In November 1999 I was browsing at antique mall in Sacramento and spotted some View-Master reels in a display case.  I asked a clerk – her name was Audrey – to bring them out so I could take a look at them. One was a 1950s reel of Hawaiian hula dancers.  Audrey casually mentioned that Hawaii was so different now than the way it was when she’d been there.  I figured she’d vacationed there in the ’50s or ’60s, so I asked her what it had been like then.

“Oh, no, I was there before the war, before it was so built up” she said.

“But you got out before Pearl Harbor was bombed, right?” I asked.

“No, I was right there,” she said.  Then she started talking.

Audrey’s father was a civilian employee at Hickam Field, the Air Force base on Pearl Harbor.  The family lived in the third block of military housing from the street.  On the morning of December 7th, there was a tremendous noise and the ground began to shake.  Audrey – and everybody else – looked up and discovered they were being strafed by Japanese planes.  She ran home, but as she ran she saw bombs dropping everywhere.  Nearly six decades later she could still remember the smell of the dead bodies, and how they were left to rot where they fell or washed ashore.  It was a stench she could never forget.

I asked if her family was evacuated after the bombing.  No, she said, Hawaii had no airports then.  The only plane that ever flew to the islands was the China Clipper.  The only way out was by ship – and once the war started, that was impossible.  Audrey and her family spent three years trapped on Oahu.  They lived under a blackout.  Their windows were painted black and the entire island was dark at night.  Her mother got into the habit of cupping her hand over the lit end of her cigarette, and it was a habit she kept the rest of her life. Audrey lost three years of her education because all the schools were closed.  Food was scarce, and people stole food from the base.

After three long years, the family finally got off the island.  They came to California on a run-down old tramp steamer that had been decommissioned in 1937.  People slept twelve to a stateroom, and it was so unbearable many people took to sleeping on the wet, oily deck.  Every now and then someone who had seen too much war would go crazy and commit suicide by jumping overboard, and the crew was instructed not to do anything.  They couldn’t jeopardize the entire ship for one person.  After twelve days of traveling at only two or three knots (because they could’ve encountered submarines) they docked at San Francisco. There wasn’t a dry eye on the ship.  No one had seen city lights in three years.  Audrey’s family stayed up all night.

I asked her if she’d ever written down her story for her kids and grandkids, and she just shrugged.  It seemed to me that she’d told the story enough times that it was no big deal to her anymore.  But it was a big deal to me, and I wanted to know more.  But then she was called to help another customer, and I wasn’t able to stop her and ask more questions.  I never saw her again when I went back to the store.  I’ve always regretted the fact that I didn’t get a chance to ask her more questions or at least thank her for sharing as much as she did.

I firmly believe you can find weirdness anywhere.  There’s no such thing as a boring day.  If you haven’t seen or done something peculiar today, then it obviously happened while you weren’t paying attention.  Pay attention!

The OZ team took a day trip to Plymouth and Jackson last Saturday.  The itinerary: breakfast at our favorite diner, a quick stop at a cemetery or two, and some antiquing.  Sounds nice, right?  Oh, it was.  But it was so much more than just nice….

1.  Restroom Hog
Breakfast was delish.  We ate and ate and ate.  We relaxed and chatted and kicked back over coffee and tea.  Then each of us needed to make a pit stop, of course.  But wait – the restroom door was locked.  Someone was in there.  And in there.  And in there.  We relaxed and kicked back some more.  A full TWENTY MINUTES went by, then a large man emerged from the potty, looking satisfied and emptified.  He probably had a permanent seat ring encircling his buttocks.  Who the hell spends twenty minutes in a restaurant toilet?  That is not normal.  Who among us would dare to be the next to use that loo?  Not I.  Not any of us.

