Route 66 traveler dies in accident July 8, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Motorcycles, People, Road trips.1 comment so far
Ken Vetrovec, 59, of Racine County, Wis., died Monday in a motorcycle crash near Ely, Nev., while heading home after completing a Route 66 trip from Chicago to Los Angeles, reported the Journal Times of Racine.
Vetrovec was headed toward home when he was involved in the crash that took his life. He was riding his motorcycle east on Highway 6, about 37 miles east of Ely, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol.
Just before 5 p.m., Vetrovec was apparently trying to take a photograph while traveling down a slight left hand curve, said a press release from the highway patrol. He drifted off the right dirt shoulder, where his motorcycle hit a steel road marker and overturned several times.
Troopers said Vetrovec was thrown from the motorcycle and sustained fatal injuries as a result. He was wearing a helmet.
According to those who knew him, Vetrovec made an annual trip on Route 66. He was a county supervisor for six terms and was an executive director for the Gateway Technical College foundation.
Vetrovec kept a blog called Motorcycle Riding Route 66, with his last post on July 6.
UPDATE: Here’s a story in the Journal Times about Vetrovec’s funeral on Saturday.
“Coyotes” July 7, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Movies, Music.add a comment
This is cowboy singer Don Edwards, performing his song “Coyotes.” The tune gained considerable attention when it was used in the Werner Herzog film “Grizzly Man.”
I found “Coyotes” to be an appropriate soundtrack to the desert Southwest of Route 66 country.
State budget woes may doom some rest stops July 7, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Businesses, Highways.1 comment so far
At least one cash-strapped state in which Route 66 traverses is considering shutting down its rest stops along the interstate highways, according to the Wall Street Journal.
According to the article, Arizona is considering shutting down at least some of its rest stops as a cost-cutting move.
An interesting excerpt:
One hurdle for defenders of rest stops: The facilities don’t exactly inspire nostalgia. Poets and novelists have spilled far less ink on rest stops than on diners, motels and other attractions that dotted older highways such as Route 66 before the interstates put many of them out of business. When rest areas have made the news in recent years, it was often because of police sex stings.
Historians largely have held their noses, even as some of the more ambitious rest areas incorporated tepees, adobe huts, windmills and oil rigs into their designs. “People don’t see it as an academic thing because it’s a bathroom,” says Joanna Dowling, a historical consultant in Chicago who broke new ground in 2007 with a master’s thesis on the development of interstate rest areas. Last year she launched a Web site for buffs, www.restareahistory.org.
(Check out Dowling’s site. Some of the designs are a hoot.)
The American Trucking Association and AAA both oppose the closure of rest stops, the latter because fewer rest stops mean more fatigued drivers.
Illinois, Texas and, most recently, Missouri have opened Route 66-themed rest stops along the interstates that shadow the Mother Road. It seems doubtful those facilities would close because they’re relatively new and their being on very busy east-west arteries.
However, I’m a bit ambivalent about the closing of rest stops. It would force interstate travelers to get off the superslab and find facilities in a town — many of them that serve Route 66. For many of those towns that were bypassed, that would be a form of small, but sweet, revenge.
Bob Moore steps down from Route 66 Magazine July 6, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Magazines, People, Radio.4 comments
I got this e-mail this afternoon from Bob Moore, the longtime executive editor of Route 66 Magazine:
As of the first of July I will no longer be affliated with Route 66 Magazine. Health issues and the opportunity to further my broadcast career have made this change necessary. It has been a great 16 years and over that time I have met many wonderful people along the Road. So please, if you have items for the magazine – news, stories, etc, please send them directly to Route 66 Magazine (go to www.route66magazine.com for contact information).Thanks to everyone for your support of the original Mother Road Journal and of my books. And I look forward to seeing some of you along the Road – I’ll always be HWYROVR on the license plate, so if you see me give a honk and maybe we can stop for coffee.
He will be missed. Moore was one of the early champions of Route 66 after it was decommissioned, and his guidebooks are still valuable in navigating down the Mother Road.
