Saturday, April 26, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Down Every Road...
I just got back from another road trip with Richie to see a legend of country music... It was also a trip back to my childhood in honor of an old friend.
When I was a kid, our Boy Scout troop used to go for overnight camping trips to a tourist trap in the middle of the desert called Calico Ghost Town. Richie and I returned there together after over three decades. It's just the same.
Calico was built by Walter Knott, the man who created Knott's Berry Farm. The story of Walter Knott is an interesting one... Through some clever genetic trickery, Knott's neighbor, Rudolph Boysen grafted a blueberry and a raspberry. Knott asked Boysen for a slip from his bush and within a few days, he had patented Boysen's creation under his own name. Knott became rich, and to show his appreciation, he named the fruit after the inventor. (He didn't share the harvest of money he made on it though!)
In the early 50s, at the height of the cowboys and Indians craze, Knott had the harebrained idea of turning a real ghost town in the middle of the desert into a wild west theme park. The idea tanked (location! location! location!) and Knott was hemmoraging money on the project. How to get out from under the albatross around his neck? He did what any other great businessman would do... He donated the property (and the debt incurred for the upkeep) to the government. Calico Ghost Town became a county park.
Richie and I spent many a summer night camping under the clear blue skies of Calico. Our buddy Kirk loved Calico almost as much as he loved Disneyland. Kirk passed away last month after a long bout with cancer. Although we didn't speak it out loud, it was clear that we were visiting Calico for Kirk.
Personally, I've always preferred Knott's Berry Farm to Disneyland. It's less manicured and somehow more real. I could spend all day wandering through the ghost town there, or at its doppelganger in the desert, Calico. But we only had an hour.
Calico had a terrible fire break out about five years ago, but it has rebuilt and it looks better than ever. It's nice to find something that actually still is the way you remember it from your childhood. The fire actually seems to have added something to the atmosphere of the place.
Since it's run by the county of San Bernardino, there are no flashy rides at Calico, and the gift shops aren't packed with Chinese made plush and plastic. Sasparilla and penny candy are the chief products here.
There is something strange about the desert wind. It comes in hot and dusty and keeps on going. It doesn't stop to swirl around the rotting buildings; it goes in a straight line. It never stops and it never gets where it's going. The timelessness of the desert contrasts nicely with the heavy mark the passage of time has put on man's creations at Calico.
Calico is a wonderful place to ponder life's mysteries. Richie and I visited one of the most mysterious places on earth... THE MYSTERY SHACK. Strangely enough, all of the photographs I took of the Mystery Shack turned out blurry. If you want to know the secrets of the Mystery Shack, you will have to visit Calico for yourself.
From the furthest reaches of our childhood, Richie and I heard a jolly tune wafting on the breeze. A man's voice spoke...
I asked a pretty lemonade girl if she had ever seen a ghost at Calico. She said that she hadn't herself but people she knew had seen strange phantoms drifting through the weathered timbers late at night. I hope Kirk is one of them. He would love to haunt the Mystery Shack.
Every road nowadays seems to lead to a mini-mall food court, and this one was no different. From the quiet solitude of Calico, we burst into a full on white trash circus in progress... Stateline.
This is what passes for landscaping in Primm, Nevada. I always used to wonder who stopped in these low budget casinos... why not drive another thirty minutes and do it up right in Vegas? Well, I found out. Buffalo Bill's casino sits about thirty feet over the Nevada border. It was packed with San Berdoo teenagers between the ages of 18 and 20 taking advantage of Nevada's looser drinking age laws. Mingling with the drunken children were disoriented elderly folk who seemed to arrive by the busload every hour on the hour, and plenty of unkempt and often smelly cheapskates looking for a $39 room and nickle slots.
Primm Nevada is like something out of David Lynch's Wild At Heart.
But we weren't here for the cheezeball McDonalds food court and the inbred hicks drinking their brain cells away. We were here to see one of the grand old men of Country Music, Merle Haggard.
Yes, Haggard is a great musician. But this wasn't one of his best nights. He sleep-walked through a few lackluster truncated renditions of his old hits, neglected to introduce the musicians in the band by name, and ended up cutting the evening short with an abrupt, "Well that's it. Goodbye." He marched off the stage and all the cretins in the bleachers stumbled back to their nickle slots and 99 cent beers.
Oh well. I've always got my records...
When I was a kid, our Boy Scout troop used to go for overnight camping trips to a tourist trap in the middle of the desert called Calico Ghost Town. Richie and I returned there together after over three decades. It's just the same.
