The Beach Boys – Saltair Connection

Today marks the release of The Beach Boys’ 30^th studio album, That’s Why God Made the Radio.  The band is currently playing their 50^th anniversary reunion tour, which will bring them to BYU’s July 4 Stadium of Fire show in Provo.  Since I’ve got The Beach Boys on my mind, and since I’ve always got Saltair on my mind, it’s high time I address the Beach Boys – Saltair connection.

What do Saltair and The Beach Boys have in common?  The answer may surprise you.  Sure, one was a long-vanished resort in Utah, the other a rock band from California.  But think about it.  Both spark thoughts of sun, sand, and saltwater.  Both were arguably products of genius, their legacies unmistakable.  Both have rocky—even tragic—histories.  Both have persisted through the years in some incarnation or another.

Oh, and one other thing:  these icons of music and culture met each other one summer day in the late 1960’s.

If you’ve done much research into Saltair history, you may have come across a photo or two of the Boys posing and goofing around at the old Saltair site.  The most ubiquitous is a shot of the band standing alongside a Toyota Land Cruiser with the dilapidated Saltair pavilion in the distance.  This photo appeared on two separate album covers—a European EMI repackage of Today! and a bootleg album titled “Unsurpassed Masters, Vol. 19.”

Here’s the EMI album cover:

Photo by Clint Thomsen

The back features the same photo and a blurb by the late Dick Clark.  Saltair is instantly recognizable, as are The Beach Boys.  There’s Dennis with the beard, Carl in the denim shirt, Mike with the Newsie cap, Al with the wild red hair, and there’s Bruce on the right.  But Beach Boys fans and Saltair buffs alike continue to debate one question:

Who’s the guy standing with them?

Photo/Edit by Clint Thomsen

It’s no secret; it’s not well-known.  The online speculation is amusing.  He might be the Wilsons’ father, Murry.  Or Bruce’s father, or the band’s Mexican bus driver, or a Brazilian cabbie.  The truth makes a lot more sense and is actually quite interesting.  So who is that guy, and what brought The Beach Boys to Saltair in the first place?

Check back early next week for the answers to these questions and several other nice tidbits on The Beach Boys’ connection to Utah.

Or, since it’s already posted, just click here.

 

We Were Watermen, or, Why I’m Thinking About The Beach Boys, Part I

We were watermen.

Or at least we were the Utah equivalent of the Polynesian term for someone whose life, as surf legend Chris Malloy once put it, is dictated by the ocean’s moods.  A waterman swims, dives, surfs, and spear fishes.  He lives in and for the sea.

Our seas were the lakes and streams along the Mirror Lake Highway in northeastern Utah.  Each summer, a sequence of family camping reunions allowed my cousins and me to escape to our aquatic Shangri-La in the Uinta Mountains for days on end.  Matt, Adam, and I learned to swim at a young age in the frigid waters of the Upper Provo River.  Our older cousins Tommy and Josh taught us how to safely ford rapids and properly acclimatize to cold depths.  Eventually we learned to fashion rafts out of driftwood and catch rainbow trout with our bare hands.

By about age 9, we considered ourselves experts.  Each morning after breakfast we’d leave camp for the river, often not to return until sunset.  We navigated miles of the Upper Provo, charting swimming holes and naming landmarks.  There was Coney Island, a large rocky islet near the Soapstone Campground.  A particularly sandy shoreline earned the title “Waikiki Beach.”

Matt had a Sony Walkman with a pair of portable speakers.  The happy, surf-centric harmonies of the Beach Boys provided the soundtrack for our adventures.  We’d belt the chorus of “Surfin’ USA” as we tossed a Frisbee over the river between Coney Island and Waikiki.  Many of our landmark names came from Beach Boys tunes.

When Uncle Garth bought a power boat, our turf extended to Rockport Reservoir, an impoundment along the Weber River.  Time not spent water skiing was passed lounging on a wide beach on the lake’s north side.  Adding to my delight was the fact that our annual trip to Rockport coincided with my birthday.  Water, sand, campfires, and birthday presents—it couldn’t get any better!