Moore has the Route 66 Radio Show and Don’t Start Me Talking on Bounceradio.net and KTOX 1340 AM in Needles, Calif.
I’m not sure what long-term implications Moore’s departure will have on Route 66 Magazine. Route 66 Magazine moved its offices to Florida a few months ago, but I thought it was important that Moore stuck around in the desert Southwest as a way to keep his finger on the road’s pulse and maintain the magazine’s credibility.
I’ll post any responses from the publication as I get them.
UPDATE 7/12/09: This is interesting. Sandi Taylor, co-publisher of the magazine along with her husband Paul, said in an e-mail Saturday that she was unaware about Moore stepping down. “Bob never said anything to us,” she wrote.
Nevertheless, Sandi Taylor said: “We have no intentions of discontinuing the magazine just because someone quits.”
Ken Burns plans TV series on Dust Bowl July 6, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Books, History, Television.6 comments
Ken Burns, the acclaimed producer of documentaries who is most famous for his “The Civil War” series, is planning a new film about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, according to a news release by OETA.
Here’s Burns’ message to OETA and all readers:
I’m asking Oklahomans to help me with a new public television series I’m now working on: The Dust Bowl.
Like our earlier films on World War II, Jazz, Baseball, and The Civil War, we think the Dust Bowl is an important event in all of American history.
We’re in the early stages of our research, but we know that Oklahoma will be a major part of the Dust Bowl story we want to tell.
We’re looking for first-person stories of Oklahomans who lived through those hard, hard times, especially out in the Panhandle, where the Dust Bowl was the worst.
We hope to find people who can share their experiences with us – or their photographs, diaries, or home movies from the 1930s, to help us tell this important story.
If you or someone you know can help in this research project, please contact OETA at 1-800-846-7665 Or Send a Note to:
OETA Dustbowl Stories
P.O. Box 14190
Oklahoma City, OK 73113All we need at this stage is a short, written note explaining how you could serve as a resource. Or, please call OETA with a brief description of your Dust Bowl experience. We’ll take it from there.
Thank you for helping in this important project.
Ken Burns
Florentine Films
Burns also produced “Baseball,” “Jazz,” “The War” and “Lewis & Clark: Journey of the Corps of Discovery,” all for PBS-TV. And nearly 20 years later, I’m still convinced “The Civil War” is the finest moment in the history of television. So I’m thrilled Burns is tackling one of the most fascinating and tragic eras of American history.
When farmers went bust during the Dust Bowl and were forced to move westward in search of jobs, Route 66 was described memorably as “the mother road, the road of flight” by John Steinbeck in “The Grapes of Wrath.”
If you want to learn the definitive story about the Dust Bowl now, go buy “The Worst Hard Time” by Timothy Egan. It won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2006. It was well-deserved.
(Hat tip: Batesline.com)
Open house set for Baxter Springs museum July 6, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Events, Museums, Sports.add a comment
The Baxter Springs Heritage Center and Museum in Baxter Springs, Kan., recently completed a $500,000 expansion, and will be hosting a daylong open house Saturday, reports the Joplin (Mo.) Globe.
The open house starts at 9:30 a.m., with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at 2 p.m.
About 7,600 square feet have been added to the museum, putting the total at 23,000. The expansion was financed entirely by donations.
The addition includes displays on American Indians and black settlement in Baxter Springs after the Civil War. It also includes an exhibit about Route 66. A baseball exhibit features former Baxter Springs Whiz Kid and New York Yankee Mickey Mantle.
Mantle played a lot of ball in Baxter Springs before being signed by the New York Yankees in a Hall-of Fame career. Mantle grew up in the nearby Route 66 town of Commerce, Okla. The house is about a block and a half off old 66.
Tattoo Man’s other story July 6, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in People.1 comment so far
Rita Thurman Barnes, a columnist for the Bartlesville (Okla.) Examiner-Enterprise, wrote a good story about Bartlesville resident Ron “Tattoo Man” Jones, who sports dozens of tattoos of Route 66 landmarks on his body.
