Category Archives: Review

Book Review
Cities of Gold
Douglas Preston

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When I published my review of The Last Ride of the Pony Express, a friend suggested another book I might like. That book was Cities of Gold, and he was right. I did enjoy the book, and it’s pretty obvious why the one book reminded him of the other. Both tell of journeys on horseback through the American West that attempt to follow a path once ridden by others. The stories, though certainly not identical, are similar. The authors could hardly be more different. Will Grant, who set out to retrace the route of the Pony Express, had been around horses most of his life. Douglas Preston, whose goal was to retrace the sixteenth-century travels of Coronado, was essentially a standard-issue city slicker from Boston, MA. If the mere existence of the book didn’t prove that he had survived, I would have really had my doubts as I read the opening pages.

But even before my doubts about Preston as a horseman started to form, I had decided I was probably going to like him as a writer. In “A Note to the Reader,” which precedes the actual start of the tale, Preston notes that it “is not a comprehensive history of the Southwest.” It is, he explains, “a narrow slice through the bedrock of time.” He might not (yet) know how to judge a horse or properly stay atop one all day every day, but he did have a way with words. For my purposes, that was definitely the more important ability of the two.

Preston, recognizing his own limitations, arranged for two others to accompany him on his big ride. He apparently was not as astute at recognizing limitations in others. A fellow hired as a wrangler, to handle the horses, had clearly oversold his experience and capabilities. He returned home after the trio had covered maybe a third of the total distance, and he didn’t contribute a whole lot while he was there. Preston was more familiar with the group’s third member, Walter. Walter turned out to be much more adept at packing the horses than the hired hand had ever been. He also seems to have been a better judge of capabilities than Preston. He had never been happy with the pretend wrangler, and when the pretender left, he commented, “This is more like it.” That was when, in his opinion, the real adventure began. Walter and Doug actually seemed to make a pretty good team whose relationship included a fair number of odd couple” style spats and recoveries, which doesn’t hurt the story at all.

On the surface, this is a story about a couple of guys spending seventy days on horseback to travel a thousand miles. It would be a good story if that’s all there was. Its protagonists have to track down runaway horses, navigate through trackless desert, and keep an eye out for rattlesnakes. They nearly run out and desperately search for water on multiple occasions, while on another, they encounter so much water that their tent floats. Like any decent travel tale, this one is populated with interesting characters met along the way.

There is, of course, a lot more to it than a log of a long ride. The travels that Preston sets out to trace took place in 1540, and an awful lot of history occurred in the intervening four and a half centuries. Some of that history is shared through the interesting characters Doug and Walter meet. Ranchers, shepherds, and tribal members often have memories passed down through generations. Sometimes the sharing of history is triggered by a location. It might be something from 1540, involving Coronado’s initial contact with the people he encountered, or it might be something from more recent times, such as the days of cowboys, cattle, and outlaw gangs. Preston clearly researched his subject well, and he shares what he learned in an easily digested manner.

I came to this book because of another horseback travelogue, and since I read the two fairly close together, I find I can’t stop comparing them. There are the obvious differences between looking for a not well-documented path followed once 450 years previous and looking for a commercial path traveled repeatedly 150 years previous. But I was also struck by the differences between the two modern journeys separated by just thirty years. When Preston made his trek in 1989, there was no civilian use of the Internet or GPS, and cell phones were in their infancy. By the time Will Grant tackled the Pony Express route, all three of these technologies were well established, although Grant may have spent more time without a cell phone signal than with. I don’t say this to diminish the risks Grant faced. By traveling alone, things that might have been just a problem, perhaps even a really big problem, with a buddy along, could be fatal. I think I say it because it was often on my mind as I read Cities of Gold. I suspect it was often on my mind because those technologies play such a large role in my own travels.

Oddly enough, I didn’t think nearly as often about the much larger difference between the technology of the horse and the technology of the automobile. That might be because that difference is just too big to grasp easily. I did think about it once, however. As the riders approach Albuquerque, NM, Preston writes about how much of the world has been arranged to accommodate the automobile. That is a bit different than noting various individual changes brought on by cars. For the first time, I realized that accommodating cars is central to almost everything that humans do. Also, probably for the first time, I considered the question of whether the invention of the automobile was good or bad a legitimate one. That wasn’t the only time that Cities of Gold prompted me to think about something differently, and that, in my opinion, is a good thing.

Walter, Preston’s traveling companion, was a photographer. He toted a goodly amount of gear, including an 8×10 Deardorff view camera. The majority of the photos in Cities of Gold are Walter’s, and I think they significantly enhance the story. The edition of the book that I read was also helped by Walter’s words. The adventure took place in 1989, and Cities of Gold was first published in 1992. I read an electronic version of the 25th-anniversary edition, which includes an Afterword by Walter. Two people rarely see everything the same way, and it is pretty obvious from the original book that Doug and Walter were top-grade examples of this. Walter’s contribution begins with a summary of the trip from his point of view, which leads to the sharing of two dozen memories that stuck with him for 28 years. If you intend to read this book, and I certainly think it is worthwhile, I do suggest going for a version with Walter’s Afterword included.

