Evergreen? Perhaps Not!

Just south of Denver is the suburban town of Littleton, Colorado. Littleton is a nice bedroom community with the typical homes and businesses one expects to find. Santa Fe Drive is one of the primary north-south routes through town, and as such, is always very busy. Heading south out of Denver, Santa Fe splits off from I-25 just south of downtown, and meets the highway again in the town of Castle Rock, in Douglas County. This road was once the main highway along the front range, as it was, and still is, US Highway 85. Although it has been superseded by Interstate 25 for long distance travelers, it is still an important local corridor, as it carries a heavy traffic load, as well as having a light rail route parallel to it.

Back in the days when US 85 was an important long distance highway, it was much like many others. As it passed through the towns and cities, there were motor hotels, or motels along the side of the road. In Littleton there remains one such business, the Evergreen Motel. Lying just to the north of Arapahoe Community College, and beside a McDonalds restaurant, this establishment has outlived its time. I didn't think it was operating any longer, but it does have a telephone listing, so I guess it is. With land values what they are, I would think its time is running out. Yet, I can easily imagine a time a few short decades ago, when the glowing neon and fresh paint on the sign that today shows the ravages of the years, beckoned weary travelers to a night of rest along the busy highway. The comfort of "steam heat" must have been something that seemed very soothing on cold nights along a snowy Colorado byway.

What was once an oasis of warmth and sleep now stands largely forgotten along the side of the road, cramped in between more recent structures, awaiting its meeting with the unforgiving wrecker's ball. When that happens, one more piece of mid-Twentieth Century Americana will be gone.

Another Old Memory

This rambling post probably won't be of much interest to anyone except me and my sisters. It actually ties into two other things I have written about here. I have mentioned traffic circles in earlier posts, and yesterday talked about logos. While surfing around the Net, I came across this old logo:

People in most of the country, and younger folk, won't know what it is. Here in Colorado, there is a Deep Rock Water Company, but that is not related to this one. This is a logo used in the latter days of Deep Rock Petroleum (eventually bought out by Kerr-McGee), which operated gasoline stations. I found this on an extremely interesting web site, http://www.gassigns.org. It has photos and scans of all the old stations I remember. You'll find Derby, Clark, DX, Skelly, Apco, Champlin, and many, many more there.

In any case, this one brought back a vivid memory. As a child living in Houston in the late 1950s and early 1960s, we made the occasional trip to Oklahoma City to visit my grandparents. One milestone along the way that always stuck in my mind was a Deep Rock station north of downtown Dallas. Deep Rock didn't market in Houston to the best of my knowledge, and I really don't recall seeing them anywhere else but the station in "Big D", but it is indelibly burned in my memory. The station was located on a traffic circle, and to the best of my recollection, it was at the intersection where Harry Hines Boulevard (Old US 77), Northwest Highway, and Storey Lane meet. I seem to recall a "Circle Motel" was also located on the circle. That traffic circle has since been replaced by a more modern interchange. When we got gas at the Deep Rock, I knew we were over halfway to Oklahoma City.


The current interchange where the old traffic circle was located.
Credit: Google Maps


Same area on a 1960 street map. Notice 114 as a 2-lane road, the
partially completed Stemmons Freeway, and the Humble logo (now Exxon-Mobil).

In those pre-Interstate Highway days, the Stemmons Freeway (I-35E) which today parallels Harry Hines didn't exist. Neither did any of the other freeways. The route was all two-lane US Highways . . . US 75 from Houston to Dallas, US 77 from Dallas to Oklahoma City. Today, the route is the same, but it is I-45 from Houston to Dallas, and I-35E from Dallas to Denton, then I-35 from Denton to Oklahoma City.

It is also interesting thinking back to those trips, how huge the Arbuckle Mountains near Davis, Oklahoma seemed. The winding, hairpin road of US 77 seemed very high and scary. Today, I-35 makes the Arbuckles seem like a bump in the road. Another favorite stop along the way was the Little Brownie cookie factory in Marietta, Oklahoma, just north of the Texas-Oklahoma border at the Red River.

