James L Adams—People and Products

The U.S. West?

I was looking through the Sunday paper, and came across an interview with Timothy Oliphant, an actor whose work I became familiar with when I was an addict of the TV series “Justified”, in which he starred as Raylan Givens, a U.S. Marshal somewhat on the edge. He is now portraying a country music and movie star in a play in New York (apparently another “cowboy” role), entitled “Hold On To Me Darlng” So I looked through the article, and once again, found a statement similar to ones I have often seen or heard that has always confused me. It was “Mr. Oliphant, a California boy without a western bone in his body......”.

Seems to me that in the U.S. California is pretty far west, along with Oregon and Washington. In fact, the only U.S. states further west are Alaska and Hawaii. It is also interesting that California was early into cattle ranching and cowboys. According to Wikipedia, the early vaqueros that worked cattle came to California in 1687 and were reinforced by many others through the 18^th century. Although California then was part of Mexico, these were arguably the first cowboys in the U.S. territories.

So why do people in states such as Texas continue to refer to themselves as “the west” and act as though they invented cattle ranching , cowboys, and country western music? It is true that in the past there were somewhat heroic cattle drives from the Texas/Oklahoma area to railroad destinations such as Abilene, Kansas, but these occurred only over the 20 to 25 years after the Civil war, before railroad destinations closer to ranches were built, and open range began to be fenced. And why are cowboys and outlaws so romanticized, since from what I understand, being a cowboy was hard and low paying work, and outlaws did not live easy lives or do the country much good? Country Western music seems to draw heavily from the South rather than the true West (although Bakersfield, California does well —historically Buck Owens, Tommy Collins, and Merle Haggard, and a large number practicing the art now), and looking at a map, Texas is if anything slightly to the east of the middle of the country, and acts more like the South than the West.

During my visits to Texas, I have also been confused by the key role played by costume elements such as ten gallon hats (should be ten galón hats —Spanish for the narrow hatband on them—they clearly don’t hold ten gallons of water, and the hat would become fairly weird in shape if it were used as a bucket ) and cowboy boots, often made of exotic hides (Ted Cruz’s favorites are apparently alligator hide) . The hats have wide brims to protect one from the sun, but are hot and heavy, and the boots are made to be easily stuck into stirrups, (pointed toes, Cuban heels), but neither seem to be consistent with working in corporate offices or eating lunch in Dallas. In fact the boots don’t work with me at all, since my feet seem to be fairly square across the front, having five toes on each, and I drive motor vehicles rather than horses, both of which are probably true for most citizens of Texas.

I assume that much of this is a remnant from when Texas joined the U.S. slightly before other more western territories, so the phrase “old west”, is perhaps meaningful. But when the term “West” is used to describe Texas and neighbors, ignoring the 13 states further west than it, it seems like good marketing, but bad geography. And after all, the U.S. did not discover much of this land, but rather took it from Mexico by a combination of war and money. During the 4 year presidency of President James Polk, Texas was annexed in 1845, the Oregon Treaty was negotiated with Great Britain in 1846, and the Mexican-American War concluded in 1848, which ended with the signing and ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848. A busy four years indeed.

These events brought within the control of the United States the future states of Texas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Washington, and Oregon, as well as portions of what would later become Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana. U.S. behavior during a land grab of this extent was probably not all above reproach. And since Texas joined the Union in 1845, and California in 1850, Texas was the “West” or the U.S. for only five years. When Hawaii joined, we were all in trouble, because not only was it further west than the rest of us, but it was early into big cattle ranches and cowboys. Check here.

Two Models

The photo below is of two bomber models.   Which one is best? The one in the background (letter A on tail) is a B-17, of World War II fame, built from a modern kit. As an engineer, I marvel at the accuracy and detail of the various molded pieces that the modern model maker cements together. I didn’t check to see if the small figures of crew members have fingernails or not, but I would not be surprised if they did. And such models go together beautifully, requiring little skill, except for keeping the paint and cement where it should be. My grandchildren were putting such things together when they were eight or nine years old, until their house ran out of available ceiling space to hang them on.

