On October 17, 1989, I left work an hour early, picked up my seven-year old kiddo from school and went home. Our plan was to cook some hot dogs on the BBQ and watch the third game of the World Series . My San Francisco Giants were playing her Oakland A's, and while things weren't going well for the Giants, the Series had moved to Candlestick Park. I was confident my guys would turn it around.

Before the game started, Kid was lounging on the sofa and lecturing me on the futility of rooting for the Giants in that Series. I was on the floor, surrounded by the remains of an Eagle  that I hoped to reclaim. We tuned in to the game at 5:00pm, and minutes later there was a loud "THUD!" from the west wall. Had someone driven into the house?

I looked up and saw the bookcase on that wall rocking dangerously, so I leapt up to hold it steady. Looking out the window to my left, I saw the peach tree shaking oddly. When trees sway in the wind, it's beautiful; this looked as if some giant fist was shaking the poor thing from underground. It was the eeriest thing I've ever seen. Truly.

Moments later, everything was still. The TV was a hissing static and showing snow. No ballgame there. My neighbor came over and the memory of his voice is still clear: "That was a bad one."

Then, military aircraft were flying overhead, and low — it looked (and sounded!) like they were right over the roof. I turned on the radio and got the full extent of what happened. The earthquake was a 7  — it had wrecked neighborhoods around the Bay and sparked several major fires. A section of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge failed.

Worst of all, the Cypress Freeway  collapsed and trapped scores of people in their cars.

Most of us know the drama from that day  and the terrible loss of life. I am fortunate to have lived in the 'burbs, away from the fullness of the disaster. What strikes me the most after all these years — in addition to how low those planes flew! — is the different responses. My neighbor was running around helping everyone check the gas mains . And my kid was under the desk. She learned in school to respond quickly, to get to a protective place and wait out the quake. I was standing there like a knucklehead, holding up a bookcase.

They were prepared and I was not.

Recalling Loma Prieta , I remember the fear and confusion I felt. I remember that peach tree shaking weirdly and my kid's muffled reply from safety. I now remember also that I stood there not really knowing what to do.

Guided By History was begun to remember the 1906 San Francisco 'quake and fire, and we blogged for a long time about preparedness. In the Archives, I looked up Wells Fargo's news publication from that time and found the emphasis was on employee and customer safety, and getting things back to normal as soon as possible. The memory of Loma Prieta I now have, fully developed, is about being intelligent in advance..

Accepting that I did it all wrong, and that my seven-year old did it all right, is my first stop to getting prepared.

That, and getting "my kit" together!

Posted by Charles at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Found in At Home, At Work, Barbecue, Baseball, Earthquakes, Environment, First-hand Accounts, Katrina, Misc, Natural Disasters, Neighborhood watch, Perspective, Prepare, Remember, San Francisco, Wells Fargo Bank

Well, today was my first day off since I left San Diego over two weeks ago. I began with my first real breakfast of the trip: pancakes, eggs and sausage, courtesy of KOA Carlsbad, New Mexico , and hosted by Scott Bacher. He was kind enough to hook me up with a big breakfast despite my arrival 20 minutes after the kitchen closed.

After a big meal, I was really looking forward to doing something that I have wanted to do for a long time. I visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park  in New Mexico and watched the flight of the bats .

When I was first planning this journey, my intention was to stop at all sorts of sites along the route — even cool places that had nothing to do with the Butterfield. However, reality had other plans. I have found that the rigors of doing a trip like this are much more than I anticipated. I find myself running out of time everyday, so that most everything I'm doing is Butterfield related. Don't get me wrong — it's been amazing, and there are more Butterfield sites than I could have ever imagined. But with the time constraints, I really had to focus my energy. I hope I've been able to create an interesting, albeit incomplete, log of Butterfield sites from St. Louis to San Francisco . There are still many more sites out there to be discovered and I wish I could have seen them all.

But today, it was all about the caverns and the bats! The trip to the National Park is a beautiful drive up a winding mountain road. The visit began in the Visitor's Center, where I found out it was my lucky day. The tickets to the caverns were — free!

