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cycling / history / IU / music / Thursday — Comments Off
7
Jul 16

Stardust is a good song, y’all

I spent a bit of time in the Radio and Television Building today. In there we have a recently renovated 2,800-square-foot teaching studio, and the WTIU public television studios. WTIU is said to be one of the few high definition teaching facilities in the entire country. The WFIU public radio facilities are in there too. There are classes, labs, offices and the coolest poster ever:

Ordinarily I would try to avoid taking pictures of pictures, but that one, Curious George and curious kid, was too cool not to share.

I keep wandering by this statue of Hoagy Carmichael. He was from here. He went to school at IU and became a lawyer, but he always wanted to be a musician and so he composed “Stardust,” “Georgia On My Mind,” “Heart and Soul,” “The Nearness of You” and more.

And in the sculpture he is really laboring over that piano. But in a cool, jazzy way.

Stardust:

More Hoagy:

This is the Monroe Lake Dam, on Salt Creek, which was the turnaround point for our bike ride this evening:

It was built from 1960-1964. It is 1,350 feet long and 93 feet tall. The lake itself is the largest in the state. Well, the largest that is entirely in one state, I’ve read. If you’re really into the master plans of dams, I have one for you.

I’m more into empty road pictures, myself:

Not seen, everyone in our little riding group.

I also made a video of the ride:

history / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
15
Jun 16

Transcontinental history

“A dramatic era in transportation was born.”

And if you keep reading after that it is worth it:

We took my mother-in-law back to the airport for her flight home yesterday. I saw that plaque and the propeller reproduction above it. I’ll give you two guesses which one I saw first.

But think of that, in 1929, the trip across the country was cut from four days to less than two. I know people who were alive then. I wonder if it seemed like a wonder to their contemporaries. Ahh, this is what it was like.

Think of it as they did. It would take between four to six months to ride a horse from coast to coast — depending on your circumstance, and that’s if you knew the proper route. And then along came the transcontinental railroad.

So anytime before 1869 it was months. When the transcontinental railroad was completed you could be on the other coast in three-and-a-half days. And then, just sixty years later, less than two days. Today, of course, you can fly from New York to Los Angeles in five hours. A bit less if the jet stream doesn’t interfere. But to take trains and planes in 1929, and be on the west coast in two days, man what a marvel.

Alas, the Transcontinental Air Transport, built by “the father of commercial aviation in America” Clement Melville Keys, was hit by the Depression, lower-than-expected demand, political manueverings and one high profile air tragedy. They lasted less than a year and would get bought and gobbled up in a series of mergers.

Today, you can watch an entire loop around the country in five minutes. I wonder what Keys — a teacher, a journalist, a business man and, finally, an aviation mogul — would think of that?

For alternatives, you could do it, today, on a bike in about two months. The fastest walk across the country was in the 1980s, at 60 days. The fastest run shaves 18 days off that time.

You can still take Amtrak over a four-day journey and, if you refused to be impressed like the person that wrote this, it is just the worst thing in the world, gah.

family / friends / history / IU / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
8
Jun 16

A walk around part of the IU campus

Today one of our friends and colleagues gave us a walking tour around the main part of the campus. It is a big place. Quite attractive. Almost all of the buildings are made from local limestone, so it sort of looks like Hogwarts. But it is also big enough that a quick walking tour makes it all a bit hard to digest. (Mostly I started wondering what they aren’t good at here. The reputation of this place is pretty incredible.) It’ll take a bit of time.

But, here, this is part of our new building, Franklin Hall:

When I was up for my interview at the beginning of the year the students were still working away in Ernie Pyle Hall. The great journalist was an Indiana student and that’s his statue out front, there. When the students come back in the fall they’ll see his statue there, the famed Ernie Pyle desk inside and a lot of new opportunities.

Franklin dates back to 1907 but is right now enjoying the finishing touches of a $22 million renovation. You can’t go inside just yet. Next month, though, we move in. (Which is fine, I’m ready for a break from lifting and carrying cardboard.)

