You Did Say Have Another Sausage

by John Meadows

  Once he had found out the location of the diamond field, Ralston then revealed his unscrupulous trait by threatening Philip Arnold and John Slack with clever legal arguments over the land ownership and illegal mining. He strongly advised them to accept seven hundred thousand dollars as their share. It was a substantial sum, but a mere fraction of the countless millions available. The prospectors were distraught but realized that they had no other option. Reluctantly they agreed and took the money. Rubbing his greedy hands with glee, Ralston quickly set-up production and the news became a world-wide sensation. However, closer inspection of the first batch of diamonds revealed that many already had marks from lapidary tools. The two supposedly naive, grizzled prospectors had spent their life savings of about thirty five thousand dollars buying diamonds in Europe. They brought them to America via Halifax in Nova Scotia and then set up their con-trick. I don’t know if this has ever been made into a film, but I think there is another ‘Sting’ waiting to be made.

  The journey through the Rocky Mountains provided us with spectacular views, punctuated by much-needed periods of sleep. Semi-conscious, I heard the driver announce over the tannoy, ‘Medicine Bow, Wyoming’. Up to then I had always believed that it was a fictitious place in the television series ‘The Virginian’. Running parallel to sections of the highway were the original wagon trails from the pioneering days, and Brett pointed out to us the permanent grooves in the rock created by the wagon wheels. Just looking at these remnants of the past seems to bring to life the history of the west in the same way that the ruts of chariots can be seen along Roman roads all around the Mediterranean.

  Bring ’em Young

  Salt Lake City is inextricably linked with the Mormons. They were brought to Utah by Brigham Young, but, contrary to popular belief (and pub quizzes), he was not the founder of the religion. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith, a farm worker from New York State. In 1820 Smith claimed to have seen visions of the Angel Moroni who led him to a set of golden tablets which he translated as ‘The Book of Mormon’, thus establishing the Mormon Church. The Mormons were unpopular, largely due to their belief in polygamy, and Smith was killed by an angry mob. He was succeeded by Young, who led his followers to a promised land, albeit of salt rather than milk and honey. No-one could have possibly foreseen that this would develop almost two hundred years later into a Broadway and West End Comedy Musical, ‘The Book of Mormon’. Perhaps Smith and Moroni were the forerunners of Gilbert and Sullivan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Rice and Lloyd Webber.

  The great Salt Lakes and surrounding salt flats glistened in the moonlight like a view of the Arctic as we travelled through the night.

  The Biggest Little City in the World

  Reno, near Lake Tahoe, could be described as the ‘little brother’ of Las Vegas. It is smaller and less famous, but, being in the same state of Nevada, it offered the same attractions. Richard and I suggested lunch at a small, cheap diner, but Brett insisted that we should eat at one of the casinos.

  “We are on a limited budget,” I stressed to make two important points. Firstly, we really did have to economise to ensure we didn’t run out of funds. Secondly, and more subliminally, I was reinforcing the fact that if our travelling companion had any plans to steal from us or to lead us into some pre-planned trap, such as a dark casino in Reno, then there wouldn’t be any rich pickings to be had.

  “Cheapest meals in town,” answered Brett with a reassuring manner. He went on to tell us that casinos in Reno and Las Vegas provided excellent meals at unbelievably cheap prices. We were served a succulent steak with all the trimmings, which cost less than McDonald’s. It was in the casino’s interest to just break-even or make a slight loss on the restaurant if it meant keeping the gamblers on the premises for as long as possible. If they go off to a restaurant they might go to another casino and lose their money there instead. In Reno in 1899, Charles Frey invented a slot machine and called it ‘Liberty Bell’, and this became the model for all the slot machines that followed. Brett gave us another very useful piece of advice when he told us to just play the machines on the end of each row, because they are programmed to pay out more as a means of enticing potential gamblers. The ones nearest to the main entrances even more so, because there is nothing quite like the sound of coins cascading out of a slot machine to bring in people off the street. When we got to Las Vegas we gave a silent thank you to Brett every time we won and had a cheap meal in the casinos.