Although it has taken me decades to realize he existed, I guess my impression that Douglas Preston has “a way with words” was not wrong. I really enjoyed reading this book, and so, too, it seems, have many others. That it got a 25th anniversary edition is evidence of that. Further evidence of his “way with words” is that he has now written or co-written more than 40 books, including several that have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. Cities of Gold was his second.
 
 
 
 

Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest, Douglas Preston, UNM Press (March 1, 2019), 6 x 9.25 inches, 480 pages, ISBN 978-0826320865
Available through Amazon.

Book Review
Aprons Away
Cheryl Eichar Jett

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I’ve commented before that “Why another Route 66 book?” is something I sometimes ask. I more or less thought I would be asking that question about Aprons Away: Women’s Work on Route 66, but found it wasn’t really needed. This is not, in my opinion, “another Route 66 book”. It is a book about women who made meaningful contributions to the world and who happen to have a connection to the route. For some, that connection is lifelong and one that defines their contribution. For others, Route 66 is associated with a smaller—sometimes much smaller—portion of their accomplishments. You won’t learn all that much about Route 66 from this book. You will learn a lot about a bunch of women who left their mark on the world. Route 66 is not the subject of this book; it is only the filter for selecting the subjects.

Jett divided those subjects into ten chapters, starting with “Blueprints” and ending with “The Documentarians”. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction of each of the chapter’s subjects, including some hints as to what each of them accomplished. Not so brief, but not overly long, biographies follow. Most are only a page or two, but each one makes it clear just made the woman stand out and what connected her to Route 66.

In interviews, Jett has said that the first stories in her collection about women and Route 66 were of women in “visible roles”. By that, she meant waitresses, motel operators, and others who were visible to travelers on the road. Neither of the categories I’ve mentioned, “Blueprints” and “The Documentarians”, is visible in that sense, but each contains someone quite visible to the world at large. The person whose biography begins the book, Mary Colter, is best known to fans of Route 66 as the architect of La Posada hotel in Winslow, AZ, but is highly visible to others for her wide-ranging design work on and off the route. Dorothea Lange, who appears on the cover of Aprons Away, is undoubtedly the documentarian in the book with the highest level of visibility. Her depression era photographs are some of the most recognized in the world.

“An Apron and a Coffee Pot”, “The Gas Station Girls”, “The Inn Keepers”, and “The Entrepreneurs” more closely match the “visible roles” Jett was referencing. Sometimes women waited tables, pumped gas, registered guests, or collected tickets for a business run by their husband or father, but not always. Lucille Hamons, Lillian Redman, and Ramona Lehman are names that nearly every fan of Route 66 will recognize for their major roles in customer-facing businesses along the route. The other categories, “Public Service”, “The Artists”, “World War II”, and “Design and Engineering” also have stars that are known to many who have traveled or studied the route.

Of course, every one of those chapters has several sections on people much less famous than Lange or Colter or Redman, and that’s why we buy such books. In fact, I’m guessing that it’s pretty much why the book was written. I strongly suspect that Jett would have heard some complaints had she not included Colter and others of equal fame, but there are numerous places we can read about those folks. I did not count them, but understand there are more than eighty women profiled in Aprons Away. Every one of them deserves to be here, and their stories deserve to be told. Jett has uncovered some very interesting women and has done a nice job of sharing their collected stories. I was familiar with well under half, maybe no more than a quarter, before meeting them in this book. New knowledge is a good thing.

Aprons Away Women’s Work on Route 66, Cheryl Eichar Jett, Reedy Press (April 1, 2026), 6 x 9 inches, 224 pages, ISBN ‎ 978-1681066349
Available through Amazon.

Movie Review
Janice Meredith
E. Mason Hopper

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Like February’s showing of The Wizard of Oz in Wilmington, this showing of Janice Meredith was part of Ohio Goes to the Movies. And like my review of that event, this post is not really a review of the movie, but of the overall experience. On the other hand, since I’m quite certain that readers are nowhere near as familiar with Janice Meredith as they are with that Oz movie, and because it is pretty impressive, I’ll not ignore the film completely.

The venue for the showing was the Arcanum Opera House, built in 1889. Arcanum is a small town not far from Greenville, where actor Walter Law spent his formative years before moving to Dayton. Law appears in Janice Meredith, which is the connection to Ohio that led to its inclusion in the Ohio Goes to the Movies schedule.

The building served its original purpose until 1928, then played a variety of roles before being put to use housing Arcanum’s village offices. When the village government planned to construct a new building for their offices and move out, the opera house was in serious danger. The construction did happen, and the opera house was vacated in 2020, but a group was formed in 2019 to save it. The Arcanum Preservation Society has plans to restore the building and has made some serious progress in that direction.

