Category: Places

We traveled a lot when I was a kid. We took all-day trips to Iowa and central Texas from northeast Oklahoma every year to visit my two sets of grandparents. Those trips didn’t involve motel stays, but we stayed in a myriad of them on other, less time-intensive treks.

My dad was old-school Norwegian stock from Minnesota. That meant dollars didn’t fly out of his wallet. He looked for the best value for the buck. And, quite often, that meant staying in a clean motel with no place for a kid to swim.

But, not too rarely, he would splurge an extra five bucks a night and give me the ultimate thrill: staying in a motel that HAD A POOL!

I have been able to relate very closely to my father’s quandaries as I have reached middle age. For instance, the idea of getting a good cheap motel that looked squeaky clean as opposed to a more expensive chain franchise that came complete with a pool for the kids was always very tempting. But then I would remember the unbridled joy that I would exude when dad would pull into a motel parking lot that had within its expanse a gorgeous, blue, sparkling-in-the-sunlight swimming pool.

Another way I can relate to dad is in not giving a whit whether a motel has a pool or not. Out of the last 100 hotel/motels I’ve stayed in that had pools (in other words, that had been built since 1980), I actually swam in perhaps five of them. I was too tired from traveling to consider suiting up and jumping in.

But kids who have been sleeping in the back seat all day long are another matter. And when my kids were small, that meant dragging my tired bones down to the pool to watch them.

That’s okay. It was easy work.

In my childhood, I became quite adept at turning flips and such from motel diving boards. I was a natural swimmer, so the eight-foot-depths were no sweat to me.

Nowadays, of course, we live in litigious times that insist that pools be idiot-proof. That means the shallow concrete reservoirs are suitable for little else but floating around upon on an air mattress.

But we Boomer kids can remember when our fathers’ pulling into a motel parking lot that also housed a pool meant that we were in for an unbridled afternoon full of joy jumping off a board and eventually getting ourselves as tired as our traveled-out parents.

Ah, life on the road circa 1967. Where would we spend the night? Would dad pull an all-nighter and get us somewhere early in the morning? That was known to happen. Or would we stay at a nice, clean, cheap, joyless motel without a pool?

Or, would dad, feeling flush after a particularly profitable week fixing diesel trucks in his garage, spring for the ultimate experience in lodging? That would, of course, be the Holiday Inn!

Once in a while he did take the splurging plunge, and it was a moment of ecstasy for this kid when he did.

After all, Holiday Inns not only had pools, they were huge, fancy, illuminated, gorgeous pools!

And that wasn’t all. Most of them had very nice restaurants, as well. No greasy spoon experiences when we stayed at the motel with the big, friendly green sign outside!

And we kids weren’t the only ones who were thrilled. Our moms greatly enjoyed the occasional positive change in the overnight stay experience.

Holiday Inn got its start in Memphis, Tennessee in 1952. That was the year that Kemmons Wilson opened the first one. His idea was that American travelers needed standardized, clean, predictable, family-friendly, and readily accessible places to stay. The architect that he hired to design the building jokingly suggested that he call it Holiday Inn, after a Bing Crosby-Fred Astaire movie that had been released ten years earlier.

Wilson thought that was a splendid idea.

His idea was radical for the times. Wilson had recently traveled to Washington, DC, and was disappointed by the quality of the various motor courts that he stayed at. He envisioned a chain of 400+ Holiday Inns, each one as nice to stay overnight in as any other. So his first motel was built with the idea that it would be far from the last.

Within six years, there were 50 Holiday Inns. Ten years later, in 1968, there were a thousand. In 1972, Wilson appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and the count was up to 1,400.

By then, Holiday Inns had become a part of folklore. On his 1971 album Madman Across the Water, Elton John featured one of my favorite songs, Holiday Inn. It’s a good-natured poke at the chain, which was one of his commonest places to crash on long road tours early in his career.

One of the things that Holiday Inns had going for them was a far-ahead-of-its-time reservation system known as Holidex. Many years before the internet, you could reserve your next night’s stay at another Holiday Inn several hundred miles away. And you knew that it would be just as nice as the one that you had stayed in the night before. Holiday Inn also boasted that they had no “No Vacancy” signs. If they were booked up, they would help you find another room somewhere else, which was also a pretty radical new idea in customer service.

By the late 70’s, some of the original Holiday Inns had begun showing their age. I remember staying in one in Oklahoma City about 1979 (the year that Wilson retired) that was in pretty poor shape, as far as worn-out carpets, stains, and dated decorating were concerned. The chain could have foundered at that point, but it showed that there was still life left in the name.

The corporate entities that took over from Wilson changed the look of the venerable signs that had long stood outside the motels. They also laid down the law as to the condition of any affiliate that would continue to carry the name. Interestingly, there are a few examples of Holiday Inn’s original signs that had been repainted by the motel’s owners who chose to end the affiliation..

There continue to be about 1,400 Holiday Inns worldwide, and a staggering 1,700 Holiday Inn Expresses. So even though the familiar green signs are gone, the pleasure of staying at a nice, comfortable, clean Holiday Inn is still with us.