  I can’t leave Reno without making some reference to movies. ‘Misery’, from the Stephen King novel, starring Kathy Bates and James Caan was filmed in the nearby Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the ‘Misfits’ starring Clarke Gable and Marilyn Monroe was filmed in Reno. It will give you some idea of the surrounding landscape to know that the Biblical epic ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’, starring Max Von Sydow as Jesus, was made there.

  Survival Kit

  Carson City, the capital of Nevada, is about thirty miles south of Reno. It originated as a stopover for California-bound emigrants, and it was named after a 19th Century frontiersman called Kit Carson, a name I remembered from my childhood days. He was a popular figure in comics and books but today he is much lesser known than many other Western ‘legends’. It is ironic really, because he seemed to have been the ‘real deal’ and the stories about him were mainly true compared to the standards of the day. He was a buckskin-wearing frontiersman who had all the skills as a hunter, marksman, scout, cook, builder and rider. If he was alive today he would be a celebrity as one of those television survival experts. Carson was hired by a man called John Fremont, an almost forgotten figure today even though he gives his name to a famous street in Las Vegas. Fremont played a major role in opening up the American West. He led expeditions to explore and seek out new frontiers, to boldly go where no man has gone before. He was a man of ‘Enterprise’. In 1842 he mapped the Oregon Trail, a new wagon road that branched off from the Santa Fe Trail and worked its way northwest to Oregon.

  Fremont produced maps and guidebooks to encourage pioneer settlers. His descriptions tended to be written in ‘estate-agent-speak’ to accentuate the positive. He coined the name ‘Golden Gate’ for the mouth of the bay. It was one such description which persuaded Brigham Young to take his followers to Salt Lake City. Mind you, John Fremont wasn’t the first explorer to be a little flowery with his descriptions of places. It is how Greenland got its name. A thousand years earlier, Lief Erickson sent back word of a lush green land to encourage Viking families to move. However, Fremont was generous and truthful in his writings about Kit Carson, which created Kit’s legend, and they formed a life-long partnership. The National media gave Fremont the nickname of ‘The Pathfinder’, taken from James Fennimore Cooper’s stories of ‘Natty Bumppo’, otherwise known as ‘Hawkeye’ and ‘The Pathfinder’.

  Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in your Hair.

  We said goodbye to Brett at the Greyhound bus station in San Francisco. He scribbled his phone number on a piece of paper and insisted that we give him a call when we get to New York. Richard and I found a cheap hotel near to the station and, after a quick shower and change of clothes, we went out to explore this famous city.

  There are several suspension bridges throughout the world which are marvels of engineering: the Bosphorous in Istanbul, Lisbon Harbour, and the Humber Bridge, to name just three. But there is only one Golden Gate Bridge. Opened in 1936, it is the iconic signature of San Francisco. It is not the highest or longest in the world, but in terms of natural setting and fame perhaps only Sydney Harbour Bridge (a different type of construction) could compete.

  San Francisco is situated on the San Andreas tectonic fault-line, which stretches for 600 miles along the California coastline. This is part of the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’, which succinctly describes the volcanic activity and earthquakes of the countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. The most devastating of the many and regular earthquakes i
n the San Francisco area occurred in 1906, when the city was totally destroyed. Even today it is a relatively low-rise city compared to others of similar population, and it is significant that the tallest building on the skyline is the Transamerica Pyramid, the most stable of structures.

  On our first evening we found an English pub called the ‘Lord Nelson’ and we were made very welcome by the locals, who very hospitably bought us a few beers. The pub was located on Sutter Street which is named after John Sutter, a man of German/Swiss heritage who played an important part in the history of California. It happened to be on his land near Sacramento that gold was discovered in 1848 and subsequently sparked the gold rush of the following year. This is why the original miners were known as ’49ers’, as in the song ‘My Darling Clementine’.