One year, Tommy’s wife, Shanna proudly gifted me a New Kids on the Block album on cassette.  Later, Tommy pulled me aside and discretely handed me another album, The Beach Boys’ Still Cruisin.

“The New Kids are hot now,” I remember him saying quietly, so as not to upstage his wife’s gift, “But The Beach Boys are timeless.”

I don’t swim in rivers much these days, but I pine for my waterman days—for the loud rush of the Provo, the glow of a Soapstone campfire, the lazy days on Rockport’s beaches.  Those times epitomized summer for me, and so did the tunes.  That’s why every year around this time, I get an irresistible urge to crank The Beach Boys and head for the mountains.

 

So long, Saltair Substation

First went the old train.  Then went the old substation.

Yesterday, crews demolished the cinder block substation at the old Saltair site.  All intact remnants of Old Saltair are now gone.  I’m doing my research now and will have the story within the next few days.  Stay tuned.

 

Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West out today!

Today is the official release of my book, Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West.  It is available direct from the publisher, most all online booksellers, in major bookstores, and at museums and national parks.  If your bookseller doesn’t carry it, they should be able to order it in.  Just give them ISBN # 0747810850.

If you’d like to order through my Amazon.com affiliate link, click here:
Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West (Shire Library)

Thanks to those who have already picked up a copy, and for the kind words from those who have already read it.  Thanks also to the Tooele Transcript Bulletin for the nice profile in last Thursday’s edition.  Enjoy the book and spread the word!

Clint

 

Announcement – Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West

Dear Reader,

I’m ecstatic to announce the upcoming release of my first book, Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West, from Shire Publishing.  The book is available for pre-order now and will be released on April 17. An e-book version is expected to be released by June.

About the Book
“There comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.”

This quote from Chapter 25 of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has captioned this website since its inception.  The raging desire of which Mr. Twain speaks came upon me early in life, and has sparked several passions.  Among them is the study of abandoned places.  My somewhere was the great American West.  My hidden treasure, ghost towns.

The dialog that follows the quote in Tom Sawyer is priceless.  It goes something like this:

Huck: Where’ll we dig?

Tom: Oh, most anywhere.

Huck: Why, is it hid all around?

Tom: No, indeed it ain’t. It’s hid in mighty particular places, Huck – sometimes on islands, sometimes in rotten chests under the end of a limb of an old dead tree, just where the shadow falls at midnight; but mostly under the floor in ha’nted houses.

Huck: Who hides it?

Tom: Why, robbers, of course…They always hide it and leave it there.

Huck: Don’t they come after it anymore?

Tom: No, they think they will, but they generally forget the marks, or else they die. Anyway, it lays there a long time and gets rusty; and by and by somebody finds an old yellow paper that tells how to find the marks – a paper that’s got to be ciphered over about a week because it’s mostly signs and hy’roglyphics.”

Like Tom’s treasure, ghost towns can be found most anywhere, especially in places that seem odd and secreted.  There they remain, mostly forgotten and in various states of decay, waiting for a couple adventurous kids with an old yellow paper.

There are many guide books available that list ghost towns by region.  This is not one of those books.  This book is a primer to the ghost town phenomenon and the ghost-towning hobby.  It’s the book you read before you pick up a guide book.  Ghost towns are best experienced with as much context as possible.  What exactly is a ghost town? How did they rise? Why did they fall? What can their remains tell us about the people that once called them home? And how can they be experienced today?

Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West answers these questions, and then some.

Pre-order yours today!

• Pre-order direct from the publisher (this earns me highest royalties): Link [make sure to set your location to USA in the top corner]

• Pre-order from Amazon.com (use this link and I get a small kick-back): Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West (Shire Library)

 

So long, Saltair Train: Iconic rail car makes final departure from Saltair

SLG&W Car 502 (the "Saltair Train") is loaded onto a salvage truck on February 18, 2012 (photo by Clint Thomsen)

To anybody who regularly drives the stretch of Interstate 80 between Magna and Lake Point, the “Saltair Train” was a familiar site.  Like the cinder block shell of the substation she stood near, the old passenger coach was badly blighted and covered with graffiti.  But Salt Lake Garfield & Western Railroad Car 502 was more than just a popular tag site or a hipster backdrop for bridal photographers– it was the last vestige of the original Saltair resort.