Continue reading "Carlsbad Caverns" »

Posted by Casey at 06:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Found in Animals, Baseball, Dogs, Environment, Events, First-hand Accounts, Misc, Museums, On the Road, Overland Mail Co. 150th, Participate, Perspective, Remember, Ride sharing, San Diego, Stagecoach, Transportation, Travel, Wells Fargo Bank

A couple weeks ago, the Olaf Wieghorst  Western Heritage Day's Festival took place in El Cajon, California. It's always great to be able to get out and interact with the public in that type of environment. After 6 years, I'm still amazed at the reaction people have when they see the stagecoach, whether it's the memories it conjures, the curiosity it piques or the awe it inspires. Men and women, young and old — so many people are drawn to it.

And because I love to educate and tell stories, it was a great time.

After spending the weekend dressed in an 1870s costume, complete with waist coat and pocket watch, answering questions and telling stories about stagecoaches and Wells Fargo history in the hot El Cajon Valley sun, I decided to take a day off.

So, here I sit with my road atlas, a well-warn copy of The Butterfield Overland Mail  by Waterman L. Ormsby, Post-it Notes  in three colors, and of course, my laptop with internet at the ready. What could I possibly be doing?

Well, if all goes as planned, I will have the unique opportunity to travel the old Butterfield mail route  from St. Louis to San Francisco. What's the occasion you ask? As many of you may know, this year is the 150th anniversary of the first overland mail trip  via the Butterfield Route .

As part of our celebration of this anniversary — which will include new interactive exhibits in our museums! — I'm hoping to recreate the trip in the same amount of time as the historic journey .

Launching from St. Louis on September 16 and arriving in San Francisco on October 10 (to what I imagine will be a ticker tape parade!), I'll spend 26 days on the road. I plan to blog, video, photograph and interview interesting people and places I see along the way.

As you can imagine, this is no small undertaking: which brings me back to the atlas, book, post it notes, etc.

Right now, I'm in the process of working out the logistics, budget, research and all else that goes into planning a trip of this kind. I can only imagine what planning, anxiety and excitement must have gone into the pioneers' and 49ers' preparations. It's been a lot of work so far, but I think it will be incredibly rewarding in the end.

I can't wait to share this experience with you! So keep your fingers crossed and I'll keep you posted....

Posted by Casey at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Agriculture, Animals, At Work, Barbecue, Baseball, Branding, Coffee, Disco, Dogs, Environment, Experts, First-hand Accounts, Get Involved, Hollywood, Misc, Movies, Museums, Music, Perspective, Remember, San Diego, Stagecoach, Transportation, Travel, Wells Fargo Bank, Westerns

Juneteenth  is a celebration that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. On June 19th, 1865, Union Army troops landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War had ended.

This was two and a half years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation , which took effect on January 1, 1863. The Proclamation declared that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

The Emancipation Proclamation, despite its enduring greatness, had some practical limitations. It applied only to states that had seceded  from the Union, not to Union states where slavery still existed, nor parts of the Confederacy that were under Union control. It was also an Act issued by President Lincoln  as Commander-in-Chief of the Union Army and Navy — the freedom it promised ultimately depended upon a Union victory.

So the Emancipation Proclamation was unenforceable in slave states during the war. Millions of African Americans in Confederate states were deprived of freedom.

But with the end of the Civil War, the Proclamation took effect everywhere. Enslaved Americans were free at last.

On June 19th, 1865, two months after the war ended, soldiers commanded by Major General Gordon Granger  landed at Galveston with the news: Freedom for African Americans in Texas was officially proclaimed. Juneteenth celebrations followed in ensuing years, as many former slaves and their descendants made a pilgrimage back to Galveston on the date. The gatherings began as a time for reassurance and prayer in Jim Crow  times, and helped bring family members together.

In the recent past, a number Juneteenth Organizations have emerged with the purposes of promoting official recognition of the holiday, and to cultivate knowledge and participation in African-American history and culture. Although Juneteenth has been celebrated since 1865, it wasn't until 1979 that Texas became the first state  to make it an official state holiday.

It may have started with Emancipation, but Juneteenth has evolved into much more — for African Americans the holiday honors memory and family, and celebrates freedom, culture, and achievement.

Posted by Charles at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Found in African American History, Barbecue, Baseball, Events, Get Involved, Holidays, Misc, Participate, Perspective, Remember, Wells Fargo Bank

I have been watching Ken Burns' The War  on PBS this past week. As a History guy, wars aren't my favorite topic (I'm more the Eyes on the Prize  type). But Burns has made some monumental pieces about stuff I like – baseball, Jazz and the West. I've seen none of them.