I built this model because through a fortunate chain of circumstances my wife and I were given a ride on the B-17 that the Collings Foundation has beautifully restored and tours around the country. I rode in World War II airplanes plenty when I was in the Air Force. World War II was well over, but many of its planes were in service, partly because the people who had served in World War II were nostalgic for them, and because they were sturdy, practical, and available. In fact the first military airplane I even rode in was a B-17, and I managed to sit in the  nose (great view) while we did a fly over for a parade in Marysville, California.

The ride was fun, and Marian seemed to enjoy it a great deal, so I put together the model to hang in her office to remind her of a fun day. But, although she did love the day, she wasn’t that thrilled with the model, which now resides in our basement, which together with our garage and a room I commandeered as an office, I control.

But the other model, although lacking in accuracy and detail, is by far the best. I built it when I was eight years old, and had just returned from a fly-over and a walk through a prototype of a bomber numbered the B-19, a Douglas Aircraft competitor to Boeing's B-29 for the successor to the B-17. It was to be a super bomber, and to eight year old me, it was. The B- 29 had won the competition, but Douglas was touring the B-19 around to learn from it, do a bit of advertising, and help build war fervor. The B-19 had a wing span of 212 feet, a length of 132 foot and weighed 130,000 pounds empty. As contrast, the B-17 had a wingspan of 104 feet, a length of 74 feet, and weighed 33,000 pounds empty. For that time the B-19 was huge, and in fact was the largest aircraft ever built in the United States. I still have a vivid memory of being at March Field in Riverside and having it fly what now would be considered dangerously low over our heads. A discussion of it is at http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/americas-real-wwii-flying-fortress-was-the-massive-doug-1632864365

I immediately went home and built a model of it. This was in 1942, and there was little plastic, injection molding was in the future, and I had never seen such a thing as a model kit (perhaps because my parents didn’t allow me to, or I would have nagged them incessantly). But at that age I was pretty agile with a few materials. Since I lived on an orange grove, and my father worked in an orange packing house and my grandfather had a fairly complete shop, I had excellent access to both picking and shipping orange boxes, a jig saw, a lots of files, hammers, glue, and above all tin cans. So I made the fuselage, wings, landing gear, and various small pieces  from an orange shipping box, the propellers and tail surfaces from tin can stock, and wheels and such from a dowel rod I found in my grandfather’s shop. I had a private stock of aluminum, red, white, blue, and black paint and a few small paint brushes I had scavenged from my mother. But no plans or photos.

I don’t know why the twin tail, except that in those days people didn’t carry cameras around, there was no internet and I could not find a B-19 photograph in the town library to augment my memory of it, and maybe I was thinking of the B-24, which was large, had a twin tail, and was introduced in 1941. Or maybe I just liked twin tails.

Although my B-19 model was not even in the same world of accuracy, complexity, finish, and scale as those that result from modern plastic model kits, I BUILT IT, and my friends, although they were at the demonstration, didn’t have a model of it at all. And in the process I learned a lot about airplanes in general, as well as about the B-19, which was loaded with armament and the state of the art in control systems and power plant. And rather amazingly I still have it, usually hanging in my office, and remember the real one flying over my head whenever I see it.  I still have it because my mother was very proud of it (and me, of course) and kept it. I found it late in her life when I was helping her go through her possessions, and took it home. I can’t say the same for other things I was doing when I was eight years old. But it was part of the long process that has made me good at making, fixing, and tinkering, as I have said in my blog, all necessary therapy in my life, appreciated by my wife and home, and passed on to my kids.

Incidentally, in the upper left corner of the photograph can be seen a portion of a sail boat. Although we were not that close to the ocean, I was interested in sail boats when I was a kid, and tried to make a model of one and failed, because the wood working was over my head and I had never seen a big one. So my mother made me one, and that is it in the background of the photograph. She kept my model, I kept hers.  She had never seen one either, but mothers are not stopped by little details like that. Later in life I scratched my itch by making several detailed models of old ships. But now you can buy them ready made from the New York Times store, at a price that doesn’t compare with the zillions of hours I spent on mine. BUT I BUILT MINE, and in the process spent zillions of very rewarding hours, and also learned lots about old sailing ships from the structure, through the function of the many lines on them, to much of the history of sailing ships and their role,  I learned how to work at very small scale, and needless to say, I met lots of interesting people who were hooked on old ships and making models of same.

I consider myself lucky to be an unrepentant DIY (Do It Yourself) guy, and am grateful to my parents and grandparents for encouraging and helping me.