Walter Law appeared in more than 40 movies during his career. His earliest film work was with Fox Film in New Jersey. He moved to Hollywood in 1920 and continued his career there. He most often appeared in supporting roles, and that is the case here. Law plays General Charles Lee, one of General Washington’s subordinates. That was essentially the entire description of his character I had on Friday, and I did not spot any reasonable candidates during the opera house screening. Although the quality isn’t nearly as good as what we saw on Friday, the movie is available on YouTube, so, armed with a somewhat better description of the character, I made a serious attempt to find him by picking out and studying scenes with Washington. No luck. I know he’s in there somewhere, but I can’t tell you where. I can tell you where that basket on the left side of the picture ended up. I was there with friends Terry and Sue. Everyone was given numbered tickets when we arrived, and Sue’s number won her a nice movie-watching kit.

Prior to Friday, about all I knew of the film was that it was a romance set during the American Revolution. Just before Friday’s showing, I learned it was “a little longer than most silent films”, and later learned that meant 11 reels or 140 minutes. But it wasn’t just its length that set the movie apart. It was a true epic with scenes of big battles and social gatherings, and extended shots tracking galloping horses, including Paul Revere’s. There is notable comic relief aided by W.C. Fields’ first motion picture appearance. Following the battle at Lexington, three of the wounded — or maybe ghosts of those killed — arise and form the trio of Archibald Willard’s Spirit of ’76 and march toward the camera while subsequent battles appear below them.

By the film’s end, I could not help but think this was the Gone with the Wind of the silent era. Like the Civil War epic released just fifteen years later, Janice Meredith features the beautiful daughter of a wealthy landowner, in love with an unconventional fellow whom her father definitely does not approve of, all while the war rages around her. It’s not entirely the same, though. When Janice Meredith ends, its protagonists are about to be married rather than separated, and this time the rebels win.

Book Review
The Last Ride of the Pony Express
Will Grant

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I have read and reviewed more than a few books about modern retracings of historic routes, including some I was personally responsible for. Almost all of them involved automobiles, with the result that those doing the retracing typically traveled significantly faster than the route’s original users. For the original travelers on the route that Will Grant followed in 2019, speed was far and away the main consideration. Relay riders moved mail over the nearly 2,000-mile-long route in ten days. Grant’s main consideration was safety. About 75 horses were ridden to near exhaustion in each Pony Express run. Grant’s safety and the success of his ride depended on two horses covering the entire distance. Will, Chicken Fry, and Badger got to know each other quite well during the 142 days they spent together during The Last Ride of the Pony Express.

I’ve been to the stable-turned-museum where Grant and all of those Pony Express riders began their journies west, and I have crossed the Missouri River at Saint Joseph, but it somehow never registered with me just how close that stable was to the riverbank. The stable and the river are less than half a mile apart. When I finally realized that, my first thought was to question why the Pony Express did not just place its eastern terminus on the other side of the river. It was a dumb question that I almost instantly answered. The Missouri River marked the border of the United States in 1860. St. Joseph was on the frontier. Pony Express riders began their westward dash with a ferry ride. Will Grant began his unhurried retrace with a police escort over a bridge.

Grant was very familiar with horses from a lifetime of riding, and I suspect he was more familiar than most with the history of the Pony Express and the geography of the American West. But he became a lot more familiar with these subjects as he prepared for his ride, and he shares that knowledge throughout the book. He also shares what I see as a sense of awe at the logistics of managing the hundreds of horses and men involved in the Pony Express. Many of us see only a galloping horse and rider when thinking of the Pony Express. Some may also think of brave station masters. Grant thinks and writes about all the men, and probably a few women, responsible for a constant supply of water, hay, and other necessities to those isolated stations, for the speedy breaking of horses to be ridden, and for all the other behind-the-scenes details of keeping an operation this big and spread out functioning.

The lack of that widespread support organization might be just as big a difference between Grant’s ride and those of 1860 as the speed of travel. Grant had the benefit of modern resources, including a sometimes-connected cell phone, and numerous generous routeside residents provided meals, showers, and places to camp. But he was basically self-contained and, despite several invitations, never slept in someone’s home. Surroundings ranged from too much civilization to essentially none at all. The severe isolation of parts of the trail is illustrated by Grant arranging for six caches of water and hay to be placed along the route through the Great Salt Lake Desert to make up for the lack of staffed and provisioned Pony Express stations.

The routeside residents also provide conversation. Sometimes history is explored, and sometimes the topic is something very current. Some subjects, like corporate ranches, wind farms, and wild mustangs, have the potential to become political, but Grant somehow manages to avoid that. Not only in his real-life conversations but in his informative writings. He’s really good at sharing facts, and maybe even describing a couple of viewpoints, without letting his own opinion distort them. In fact, most opinions held by others are reported with any rough edge they might have had removed.

I enjoyed encountering place names I recognized. Just as parts of the Pony Express route followed paths marked earlier by wagon wheels, feet, and hooves, some of it would later be followed by the tires of automobiles. Saint Joseph, MO, where it started, is where the Jefferson Highway and the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway crossed. I recognized one of Grant’s camping spots, Hollenberg Station, from having stopped there while driving the PPOO. Farther west, the Lincoln Highway has led me to Dugway, Fish Springs, and other Pony Express-connected places that Grant mentions.

