The dance of time

Ah, history. One man's trash is another man's treasure. Or, one girl's recital is another girl's "Your hair looked like that?!?"

When I was growing up, I was a dancer. Well, a "dancer." I did what most little girls did, and I danced. Tap and ballet, then jazz, and much later, pointe and modern. This is how I spent 17 of my formative years. And of course at the end of every year, there was a recital. Choreography, costumes, feathers, sequins... and lots of hairspray.

I've had a few projects this summer, all documenting my years of recitals. It began when I wanted to make a CD of the songs I had on tape (At one of my studios, the teachers would tape your recital music for you, so you could practice at home. I now have 5 60- and 90-minute tapes' worth of music from recitals and various other performances); that somehow led to wanting to take pictures of all of my costumes. And I also finally got around to a project I've been meaning to do for years: transfer all of the VHS tapes I have of recitals and other performances to DVD.

So as I'm watching these performances, I'm looking at the backstage footage of people before the shows. The more recent performances barely registered in my mind, other than things like "Oh, I remember her" and the like. But the older shows.... those are funny. I see the adults from 1988, and I think to myself, "OH MY GOD! LOOK AT THAT HAIR!!!!! HER HEAD EXPLODED!!!!" or "MAN PERM!!!!" And footage of people in rehearsals? "FRENCH-CUT LEOTARDS!!!!! AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!?!?!?" (And to top it off, or maybe to bottom it off, they were worn over bike shorts, usually cotton, not the spandex ones. Because a French-cut leotard over *spandex* bike shorts would just be ridiculous. French-cut leotards over bike shorts...what were we thinking?!?! Oh, fashions.)

Oh, history. Oh, fashions. Ugh, those fashions. Not so fashionable anymore. But it's all History now, and a nice little time capsule. An anthropological look at hairstyles and dance attire styles of the late 1980s and early 1990s. One person's "style" is another person's "What were you thinking?!?!", even if it's the same person, just decades apart. (But isn't that the way it always goes when you look back at yourself, years later? Think of your prom pictures, your graduation pictures, your elementary school pictures, pictures of you at parties with your friends.... Years later, they're almost always an embarrassment.)

(And let's not even go into the music of the times -- a tap dance to Bell Biv Devoe?!? a jazz number to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. EMF. the theme to 21 Jump Street??? Not to say I don't love those dances, but 20-some years later, the music choice makes me laugh. Or giggle with nostalgia.)

Yeah, we thought stuff like this
looked good. 

Oral Historian/Detective

One thing I enjoy about transcribing oral histories is that I feel like a detective at times. The interviewees talk, telling stories about their lives, naming people and places they remember. Sometimes, though, it's hard to understand what they say. Or even if I can understand what they say, sometimes I'm not sure of spelling. This is especially true for someone like me, who doesn't know a lot of the people and places that most of the speakers talk about. Was that family the Hoffs, or the Houghs? The Andersons, or the Andersens? Bartlett or Bartlet? Or maybe the interviewee doesn't remember a particular name ("What was the name of that one family...The father was a mechanic...The Ro-somethings"). That's when I put on my detective's cap.

Since I know where most of the interviewees were living at the time their stories take place (and since I know when most of the stories take place), I can jump right to the census* for that location. (Luckily, it was a small area at the time!) From there, I start scrolling through the pages, especially if I'm looking for a close neighbor of the interviewee. When I find the name, ya-hoo! I do a little victory dance. (Sometimes, though, the victory dance is delayed a bit, as I pull out more detective skills -- the art of deciphering handwriting!)

Sometimes I have really big victories. There have been quite a few times that an interviewee has talked about a particular person and an occupation or business, but either I couldn't understand the name that was given, or I wasn't sure of spelling. But when I found Elizabeth Beam, for example, who was listed on the census as "Proprietor, Beauty Shop" when the speaker was talking about where she got her hair done as a young woman, I was pretty sure I had the right person. Victory dance! Another time was when a speaker mentioned a family that had a garage, and, using other clues from the interview, I was able to find the father on the census, listed as "mechanic." Victory dance!

Other times require more computer-based detective work: the Soundex. No idea how to spell a name, or can't find anything on your own? Soundex finds names (in theory) that sound like what you're looking for. I've had a couple of wins that were generated by Soundex. Victory dance!