Addiction to Old Machines

Today is Valentine’s day, so one would think my wife and I are out celebrating our love, but she is in Burma with some Indian friends, so I am working on restoring yet another tractor —I guess another (although weaker, of course) love. Besides it was Valentine’s day yesterday in Burma, and I sent her an unusually long and passionate message.   So I have quit my tractor project for the day, because  I have a couple of heavy house-cleaning and organizing days to do to convert it back from being ideal for me to reasonable for her.

The tractor presently undergoing treatment is a Cletrac K-20, manufactured by the Cleveland Tractor Company around 1930. This year is the 100^th anniversary of the Cleveland Tractor Company, so if you want to see some, go to a big tractor meet this year. The photograph at the left shows a restored K-20 in a museum.

Mine is shown at the right as it was  when I acquired it . The good news was that it was in a barn. The bad news was, of course, it did not run, and was filthy and bashed up, but that is part of the game. The next photo on the left shows signs of its rat habitation (also usual) The photo at the bottom left of the post shows it after it was towed outside.   California is having a stretch of beautiful (ugly if you are a farmer) weather, and I am taking advantage of it by working on the tractor in warm weather under a blue sky.

This tractor is interesting because it was unusually sophisticated for its time—perhaps too much so. The next photo on the right shows some of the plumbing that enables all track wheels to be lubricated from a central hand pump on the dashboard. The bad news was that the recommendation from the manual is that the pump be worked every 15 minutes, that the system needed oil instead of grease (which tended to leak more), and it had a tendency to clog. In contrast, the track wheels for Caterpillar’s tractors of those years required greasing each wheel separately, but not nearly as often, and really not that huge of a job. The Cletrac  also has wheel steering, using a mechanism to link the steering wheel to the brakes that actually turned the tractor —more parts to wear out and break, compared with caterpillar’s hand operated turning brakes. Also, a couple of people who had used them on their farms grumbled to me that the tractors did not weigh enough, and therefore didn’t have enough traction. Caterpillar, with simpler, heavier, more rugged machines out-competed them on the market. 

So far I have pressure washed it, to get rid of loose dirt, rat poop, spiders, and other such uneeded material. My first discovery as to its running problem is that the carburetor and the hose from the fuel tank were jammed with the kind of varnish that accumulates in gasoline fuel systems after years of disuse, so I took the carburetor apart and cleaned it out, and re-plumbed the whole fuel system. That is the reason the fuel tank is missing from the last photo. I have also cleaned up the magneto and it seems to be delivering an adequate spark at the plugs. Whether it is sparking at the right time I don’t know, but that’s adjustable. .If you do not follow old gasoline powered machinery, they tend to use a magneto (a small electric generator) to provide the spark. Unlike modern machinery, there is no battery involved, so starting them requires cranking— sometimes a challenging activity. The engine now turns over reasonably easily, and I have lubricated the engine with new grease and oil

Assuming I can get the creature running soon, I will begin seriously cleaning it, which consists of removing thick hardened grease deposits that cover much of the machine, including tracks, wheels, the undercarriage, and all existing crevices and corners. This involves use of scrapers, both hand and electric powered, occasional solvents and a heat gun to soften the most resistant deposits, much cursing, and finally a wondrous tool called a needle, gun, that I will advertise in a future post. Then after straightening out the sheet metal (obviously missing in the photos) I will paint the whole thing and happily add yet another rescued machine to my yard (or my son’s farm).

Some people wonder why I spend time doing this sort of thing, when I could be playing golf , taking my wife out to lunch and the theater, or watching sports on TV. My response is a carefully figured out “to each his or her own. And my wife likes me happy, rather than frustrated and cursing small annoying aspects of life (which I would be doing if I were playing golf), and while I am rescuing old machines, she can do things she likes to do and I don’t as much. As the wife of a friend of mine who has even more consuming hobbies than I do says, “I like Bill well hobbied up”.

The Training of a Pickup Owner

Some time ago, I wrote a post complaining about my then reasonably new Toyota 8ft. bed pickup. My complaints had to do with its size (except for the 8 foot long bed). It was simply too big.  But since I still have it, it must have some good points, so in all fairness.I figure that I should mention a few redeeming virtues to it.