Frankly, it's an issue of time. Watching a two-parter is easier to arrange than seven parts of two hours over a week and a half. Invariably, I miss the first, half of the third and then the entire last night, only to struggle to see the repeats on Saturday afternoons. I end up on my bicycle instead, or distracted by college football (anyone see the Cal-Oregon  game? That was monumental!). Plus, after the success of The Civil War years ago, all documentaries since have been Burnsian – pans across photos, celebrities reading letters in character voice, slow fades with sad piano that jump to happy photos and barn dance music. It's a little hard to salute the guy who perfected that form when it's the only history you see – good, bad or History Channel .

My impression so far is that Burns' greatest strength is the ability to demonstrate the human experience in all his films. Burns stresses that wars may be necessary, but they're never "good." He records the events, then lets human beings and their feelings provide the last analysis: letters, a chuckle, the wry comment. It's quite effective because it's real. And no matter how zippy Americans were on the home front, or how stoic soldiers acted despite the grim purpose of their job, the reality of wholesale, anonymous death is the final message.

That's the only message, really. Courage, heartbreak, national identity and prosperity all proceed from muddy roads littered with dead bodies.

As I watch, I wonder what motivations may be at work, pro- or anti-war. I think Burns is above that, presenting watchable history that helps us decide for ourselves. But there is something at work, a generational thing  that is, in my estimation, as historical as the events in The War. As Baby Boomers  near retirement age, there is an appeal to reach out to their parents, the same people who experienced the Second World War firsthand.

Baby Boomers were the American dividend after the War. Thousands of GIs returned home expecting payoff for their sacrifices and got it – marriage, family, the GI Bill and a world-driving economy. For 15 years or so after the war, couples with suburban tastes churned out millions of babies who were reared on Ricky Nelson and weaned on the Beatles. They rejected their parents' world in the '60s by pretending to uncover a new consciousness, only to become conservative Republicans in the '80s with a 20-year consumerist mania that made the '50s look positively quaint. Feeling a certain guilt for unparalled social destruction for its own sake, Boomers pine to celebrate their parents' successes.

As Steven M. Levine wrote , many Boomers "have the feeling that back in the Sixties they went a bit too far. Sometimes they even put the Idea of America into question, asking not when America would live up to its ideals but whether America could live up to those ideals." Levine continues:

Dissent meant making America live up to its vision of itself, it did not mean questioning whether America could actually do it and still be another ordinary nation-state. The Sixties mostly did not ask this question either, but it was posed. In posing it, one transgressed the so-called 'rituals of consensus,' as Scavan Bercovitch calls them, which tied together the Idea or Symbol of America. Not only did Boomers transgress these rituals, but they also transgressed them while having a good time. Of course, there were many, many serious young men and women...but there were many other young men and women who mouthed the slogans.... One has the feeling that the Boomers, now looking at themselves retrospectively, don't think this really stood up compared with the trials of their parents, the so-called Greatest Generation (another Boomer obsession).

William Strauss and Neil Howe  have written interesting books on this generational thesis of history (and as Boomers, have also built a thriving business around it). Their first, Generations, is very detailed, well-written, and easy to recommend. If this generational thesis is off the mark, and it's just good ideas entertained on a blog, Burns has done well enough making me think about history and about events that shape my world.

If this thesis is correct, then Burns' film continues a chronicle of Boomer apology.

Posted by Charles at 04:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Found in Baseball, Experts, Films, Misc, Movies, Perspective, Protests, Remember, Wells Fargo Bank

Well, I wrote it before and I'll write it again—he's the best. Now, he's the King. Barry Bonds is the all-time home run leader in Major League Baseball.

After the post last June, when I discussed the negative attitudes from watchers that Bonds has had to endure (including the commissioner's! ), I got several responses from people who had good insights on the issue. More than anything else, people who didn't want Bonds to take the crown seemed to harbor a dislike for Bonds.

I think I have that one figured out. And it comes from the most genuine source I can cite—my own heart.

I have tickets to tonight's game. The game after the Great Moment . Thirty-three-dollar tickets that are now worth $33. Tickets to a game where I have a chance to catch a ball that will be just a ball. Tickets that I'll share with my kid for his birthday, where we'll have to rely on bonds of family and affection for our memories.

I wanted to be there. I wanted to give my son a moment of history. I wanted to have a memory I could hold when all the rest of life is pedestrian and unremarkable and nothin' ever really goes my way . Barry kinda messed that all up by hitting 756 last night instead. Barry didn't do what I wanted him to do.