On one particular trip, my oldest sister (a little less than 3 years younger than me) and I got some candy cigarettes at a store along the way. We were sitting in the back seat and found that after dark when we held them up, lights from cars behind us made the orange-colored tips of the candy look like they were glowing from fire like a lit cigarette. Of course now, things like candy cigarettes and bubble gum cigars are not considered good things for kids. In those days, it was different. Those candy cigarettes came in packs made to look like real cigarette brands, but slightly modified...brands like Winsom instead of Winston, or L&N instead of L&M. Kids would hold them between their fingers and pretend to smoke them, but really ate them slow so that they seemed to be burning down shorter. They are still made and can be ordered on the Internet, but you don't often see them in stores. They also had bubble gum cigarettes that were wrapped in white paper. Curiously enough, neither I nor any of my siblings smoke. So much for the insidious tobacco industry using them to hook us on smoking!

Those trips were always exciting, and we made them many times in our 1950 Ford and later our 1957 Chevy Bel-Air. I would really like to have either of those cars today!

What's Going on With Lower-Case Logos?

A couple of days ago, I went to read the daily news on MSNBC.com. The logo that has been with this joint venture between Microsoft and NBC has been around since the inception of the network. Here is what I was used to seeing:

But instead of the familiar image, I found they had replaced the logo with a new one. No big deal, right? Of course not. Companies freshen up their trademarks and images from time to time. Look at the evolution of the Morton Salt girl, or Betty Crocker over the years. But I have noticed a trend that sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. That is the use of lower case logotype fonts. Here is the new MSNBC (or is it msnbc) logo. In this case, I believe it works, particularly since the type is boldface. I actually like this one better than the original.



The place where it doesn't work, in my self-proclaimed expert opinion, is in the logo of the new AT&T. This is the company formerly called SBC Communications, and before that Southwestern Bell Telephone, before it bought out its old parent company and assumed its revered name. AT&T, which once actually stood for something (American Telephone & Telegraph) had kept a bold face, all caps logo through many iterations. When I was a small child, this is the logo they used:



Pretty straightforward, and easily recognizeable. Then in the 1960s, they updated to a stylized "Bell" mark:


Still, nice, bold letters. A look of power and monopoly worthy of the parent of the old "Ma Bell". Then Judge Green comes along and on January 1, 1984, AT&T was separated from its former operating companies, leaving it with AT&T Communications (formerly Long Lines), AT&T Information Systems (equipment), Western Electric (Now Alcatel-Lucent), and a few assorted odds and ends. The newly-formed "Baby Bells" got group ownership of the Bell trademark. The original Bells formed at that time were Pacific Telesis, US West, Southwestern Bell, BellSouth, Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, and Nynex. Only BellSouth, Southwestern Bell, Bell Atlantic, and US West kept using the familiar symbol at first.

AT&T, stripped of its Bell System and Bell logo adopted the "death star" logo which had "lines of communication circling the globe". I worked for the company at the time, and noticed the number of lines varied depending on what size and on what item it appeared.



In the 1990s, the company reduced the lines, simplified the logo and added some mild 3-dimensional shading, to this:


Notice, the typeface remained constantly bold and upper case text. Finally, when SBC acquired the old AT&T, they once again updated the logo. The new globe is cool enough, but the new type face was changed to lower case and unbolded. This just doesn't work at all, in my opinion. I don't dispute the decision on the globe going 3-D, nor in using the AT&T brand. Still, the lower case text just looks so blah! So here is what we are left with:

While we are discussing logos, and particularly the MSNBC logo above, I am reminded of a major "uh-oh" moment for one of its parents, NBC Television. Back in the 1970s, the network paid a gazillion or so bucks for a new logo, dumping (temporarily, as it turns out) the familiar peacock logo. Ask any baby boomer, and they can certainly recall the announcer saying, "The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC!" Except in my house, it was only in black and white, since we didn't have a color TV until I was in high school.



The new design introduced by NBC with much fanfare, was a stylized "N". Unfortunately, the Nebraska Educational Television service had been using it for years, and had paid $100 for it. Turns out it was the best $100 they ever spent. The small network sued NBC, and settled for another gazillion dollars, a bunch of TV equipment, and lots of publicity.



Ultimately, NBC superimposed a small peacock over the "N", and eventually reinstated a simplified peacock. Here is a comparison of the two.



One of NBC's best known logos is an audio logo; the NBC Chimes. They are the musical notes G, E, and C, standing for General Electric Company, the network's one-time owner.

Tumbling Tumbleweeds

Today is just a little gusty, but it is enough to send the tumbleweeds tumbling around. Although many people think of the American West and deserted ghost towns when they envision tumbleweeds, what most don't know is that this scrubby plant is not indigenous to the Americas at all. The tumbleweed is the plant called the Russian Thistle, or more properly, Salsola. It was brought into North America from the Ukraine by immigrant farmers, where it found an environment where it could thrive.