Calico was built by Walter Knott, the man who created Knott's Berry Farm. The story of Walter Knott is an interesting one... Through some clever genetic trickery, Knott's neighbor, Rudolph Boysen grafted a blueberry and a raspberry. Knott asked Boysen for a slip from his bush and within a few days, he had patented Boysen's creation under his own name. Knott became rich, and to show his appreciation, he named the fruit after the inventor. (He didn't share the harvest of money he made on it though!)
In the early 50s, at the height of the cowboys and Indians craze, Knott had the harebrained idea of turning a real ghost town in the middle of the desert into a wild west theme park. The idea tanked (location! location! location!) and Knott was hemmoraging money on the project. How to get out from under the albatross around his neck? He did what any other great businessman would do... He donated the property (and the debt incurred for the upkeep) to the government. Calico Ghost Town became a county park.
Richie and I spent many a summer night camping under the clear blue skies of Calico. Our buddy Kirk loved Calico almost as much as he loved Disneyland. Kirk passed away last month after a long bout with cancer. Although we didn't speak it out loud, it was clear that we were visiting Calico for Kirk.
Personally, I've always preferred Knott's Berry Farm to Disneyland. It's less manicured and somehow more real. I could spend all day wandering through the ghost town there, or at its doppelganger in the desert, Calico. But we only had an hour.
Calico had a terrible fire break out about five years ago, but it has rebuilt and it looks better than ever. It's nice to find something that actually still is the way you remember it from your childhood. The fire actually seems to have added something to the atmosphere of the place.
Since it's run by the county of San Bernardino, there are no flashy rides at Calico, and the gift shops aren't packed with Chinese made plush and plastic. Sasparilla and penny candy are the chief products here.
There is something strange about the desert wind. It comes in hot and dusty and keeps on going. It doesn't stop to swirl around the rotting buildings; it goes in a straight line. It never stops and it never gets where it's going. The timelessness of the desert contrasts nicely with the heavy mark the passage of time has put on man's creations at Calico.
Calico is a wonderful place to ponder life's mysteries. Richie and I visited one of the most mysterious places on earth... THE MYSTERY SHACK. Strangely enough, all of the photographs I took of the Mystery Shack turned out blurry. If you want to know the secrets of the Mystery Shack, you will have to visit Calico for yourself.
From the furthest reaches of our childhood, Richie and I heard a jolly tune wafting on the breeze. A man's voice spoke...
Amazing! Amusing! Highly scientific and educational! Nothing jumps out to frighten small children. Everyone loves an unsolved mystery and the Mystery Shack is CHOCK full!
I asked a pretty lemonade girl if she had ever seen a ghost at Calico. She said that she hadn't herself but people she knew had seen strange phantoms drifting through the weathered timbers late at night. I hope Kirk is one of them. He would love to haunt the Mystery Shack.
Down every road there's always one more city
I'm on the run, the highway is my home
I raised a lot of Cain back in my younger days
While Mama used to pray my crops would fail
I'm a hunted fugitive with just two ways:
Outrun the law or spend my life in jail.
Every road nowadays seems to lead to a mini-mall food court, and this one was no different. From the quiet solitude of Calico, we burst into a full on white trash circus in progress... Stateline.
This is what passes for landscaping in Primm, Nevada. I always used to wonder who stopped in these low budget casinos... why not drive another thirty minutes and do it up right in Vegas? Well, I found out. Buffalo Bill's casino sits about thirty feet over the Nevada border. It was packed with San Berdoo teenagers between the ages of 18 and 20 taking advantage of Nevada's looser drinking age laws. Mingling with the drunken children were disoriented elderly folk who seemed to arrive by the busload every hour on the hour, and plenty of unkempt and often smelly cheapskates looking for a $39 room and nickle slots.
Primm Nevada is like something out of David Lynch's Wild At Heart.
But we weren't here for the cheezeball McDonalds food court and the inbred hicks drinking their brain cells away. We were here to see one of the grand old men of Country Music, Merle Haggard.
Yes, Haggard is a great musician. But this wasn't one of his best nights. He sleep-walked through a few lackluster truncated renditions of his old hits, neglected to introduce the musicians in the band by name, and ended up cutting the evening short with an abrupt, "Well that's it. Goodbye." He marched off the stage and all the cretins in the bleachers stumbled back to their nickle slots and 99 cent beers.
Oh well. I've always got my records...
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