I love playing detective while transcribing the oral histories. It's a lot of work, especially when you don't have the connection to the people and area like some others do (I know there are other people who just know, right off the bat, whether the speaker was talking about the Hoffs or the Houghs, for example. Or knew that Elizabeth Beam was the one who did hair, or knew that that particular family's name was Romano, or that that family was Terhune, not Terhuen, or whatever other spelling I was looking for, or would know if the one family I still can't figure out was Bertelson, Bertelsen, or Bertleson.). But when you get all of the questionable names and places accounted for, boy, you feel like you've won. Victory dance!

*Yes, I do realize that the census isn't always 100% accurate. I'll double- or triple-check with other censuses to see if the spelling stayed consistent throughout the decades; other times, or if the spelling varies, I'll look for other documents--an obituary, a family tree online, a newspaper article, a birth announcement, a yearbook--to try to figure out what was most likely the correct spelling. For example, the Romanos, who at times look like Romaros; or the Ballous, who sometimes look like Ballons. I keep cross-checking until I'm pretty sure I have the correct spelling, or until I hit it lucky, like I did with the Ballous, and found a family tree online that even had a note that one of the "Ballon" transcriptions should have read "Ballou." Thank you, genealogists!  (Victory dance!)

We make history, too

As I've said before, logically I know that things we do today will be history to someone in the future. One day, someone might research that thing they used back in the 1990s and early 2000s called "The Internet." Even looking back *now* on shows like Saved by the Bell from the early 1990s or Third Watch from the early 2000s and seeing the MASSIVE BOX Zack Morris or Doc Parker held to their ears and called "a phone" is hysterical. But sometimes it's nice to get a little reminder that our parents or our grandparents were A Part of History that we can see now.

Last summer, my family and I went to the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Obviously, this museum has a lot of history -- old fighter planes, jet packs, an Air Force One, etc. -- but it was the more recent history that made me take notice. (And okay, Air Force One was pretty cool. It was actually the reason I went.)

The Airpark, the lot across the street from the main museum, has an Air Force One, a Concorde, and the first Boeing 747 built. I'd heard stories before from my mom about her dad working at Boeing, on the assembly line when the first 747 was built, and something about him crawling into the wing as part of his job, but when we actually saw a 747 (the first 747), and most likely one of the actual planes he worked on, and saw the little window in the wing (which I didn't even know they had), it kind of hit home. I mean, there are small windows (Okay, I don't know how small they are in real life/real proportions, but compared to the rest of the plane, they're tiny.) in the wing and my grandfather might have actually been in that very window. Wow. History, and my family. My little, nondescript family, and we might have been part of something on display in a major museum! See? History doesn't have to be hundreds of years old to be considered "history." And your very own family can be a part of history, too! (Because, I mean, really, if my family can be part of history, anyone's family can be!)

The wing of a 747, complete with windows.
Franklin H.R. might have looked out that very window.

(I also think it's kind of nifty that my family still lives in the area of the Everett Boeing plant. My grandfather worked on the Boeing planes in Everett 40+ ago, and now, Boeing still test runs planes over our house. It's *sort of* like we've kept it in the family: from my grandfather working on 747s to me watching 787s. He worked on the first 747s, and I've seen so many 787s fly over the neighborhood, years before they were ever being sold, almost as if I were part of the test run myself.)

Century 21, part two: The Seattle Center, circa 1990s

As I've pondered before, what's present to us will be history to someone in the future. Similarly, what we think of as ordinary, everyday, insignificant events or places might one day be of interest to someone else. Of course I thought about this more while on the Museum of History & Industry's walking tour of the Century 21 World's Fair grounds at Seattle Center in June -- I was one of only four people on the tour (and one was a baby, so she shouldn't count) not alive during the 1962 World's Fair and thus wouldn't have my own memories of the grounds. I realized, though, that probably not many of the people on the tour have been playing at the Seattle Center campus much in the past decade or so, so then I have memories of a time they wouldn't share. And then I realized ... Wait! I remember playing in the Flag Pavilion during Bumbershoot, in the rain. But the Flag Pavilion isn't even there now! So my memories are already history! (And then I grumbled about changes, and "updating," and feeling old...)

My main interaction with the Seattle Center campus has been during Bumbershoot, the annual summer arts festival at Seattle. I have such vivid memories of Seattle landmarks during Bumbershoot. Who hasn't run through the International Fountain on a warm summer day at the Center, or leaned up against the nozzles, or seen how long it would take to fill up a bottle from the fountain's spray? I've also spent a few twilit evenings during Bumbershoot dancing at the Fountain with a few hundred people, listening to drum bands.