At Willow Spring Station in Callao, UT, another place the Lincoln Highway has taken me, Grant pauses for a day to rest himself and the horses. The last of his arranged caches lies between Callao and the stateline and beyond that, Nevada and California. There was still a long way to go, but the big desert was essentially behind him, and the day of rest may have prompted a look back. “No one, I thought, knows the ride of a Pony Express rider, but I’d come pretty close. My time in the desert, free from the distractions of population or vegetation or paved roads, had revealed what no book had conveyed, what I could not fully articulate, but what I knew was a past informant to our current psyche.”

On September 22, 2019, 142 days after crossing that bridge in Saint Joseph, Will Grant rode Chicken Fry up to the Pony Express statue in Sacramento with Badger in tow. The three had surely traveled more than the 1,966 miles said to comprise the actual Pony Express route. I’m still not sure whether I think the Pony Express was insane or brilliant. Crossing a 1,400-mile-wide gap in our country on horseback once in ten days is an impressive accomplishment. Establishing a system to do that in both directions twice a week is incredibly so. It is commonly estimated that something like 500 horses were used. Grant’s not buying it. He thinks a number between 1,500 and 2,000 is more believable.

I doubt I have ever spent much more than an hour on horseback at any one time, and I certainly don’t intend to try it now. I gained a slight sense of what multiple days in the saddle might be like without risking snakebites, saddle sores, or wild mustang attacks, and that’s close enough for me.

The Last Ride of the Pony Express: My 2,000-mile Horseback Journey into the Old West, Will Grant, Little, Brown and Company (June 6, 2023), 6.3 x 9.55 inches, 336 pages, ISBN ‎ 978-0316422314
Available through Amazon.

Musical Review
Wizard of Oz
Loveland Stage Company

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Loveland’s got talent! That’s the phrase that came to mind to lead off this review as I left the Loveland Stage Company theater on Friday. I put it aside when I realized it was exactly how I started the review of my first visit to the theater in 2023 (Company). But it did not stay there, and in the end, being repetitive didn’t seem so bad. The amount of talent this community theater group brings together is awesome. You, I told myself, can say that again.

This is a happy time for the Wizard of Oz and me. I’ve seen the 1939 movie on TV screens numerous times, then last month, I saw it in a theater for only the second time (The Wizard of Oz). Before this month ends, I hope to visit the Oz Museum in Wamego, KS. It seems a near-perfect time for me to see the story presented live on stage for the first time ever.

Many versions of the story exist. The Loveland Stage Company’s production is based on the classic 1939 movie. Almost every difference is because a theater stage is not the same as a Hollywood sound stage. There are no horses of any color, nor is there a sty filled with pigs for Dorothy to fall into. The stage backdrop is a screen that provides views of the really big stuff. These include the tornado, Dorothy’s flight to Oz (yes, there’s a bike and a boat), the field of poppies, and even (pay attention) the Wizard flying off in his balloon. One big thing that is not a projected image, even though it was in the movie, is the Wizard. Here he is free-standing and majestic. The stage design, on what I assume is a limited budget, is truly impressive.

Most, but not all, of the differences between the movie and the stage are pragmatic omissions. There is at least one example of something in the stage production that was not in the movie. It’s a scene featuring the song Jitterbug. Although it was filmed in 1939, it did not make the final cut. The official video has been lost, but you can catch a glimpse of the scene here, even though I’m sure you’ll like the LSC version better.

Every bit of music, including the Jitterbug, comes from a ten (or maybe fourteen) piece orchestra behind that rear stage screen. The uncertainty comes from the difference between a list and individual biographies in the program. I could not count them live, of course, because they are hidden. They sound great and are a key part of the production. An awful lot of the talent behind this article’s first sentence is hidden. Check out the program to identify that hidden talent.

Of course, that program also identifies the unhidden talent. The cast of The Wizard of Oz is comprised of ten players in named roles plus a sixteen-member ensemble. Quite a few ensemble members fill individual speaking roles at various points. Loveland’s talent clearly runs deep.

Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion are played by Kelly Johnson, Derek Harper, Matt Truesdell, and Derek Foster, respectively. These four handle much of the singing and dancing, but the ensemble definitely carries its share of the load. Olivia Munro appears as Glinda, and Ginny Johnson is the Wicked Witch of the West. Jim Tobergta plays the Wizard and contributed tremendously to set design and construction. Toto is brought to life, marionette fashion, by Jonah Human. Human is probably on stage as much as any character, yet manages to be nearly invisible most of the time. There are several instances where his facial expression adds to the on-stage action; none where it detracts.

Six performances remain: Friday and Saturday evenings plus Sunday matinees for the next two weeks. At the moment, none are completely sold out, but they are all getting close. If you make it, see if you think Ginny Johnson might be channelling Margaret Hamilton in the delivery of a few of her lines, and maybe a couple of laughs, too. I did.