Yes, the original Saltair.  There have been 3.  The first, a grand resort pavilion, was built in 1893 and destroyed by fire in 1925. “Saltair II” was built roughly to the same scale and on the same site– at the end of mile-long long trestle, about 2 miles east of the current pavilion (Saltair III) at the freeway exit.  Saltair II itself was destroyed by fire in 1971.  When your grandmother reminisces about dancing the night away at Saltair, she’s talking about its second incarnation.

And she probably remembers riding to it on a train– quite possibly 502.  Some cars on the Salt Lake Garfield & Western line were open-air.  502 was a closed coach, and it carried happy passengers back and forth to Saltair for at least 30 years.

Saturday afternoon I was the last person to climb aboard the old rail car.  My visit wasn’t planned; I spotted the cranes on my drive home and quickly drove to the site.  A few moments later it was hoisted onto a semi truck bound for a Grantsville salvage yard, where it will be dismantled for scrap metal today.  It’s a sad end for this storied relic.

SLG&W Cars 501 and 502 at the old Saltair Site. 502 is on the left. Date unknown, Source: Grandma

502 was one of six “steel passenger motor cars” built by McGuire-Cunmings Manufacturing Co. in 1918 and shipped to Salt Lake City the following year. Cars 501 and 502 were rebuilt in 1950 as trailer cars and were given flat arch roofs.  The other cars were scrapped in 1953.  501 was displayed at the new Saltair pavilion (the one at the exit) in the 1980′s, and was scrapped in 2006.  502 was stored near the power substation at the old site.  It remained in decent shape well into the 1990′s, but has been the victim of severe vandalism and arson since.

Here’s an early, undated photo of Car 502 with its Saltair marking:

Source: UtahRails.net via Flickr

Here’s 502 in 1975:

Source: rrpicturearchives.net

In 1995:

Source: Doug Anderson, davesrailpix.com

And 2007:

Source: railpictures.net

I stood with landowner Ian Morehouse as the car two cranes lifted 502 onto the salvage truck Saturday afternoon.  Video below:

Morehouse, who also owns Saltair III, tried unsuccessfully to have car 501 preserved back in 2006.  He cited the tricky logistics and prohibitive cost of moving the car as primary reasons for nobody claiming it.  It might be said that the real demise of 502 came with the arson fire circa 2009.  Morehouse estimated that 80% of the car’s wooden structure was destroyed in the fire, making it restoration costly and near impossible.  He said it was a combination of recent pressure from Salt Lake County to clean up the site and the increased legal liability with the constant stream of visitors that prompted him to sell the car to the salvage company.

I’m not aware of any plans to demolish the nearby substation ruins, which lie on state lands.

For the record, I also made efforts to have 502 preserved about two years ago, before the land was purchased by Morehouse.  A few organizations showed interest, but none had space to store it or money to move it.  The salvage crew let me snap a few photos of 502 before the old coach made its final departure from Saltair.

Photo by Clint Thomsen

Photo by Clint Thomsen

Photo by Clint Thomsen

Photo by Clint Thomsen

Sad day.

UPDATE: Commenter Gilbert below has created a Flickr group to aggregate images of 502.  If you’ve taken photos out there, head over and add to the pool.

Here are several previous pieces I’ve written on Saltair:

Ghost towns? How about a ghost resort?
Old Saltair: Ruins are all that remain of “Coney Island of the West”
Saltair in flames: Video documents the ruin of famous Utah resort
Saltair’s spooky side shines in “Carnival of Souls”
Lakeside beach resort makes for a delightful summer outing

 

The Dreadful Trinity: Fighting procrastination, rationalization, and distraction in writing

No TV show makes me laugh like SpongeBob SquarePants, perhaps because of its producers’ ingenious knack for capturing real life concepts in hilarious caricature.  One of my favorite episodes is a gem from season 2 called “Procrastination,” in which our boxy protagonist is assigned to write an essay for his boating school class.  Though the assignment is fairly simple, SpongeBob is dogged by that Dreadful Trinity of procrastination, rationalization, and distraction that writers know so well.  Sure, mock my love for a ridiculous Nickelodeon show, but I dare any writer to watch this episode and tell me it doesn’t hit home.