1996

I think I absolutely fell in love with strawberry shortcake at Bumbershoot--now it's my favorite festival food, and I feel like I have to have it any time I go to any festival anywhere--much like some people first experienced and fell in love with Belgian waffles (with strawberries!) at the World's Fair!

Then there's the Flag Pavilion. Each pole had a state's flag on it, and at the World's Fair, on each state's ceremonial Day, their flag would be flown especially ceremoniously, and, well, ceremonies would take place there. In the late 1990s, the Flag Pavilion was still there, and I always thought of it as a maze. An open space, with a floor of rocks, and 50 flag poles to weave your way through. It was by no means a real maze, since it was so wide open, but I always envisioned it like a maze, dodging between poles. I don't remember the last time I saw it, but it's one of those things that one day you realize it's not there any more. I think I was at Bumbershoot in 2004 when I realized that it was gone. Now it's a grassy area, part of the Fisher Pavilion. And yes, the area is nice now, but it was the Flag Pavilion! I have pictures of being soaking wet in the rain there! You can't demolish places I have fond memories of!

The Space Needle,
seen through the Flag Pavilion, 2001.

The Flag Pavilion, 1996.
Now imagine 50 of those poles throughout the plaza --
what a beautiful maze.

Row after row of flags. 1996.

Where the Flag Pavilion used to be, 2012. Pretty, yes,
but not as cool as the geometry of all of those flagpoles.
Notice the lonely little pole in the center-back.

Also gone now is the Fun Forest, originally the World's Fair's Gayway. At one time, the Fun Forest was a hopping alley of games and rides, but over the years, it became less popular. Now it's gone, and at the south end is the new Chihuly museum. I have fond memories of spending a night playing Skee-Ball with a friend over and over and over, not realizing it was getting dark around us. We wanted those plush toys, darnit, and no one was going to stop us! I wonder how much money we spent just to get two $4 stuffed frogs :)

Skee-Ball! Lanes and lanes of Skee-Ball!
Fun Forest, 1996.

As I mentioned in my previous Century 21 post, the upper floor of the Center House never really had a definitive character in my mind. The one thing I really remember about it (other than going to Bumbershoot in high school and one of my friends tying another friend's shoes to a chair) was a couple of Christmases when there was a store space that was used for creating videos of sleigh rides. You'd get on a sleigh in front of a green screen, and then they'd record your "trip" across the world. That's it. And it being deserted. I always thought of it as sort of the cool, undiscovered hangout at the Center House. You could look over the balcony at all of the chaos going on on the main floor, but very few people were upstairs to bother or crowd you. It was a nice little getaway.

What I would think was possibly one of the biggest "Ooh, ahh"s of the new World's Fair grounds (along with the Space Needle) was the Monorail. I've always loved riding the Monorail, though over the past few years I've been a little more apprehensive about getting on it. Luckily I've never been on it when it stopped operating mid-run. Or crashed. Still, there's something very cool about zooming through the sky of Seattle, especially the portions of the trip when you're even with the upper floors of office buildings. And I love being underneath the Monorail tracks -- 50 years later, I think the underside still looks futuristic.

A few more (quick) memories of the Seattle Center campus:

• Memorial Stadium, and the big shows every year at Bumbershoot, including the first R.E.M. concert I went to.
• Watching the Black Eyed Peas concert at Memorial Stadium from the Observation Deck of the Space Needle. Did the designers of the World's Fair imagine that moment happening?
• Seeing Pacific Northwest Ballet at McCaw Hall (previously the Opera House, once part of the World's Fair).  (And oh, yeah, I saw R.E.M. there once, too.)
• One particular Bumbershoot evening, my Sophomore year in high school, being with a friend and he and I were both a little... umm... affected by the smell of a certain substance near us for a really long time. Sitting in the grass near the Mural Amphitheatre, which was (of course) designed for the World's Fair. Did the creators of the World's Fair imagine that moment, especially considering apparently everyone dressed up in their fine clothes to attend the Fair? I don't think marijuana was offered at the Food Circus.
• And speaking of the Mural Amphitheatre, that's where the traditional dance groups often perform during the Folklife Festival, held on Memorial Day Weekend. I remember seeing Los Bailadores del Sol there in 2001, and I felt like I had found my people. I sat, mesmerized, watching their bright costumes and the women's swoopy skirts, and thought, "These are my relatives. That could be me, if my family hadn't moved to the U.S. a generation ago. I wonder if they're from my family's village, or if I'm related to them. Wow, this music... it's in me. Maybe this is why I'm a dancer." The Mural Amphiteatre also hosts Movies at the Mural, an outdoor cinema during the summer.
• And speaking of the Amphiteatre some more, shout out to Chinook, whom my mom stalked there in her teen years.