2.  Forever Floater
When we visited Plymouth back in July, we found a convenient public restroom located at the park on Main Street.  Luckily for us, it hadn’t been bulldozed or condemned in the intervening months.  Pit stop!  The small brick building had two stalls, and when we stopped here in July we discovered a floater in one of the toilets.  Oddly enough, it was still there on our return visit.  Imagine that.  The floater that wouldn’t die.  Or flush.  Oh, it wasn’t the same turd, you say?  Can you prove it?  I didn’t think so.

3.  Bag Box
Humans need to go, and so do dogs.  The town of Plymouth had thoughtfully provided a  Fido House – a green metal poop bag dispenser – on the side wall of the restroom.  It was empty.  Apparently dog turds get free rein to float in Plymouth, just like the human variety.

4.  ERKE
The restroom, as I said, was located in a park.  The park also included a playground, and the sidewalk outside the playground was covered with cute chalk drawings.  Just to the right of a large flower, the name ERKE had been scrawled in big capital letters.  So…is that pronounced “Urk” or “Urk-ee”?  Is it a boy’s name or a girl’s name?  What planet are we on?

5.  Kompan Spica
What planet, indeed.  The playground was a mystifying nightmare of torture implements.  No children romped or swung while we were there, and for good reason.  The play equipment was incomprehensible.  The fourth member of the OZ team happens to be a kid, so she was asked to investigate and teach us how to use the strange collection of metal and plastic objects that sat forlorn and unused in the play area.  The various wobbly platforms and awkward climbing walls were uncomfortable and difficult, if not impossible, to reach from the ground.  Strangest of all was a crooked metal pole planted in the ground like an alien weed, with a rubberized platform near the base and a yellow chunk of plastic at the top.  Trill and I took turns climbing and spinning on it but ultimately rated it a zero in play value.  Later that evening, after much online searching, I discovered it was a Kompan Spica, a Danish spinning toy that encourages “experiments with movement and gravity.”  I guess we didn’t move or gravitate the right way.

6.  Buried in a Barbecue Pit
We made a brief stop at the Jackson City Cemetery, also called the Catholic Cemetery.  Our stop was so brief, only two of us bothered to get out of the car.  Lor and Trill took a drive-through tour while Wire and I made a quick scan of the graveyard on foot.  It looked rather boring (which seems to be happening to us a lot lately – cemetery burnout may be imminent if we’re not careful).  We discovered a few above-ground crypts made of brick.  While several appeared intact right down to their embedded headstones, others had been sloppily torn apart.  From a distance they looked like barbecue pits.  We hoped the caskets had been disinterred and reburied elsewhere.

7.  Monumental Dejå Vu
As I gazed around the cemetery, one red granite monument caught my eye.  I’d never seen anything like it.  A large, polished globe perched atop four scrolls that resembled animal paws.  Below it, a trapezoidal chunk of granite was elaborately engraved with the names of the deceased:  Margaret and George Kirkwood, who died in 1946 and 1947, respectively.  The ornate style of the lettering intrigued me, as did the imposing sense of weight and volume.  I took a photo to remember it.  When I got home, I flipped through an album of snapshots I’d taken at cemeteries over the years.  And there, in a set of photos from May of 1996, I found…Margaret and George.

8.  The Grass is Grayer
Any Serbs out there in internet land?  I have a question for you.  Your cemetery in Jackson – why does it have no grass?  Few flowers?  No trees except for a handful of strategically-placed cypresses?  Lor and I climbed the steep hill of the Serbian Cemetery and peered out over a patchwork quilt of cement plots.  It was a hot day and the lack of greenery made the hill seem even hotter.  We found some interesting headstones but the inhospitable grayness of it all discouraged exploration.

9.  Knock if You’re Thirsty
We passed this door on a side street.  The pink board over the window made it stand out, and the detailed carving made it interesting.  But then we noticed that the doorknob was a spigot.  Yes, a spigot.  It had no handle so we weren’t able to test it and see if it had hot or cold water.