I first experienced pickups when I rode around with my dad in his 1939 Chevrolet. Eight foot bed, but smaller machine. Eight feet is a magic number, since building materials, single mattresses, and all sorts of other things can be put into an eight foot long space, and if there is a closable end (the tailgate) they will stay there. He drove the truck for over 25 years, before losing it in an accident, and then acquired a 1966 Chevrolet pickup, which he drove until he died, at which point it went to my oldest son, and now I am restoring it. All eight foot long beds. But pickups have grown.

At one point, I needed my own pickup, and bought a new small Toyota truck (six foot bed). It was a wonderful machine, and passed through the hands of two of my children before it was finally sold. My older son is into his second small Toyota (Tacoma), and has had terrific luck with them, but they all had shorter beds. I meanwhile went through an 8 foot bed blue Ford F150 (wrong color for California’s central valley), and a white one (more acceptable to the culture). Both of them served me well, except as the bells and whistles increased in number and complexity, although the drive trains in both of them gave me no problems, I had increasing problems with failures of remote control features, electronic ignition systems, etc. So I decided to buy another no frills Toyota, and go back to the smaller model because of its convenience in parking and driving around cities. But as I tested the new Tacomas, I realized I had somehow gone from a large person to an extra large person, and I couldn’t easily get my knees under the steering wheel, my head under the top of the door opening, etc. Perhaps less flexible?

Also, I have always been  an ad-hoc camper, and had shells on my Fords, enabling me to sleep in the 8 foot bed in the rain, and my wife to ride in back on a mattress and read books and listen to music when we took long trips (probably illegal, since there was no seat or seat belt back there). So I bought a white Tundra, even though it had the shortcomings I mentioned in the earlier post.

1. Too high off the ground, demanding a running board for my wife to get into it, and making it impossible to reach objects in the middle of the bed.
2. Door too wide to be fully opened in tight parking situations.
3. Turning radius too large due to wheelbase of the truck, in turn partly due to an overly long cab. I wanted a single seat, but the “conventional cab” has room behind it, presumably to put things. But the space is such that things put there will disappear forever, because it is a high and narrow space, and how many of us are going to remember what we stuff into a space such as that?
4. Too “car like” instead of “truck like”. Large body panels with little structure behind them which dent easily, lavish and expensive rear light enclosures that are difficult to change when the break (it is a truck), etc.
5. The step on the back bumper enabling you to easily get into the back is covered by the tailgate when it is open.
6. And more

My previous experience had taught me much about ordering a pickup. I knew it was important for me to:

1. Order the minimum of bells and whistles (remote control devices, TV cameras, luxury upholstery, etc.), since over long usage, they would be likely to fail. If you lose your manual key to open the cab and start the engine, you probably have another one, and if not, the nice people from AAA can solve your problem. But if your digital “safety system” fails, you probably better hang on to your wallet and take it to a mechanic.
2. Go for the smallest engine available. It will have plenty of torque and speed for me and I don’t plan to race my pickup.
3. Go for two wheel drive. Four wheel drive obviously has more traction, but tempts one to try to attempt overly heroic feats. There is nothing more pathetic than a stuck four-wheel drive vehicle.
4. Get an eight foot bed. The two extra feet are worth the extra move needed to get into a parking space in most lots, and the worry about whether you are going to make the U- turn at the intersection. Besides, your friends and family always want to move eight foot long items. Security is a load of plywood sheets and other building material with the tail gate closed. And you can sleep in it.
5. Get one that is easy to get in and out of, because that seems to be a primary activity with a pick up.
6. Unless you have a dog or very small kids, forget anything behind the main seat, but make sure it can seat three people. I seem to do quite a bit of moving for young perhaps newly married couples, and they both want to go along, so stay away from fixed central consoles.

So what have I done to now be much more fond of my truck, than when I initially bought it?  I have not done the major modifications I had planned, like lowering the body and beefing up the springs.  But other things have happened.