Los Bailadores del Sol
Mural Amphiteatre, Folklife Festival, 2001.

Anyone out there with memories of the Seattle Center they'd like to share?

Restore the R

There are some things that are so iconic that even if you don't buy/use/whatever-appropriate-verb them, you still love them anyway. Rainier Beer is one of those things for me.  I've never been a drinker, and I was just a child at the height of its popularity, so I obviously wasn't using their product back then. Still, though, it's Seattle, and I always have and always will love Seattle. Rainier Beer commercials were on TV all the time, and as a youngster, didn't I just love to mimic the commercials and say,"Raaaaaaaiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiier Beeeeeeeeeer."

Along with the commercials, which were legendary, the Rainier "R" sign was iconic. The red neon sign was practically parked on the shoulder of southbound I-5 just past the downtown Seattle exits, marking the site of the Rainier brewery. Now it's a Tully's factory, along with other uses, and the company has a large green T marking the building (and I always wondered if that was a nod to the previous occupants). The Museum of History and Industry acquired the R sign and for a while it was the backdrop of the gift shop area, until MOHAI began its move to a new location this year.

So anyway, there's now a MOHAI/Rainier "Restore the R" campaign in preparation for MOHAI's reopening and the restoration of the iconic sign. The campaign's website features 258 challenges to do involving Rainier Beer or the R (find a cloud that looks like the R, take a bath in Rainier Beer, "Make a Mt. Rainier replica entirely of Rainier cans and/or bottles," etc.). As each challenge is completed and submitted to the website, a lightbulb on the virtual R will be lit up. It's a pretty cute little idea and looks like a lot of fun, especially if you have friends who like to do wacky things.

And now, in honor of the big, red R, some videos:

Frogs


Cycle

Raaaaaaaiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiier Beeeeeeeeeer

Home Fresh Home

These always creeped me out a little when I was young. Something about the legs coming out of those bottles.

Rainier Crossing



MOHAI Minute: Rainier R



King5 story: "Rainier Beer invites fans to restore iconic 'R'"

Restore the R

Century 21: The 1962 World's Fair

 1962: The world came to Seattle.

Being a "young'un," I obviously wasn't alive for the 1962 World's Fair, so the 50th anniversary celebration is a chance for me to find out more about my city and experience history, rather than relive memories, like a lot of people are doing this year. With that said, taking the Museum of History and Industry's walking tour of the fairgrounds was a chance for me to explore how these buildings and this "park" that I love came to be.

The tour lasted just under an-hour-and-a-half, and took us around the fairgrounds, beginning at the International Pavilion on the west side, south to the various theatres, the Fine Arts Pavilion (now Pacific Northwest Ballet), east to Memorial Stadium, then north to the Center House, the Space Needle, the Pacific Science Center, and the Flag Pavilion, among other stops.  Of course, the MOHAI tour complemented the different books and articles written about the fair that have been coming out lately, as well as the Next 50/Jack Straw audio tour (which my mom and I did that same day, after a hearty lunch at MOD Pizza at the Center House... No, The Armory).

Even though I've been reading books about the World's Fair, it was nice to be able to see the buildings that the books have referred to, and to be able to match up the "Then" pictures in the books or on the maps with the "Now" buildings that I've seen for years. For instance, it didn't click in my head that the Fine Arts Pavilion is the building where Pacific Northwest Ballet has its offices and studios now. So now when I pass by the building, drooling that there are ballerinas and costumes inside, I can also imagine what the interior and wonder must have been like in 1962, when this was the building where people experienced Art, some for the first time. Plus, the tour guide told us a bit about the architecture of the building, which I've always kind of liked, but of course I now can't remember what style it is. Still, I realized that I don't stop and admire the building's structure as much as I used to and should. I used to wonder about it -- I mean, look at that roofline! It's ... arch-like, but not really. And it repeats along all sides of the building -- but I think now I'm just too enchanted by that sign that hangs on it, and the upper-story windows you can try to peek in to. Taking the tour reminded me to appreciate the outside of the building just as much as I fancy what goes on inside. I can't imagine how the building must have seemed in 1962 -- so new, so big, so strange in our little backwoods (Okay, not backwoods. We weren't hicks like it sounds like the rest of the world thought, and still think. Still, though, Seattle wasn't exactly a large and mature city.).

If you know me, you know I got giddy on this part of the tour.