10.  Louvre Suites
All the buildings on Jackson’s Main Street say, “I’m from the Gold Rush era!” or “I’m a late-Victorian storefront!” or some such clever, tourist-attracting statement.  It makes for a pleasant atmosphere.  But peer around the corner and anachronistic façades emerge.  I wish I’d taken the time to get closer to the Louvre Suites.  What was behind that circa-1950s alley entrance?  The sign proclaiming “Louvre Club, Good Food, Fine Drinks” – was that a vintage ‘50s advertisement or a modern fake?  An internet search turned up very little other than the fact that the Louvre Club was a “full blown illegal casino” that operated from 1946 to 1955.

11.  Scene of the Crime
Like every small town and large city in America, Jackson’s Main Street has been hit by the recession.  We passed empty storefronts on both sides of the street.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I like to look in the windows of vacant stores.  One store had a nice hardwood floor which was marred by a large, spiky bloodstain.  Oh, I know, maybe it was furniture polish or candle wax or enamel paint.  But I prefer to believe it’s a bloodstain.  Humor me.

12.  The Stinkeye of Love
We kept passing signs for the Amador County Museum, so of course we had to visit it.  We climbed a hill and passed a locomotive parked outside a stately building – aha!  This was the museum!  As we crossed the lawn to the front porch we got the distinct feeling we were being watched.  We turned around and saw a teenage couple glaring at us from a bench in the park-like front yard of the museum.  Whoops.  Sorry, lovebirds.  We got to the door of the museum and found a sign indicating it was closed until further notice.  Damn!  Then we noticed a large brass bell hanging to the right of the door.  Since the young lovers had clearly come to this spot for privacy, I decided to ring the bell and wake the dead.  And did that thing ever have a LOUD clang!  Satisfied I’d alerted their parents to the immoral behavior of their offspring, I turned around and, with the rest of the OZ team, walked back down the hill.

So there you have it:  a dozen weird things, all in one day.  And this was just an ordinary day.  Imagine what happens on a crazy day.

Once upon a time, in a more genteel age, when ladies and gentlemen wished to communicate with loved ones far away, they penned polite handwritten letters and tucked them into envelopes before mailing them.  Privacy was valued back then.

Yeah, right.

Since the first postcards were sold at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, folks have been scribbling their secrets on very visible, very accessible pieces of cardboard.  Don’t count on privacy if the town postmistress is married to the greengrocer, whose sister is the schoolmarm, whose neighbor is the mayor’s cousin.

*****

My father is very poorly  received last sacraments yesterday  Dear momma it is impossible for me to send you money at present I will write and explain all in a letter I told you to make arrangements to come to (unintelligible) but you wont  Maydie

This is the cryptic message scrawled in pencil on the back of a postcard, the front of which features an image of the swanky café inside the Van Nuys Hotel.  Maydie has written her name down the length of one of the interior’s massive Doric columns.  Did she write the card during luncheon at one of the linen-covered tables, or was she a server or dishwasher who dashed off the card in a spare minute in the café’s kitchen?  Maydie allowed someone else to write her momma’s address on the card – maybe she felt her handwriting wasn’t legible enough – then dropped it in a mailbox on a July day in 1909.  And that’s all we know about her.

Hollywood Bowl postcard:
June 28th ’46  Dear Virginia an John  Sorry to hear that you are not in your new home yet.  I note that you and John were out at Ann’s grave and that Jean, Mary and Henrietta were there too  I sure do miss her.  Norene has her picture right here on the desk.  Dad

Oddly, both Maydie and Dad sent their cards to people with the same surname:  Mrs. M. Donnelly (“momma”) of Cincinnatti, Ohio, and Mr. and Mrs. John Donnelly of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

*****

Postcard of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, postmarked February, 1965:
Linda Dear, I just heard today from Bertha that her oldest son is very sick.  They certainly, all of her children, give her much worry.  They can’t be strong enough to work.  I’ll pray for dear Bertha daily.  She has had such a hard life, poor luck, awful – I want you to be careful of your health at your age now Linda.  Slow up & let your 5 children you mothered help you.  You so lovingly brought them up to fine character & studious thinking citizens, which we surely need in U$.  If you need me ever telephone the Packards CE7-0761 code 617 for this job is apt to end if anyone got sick here.  Old folks are not dependable as employers you, know.  & give Mrs. P. & Mr. P. the message for me.  They always know where I am located if I have to move.  Love, Ruth