1. First of all, I have accumulated the various dings and scrapes having to do with normal usage of such a truck, so I don’t have to worry about it. The truck and I can curse together when we find a new scrape in a parking lot, which makes us closer. (Incidentally, when people ding your pickup in a parking lot, they tend not to leave you a note—I guess that’s reserved for cars). I once had the unsettling experience of observing a farmer friend of mine drive a new pickup home, only to attack the inside of the bed with a crowbar, since he did not want a bed liner, and did not want to have to worry about the shiny new paint and bumpless interior. He wanted to put it to work immediately. I understand that, but can’t bring myself to do it.
2. I put running boards on it, just like in the 1930’s
3. I built several fine sturdy yet light weight boxes that I could stand on to reach material in the center of the box, and use to easily get in the back when the tail gate was open. But after the boxes were repeatedly stolen by people for storage containers (especially my wife}, I shortened an old rake which I keep in back to help me reach things. And I learned to climb in the back, using the bumper step, before I open the tail gate.
4. I have learned a set of skills associated with the truck. I have a plastic removable bed liner in the back, because I frequently load and unload heavy objects and it is somewhat slippery so that objects slide more easily on it. I have become quite good at moving things where I want them while en route. I can move them forward by an usually abrupt stop. I can move them backward by accelerating up the hill to my house. Just a few hours ago I had three toolboxes, some old tractor parts, and a bunch of just-bought loose groceries in the back, and I was able to use the uphill road to my house, my brakes, and my steering wheel to arrange everything in the order I wanted them—sophisticated swerving adjusts things sideways.

So I now love my Tundra. It has just taken fifty thousand miles for us to get used to each other. | It is still too big, too far off of the ground, and too fancy. But now it is looking older and more used like I do, and I am looking forward to the next fifty thousand miles.

Do you suppose people become more fond of products that they use a long time, both because they become more skillful at using them, and because they become “old friends”? I sure do. What does that say about constant new digital equipment and continual new “upgrades”?

U.S. Growth in the Future

I am reading various books and articles concerning future predictions of the U.S. and other countries because of the Homo Demi Sapiens book on which I am presently working. I have just finished reading The Rise and Fall of American Growth, subtitled The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War (see recommended books), and loved it, although it is a heavy book, both in weight and in content. The author, Robert Gordon, is an economics professor at Northwestern University, with a deep interest in history, in this case the history of technology and related effects.

He makes two major points in the book: one being that simple measures such as GNP do not adequately describe the effects of technological developments, and the other being that the time period 1870 through 1970, and in particular 1920 through 1970, may be unique in the U.S. as far as growth is concerned.

He includes improvement in the quality of life in his measure of growth, as well as economic data. He particularly addresses a number of what he calls “great” inventions that happened in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, such as electrical light and power, internal combustion engines, the germ theory of medicine, wireless communication, and water, gas, electrical telephone and rail and highway networks. He feels that these inventions and developments, and the resulting exploitation of them, ranging from urbanization to rapid and affordable instant communication and rapid travel to household appliances and mass production rapidly changed the U.S. in remarkable and positive ways, ranging from urbanization, to much longer life expectancy, to education and entertainment.

But he thinks that the huge growth resulting from this activity is unusual, and perhaps is beginning to return to a lower, and more normal rate of growth. This is a rather unpopular view in the U.S., and quite different than the one present candidates for office are promising if they are elected. We fully expect to return to the high rate of growth we attained in the period 1920 to 1970. There are still areas in which great change is happening rapidly, the obvious one being information, communication, and entertainment as a result of digital technology, but Gordon offers a large amount of data and arguments that even this is slowing down, that such activities are allowing us to do things much more rapidly and cheaply than we could before, but we could do them, and information, communication, and entertainment are only a small part of the many factors that define our standard of living.

He finishes the book by specifically pointing out four factors that slow down growth—increased inequality, inadequate education, demographics, and repaying debt— and suggests what we have to do to combat them. But he clearly does not think that we will ever reach the rate and revolutionary effects of the growth that occurred in the period which he discusses in the book.

I found the book very thought provoking, and tend to believe many of the author’s arguments, even though I have been involved in technology (even “high” technology, whatever that means) all of my adult life. But although I am a great fan of Star Wars movies, I don’t think they predict where we are going (I hope).  I think we will figure out how to overcome the obstacles to growth that Gordon identifies to some extent and to help people displaced by digital devices to provide better and more satisfying lives. And too much growth and change can be unsettling to a large and growing population.  Finally according to Gordon, part of our stimulus to rapid growth during the 20^th century was due to recovery from the great depression and the spurt in production and recovery during and after World War II. That was a hard way to grow!