  The cable cars, ‘that climb half-way to the stars’, are inextricably linked to San Francisco. The system opened in 1873 when an inventor named Andrew Hallidie witnessed an accident where a horse-drawn tram slipped down a hill. By 1889 his new cable system was running on eight different routes, but the 1906 earthquake destroyed the infrastructure. The system was gradually restored, and, in 1947, the authorities proposed replacing them with buses. Thankfully, there was a public outcry and the present three lines were retained. San Francisco without the cable cars would be like Venice without the canals.

  Nob Hill is thought to be derived from an Indian word ‘nabob’, meaning chieftain, because it attracted the very rich who built mansions with fabulous views. They were flattened by the 1906 earthquake. This is the origin of the term ‘big nobs’, when referring to affluent or senior figures, and ‘where the big nobs hang out’. These days in San Francisco, I think it has a slightly different connotation.

  The Gothic-style Grace Cathedral is an impressive building with an eclectic design history. It was built between 1928 and 1964 and designed by Lewis Hobart, based on Notre Dame in Paris. The circular stained-glass window was designed by Charles Connick and made in Chartres France. The entrance doors are replicas of Ghiberti’s famous Baptistery doors in Florence.

  When Richard and I were in San Francisco, the waterfront Fisherman’s Wharf was a run-down area and Alcatraz was not even thought of as a tourist attraction.

  Back to the Future

  It is time again to get out my flux capacitor and fast-forward thirty years into the future, and join our school trip. As Head of Art at the Deanery High School in Wigan, I have organised trips abroad for many years. My assistant tour leader and art department colleague is Janette, who shares my love of travel and has been on every trip.

  The Fisherman’s Wharf is now refurbished in the style of a quaint wooden fishing village with a boardwalk, souvenir shops, attractions and excellent seafood restaurants. Pier 45 has been colonized by sea lions, and this has become a popular attraction in itself.

  As part of our school trip, we took the ferry to Alcatraz for a guided tour of the infamous prison. In Spanish, Alcatraz means ‘pelican’, the original inhabitants from which the rock derives its name. It was originally the site of an army fort in 1859 as a strategic position for guarding the bay. In 1907 it became a military prison, and from 1934 to 1963 it was a maximum security federal penitentiary. Some of the tour guides are former guards and former prisoners, who were able to give us a real flavour of the grim reality of incarceration on the rock (Robben Island off Capetown is a similar experience). There is a rogues’ gallery of photographs and biographical details of notable criminals. Robert Stroud is better known as ‘The Birdman of Alcatraz’, who, contrary the 1962 movie starring Burt Lancaster, was never allowed to keep birds in his cell. George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly was once public enemy number one, and his epithet neatly sums up his activities. Clint Eastwood starred as Frank Morris in the movie ‘Escape from Alcatraz’, but it is open to conjecture whether Morris actually succeeded in making it across the bay to the mainland.

  The most notorious inmate of Alcatraz was the Chicago mobster Al Capone, who, despite a criminal career involving murder, extortion, prostitution, protection-rackets and bootlegging, was famously only convicted of tax evasion. Capone was one of nine children, most of whom worked for their brother Alphonse supplying the ‘speakeasies’ of Chicago with illicit bootlegged booze. One of Al Capone’s most heinous crimes was ordering the ‘St. Valentine’s Day Massacre’ of rival mobsters. If this event hadn’t taken place we wouldn’t have the classic movie ‘Some Like it Hot’. So I suppose we can forgive him for something.

  Capone’s nemesis was the equally famous federal agent Elliot Ness of the ‘Untouchables’. Here is an amazing fact I came across:

  In the 1920s a Prohibition Agent named Richard Hart worked in Omaha, Nebraska. He had changed his name for professional reasons, believing that his original name would be a hindrance to his career. Something of an understatement, I would have thought. His real name?... James Capone. That’s right, one of Al’s brothers. He must have been the white sheep of the family.

  Incidentally, the term ‘bootlegging’ has its origins in 18th Century England, when smugglers would carry bottles stashed in their thigh-length leather boots, hence the name. However, in 1920s Chicago, thigh-length leather boots had a totally different connotation.