Scenic postcard of a canal in Grand Rapids, Michigan, postmarked December 20, 1909:
Dear Friend, At last I have got around to answer your card.  I suppose you heard Clyde Bowen married Vera Guiller in June and killed her in Oct. his trial is on now it began last Tuesday.  Wm. Edwards

*****

But life wasn’t all gloom and doom.

Postcard of the Mar Monte Hotel, Santa Barbara, California, postmarked June 21, 1954:
Darling Glady,…It was such a jolly foursome in the coffee shop and I shall long remember our nice walks around the gardens….Love always to my dear sis.  Milly

Postcard of Robert Louis Stevenson’s house, Monterey, California, postmarked July 26, 1946:
Dear Louise I am on a vaction.  We are going to San Francisco and the Red Woods.  I am in Carmel 100 miles from San Francisco I hope you have a happy birthday.  Love Dora

Postcard of the Northfield School for Girls, Northfield, Massachusetts, postmarked June 11, 1968:
Dear Uncle Fred and Aunt Olga
I am attending a religious conference here for a week.  The discussions have been very stimulating and I am enjoying myself tremendously.  Gram and Gramps have been wonderful!  I wish you could have come with them.  Carl’s graduation was marvelous!  It is great being out of school!

World War II cartoon postcard, postmarked April 3, 1942:
I am seeing pink elephants again they keep looking at me
Hello Bev! (Hic)
Hic hic hic hic hic
Thanks for the card!  Say I wonder if it was my business to read what you wrote to Red  Ha! Ha!  When you get some of that nothing send me a line toots!  Loads – loads  loads loads & more loads of love,
Hic Hic Hic Hic
The Old Man
I must be drunk I think

*****

And just when you think it’s all personal revelations of the good, bad or ugly kind, along comes a card that’s a perfect little time capsule.

Postcard of Quincy House, Enosburg Falls, Vermont, postmarked March 21, 1939:
WRITE  Write  Write  This is a picture of our one & only hotel.  It isn’t very big but it doesn’t need to be for this town.  I’m listening to the “Box Top” program now.  They interview people in a hotel lobby.  It’s pretty good, too.  Have you a game of Chinese Checkers?  The game hit this town with a bang! a while ago.  Giddings Drug Store is the store where I bought these cards.  They were only 3 for 5¢ so I got three.  How much are yours?  P.S.  WRITE  Marilyn Rublee, Box 315

*****

They say every picture tells a story.  Sometimes the story is penned on the back of the picture.  Luckily for us, there are millions of little stories out there waiting to be discovered.

An interesting video created by the British Pathé in 1965 of Potter’s Museum in Bramber, Sussex, England. Walter Potter (1835-1918) created the well-known collection of anthropomorphic dioramas using taxidermied pets from 1861-1890. This prime example of “Victorian Whimsy” remained intact an impressive 142 years until it was disbursed via auction in 2003.

Kittens’ Wedding, Potter’s last piece created in 1890. Click here for video of Kittens’ Wedding.

After watching the video, visit A Case of Curiosities to read more about Mr. Potter, his collection and to see photos.

All 90,000 of British Pathe’s newsreels can be watched on http://www.britishpathe.com

Credit to finding this fantastic video: Lee Unkrich and Morbid Anatomy

An empty storefront is a sad thing, of course.  It could be the abandoned remnant of someone’s lifelong dream gone bust, or a once-mighty retail giant fallen to ruin.  On the other hand, an empty shop is a new venture waiting to happen.  Maybe the next lifelong dream will be the one that lasts for generations… “and it all started here,” they’ll say with pride.