Franklin Hall was once the library, and later an administrative building and will now be home to the newly created Media School. It is going to be an incredible facility. My office is in there somewhere:

Right next to Franklin are the Sample Gates. Designed to look older than they are. They only go back to the 1980s, but the gates have a weird history prior to that. In the 1960s a donation toward building some version of the gates was consider “wasteful alumni spending” and ever since then alumni everywhere have been sure to spend their own money wisely.

Anyway, they are named after Edson Sample’s family:

In a twist of fate, it was long-time University director of scholarships and financial aid Edson Sample that provided the funding to build the Sample Gates in honor of his parents.

Schweir, the historian, says walking through the Sample Gates makes her feel like she’s stepping back in time. Starr, the artist, views them from a 21st century perspective.

“Every time I walk by it now, I don’t just see the Sample Gates,” says Starr. “I see Obama and Edward from Twilight and zebra skin and cheetah skin. You really transform the psychology.”

It took 90 years to get there.

We built our new grill and gave it a tour tonight:

I tasted beef and roasted vegetables. No Edward from Twilight, though.

Auburn / history / markers — Comments Off
27
May 16

Last of Lee County’s markers

When I graduated from high school I had this poster under my ceremonial costume. It said something like “Thanks Mom! On to Auburn.” I’d been working at that for a while. The grades were no problem, but the money was tight. Two days after graduation I got my scholarship offer and off I went. And so I attended school there for five years. And then I left, because there was no work there in town. I would have stayed. But I went into the world instead and started making my way through it.

In graduate school I met my future wife and on a date the next fall I took her to Auburn and she liked it. And then when she finished graduate school she got a job offer at Auburn. There was no suitable half way spot, and Auburn is a nice place to live and so we moved there. And we stayed for six years. Until today, when we finished loading up the car and brushing away tears and drove off into the midday sun.

In between good things happened and great things happened and sad things happened. Life happened.

One of the many smaller things that I did was to start riding bikes. And from there I started seeking out all of these historic markers all over the county. Today the Lee County project is officially completed. This is the last such site and, before we signed the papers selling our house today, this was the last thing I did. I visited Pine Hill Cemetery.

And this is fitting. A small part of what I am now is because of Auburn. And a small part of what I am now is because of my appreciation for history. My mother asked me once why I liked history so much. I thought of two answers. I finally got lucky and had a history teacher who taught the material as more than names and dates. That stuck with me. But, when I was in undergrad at Auburn I found Pine Hill. It was an old cemetery that the city had almost forgotten about — which is a total Auburn thing to do, ignoring its own history — but they’d undertaken a big project about the time that I showed up to revitalize the place.

As well they should. I love this place. I’m not the sort of person that hangs out in cemeteries, but this place is special. There are about 100 Civil War soldiers there. The man my high school was named after is buried there. The names on the buildings and roads in Auburn are almost all buried right here, in Pine Hill. And somehow, one day, that stuck with me too. It wasn’t names and dates, but people’s lives. History isn’t an abstraction if you walk through the doors of a place named in honor of the person resting right here.

So, as I said, fitting that I would be here last. I saved it for just that reason. You can see my pictures from Pine Hill Cemetery right here. If you want to see all of Lee County, Alabama’s historical markers click here.

Auburn / history / markers — Comments Off
19
May 16

The penultimate Lee County historic markers post

OK, next to last set of marker shots from Lee County, Alabama. This particular project wraps next week, but first there are two markers and a locally-quarried stone marker within a block of each other. They mark the history of Auburn and the place where town and gown meet at Toomer’s Corner. Also there, the old Auburn Bank (which was until recently a series of bars and is now a pizza joint).

That is the gate onto campus, donated by the class of 1917. The eagles had previously perched atop the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Building in Philadelphia and then in a yard there for some years. They arrived in Auburn in 1961 where they stayed until being removed for renovation in 2011. The ones you see here are actually re-casted replications of the originals, which have been removed. The transition is, thus, complete. Everything feels like a gift shop now.

You can see all about the downtown markers here. Check out my entire run of the county’s historic markers here.