  One of our guides, a former prisoner, told us poignantly that one of the cruellest aspects of Alcatraz was that it was so close to the city. He remembered New Year’s Eve as being a particularly sad time because the prisoners could actually hear the music and singing coming from the city, and they could see the lights and fireworks across the bay. They could almost touch freedom. So near, yet so far, separated by a relatively short distance but surrounded by deep, cold water with unpredictable, deadly cross-currents.

  Blackbrook Reunion

  One evening, our party congregated in the hotel foyer, ready to go out for a meal, and who should turn up to meet us but Jeff. You will remember Jeff from chapter one. He was my mate at school and Art College who was so timid that I had to look after his life-drawings of Rita to hide them from his parents. Geese would say ‘boo’ to him. How times change. He has been living in San Francisco for twenty years, and he is married to an American plumber named Laurie. She is a lovely woman whom Norma and I had met previously in England. These two are living proof of the theory that ‘opposites attract’. You remember that I said earlier that Jeff and Bill were like Laurel and Hardy, and Jeff was nicknamed ‘the Matchstick Man’ at school. At Art College he looked as though he had modeled for a Giacometti sculpture and it was debatable who had the most meat on them, Jeff or Myrtle Byrtle. Laurie, on the other hand, was built as though she belonged in the building trade. It is as if Jeff has stepped out of a Lowry painting and Laurie has stepped off a Beryl Cook painting to get married on a McGill seaside postcard. Jeff and Laurie met when he was having trouble with his ballcock and he rang her to investigate a damp patch. I never thought Jeff would turn out to be such a smooth talker.

  I had rung them earlier to invite them to join us, after making sure, of course, that Laurie did not have a ‘call-out’ charge. Jeff was now a glass engraver working in San Francisco. His artistic talent suited his new medium and process, and he told us proudly that he had done work for Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and the Tiffany Company in New York. Jeff and Laurie joined us for the evening and everyone enjoyed their company. The following day they came with us to the Stanford Museum of Art to give us a little local knowledge.

  It is time for me to climb aboard my virtual De Lorean and go back to the past, and re-join Richard in time to catch the bus to Los Angeles. We made sure we got seats on the right side so that we could enjoy the spectacular Pacific Ocean view as we drove south. We certainly picked up good vibrations along the Pacific Highway as we continued our surfin’ safari. The driver actually did know the way to San Jose, then Monterey Bay and Santa Barbara.

  L.A.’s fine, the sun shines most the time...

  Los Angeles, ‘the City of Angels’, is di
fficult to identify as a specific city. It is more of a conurbation which has gradually expanded to engulf something like 80 ‘mini’ cities and communities. Places such as Bel-Air, Beverley Hills, Hollywood, Malibu, and Venice Beach are just as familiar to us as the city itself.

  Richard and I found a cheap little hostel near to the Greyhound bus station and stayed for just one night. We ventured out, but not far; just to get some kind of flavour of the area. We both felt that we needed to be vigilant and watch each other’s backs.

  However, if we go back to the future... what a transformation! I am now in a tourist-friendly city which has a vibrancy almost to match that of New York. Our school party from Wigan visited all the famous areas of Los Angeles. Venice Beach is a lively place full of predominantly young people and local ‘characters’. It was founded by tobacco tycoon Abbott Kinney as an American version of the real Venice. He built canals which were fed by diverted water-courses, and he imported gondolas from Italy. Today only a few of the canals remain, and now it has a bustling atmosphere with jugglers, acrobats, one-man bands and buskers. It is the equivalent of, say, London’s Covent Garden or Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Venice Beach claims to be the home of skateboarding and rollerblading. Marty McFly should come back from the future to show off his hover-skateboard. Now that really would be a unique street attraction. A magnet for tourists is ‘Muscle Beach’, where bodybuilders work-out on the weights. This is where Arnold Swarzenegger started out on the road to ‘Mr. Universe’ titles and movie stardom.