I like the feel of big, empty rooms – the hollow echo of every step, the exposed corners, the harsh light and weird shadows – but the closest I can get is up against the window, so I take photos.  Here are some empty shops I’ve discovered in Sacramento, Auburn, Folsom and Virginia City.

But what if your chosen medium isn’t a computer screen or paper?  How do you correct a typo on a headstone?  

Quick answer: you don’t.  It’s there for all eternity, folks.  So be careful, all you hero’s out there, because you and your grammatically incorrect headstone will be togethether forever.

Mormon temples are closed to outsiders (a fact that does nothing to demystify this religion and makes it seem even more cultlike) but a brand-new temple is a cause for celebration, plus it gives church members an opportunity to present themselves in a good light to their new neighbors.  Thus, this building was opened to the public for a few days.  I would’ve loved to take pictures, but I seemed to recall being warned that cameras were forbidden on the tour.

The architecture of the temple is a vague mix of Egyptian and art deco with a hint of romanesque, yet it has a modern simplicity that belies its classic appearance.  Temples are always built on hilltops, and since no hilltop could be found in Rancho Cordova one had to be manufactured.  In order to reach the temple we had to climb a slope that hadn’t been there a few years before.

We were asked to take off our shoes and don paper slippers prior to entering the building.  This in itself was no big deal – the place had brand-new carpet and it made sense that they wanted it to remain clean.  But this simple act was turned into a ritual of obsequiousness on the part of church members.  These Stepford Wives and Husbands and Children knelt before us, carefully removed our shoes and put the slippers on our feet – an act I found embarrassing, not only for myself but for the smiling Mormon who did it for me.  Humbling oneself in front of a stranger seemed, to me, to be a carefully scripted act designed to make the visitors feel indebted to these selfless people.  It just made me feel icky.

I was surprised by how many folks took advantage of this chance to see the inside of the temple before it was closed to outsiders.  Hundreds of people lined up for tours on a Friday afternoon.  We were split into groups of twenty and taken on the tour by a member guide, and each group was peppered with more church members.  They were also stationed at every door and at the tail end of every group, probably so nobody would wander off into forbidden territory.  I felt that every offhand comment made by visitors was overheard and answered by a church member.  This effectively quashed any jokes, negative opinions or spurious asides.  It was a calm, nearly-invisible form of censorship.

Our group was herded into a small room in the chapel and shown a 10-minute video about the importance of temples, then we went into the building itself.  It reminded me of a sterile, high-end hotel.  It was extremely tasteful, low-key, expensive-looking and utterly devoid of personality.  “Designed by Caucasians, for Caucasians,” I thought.  The tight-butt blandness made me wonder what happened during services in this environment.  No hand-clapping, gospel-singing, snake-handling or speaking in tongues, for sure.

We were shown the baptismal pool (about the size of a jacuzzi), a dressing room and a “sealing room” where weddings are performed.  We also viewed three “ordinance rooms” (where members are given “instruction,” we were told, whatever that means), including the blindingly bright Celestial Room.  The lack of windows in two of these rooms bothered me.  I wondered what kind of screaming, crying and misery went on in there.  The first one featured a mural of the Sierra Nevadas that completely covered three walls (the front wall was white) and an oppresively low ceiling.  It contained about 50 theater-style seats and a small altar at the front.  The second room was white and had a high ceiling, but again, same seating, same altar, no windows.  The third ordinance room was the aforementioned Celestial Room, which was dazzlingly bright from the huge windows, massive chandelier and numerous crystal sconces on the walls.  I got the idea that beginning Mormons have to sit for their “instruction” in that claustrophobic mural room, then if they succeed in whatever they’re supposed to learn they can move to the white room, and if they’re really, really obedient they get to sit in the blinding Celestial Room, where sofas and chairs are arranged like a hotel lobby rather than a classroom.  A simple view of the outside world was used like a carrot dangled in front of churchgoers as a reward for learning the ropes.