There is a reason for the tumbling as well. Since a single plant can produce up to a quarter-million seeds, the tumbling in the wind across the prairie scatters seeds far and wide, insuring the next generation of tumbleweeds will soon appear. Rather than blowing across a dusty, deserted town in an old Western, around here they are often seen tumbling across the roads, and getting stuck under parked cars.

Tumbleweeds are also well known from the song Tumbling Tumbleweeds, written by Bob Nolan of the Sons of the Pioneers back in 1932. This song was originally called Tumbling Tumble Leaves, but was changed for the Gene Autry movie titled, appropriately enough, Tumbling Tumbleweeds. The new name stuck, and it has been sung by just about every cowboy singer from Roy Rogers to Marty Robbins.

Here are the lyrics. Enjoy!

I'm a roaming cowboy riding all day long,
Tumbleweeds around me sing their lonely song.
Nights underneath the prairie moon,
I ride along and sing this tune.

See them tumbling down
Pledging their love to the ground
Lonely but free I'll be found
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.

Cares of the past are behind
Nowhere to go but I'll find
Just where the trail will wind
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.

I know when night has gone
That a new world's born at dawn.

I'll keep rolling along
Deep in my heart is a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.

Springtime Along The Front Range

The pictures I took Sunday in Boulder of the street performers stand in contrast to today. With the temperatures below the freezing mark, and snow expected to accumulate to a foot deep, it is back to Winter.

Of course, snow here in March is expected. In fact, we will likely see at least one more snowfall in April. It was March of 2003 when we experienced the last big blizzard prior to the one last December.

Still, I am glad that this one will soon be gone, and we will enjoy more nice, Spring weather.

Reporting from the cell phone, this is Randy with another random ramble.

Blue Tooth, Bad Manners

My new cell phone has one of those fancy-schmancy Bluetooth earpieces. While it is a nice thing to have if you must talk while driving, it also can be a new source of cell phone rudeness when placed in the ear of someone without manners.

The first thing that is irritating about them is when someone says something, and you think they are talking to you. Or maybe they are delusional and talking to themselves. Then you see the Bluetooth sticking out of their ear.

Now while that is bad enough, I think I saw the ultimate in Bluetooth stupidity last weekend. My wife and I had dinner at Pappadeaux Cajun Kitchen, and across the aisle from us, a family comes in to eat. The father, mother, two little girls, and a boy all came in and were seated. That is not the stupid part. The part that I thought was both stupid and sad, is that the father sat there for the entire meal with a Bluetooth cell phone earpiece attached to his head for the entire meal. No, he didn't receive or make a single call, but even if he is an emergency room doctor, certainly could answer a call without having an earpiece permanently affixed. No, I guess he felt important with a piece of plastic stuck on his ear, but it made him look like an idiot.

I also have a real issue about people who suddenly ignore anyone they are with to get stuck on a cell call. Here's an idea . . . if you are having dinner with the family, turn the frickin' thing off. Voice mail will catch it. Usually, the call is just someone calling to chat. It can wait. It isn't that important. For those who truly MUST take emergency calls, only answer those. Cell phones have Caller ID. Let the rest go to the messaging service. And dammit, put that idiotic-looking earpiece away!

If any call coming in is more important than conversing with the people you are with, you probably should just stay home and take calls. You are not fit for human socialization. I can tell you this, if I were just dating someone, and she pulled this trick, it'd be the last date with her!

More Arched Suspension Bridges

As I drove toward Boulder today, I noticed several more arched suspension bridges like I wrote about several posts down the page. Since I was driving, there as no way to safely use the DSLR, but it was easy enough to use my camera phone to get this snapshot, hence the poorer than usual quality. Still, it beats no picture at all. One interesting feature of this bridge is its support cables are angled, rather than being vertical.

As I am posting this from the phone, that is also why this is a very short post. You cannot write the Great American Novel on a miniature keyboard.

More from Boulder

Boulder Theater Marquee

My last blog entry dealt with outdoor performers I saw on my trip to Boulder today. This post will have some of the other sites I enjoyed. As usual, click on any photo to load a larger version.

This first entry is one of a rapidly disappearing piece of Americana . . . the theater marquee. This one in good shape, as is the theater facade itself, seen in the photo below. I didn't go inside, so I have no idea how that part has fared, but hopefully it is being maintained.


Boulder Theater, Boulder, Colorado

As you can see in the photo below, some of the trees are beginning to bloom here in Colorado. This is a photo of the Boulder County Court House. It is a very attractive building situated along the Pearl Street Mall. Of course, if one is there as a defendant, I doubt the beauty of the architecture would be foremost on one's mind at the time.