I also learned non-Fair-related facts about the Seattle Center House. For those who don't know, the Center House is basically the Food Court for the Seattle Center. It's across a little walkway from the Space Needle (and now the new Chihuly museum, too), and next to one end of the Monorail. It has three levels -- the bottom floor is a Children's Museum; the middle floor has the eateries and a performance space (yes, my many memories of performing there every other Christmas season); and the upper floor has had small shops and exhibit spaces, but it seems to me that that space has never really had a permanent character (or maybe I just don't visit it enough). The Center House was originally an armory, and was converted to the Food Circus for the World's Fair. What I didn't know was that the building was built in 1939 as a WPA project. And now it all makes sense -- I always wondered about those eagles outside the north entrance. They always seemed out of place, very Regal and Patriotic, and completely unusual for a building that housed Orange Julius and Pizza Haven.
















The tour guides, as well as the books, also pointed out the general architecture of the building, mainly its size and the windows (and the roofline, too, I can see now). Now I really see that this building has a much more impressive history than just pizza and sandwich shops.

The other thing I learned is that it's being rebranded as The Armory, rather than the Center House. There used to be a very large, bright, energetic, "This is a party place!"-type archway/entryway on the south side of the building (and one on the north side, too, with the eagles. If you look at the above left picture, you can still vaguely see where the sign was attached to the brickwork), but it's been taken down (which made me kind of sad -- I always liked that sign). I guess neon with a party font doesn't fit the image of an Armory. So the Center House is no longer a party place and is being reformed to sophistication and ... military? The playful entrance is gone (which, really, I don't mind. I mean, restoring old buildings to how they originally looked is a good thing), and I think I read months ago that the windows and skylights are being redone to let in more light while at the same time making the building look more like its original use. (Which, of course, I find odd, given that there's still a Starbucks sign outside, as well as MOD Pizza's sign now, with their outdoor seating. *shrug*)  (And this is history-related two ways: 1) it's a return to the historical building; 2) decades from now, the way the building looked in the 1990s will be considered old and historical! So this little digression is still history-related, and not just me rambling.) (And speaking of rambling, I think there might be a related post someday soon with my general memories about the Center.)

In review, this tour is worth taking if you're in the Seattle area and interested in the World's Fair, architecture, or the history of the buildings that now make up the Center grounds. It's an easy walk (the Center grounds have minor slopes, but nothing difficult, and you make a lot of stops along the way), and if you're lucky, you'll get tour guides who really know what they're talking about. You can also add to the day, like we did, by doing the audio tour and also visiting MOHAI's temporary location, at the International Fountain Pavilion, which is currently displaying -- what else? -- Century 21 artifacts (which had a lot of cool stuff. My favorites were the uniform a Bubbleator operator wore, Century 21-inspired fabrics, World's Fair posters, and songs about the Fair.). I give the day two thumbs up.

And of course it wasn't until I began writing this post that I realized that this tour probably has a pretty obvious split of how people experience it -- there are people like me, who didn't attend the fair but live in the area now, who didn't know that such-and-such building was originally built to be so-and-so exhibit at the World's Fair; then on the other side, you might have people who view these buildings today and think, "I remember when that was the so-and-so at the World's Fair." Everything's a matter of perspective.


The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World's Fair and Its Legacy 
Seattle's 1962 World's Fair (Images of America)
Jack Straw Productions celebrates the World's Fair
Next50
MOD Pizza

Edit: Puget Sound Business Journal/KOMO article (July 6) about the Armory reconfiguration

The Genographic Project, part 4

Honestly, it was probably pretty silly to think that we *wouldn't* want to know about my father's mother's family's history, or that the Genographic Project's DNA tests wouldn't seem worth it to do both sides of the family. So now that my parents and I have all been dazzled by the maps that came as results of the first round of DNA testing, we're now testing my father's Mitochondrial DNA to find out about his mother's history.

My father keeps saying that these results will be the same as his original results, since both of his parents were from Mexico, but I have to remind him that just because they both ended up in the same place (Mexico) and came from the same place (Africa) doesn't mean their ancestors necessarily took the exact same route.  So we're doing the cheek swabbing today, the package will get sent to The Genographic Project people tomorrow, and then a few weeks after that, we should know for sure (or as sure as science can get us right now) how my paternal grandmother's ancestors moved about the world millions of years ago. Exciting!  (Personally, I'm hoping it's different from my paternal grandfather, just so we have new stories and a different map. Diversity!)

What about you? What do you think about all of this? Is the testing something you'd consider, or have already done?