So all these people who don't like Barry or don't want him to be home run king for one reason or another are upset because Barry doesn't do what they want him to do—confess, fail, be nice to reporters, do ads for hamburgers, leg out a ground ball to second base, live in Springfield, make $1 million and be happy with it, yuk it up with Terry Bradshaw in a halftime piece.

And mostly, they're mad because he doesn't play in Arlington, New York, Philadelphia, Denver, St. Louis, Toronto, Phoenix ...

And the record-breaker? A 400-foot monster to dead-away center, the deepest point in the ballpark. Oh yeah, one more thing—it was the go-ahead run.

Posted by Charles at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Found in Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Baseball, Hank Aaron, Misc, Perspective, Remember, San Francisco, Substance abuse, Wells Fargo Bank, Willie Mays

Today—July 13, 2007—marks 155 years to the date that Wells, Fargo, and Co. opened for business on Montgomery Street in San Francisco. The Corporate Archives is lucky enough to have a picture that documents the event. Ten gentlemen posed in front of a two-story building.

Many are surprised to learn Henry Wells and William G. Fargo are not in the first office picture; they remained back in New York and only received updates via letters and rare visits. We know the names of two gentlemen who worked in that office on opening day, Reuben W. Washburn and Samuel W. Carter. The rest are critical contributors to the story of July 13, but unknown to later generations.

Check out the "Wells Fargo Through the Decades" slide show, and watch for three of my favorite images:

• Five women agents smiling in front of a San Diego office in 1917
• Members of the Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank Club, enjoying a day at Spring Valley Lakes in June of 1921
• The Wells Belles of 1973; ready to defend the name of Wells Fargo through baseball.

They are all part of the fabric of the larger Wells Fargo story and, if not for a remaining image in our archives, nearly lost to posterity.

That brings me to today. We are having festivities in many Wells Fargo locations, including the San Francisco History Museum. Most of the everyday activities of life will not make it into the history books. But, just like those unknown faces in the first office picture, what you do today is making history.

Posted by Anne at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Found in Artifacts, At Work, Baseball, Events, Films, Holidays, Movies, Museums, Participate, Photographs, Remember, San Francisco, Wells Fargo Bank

Baseball season is about one-third gone in 2007. Barry Bonds  is about 10 homers away from setting the all-time home run record . It's controversial—baseball is pretending Bonds isn't really nearing a milestone, and it's all because of the book "Game of Shadows."  Sorry, but I'm celebrating Bonds' 756.

This a tough issue for me because I'm still not convinced that performance-enhancing substances  improve the stats of hitters who are already productive. I was watching the Cubs and Braves one weekend, and I noticed how one Braves outfielder has changed over the years. He's still as tall as he was when he started and as joyful in his expressions. But he looks a little older and a little thicker with age. I remember an Orioles' outfielder in the '90s was known for his meticulous workouts and he was in perfect shape. But he wasn't a big star—he was just in killer shape.

When Babe Ruth moved into Yankee Stadium  in 1923—"The House That Ruth Built"—he continued his home run legend. The right field fence was 295 feet away; The Babe, however, had begun hitting homers by the dozen before Yankee Stadium. Hammerin' Hank Aaron  himself enjoyed an Atlanta ballpark known as "the launching pad" for its homer-friendly dimensions. In 2000, Bonds moved into PacBell Park (now SBC) after years in other, less friendly ballparks, but his numbers show he was a game-changer even in the cavernous parks.

Willie Mays , on the other hand, hit 660 career homers in a career that was spent in Candlestick Park  in San Francisco: windy, cold, deep and stingy. Put his right-handed bat in Fenway Park  and what do you have? We can only guess.

I watched Bonds play since he came to S.F. in 1993. Every game, seems like, he drives in the clutch run, scares the other pitcher and manager to death, makes the good play in left. After the controversial years began, that did not change. I notice his stats are pretty consistent  except for a couple of incredible home run years. He's the best hitter ever, from this fan's standpoint—he comes up and everything changes. Everything.

So I myself can only accept the moral dimension with substance abuse—drugs are addictive and bad for you. But I am not yet convinced that they enhance hitting. Before or after the controversy, Bonds has always been pretty good at that. Like, "best ever!" good.

Posted by Charles at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Found in Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Baseball, Hank Aaron, Misc, Perspective, Substance abuse, Willie Mays