Miami, Oklahoma was located just beyond the eastern end of Tornado Alley, as defined here. The little burgh had a history of tornado touchdowns, even though they were more rare there than any typical Kansas community.

But the possibility of a tornado destroying our house was terrifying to me. And while I miss many, many things about the 60’s, one thing I don’t miss is the state of tornado forecasting that we had back then.

Miami had tornado sirens that would put me into panic mode when they filled the air with their mournful wails. In the first grade, I would even get tearful during well-publicized noontime tests. And I wasn’t the only kid in class to do so, either.

It wasn’t until the ripe old age of 45 that I actually experienced my first tornado, an F-3 that thankfully passed just over my house, yet still causing $3,000 in damages. I’m happy to say that my irrational fear is long gone, replaced by a fascination with the phenomenon. My wife had to call me in from the front yard to get in the closet a minute or so before the funnel cloud passed over.

One of the big reasons that the fear passed, besides growing older, of course, is the vastly improved state of radar tracking of tornadoes. When I hear a warning siren go off, I simply meander over to a radio and turn on the local AM affiliate that has appointed itself Watcher of the Weather and find out exactly where the tornado is and where it’s heading. Most of the time, we simply listen as it safely passes miles away.

But in the 60’s, a tornado warning siren meant, to me, impending doom. It meant that a massive funnel big enough to swallow the entire town was likely bearing down on me, and no amount of consoling by my parents could change that.

The local TV stations would show grainy radar images that further scared the daylights out of me. The radar showed black and white blotches that were meant to represent storm systems and likely funnel cloud locations, but they were pretty limited in actual information provided.

It was about this time that the word began spreading that turning your TV to channel two would warn you of a tornado in the immediate area. The idea was that you tuned to channel 13 (the highest setting on VHF) and darken your screen to nearly black. Then, tune to channel 2 (the lowest setting) and see if the screen turns white. If it does, head for cover!

Did it work? Here’s what the NOAA experts had to say about it:

The idea was that tornadic thunderstorms were very active lightning producers. However, the method had (has) several shortcomings. Not all tornadic storms produce large amounts of lightning. TV’s are not all equally sensitive, and in fact some are made to filter out lightning signals. If you are connected to cable, it won’t work. The bottom line is that the method provide completely unreliable in actual field tests. Did it work sometimes? Yes, but most of the time it did not — it either indicated a tornadic storm when none occurred, or it did not indicate the presence of such a storm when in fact one was nearby. In meteorological terms, its success score was too low and its false alarm rate too high to be of use.

But with the state of 1960’s weather forecasting, it was about as effective as Earl Ludlum (our local weatherman).

Doppler radar made some quantum leaps in the late 70’s, and severe weather forecasting became much more accurate. That eased the stress levels of many Tornado Alley dwellers, especially scared little kids. That, plus the fact that storm cells could be seen in colors that varied according to intensity (since we all had color TV’s by then), gave us all a much clearer picture of where tornadic activity was in relation to our location.

But we kids of the 60’s who grew up in tornado-prone areas can recall a time when sirens would fill us with fear and loathing, much as news of the latest gasoline price hikes do today. 😉

About 1998 or so, we took a trip to Orlando. I figure every kid ought to see Disney World at least once in their lives, even if it nearly bankrupts the parents. Anyhoo, we went to the Epcot Center one sunny day, and I had a distinct deja vu feeling about the place. Eventually, as we strolled from “country” to “country,” it dawned on me: the feelings I was experiencing were very much like those I had lived through many years earlier as I went through Expo 67 in Montreal.

World’s Fairs used to be a big deal, they certainly still were while we Boomer kids were growing up. In 1967, Montreal hosted a spectacular that was the talk of the planet, officially known as the 1967 International and Universal Exposition. I’m not sure which parent was the most gung-ho to go, I would suspect it was my schoolteacher mom, but dad was all for it, too, perhaps because the conservative ex-Minnesotan would have the opportunity to visit friends and family on the way up to Canada.

So one June day, we piled into the car, my two parents, my reluctant seventeen-year-old brother, and my own eager seven-year-old self.

When we eventually made it to Montreal, I was captivated by the foreignness of the place. Let’s face it, going to the capital of the French province is almost like taking a trip to Europe. The signs everywhere were in French, and the city was the most crowded, busiest, craziest place I’d ever seen.

I remember being in a massive traffic jam, the first I’d ever experienced. There was a road sign stating that the speed limit was 50 MPH (I’m pretty sure it was still MPH in those days). The whole family thought that was hilarious as we crawled along.

I also remember that we stayed in some sort of boarding house in lieu of a hotel. It was either a bargain, or simply no hotels were available in the tourist-packed town, as it was the only time we ever did so. The bathroom was in the hall, shared by a number of individuals. That added even more strangeness to being in a very foreign city.

We spent two, maybe three days at the actual Expo, I can’t remember for sure. My parents shot lots of pics with a Kodak Instamatic, but very sadly, they have disappeared. One I particularly recall was depicting a marquee proclaiming that Simon and Garfunkel would be appearing live onstage, along with Tim Rose. The sign, of course, had both “and” and “et.” My older brother finally had something to get excited about, but the concert cost extra, and my thrifty father refused to let him go, putting him back into a funk that lasted the rest of the trip.