Movie Review (JK)
The Wizard of OZ
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

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Of course, I’m just kidding about reviewing the greatest movie ever made. What I am reviewing is seeing The Wizard of Oz in a theater for only the second time. The first time was in 2022, when it was shown in theaters nationwide to commemorate Judy Garland’s 100th birthday. This time, it was shown as part of Ohio Goes to the Movies, a Signature Event of America 250-Ohio.

Ohio Goes to the Movies sponsors free showings of movies with Ohio connections at locations spread throughout the state. One of The Wizard of Oz showings was in Wilmington on Sunday. That’s where my daughter lives, and she and my grandson attended too. Not every seat was filled, but the event’s popularity prompted a second showing. Megan and Wes got there early and secured tickets for the first showing. Good job.

The movie is connected to Ohio through having two major roles played by actors from here. I was aware that Margaret Hamilton, who played Almira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West, was from Cleveland, but I don’t believe I knew that Uncle Henry was played by a fellow from Xenia, Charley Grapewin. Grapwin literally left home to join the circus and first played Uncle Henry in the 1903 Broadway stage production of The Wizard of Oz. Xenia is about twenty miles north of Wilmington.

There were some prizes awarded by raffle, but I didn’t bother to register, so I’m not sure how that worked. There were also some live games being administered by familiar-looking characters, and the concession stand staff was very much into the spirit of the day.

Once we were in our seats, all of the Oz folks except for the Scarecrow (possibly too busy selling popcorn) hung out near the screen for a round of trivia. I would not have done well and stayed quiet. Did you know the flying monkeys were paid $25 per “swoop”? Everybody knows what came next, and it was just as cool as I remembered it.

I think I’ll probably attend at least one more Ohio Goes to the Movies event. 1935’s Annie Oakley will play at Greenville’s Wayne Theater in July, and I’d like to be there. Maybe I’ll see Buffalo Bill Cody or Chief Sitting Bull at the concession stand.

Book Review
Coast to Coast on a Tandem
Tracy & Peter Flucke

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The Fluckes were presenters at last year’s Route 66 Miles of Possibility Conference in Joliet, IL. The primary connection was their 2016 trek along Historic Route 66, which was their third unsupported cross-country trip on a tandem bicycle. This book covers the first of those trips, a 4,300-mile ride from Bellingham, WA, to Bar Harbor, ME, in 2014.

They smoothly alternated lines during the Route 66 presentation like co-anchors on the evening news. Their teamwork in a situation where it was nice but not mandatory hinted at how that team performed on one pair of skinny pedal-powered tires, where it was crucial. That’s also true of their teamwork on the pages of this book. In fact, the form of Coast to Coast on a Tandem seems closely aligned with the realities of tandem bike travel.

There are no passengers on a tandem bicycle. The person in front(captain), in this case Peter, is responsible for steering, which requires constant awareness of what is immediately in front of the bicycle. Bits of debris or small potholes that are no more than inconveniences when traveling on four wheels can be disastrous on two. The front rider is also responsible for gear selection and braking. In the back (stoker), Tracy is responsible for navigation, which means keeping Peter informed of upcoming turns, stops, and such. She also keeps an eye on traffic to the rear and keeps Peter informed of that as well. Both are responsible for powering and balancing their vehicle.

Their views from the saddle are not the same. Peter has a clear view of the landscape ahead, but is mostly focused on the road surface just a few feet away. Tracey has more time to contemplate the scenery, but her view is limited to the left and right. Anything more than short glances to the rear is uncomfortable and potentially unsafe, and the view ahead consists of little more than the back of Peter’s head.

The idea of two different views is carried into the book’s text. Instead of collaborating on a single combined narrative, Tracey and Peter each write their own version of events, and the two versions are interleaved. Sometimes, the pair of synchronized tales differ by no more than the distance between tandem bicycle seats, and sometimes they offer very different takes on a single set of events.

We all know that travel is enhanced at least as much by people as by location. The Fluckes meet and describe people in campgrounds, hostels, restaurants, grocery stores, motels, and through a cyclist-oriented home-sharing organization called Warm Showers. They also meet a few bicycle mechanics as they deal with the wear — especially on tires — and tear of long-distance pedaling. Almost all are friendly and either helpful, curious, or both.

Some of the people they meet are fellow cyclists. The Fluckes are barely twenty miles out of Bellingham when they encounter a cyclist on his way to Boston. Peter and Tracy are following the Adventure Cycling Association’s Northern Tier Route. Peter writes that an estimated 2,000 people travel this route each year. Some do it all, and some do short stretches of a few days or so. Some do it unsupported, like the Fluckes, while some do it as members of packaged tours with a support vehicle tagging along and carrying their gear. Are any of those people on a tandem?. Peter guesses “maybe 1 percent”. The Fluckes encounter none.

The book begins with descriptions of acquiring gear for the trip, physical training, shipping the bike, etc. Preparing their home world for a near three-month absence takes some effort, too. Once the trip is underway, each chapter begins with a map of the area covered in that chapter, and each day’s journal begins with the date, incremental and cumulative miles traveled, and a brief description of conditions. An example from a day in Montana is:

Day 21
June 21 — Havre to Malta, Montana
93 miles (total miles – 1,147
65-75 degrees, sunny with a nice tailwind to push us along

Not every day is sunny, and not every wind pushes them forward.