We didn’t have any opportunity to explore as we were led down tastefully decorated halls and around corners and through rooms, and I got the distinct feeling there were other rooms we weren’t shown.  I mentioned this to my friend and – as if on cue – a church member immediately assured us we’d seen everything.  I’m not so sure.

We were invited back to the chapel for refreshments and the opportunity to ask questions.  I had a lot of questions but I was afraid to ask them so we left.  I sensed that all my questions would be neatly answered with stock responses with no room for ambiguity or disagreement.  Mainly I wanted to know about the expense of building this temple.  They told us they were obligated to build the finest temple possible to honor God, but they also said part of their religion was following Jesus’ teachings and giving “service” to others.  I wanted to ask them, if you had $10 million and you asked Jesus what to do with it, would he say A) build a temple or B) donate it to the Loaves and Fishes shelter so nobody in Sacramento would be homeless and hungry?   Seriously, LDS, WWJD?

At the end of the tour we were allowed to remove our slippers and put our shoes back on with no interference from overly-helpful members.  I’m glad I went because I now know I won’t burst into flames if I set foot inside a church, but it didn’t make me feel more comfortable or knowledgeable about the Mormon religion.  If anything, it reminded me why I cannot belong to any church.  There are a lot of questions out there, and I don’t want to be spoon-fed the absolute, undeniable answers.

This is very cute silent film created by children (with some obvious help). The typos make it even cuter.

From the YouTube submitter:

A silent film adaptation of the Newbery Prize award winning children’s novel, The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman.

The film was created as part of a 2-week film camp organized by Wordplay, which was hosted by our friends at TYPE bookstore in Toronto’s Queen West neighborhood of Trinity-Bellwoods. This film and two others (adaptations of different books) have been created for the 2011 Newbery Film Festival in New York and Chicago this coming November.

Filmmakers: Isaac, Joanna, Miranda, Rommel, Taarak and T’saria
Mentor: Cam Woykin

Or have I?

I also spend a lot of time in public restrooms, thanks to a bladder the size of a pea.  Over the years I’ve become quite a connoisseur of the Ladies’ Lounge, but honestly, I’ll settle for any place that has a flushing toilet and running water in the sink.

We were at the Cordelia Junction Antique Mall in Fairfield and naturally I had to pee.  Most antique malls have fru-fru ladies’ rooms, with framed art on the walls and potpourri in vases and piped-in music and two kinds of hand lotion.  Cordelia, not so much.  Okay, not at all.  This litter box was all function and no form, reminiscent of a campground lavatory or a roadside rest stop.  Well, it had tile on the floor and walls, so it wasn’t quite rest stop-ish.  But the stalls were covered in thick paint, indicative of layer over layer over layer – no stripping and sanding and priming when these boards get grimy; just give ‘em another coat of some generic non-color paint from the “oops” selection at Home Depot.  The long, narrow room seemed dimly lit, despite the lights on the ceiling and over the sink.  It felt oppressive.

I prefer the big stall (honestly, who doesn’t?) but to my disappointment the latch on the door of Cordelia’s big stall would not lock.  I was all alone in there (or so I thought) but still, I like my privacy.  The two middle stalls were out of order so I was left with the one closest to the sink.  It did the job, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in a cinderblock box at Camp Crystal Lake.

There was nothing overtly creepy in there, really, but my mind kept flashing to a summer camp.  It’s late at night, I have to pee and I have to walk to the dingy, isolated latrine all by myself.  Flies dart around the bare light bulb over the door.  The fluorescent light inside buzzes ominously…

Wait a minute.  I’m in an antique store, for cryin’ out loud.

The minute I left, I forgot about it.  Later that night I looked at the pictures I took.  (What, you mean you don’t take pictures of public restrooms?)  The weird feeling came rushing back.  And then I read some online reviews for the antique store.  Out of eleven reviews, four mentioned…a ghost in the restroom.

So I ask you, Cordelia Junction, were you built on the site of a long-gone summer camp with a cursed lake and a murder or two?