We visited many pavilions, and saw many wondrous sights. But my normally acute memory doesn’t recall that many of them, except the huge geodesic dome that housed the American presentation.

I remember gazing up in wonder as we walked into the structure, seeing the sun entering through thousands of little windows which formed a monstrous sphere. The dome style was the design of world famous architect R. Buckminster Fuller, and they were seen in all sorts of places during the 60’s. It’s still popular, and every time I see one, I think of that American pavilion.

I recall that everything was quite futuristic. Two particular predictions were echoed there, just like they were at nearly every other forward-looking presentation: flying cars, and picture phones.

“Where’s my flying car?” is a common gag today, when those visions of the future are re-examined, but the whole picture phone concept has gotten turned upside down.

The futurists never saw the internet coming. True, they correctly predicted that computers would be a huge part of 21st-century life, but the downfall of POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) was never seen. Between cheap or free Voice Over IP and unlimited cell phone plans, the wired telephone is fast going the way of the wing vent window.

Of course, if you like, you can do video chatting, but most of us prefer good old conversation sans video imagery.

The rest of the world put up some amazing displays at Expo 67 too, of course. The Canadian pavilion was very prominent, as it should have been, and while I don’t remember if we visited all of them, I know for sure we hit that one.

I remember going to the pavilion dedicated to Canadian Indians as well. The presentations there were controversial for the depiction of the white man as a persecutor of the aboriginals, but I’d been hearing that for a long time. I guess the WWII generation found something distasteful about that, their children, however, were fully aware via history lessons in school that there was nothing honorable about the exploitation of North America by European explorers and their followers. That was already being taught by second grade in the 60’s.

Eventually, mom and dad decided that we’d seen enough. We spent some time at the Lachine Canal, which I remember vividly. I’d never seen a canal before, the filling and emptying of the locks was fascinating for a kid to watch.

We went home through the eastern states, where I was treated to seeing Niagara Falls and the Great Smokey Mountains. When we finally arrived in Miami, Oklahoma, my brain was full of wonderful memories of strange places, none stranger than the city of Montreal itself.

OK, Boomers, your turn. How many of you were at Expo 67 with me, walking around with your parents and marveling at the sights of a World’s Fair, back when the title still carried meaning?

The communities that we live in have been evolving since time immemorial. No facet of American culture has undergone more transformations than the downtown business district.

Every town with more than a couple hundred residents has one. And the odds are that it has seen its share of ups and downs over the years. And I’m not just talking Boomer years, either.

In the area where I grew up, there was a boom in the formation and growth of communities about the turn of the 20th century. In Oklahoma, many of these were given the names of Indian tribes that had been forcefully relocated there during the Trail of Tears era. In Arkansas, where I currently reside, communities are often named after railroad executives, who were often responsible for their formation at key points along the routes.

Stroll along the downtown sidewalks of these communities, and you will likely see durable old buildings dating from this era, from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s.

Those buildings have probably seen much in the way of both glory and ignominy.

When we grew up in the 50’s and 60’s, downtowns were on the rebound. They started off strong, but when the Great Depression hit, many of the businesses that had originally inhabited the buildings dropped out of sight. Many downtown structures were unoccupied while the country ‘s economy convulsed.

However, the economy eventually woke up and began roaring during WWII, and once again downtown buildings became inhabited by thriving businesses. After the war, prosperity was in the air, and every downtown was filled with shoppes run by returned vets who were doing a brisk business.

Many a downtown of this era sported a business or two selling the Next Great Invention, television. A big store window might feature several powered-up models, and it was a popular place for the less fortunate who could not yet afford one to enjoy the hypnotic effects of the one-eyed monster.

Then there were the dime stores. We all fondly remember the downtowns of our youth containing at least one Woolworths, or TG&Y, or Kress, or Ben Franklin.

There would also be banks, a hardware store, a shoe store, and a single-screen movie theater.

Thus ended the sweet 60’s. The next two decades would lead us to believe that the downtown business district was dead.

Now Main Street’s whitewashed windows, and vacant stores
Seems like nobody ever wants to go down there no more

In 1984’s My Hometown, Bruce Springsteen summed up downtown’s plight in that era. The 70’s were brutal on the economy. Things were turning around in the 80’s, but the effect had not yet reached downtown, and many of us remember the thriving Main Streets of our youth had become depressing places, indeed. Family-owned dime stores, hardware stores, and shoe stores were being attacked on all fronts by suburban shopping malls, massive retail chains, and tight dollars.

But our venerable downtowns showed that they still had life left in them.

Today, many communities proudly tout their “historical districts.” The downtown buildings that we knew and loved have new tenants. Upscale coffee shops, restaurants, and clothiers are often found in formerly run-down buildings that have been the beneficiaries of downtown renewal projects.

Of course, not every community has been able to afford to resurrect their downtowns. But enough have that we Boomer kids can smile with satisfaction that not every up-and-down story has to end down.