Coast to Coast on a Tandem is not a photo-heavy book, but there are several. All are in color. One is of the couple hoisting the bicycle overhead in Bar Harbour to celebrate completing the trip. Tracy calls it perfect—and lucky. “What were we thinking? Bike all the way across the country and have a complete stranger take only one picture to commemorate the event. Crazy.” Surely she knows better than to think that’s the only crazy thing described in the book.

Anyone even slightly familiar with me will know that the chances of me cycling across the country (or surviving if I did) are essentially zero. I assumed that the chances of my having anything in common with the trim and athletic Fluckes other than a love of traveling were also pretty much zero. I was surprised to learn that we share a fondness for craft breweries. Apparently, Peter and I even share a fondness for porters and Scotch ale. Furthermore, we both like to “collect” breweries. I, traveling in a medium-sized SUV, do it by logging them in an app on my phone. The Fluckes, traveling on a vehicle with the storage capacity of a medium-sized hummingbird, do it by purchasing souvenir glasses, which they then mail home fairly often.

Coast to Coast on a Tandem: Our Adventure Crossing the USA on a Bicycle Built for Two, Tracy & Peter Flucke, M&B Global Solutions (November 2, 2017), 6 x 9 inches, 230 pages, ISBN ‎ 978-1942731283
Available through Amazon.

Book Review
American Sign Museum: Celebrating 25 Years
Roberts, Grilli, Kikkert

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This book, just like its subject, is bright, colorful, eye-catching, and informative. That subject, quite obviously, is the 25-year-old American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. The three names in this post’s title are of the book’s author, photographer, and designer. I don’t think I have ever called out a designer by name before, although some books I’ve reviewed clearly benefited from a good design. Most books, I believe, are designed by the author or an employee of the publisher. Here, the designer, Kathy Kikkert, is identified as a member of the team and rightfully so. Her design added greatly to my enjoyment of the book. Technically, Sam Roberts is not identified as the author but as the person responsible for the “text”. Close enough. Natalie Grilli is the person responsible for “photography”. Short biographies in the book list the outstanding qualifications all three have for their roles.

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jim Borgman supplied the book’s foreword. As a fellow Cincinnatian, I was familiar with Borgman’s work, but was a little surprised to see his name here. Then, as I read his contribution and learned that his father had been a skilled sign painter, I realized he was the perfect man for the job.

Museum founder Tod Swormstedt provided a welcome page and an introduction, and his influence is evident throughout. It’s a given that some of the information presented in Roberts’ text came from Tod and others. To me, it seems almost as obvious that a guy so adept at organizing walls, rooms, and buildings filled with signs would have a hand in organizing sign-filled pages, and I have a strong hunch that he might have suggested a few targets for Grilli’s camera.

As Tod describes in the introduction, the book consists of three sections. The first describes what the museum is. It begins with some statistics, such as size (40,000 sq ft), oldest sign (155 years), and tallest sign (21 ft).  That is followed by “A Founder’s Vision” (written by Tod), some words about the museum’s mission and its relationship with the community, and recognition of some of the many individuals who have been instrumental in the museum’s development and ongoing operation.

The second section concerns signs in general. There is a condensed history of signs in America that starts with carved and painted signs and progresses through materials like glass and plastic. The major changes electricity brought and the development of various illumination methods are covered. The section concludes with a glossary of sign types and the techniques and materials used in their construction.

Section three begins just short of halfway through the book. This is, as the “Celebrating 25 Years” title suggests, the reason this book exists. The first two sections set the scene by providing an idea of what the museum is and some understanding of the things it contains. This section tells the story of how it got there.

I first became aware of the museum with the 2005 opening of its original Walnut Hills location. To someone not involved with the sign business in any way, it seemed to me that this wonderful new attraction had magically appeared, fully formed, in my city overnight. However, we all know that’s not how things work, and I soon learned about some, but far from all, of the work behind that magic. The first part of section three nicely covers the period between forming a board of directors in 1999, incorporating as a non-profit in 2000, and that delightful grand opening on April 28, 2005. This is also where I found more photos of Tod wearing a tie (3) than I’d ever seen before.

That first home in Essex Studios in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati was outgrown before it was occupied. Behind-the-scenes coverage continues as the current location in Camp Washington is acquired and made ready for another grand opening in June 2012. Central to “A Founder’s Vision” was the desire to not just display signs but to tell the story of American signage. Two envisioned methods for doing that were a Letter Wall showing the evolution of sign lettering and a faux street where signs were displayed in period-appropriate settings. A short Letter Wall existed at Essex, and some signs were sort of arranged as if they were on a street, but the backing was mostly plain white walls. In the new location, there was room to create proper versions of these two features. A much longer Letter Wall was constructed at the entrance to the main display area, and a Main Street was built with various storefronts lining both sides. To add another layer of realism, a diverse group of sign painters known as Letterheads descended on the museum to add signs to windows and doors to augment the big signs hanging on the storefronts and standing in the street. The store windows serve as natural display locations for items like painter kits and books.