Boulder County Court House

One block north of the mall is home to the next two buildings. The first is a very intricate and ornate bell tower at a church in downtown Boulder. The bell is too low in the tower to see much of it here, but you can see clearly the big metal wheel that is used to make the bell ring out. I particularly like the designs in the stone ornamentation that is near the top of each of the four cylindrical supports for the roof.


Bell Tower at Church in Boulder

The next thing that caught my eye is directly across from the bell tower. It is the Shambhala Meditation Center, a Buddhist facility established in 1974. The brilliant gold ornamentation on top really catches your eye as it reflects the bright Colorado sunshine. If you load the larger version, you will see two modes of common Boulder transportation parked in front; a bicycle and a motor scooter. These Boulder Buddhists are ecologically aware!


Shambhala Meditation Center of Boulder

I have just barely scratched the surface of things to see in this most liberal of Colorado cities. In a formerly "red" state that is rapidly turning "blue", Boulder is one of the deepest blue spots in the country. I know I will go back to investigate all that is there, as well as take more photos to share here.

Street Performers

Percussion Band in Boulder

This afternoon I took a drive up to Boulder, Colorado for a meeting that was being held at the Boulder Main Library. It is a beautiful day today, with scattered clouds across a clear blue sky, temperatures in the 60s, perfect weather for people to enjoy being outdoors. After my meeting, I heard some very eclectic-sounding percussion music, which intrigued me. I grabbed my camera from the car, and went in search of the enticing beat of the instruments I was hearing.

Crossing a footbridge over a creek, I found where the music was coming from. The percussion band in the photo above was making music for the enjoyment of all, and being enjoyed it was. Families, singles with dogs, college students, and many others were gathered around to hear the performance. One young man was doing a solo dance along the trail in front of the band.

After I got back in the car and was driving through town, I saw the Pearl Street Mall was very busy this Sunday afternoon, so I knew I had to jump out and take a stroll, camera in hand, of course! All along the mall, there were performances of various types, jugglers, fire eaters on unicycles, and of course musicians. The banjo man below was strumming, picking, and singing for the enjoyment, and tips, of passersby. He is also wearing on of the quintessential Boulder type of footwear...sandals.


Pearl Street Mall Banjo Man

The musicians were of all ages. The youngest performer I came across was this young man. I first noticed him near a magic act, and he was not being noticed by most. I then saw him later, as he had moved down the mall a bit, to where there was less competition. He really was quite good.


Young Virtuoso

Then there was the enthralling sound of the Australian didgeridoo, playing in harmony. The couple below, probably in their late 50s or early 60s, where making music on these hand-crafted instruments. They kept time by tapping the side of the instrument with a piece of wood, while playing the didgeridoo itself. Notice the woman's shoes. Like the banjo man's sandals, hers are also very representative of Boulder. I saw quite a few people wearing Crocs, and this woman was just one of many. They have to be some of the most ugly looking shoes made, but doggone if they aren't comfortable!


Didgeridoo for Two

What open air mall is complete without a balloon guy making animals for the kids. The gentleman below had created a colorful balloon headdress for himself, and the many hues added a nice splash of color to the vista. Here, a boy watches the craft of the balloon artist, anticipating what kind of animal he would end up with.


Balloon Guy

There is much more I saw in Boulder today, but I am glad that I didn't just rush back home, instead taking the time to walk along the Pearl Street Mall. After a winter of blizzards, it is great to see people getting out and enjoying the sunshine and fresh air!

As usual, you can click on the photos to see a larger version.

Truth, Justice, and the Environment

The news today seems vaguely familiar. A leader goes before a governing body and warns of a disaster facing the planet. Those who don't want to believe the warnings do everything from ignoring the warnings to deriding the messenger, calling him misguided and wrong.

Today it was former Senator Al Gore warning the United States Senate about the impending problem of global warming, imploring them to take action to protect the planet and its people. Why does this seem familiar? Two young men in the 1930s crafted a similar story. A leading scientist goes before the ruling Science Council to warn of an impending doom facing the world. The council fails to act, and ultimately, the entire population of the planet die, except for one.

The two young men who wrote this story were Joe Siegel and Gerome Shuster. The scientist in their story was named Jor-El. The sole survivor of the planet's destruction was Jor-El's son Kal-El, who was rocketed away from the doomed world by his father. As his home world of Krypton died, young Kal-El arrived on Earth, where he was adopted by a kindly farm couple who taught him right from wrong. He went on to stand for truth, justice, and the American way!