Most people who meet Jones already know about his tattoos. And many see the 1956 Chevrolet car that he frequently drives. But many don’t know this back story about him:
Ron says, “After high school, I was in the army in Viet Nam from 1968 to 1969 and it was there I got my Purple Heart on Hamburger Hill on May 10, 1969. I would like to thank you for (writing my story). It really means a lot. About five years ago I was diagnosed with PTSD. You wouldn’t think that after 40 years the stuff that happened to us over in Nam would effect us the way that it does, but some of the things that I saw I will never be able to get rid of and, of course, you can quote me because it took me a long time to admit it to myself, but I think that it does help. It will never go away, what we saw and did, but we have to try and move on the best way that we can.”
To see some of Jones’ tattoos, go here and here. Jones also frequently goes to Route 66 gatherings, and often hangs out at Afton Station in Afton, Okla., when it’s open.
Scenes from the Rendezvous July 5, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Events, Music, Vehicles.add a comment
Here is a slide show of the many great rides seen at the annual Route 66 Rendezvous in San Bernardino, Calif. Rockabilly music is by Three Bad Jacks.
This year’s Rendezvous, the 20th, will be Sept. 17-20.
Let’s celebrate The Mill’s 80th year July 4, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Events, Ghosts and Mysteries, Preservation, Restaurants.2 comments
The Mill, a former restaurant on Route 66 in Lincoln, Ill., will mark its 80th anniversary on July 25 with several events, reports the Springfield Journal-Register.
Route 66 Heritage Foundation of Logan County is hosting the festivities that day, beginning at noon. Music and food will be served beginning at 1 p.m., with an informal car and motorcycle show, door prizes and a drawing.
Then there’s this:
At 4 p.m., there will be a free presentation featuring “Coon Hound” Johnny and “Old Mill” Blossom recalling the “broads and bootlegging” of Logan County.
At 8 p.m., Spirits of … Tours will host a paranormal investigation at The Mill. The cost is $20 per person, and advance reservations are required. Reservations can be made by calling (309) 846-4306 or e-mailing info@spiritsoftours.com.
The paranormal probe should be entertaining, even if it’s something that shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
Hallie’s on the Square in Lincoln also will be having specials at 6 p.m. on schnitzels, a longtime specialty at The Mill before it closed.
The event undoubtedly will be something of a celebration of The Mill being rescued from a death sentence. In 2006, the long-neglected structure was condemned by the city and was about to be torn down. Logan County Tourism Director Geoff Ladd, other area residents and Route 66 roadies saw the potential in The Mill, moved to acquire the property, and have been restoring it ever since. It eventually will be converted into a tourism center. Just a few weeks ago, The Mill was inducted into the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame.
New restaurant in an old package July 4, 2009
Posted by Ron Warnick in Restaurants.1 comment so far
Roadies traveling in the Cuba, Mo., area have a new dining option, but it’s housed in a historic building on the Mother Road.
Road House 66, on Highway UU off Interstate 44, recently opened in the former Wagon Wheel Restaurant — a fixture on Route 66 since 1954, according to a newspaper article by the Cuba Free Press.
For weeks, the owners and their workers have been hammering, sawing, tearing apart, building, and cleaning. A new identity has arisen from the chaos. The décor for Road House 66 could be described as a modernized roadhouse look. Joe Sonderman, a Route 66 author and collector of vintage Route 66 images, has shared photos of Route 66 that will decorate the walls.
The stuffed animals from previous tenants are now in storage. Walls have been removed to open up the front dining area. The art deco bar is cleaned, lighted, and ready for service. The back dining room now boasts a small stage and a new bar for the nightclub area. [...]
Future plans include renovating the small building next to the restaurant into a separate bar with its own identity. The outdoor facilities will be utilized, and Road House 66 would like to sponsor events such as car and motorcycle shows from time to time.
Hours of Road House 66 are from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. for dining Tuesday through Sunday. It is closed Monday.
(Photos by Jane Reed)