The Letterheads and the museum have a wonderful relationship that is well documented in the book. The museum hosted the group’s 40th and 50th reunions in 2015 and 2025, and the group added murals and other features to the museum each time. When the museum expanded and Main Street doubled in length in 2024, the Letterheads returned to work their magic on the new storefronts. The Letterhead story is just one of many that show how the museum is appreciated by sign makers as well as sign fans.

There is something akin to a fourth section spread throughout the book. It is made up of things called “Sign Stories”, which are like sidebars in that they are standalone and not tied to the main flow of the book. But each is at least one full page, and some fill a two-page spread. Most describe a sign or group of signs in the museum’s collection. They typically provide a date and original location and identify the sign material and type. Then the page is filled with details about the sign’s original owner, its acquisition, or some other truly interesting aspect of the sign. I didn’t count them, but there’s a bunch. Enough to believe that some people might think the book worthy of purchase if these were all it contained.

I imagine everyone has figured out that the book is packed with pictures. Some are from the museum archives, and some from other sources, including Grilli’s personal stash from ten years of museum visits. But many are brand new, selected from the 19,179 images Grilli recorded specifically for this project. Heavyweight glossy paper and good print quality deliver the bright, colorful, eye-catching stuff. The book is available in both hard and soft cover. I have the softcover version, but I did leaf through a hardcover copy at the museum. The hardcover is clearly the sturdier of the two, but I believe the print quality is the same for both. At least for now, the book is only available through the museum and through Sam Roberts’ BLAG magazine website in Europe.

American Sign Museum: Celebrating 25 Years, Sam Roberts (text), Natalie Grilli (photography), Kathy Kikkert (design), American Sign Museum (November 15, 2025), 10 x 10 inches, 166 pages, ISBN 979-8-218-65249-4 (9798218752521 – BLAG)
Available here and here (Europe)

Book Review
Route 66: 100 Years
Jim Hinckley, Editor

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That title may look familiar. If so, one reason might be the similarly named Route 66: The First 100 Years, reviewed here back in June. The world-famous highway will turn a hundred years old on November 11, 2026, and I suspect we will see several more books (and movies and parties and blog posts) with the numbers 66 and 100 in their titles over the next year or two. I will not be purchasing and reviewing every one of those books. One reason I have invested in this pair is that I knew the quality would be good, and one reason for that is I personally know every one of the contributors to both books on one level or another. I sure hope you won’t hold that against them.

Route 66: 100 Years is an anthology edited by Jim Hinckley of Jim Hinckley’s America. There is a chapter for each of the eight states on the route, and Jim covers his home state of Arizona, plus neighboring California and the state with the fewest miles of Sixty-Six, Kansas. He also supplies the introduction and epilogue. Talented writers Cheryl Eichar Jett, Joe Sonderman, Rhys Martin, and Gregory R.C. Hasman each cover their states of residence (Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, respectively), and Greg also writes about Texas, where he lived while attending college.

Like the beginning pages of many books about historic highways, the introduction includes tales of how the early automobile roads followed native trails, animal migration paths, and train tracks. And it talks about the impact that the popularity of bicycles had on the desire for and development of roads outside of cities toward the end of the 19th century. What makes it a little different from most similar writings is that it provides some details about organizations and specific events during road development during this era of pedal-powered transportation.

The state chapters appear in geographic sequence, east to west, which is the direction most people travel the route. Together, they provide a sort of combination travel guide and history lesson. I’m not talking about a travel guide with turn-by-turn directions, motel phone numbers, and such. However, most towns along the route are mentioned — and US 66 was a great connector of small towns — along with numerous points of interest. There is usually some history given about each town and POI, and there is plenty of history about the route itself.

The book is definitely well-illustrated. I don’t believe there is a single page, besides the index and authors’ bios, without at least one image. These include modern and period photographs, postcards, advertising brochures, and other items. Joe Sonderman supplied some of those postcards and brochures, as did big-time collectors Mike Ward and Steve Rider. I was extremely pleased to see a photo from the collection of the late Laurel Kane included. Many of the modern photos were taken by Jim Hinckley and his wife, Judy. I saw no photos from either Rhys Martin or Greg Hasman, although I know both are excellent photographers. I did see photos from Shutterstock, Alamy, and Getty. I thought both situations were curious, but the final product comes off well.

The quality of the book is quite good. Color and black-and-white images show nicely on the heavyweight glossy pages, and the layout serves them well. All have descriptive cut lines that include source credits. There are numerous sidebars, most with their own images, providing extra information outside of the main text flow.

The individual states that carried US 66 account for eight chapters. The book has nine. Dries Bessels, a resident of the Netherlands, authored a chapter named “Renaissance”. Dries has guided multiple tours down the length of Route 66 and provides an outside-the-country view of the historic road. The “renaissance” he writes about is its emergence as a travel destination for both Americans and foreigners after being bypassed and decommissioned. America, essentially spared the devastation that WWII brought to Europe, was the land of dreams to post-war Europeans, and Route 66 was a tangible thing that rolled right through those dreams. Today, Route 66 is still regarded as a way to experience a diverse range of America.

