high as my back side. And it seemed like a good idea to leave most of my worldly possessions with my roommate, a personable fellow I had met a month or so before, and hitchhike down the mountain.
As it turned out, heading for Kingman was the only real good idea but first I had to get there. 
I would bet a buck or two that the fellow who picked me up at the Monte Carlo Truck Stop thought it was a good idea to rob me but the joke was on him.
What are you going to get from a homeless man without a job? The answer, a military surplus sleeping bag, a tattered back pack stuffed with some long underwear, socks, and a couple pair of jeans.
I had no money. That was already invested in my future. It had been sent to a friend in Kingman who needed help with the rent and who needed a roommate. As it turned out he also was about $100.00 short on paying off the fine for a D.U.I. I wonder where he moved after leaving town?
One of the blessings that come with age is the ability to look back on the years, reflect on the things things that seemed like a good idea at the time, and marvel that we survived. From that perspective my goals are relatively simple, make new mistakes every day as there is no fun or potential for profit in making the same ones twice. 

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