Writing ain’t easy.  When writers say they love writing, most of them are talking about a very specific stage of the process—that magical moment of clarity that I call “The Zone”—when everything starts to gel and thoughts begin to flow smoothly from cerebrum to keyboard.   It’s the writing equivalent of a runner’s high.

Legendary nonfiction writer John McPhee put it well in a 2010 radio interview with NPR:

“What I do is go through the miserable business of a first draft, which is just, you know, masochism, and when I get it done, there’s a bit of a change comes over me, as I get a little calmer about what I’m doing.”

For a lucky few writers, The Zone comes quickly.  For the rest of us, it lies near the end of the ordeal, often just shy of deadline, when the 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper is just about gone and the kids are ready to trade their old Dad in for a less frazzled, non-deranged model.

When it finally comes, The Zone is heaven.  Most everything leading up to it—second guessing on sentence arrangement, the trial and error of cadence, the simple point that should take minutes to articulate on paper but inevitably takes hours—is hell (hence all the procrastination, rationalization, and distraction beforehand).

A typical writing project for me goes something like this:

1. Conduct interviews early on and research like mad, making awesome lists and notes, which I’ll read through repeatedly.  (I’m quite pleased with my performance at this stage.)
2. Wait until the last moment possible to begin writing, then justify the procrastination by rationalizing that my extra effort in research will make the writing process painless.
3. Grab a Diet Dr. Pepper.  Sit in my writing spot and stare at the blank Word doc.
4. Plink out a couple draft sentences.  Check my email.  Think about the movie I saw last night, wondering what other movies the lead actress has starred in because she seems so familiar.  Check IMDB.com and discover that, oh yeah, she was the voice of such and such character in that one cartoon, which is why I recognized the voice but not the face.  Makes sense now.
5. Back to the Word doc.  Decide the couple draft sentences I plinked out 30 minutes ago are garbage and delete them.  Plink out a couple more.  Wonder if there’s a better adjective for the second sentence.  Decide on an alternative adjective, only to remember I just used that one in a piece last week.  Am I using that adjective is a crutch?  Search past published articles and find that yes, I did use that last week.  Dang, it is a crutch.  What would Thesaurus.com suggest?  Is that the new HTC phone being advertised on Thesaurus.com?  That’s the phone my friend Tyler has, I think.  Check HTC.com to make sure.  Yep.  And it has a 12 megapixel camera, too.  I think I read a review of that phone somewhere…
6. Back to the Word doc.  Compose my lead paragraph, then agonize over it.  This calls for another Diet Dr. Pepper.  And a Pop Tart.  Better check email again, just in case my source had some last minute thoughts.  Nope, but it looks like Tyler wants to go to that German place downtown for lunch tomorrow.  Should be cold and snowy tomorrow—perfect weather for German food!  I’ll probably order the spätzle.  Good stuff.  I wonder how they make it?
7. Back to the draft because even my most optimistic analysis of my remaining time says I’ll be cutting it close.  Bribe my brain to focus by promising a break after I finish the next 3 outline points.
8. Realize after finishing the 5^th outline point that my break’s overdue.  But that’s okay, because I’ve now entered The Zone.  It’s all downhill from here.  I love this writing thing!

If there’s a shortcut to The Zone, I have yet to discover it.  I’m writing a piece for the Transcript Bulletin today and tomorrow (or maybe tonight and tomorrow—or just tomorrow) and I’m formulating my strategy.  Perhaps writing this post about the Dreadful Trinity will help to inoculate me against it.  And I might try disabling the WiFi before getting started.  Right after I grab a Diet Dr. Pepper, check my email, and watch that hilarious SpongeBob episode one last time.