I once had a boss whose business ideas included the “rusty hinge” theory. We made machine controls, which were big metal cabinets packed with electronics. The theory was that, if you were showing a new product that still had a few bugs, a rusty hinge on the cabinet would so distract people that they would not notice any operational flaws. Fortunately, I knew about Route 66: 100 Years‘ “rusty hinge” before I saw it. In a chat about the book, Jim had mentioned that it opened with a picture not of Route 66 but of Monument Valley. The other side of the page, in my opinion, isn’t all that much better. It’s a picture of the Second Amendment Cowboy, a Muffler Man-style statue that is close to, but not quite on, Historic Route 66. A plaque at the statue’s base contains a manipulated quote incorrectly attributed to George Washington. Controversial, I think, at best. I assume these photos were included by a less-than-well-informed publisher. I have saved mention of these “rusty hinges” to the end of my review, but I can’t just ignore them. I think being aware of them is a good thing. They were clearly not intentionally put there to distract you from other flaws, but they could easily distract you from some really good writing and interesting information on the pages beyond. Don’t let them.

Route 66: 100 Years, Jim Hinckley (editor), Cheryl Eichar Jett. Joe Sonderman, Rhys Martin, Gregory R. C. Hasman, Dries Bessels (authors), Motorbooks (November 4, 2025), 9.5 x 10.88 inches, 224 pages, ISBN ‎ 978-0760391488
Available through Amazon.

Movie Review
Frogman
Rotting Press, Feral Child Films

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Frogman is a horror movie. I’m pretty sure the last horror movie that I paid to see in a theater was The Exorcist in 1973. I did that because I liked the book. I went to see Frogman because I liked the festival.

The legend of the Loveland Frog/Frogman can be traced to 1955. It got a little boost in 1972, but only recently has this creature of widely varied descriptions been seen as a crypid to embrace, promote, and maybe make some money off of. Perhaps the first example of the latter was the musical play Hot Damn! It’s the Loveland Frog in 2014. I missed it then and only became aware of it as the second attempt (AFAIK) to make something of the legend — the Frogman Festival — was taking shape. That first festival, which I attended, took place in 2023, with the fourth annual event set for March 2026.

Just over a year ago, Hot Damn! It’s the Loveland Frog was revived for a few performances in Loveland itself. I jumped at the chance to attend and reported on it here. About the same time, plans were announced for a city-connected Return of the Frogman Festival, which would take place that October and every leap year thereafter. I was out of town during that festival and may have been most disappointed by a missed opportunity to see the recently released Frogman movie. When I heard of plans for an October 2025 showing, I jumped again.

By the time I arrived at the Loveland Stage Company theater, I had read many of the reviews at IMDB and was prepared for a pretty bad movie. In hindsight, I think some of those negative reviews were well off the mark. To be clear, there are probably at least as many positive reviews as there are negative. It’s just that the negative ones had made more of an impression on me. After seeing the movie, I’m firmly in the “not as bad as expected” camp.

The audience no doubt had something to do with that. Of course, anything connected to the Loveland Frog is best experienced in Loveland. This crowd was there to have fun — several wore frog suits — not to be frightened. There are a few something-suddenly-jumps-at-you scenes, but they were, at least in this setting, pretty ineffective. I heard no gasps or screams. I did hear many laughs.

The Loveland of the movie is not the Loveland of the viewing. The movie was shot in Stillwater, MN, which isn’t all that much bigger than Loveland, OH (19,000 vs. 13,000), but somehow feels like it is, and the St. Croix River really is much bigger than the Little Miami. Some scenes in Fargo were shot in Stillwater, so there is that.

The Frogman of the movie may or may not be the Frogman of the legend. The frogish creature in the movie only appears in very brief glimpses and usually with less than optimal lighting and focus. My size appraisals range from about the size of a large cat to bigger than the biggest grizzly. In the novel The Exorcist, much of the supernatural goings on happened out of sight or were caught ever so briefly from the corner of one’s eye, leaving the reader to accept them or not. In the movie, that ambiguity got lost. There is no doubt that I, her on-screen mother, and everybody else in the theater saw Linda Blair’s head spin like a top. That, in my opinion, was a major shortcoming of the movie. Although the thing appearing in those on-screen Frogman glimpses might not exactly match any of the descriptions reported in real life, the quality of the glimpses is sort of similar. 

While writing this, I’ve learned that Frogman is available for streaming from several services, including my go-to freebie Tubi. I’m rather happy that I didn’t know that earlier, as I might have just watched it in my living room and missed the fun gathering at the theater. After being alerted to this by IMDB, I searched for it on Tubi and found it listed beside a 1972 movie named Frogs with Ray Milland and Sam Elliot. In my mind, I had already awarded the Frogman promotional artwork bonus points for its creative facial image formed by branches. After seeing that there’s a good chance it intentionally resembles that of the earlier film, I’m just going to double those points.