Superman is part of the American cultural mythos. Krypton was fictional, but Earth is not. I don't know if global warming is caused by the activities of humans, but until we do, we cannot go wrong by being cautious, taking care of our environment. Like Mr. Gore said, this is not a political issue, but a moral one.

Ultimately if we are responsible for climate change to the point of disaster, the earth will go on. However, there is no guarantee it will go on with us aboard. The planet could ultimately change to where other life, better adapted to the new environment, would supersede humanity.. Even in a milder change, melting polar ice caps could flood coastal cities, cause billions of economic loss, and drastically change life for our descendants.

Here's hoping the governments of earth are smarter than the Krypton Science Council. Our future, and that of future generations depend on it.

As an aside, click on Superman's "S" Shield to read an interesting web page about the evolution of this iconic symbol.

The Vernal Equinox & The Passing of Time

Well, it is just after midnight, a couple of minutes into a new day as we reckon time. Late yesterday was the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere, the beginning of spring and one of two days when the sun appears to be directly over the equator, giving us equal periods of daylight and darkness.

I am ready for spring, given the blizzards of December and January. Still, we will probably get some more snow during the months of March and April, as is typical in Colorado. Yet most days during these months are very pleasant. This week we have even exceeded the 70 degree Fahrenheit mark.

Despite the calendar, Spring starts further south and moves northward during this time of year. In Tulsa, this is the time of year the redbud trees are blooming along the banks of the wide and lazy stretch of the Arkansas River that passes through the city. In Charlotte, the dogwoods blooming add a beauty to the city, and in Washington, DC, the cherry blossoms will add their white and pink hues to the landscape of some of our most cherished national icons and monuments. Here in northern Colorado, the trees are still devoid of leaves, grass has not turned green, and in general Spring is slower to arrive. Even so, it won't be long until the new season brings a rebirth to the Front Range, as well as new photo opportunities of the Centennial State in bloom.

Personal challenges and financial disasters over the last few years have given me some days of gloom; even so, I cannot yet give up on enjoying the things life has to enjoy. Given even a life extending to old age, we are afforded all too few equinoxes, solstices, and times with those we love. Distance and time rob us of so many opportunities. It seems that life has been set on warp speed and there are no brakes to slow things down.

I have a theory about that. It seems to me that the years appear to be shorter and shorter as time goes on. My idea is that our perception of our lives is a set psychological block of time. No matter how many actual years our memories hold, the totality never perceptually changes. As we gain more years behind us, each year is a smaller percentage of this total life perception. Thus the years seem much shorter. Remember as a child how the passing of a single year seemingly took forever? Well, at 5 years old, one year is 20% of our life! At 50 it is only 2%. Hence, the perceived compression of time.

I have no facts to base my theory upon, yet it makes perfect sense to me.

Make a promise to yourself. Enjoy the Springtime, enjoy life, and don't give or sell your entire existence to any company or endeavor. Life is finite and limited; thus each day is very precious. We should do our best to make the most of every moment. None of us know how many ticks of the clock we have left.

I am reminded of the poem by John Donne, For Whom The Bell Tolls:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

So Much Happening

Well, we are now four years into the so-called "War on Terror", a.k.a. the Halliburton Revenue Enhancement Initiative. Over 3200 dead American soldiers, along with deaths of the few allied troops, and tens of thousands uncounted Iraqi deaths later, and no resolution in sight. We are now deeply entrenched in a sectarian religious civil war, and a Commander-In-Chief who's only plan is stay the course. This invasion of Iraq has cost more lives than the 9/11 attacks and has lasted longer than World War II, yet there is no goal, no exit strategy and no indication any progress is being made at all toward whatever unstated goals the administration has in mind.

Closer to home, today marked the start of the Denver trial of former Qwest CEO, Joseph P. Nacchio. The government is seeking to take back over $100,000,000 that Nacchio took out of his stock options, all the while allegedly overstating the company's outlook. From a high of about $60 per share, the company was put on a path toward bankruptcy, and only narrowly escaped that fate after Joe's departure. It had to restate earnings for several of the Nacchio years, and the life savings of US West retirees and employees.

Joe, you once called the employees of US West, a company you bought out for Qwest, "clowns". Here's hoping when your expected eight-week trial is over, the clowns get the last laugh as you are hauled off to prison! This is one clown who won't be shedding any tears for you.