Water by Dam

The view

2011-06-16T17:26:00.001-07:00

art and science of water==time warp

2010-12-26T07:01:00.000-08:00

The Dam, The Renaissance, da Vinci and the sound of silence

2010-09-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

The Renaissance 1450-1600 introduced the idea of music with parts that are independent of one another--or the concept of polyphony. Music then became more complex, there were more things to hear. This layering of sound needed a kind of visualization for it to be "heard." Or, in other words, sound became multi-sensory.

Da Vinci noted two types of visualization, "Post-imagining--the imagining of things that are past," and "preimagining--the imagining of things that are to be."

In 1931, inside the diversion tunnels at the Hoover Dam, there also was this kind of urgent, consistent, polyphony of sound, with drills running, power shovels removing muck, the jumbo rig hauling men forwards and backwards as generators and compressors edged on. It was sound that could spark memory in a man. For it seems the unfamilar polyphony soon enough became familiar. And with this familiarity so etched in the mind, it would forever after quicken a memory.

In the midst of all this, dam workers were constantly looking into the throat of the tunnel, imagining the end way through. The polyphony of sounds combined with this strain in the direction of their visualization may have helped them push harder at their jobs than they would have ever expected.

Under layers of rock were layers of sound and layers of men in self-possessed silence, listening by way of visualization.

New Visions for a New West?

2010-09-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

Embracing ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty was certainly a core theme in Leonardo da Vinci's work. However, such contemplation of opposition was not a popular goal in America during the early 1930s. It was important at this time to address the things that were believed to be out of control, such as the Colorado river, and controlling it, regulating it, limiting the uncertainty of its force and direction.

Those that endorsed Secretary of the Interior Wilbur's sentiment for "balancing nature" with "New Visions for a New West" were likely to find the building of the Hoover Dam nothing less than an inspiration. It would be a testament to forgetting the past and whatever horrors lurked there. Yet forgetting the past would also mean overlooking the lesson that might be learned. And as we know, history teaches nothing.

We yearn to forget how old promises have failed, we seek security, look towards a shore of hope especially when we feel we've been drowning. And thus, in the seemingly fretful times of the 30s, a new working class was born. Glad for the job which just afforded the grub many had forgotten they could grow in their own backyards. Glad to be off the streets, with something to do, working towards something, anything.

Never mind their own inspirations. Too much ambiguity. Rather compose the senses working for a vision known.

To study, to embrace the unknown, or as Leonardo da Vinci contemplated as the great "tension of opposites," would be too intense for these times, due to a shared "belief" easily clouding perceptions. A belief that this was an intense time in American history, and what people needed and wanted was relief not more tension.

Build. Employ. Don't look back. The precepts for five years as the dam went up.

Leonardo da Vinci - building a miracle

2010-09-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

The Hoover Dam was built in five years, three shifts working 24 hours a day. The men did not have days off. It was said that if you weren't dead you better get to work. Babies or men, that's all there were on the dam. Meaning, if you cried about how hard things were, you were fired. And if you were a man, you took the work and shut up.

Yet Leonardo da Vinci, the godfather of water theory, noted this in his Treatise on Painting, "...it is well that you should often leave off work and take a little relaxation because when you come back to it you are a better judge."

Had some of the men building the dam taken breaks from their work, perhaps the percentage of accidents would have been less. There were supposedly less than 100 men killed in all five years, which is a fairly good record, considering the danger at hand. However, there were many more men that became ill, whether from dysentery (bad water and food) heat exhaustion or carbon monoxide poisoning. There is of course no record of the illnesses such as these, since if a man wasn't dead he was presumed to be working.

To be a better judge of circumstances regarding work, means really to be a better judge of what's good for you, what's good for the environment, what's good for the job at hand. Given, the dam is a miracle, built by those who worked nonstop, it's a wonder. Yet someday we may look upon the dam like we gaze upon the pyramids, and in this wonder, because of this wonder, we will find the time to relax, if only for a moment.

Leonardo da Vinci and The Hoover Dam

2010-09-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

(http://i.ytimg.com)

Leonardo da Vinci once wrote, "The highest happiness becomes the cause of unhappiness..."

Might this quote be applied to the building of the Hoover Dam? To many, the dam represents a kind of highest happiness, particularly regarding its artful design, it's reach into the sky at 725 feet. It was an amazing feat in the 1930s when it was finished, and remains a landmark of the North American continent.

However, when understanding that this dam changed the Colorado River permanently, changed its course forever, marking the evironment in ways that can be considered destructive, the dam is nothing to be proud of. To some, it is seen an actual cause of unhappiness.

Therefore, would Leonardo da Vinci support the idea of building the Hoover Dam today? As a means of controlling what once was a river prone to flooding, he may have seen the dam as productive. He may have seen it as a means to Southern California obtaining their highest happiness of irrigation and abundant water supply.

Yet, he also may have supported those who believe to tame a river is a means of destroying it and the environment, albeit slowly. He may have taken a progressive look into the future and perceiving factors such as silt build up, salinity factors, use and pollution of watersheds, he may have, given enough time, discovered another way to control the river.

I'd like to think da Vinci would participate in viewing the ecological factors of this dam, (knowing first what would cause unhappiness instead of the other way around) and demonstrate through his art, his power of observation, an analysis that would extend beyond immediacy or profit. In other words, I would like to believe he'd find the elements of the river sublime, of the highest happiness. And thus any project that would change its course would be in effect, reverently considered.

Leonardo da Vinci's experience in the belly of the whale

2010-09-07T21:25:00.000-07:00

First, to address the belly of the whale...

As Joseph Campbell explains:
The idea that the passage of the magical threshold is a transit into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale.

The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown and would appear to have died. This popular motif gives emphasis to the lesson that the passage of the threshold is a form of self-annihilation. Instead of passing outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward, to be born again...[a] life-centering, life-renewing act.

Leonardo da Vinci took on the world by asking questions about everything he experienced. This said, he may have appeared continually passing across this threshold, from outside to inside and back again. Perhaps this is why he did not finish his work at times. He was constantly in passage, neither outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, nor inward, engaging in so-called self-annihilation.

Therefore, da Vinci might be said to be an explorer rather than a seeker. His observations rapid, nearly brisk. His wellspring of questions allowing him transitions from one subject to another seemingly effortless. For example, drawings of his studies of birds in flight might occur in the morning while his theory of water may have been thought through late at night under a yellow-flamed kerosene lamp.

Leonardo da Vinci's power to question

2010-09-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

(Leonardo da Vinci's drawing (vision?) of a flying machine)

In the book How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb, a parallel of our time with the Renaissance can be a starting point to view what might be called "the power of the maestro."

The Renaissance was a time in history that occurred after the Black Plague swept through Europe and eliminated almost one half of the population. As the wealthy began to invest in independent scholarship, answers were sought outside of prayer and dogma. Intellectual energy surged at this time and human power and potentiality was reborn. This included a number of discoveries and inventions such as the mechanical clock, the magnetic compass and the printing press. It was precisely this passion for discovery that helped to meet the challenges of the time.

With no concept of time in the 1400s, versus being controlled by the clock in the 2000s, this parallel remains: to be an independent thinker requires one to recognize one's power to question. It is this power that leads one, as it did da Vinci, to develop theories or as da Vinci suggests, "to work miracles..." da Vinci.

Thus the miracle of understanding something such as the power of water lies in the questioning of that power.

Consequently, through this questioning comes knowledge, "I know how to cut off water from the trenches...in conducting water from one place to another."

Therefore is it a guess or a theory, if Leonardo da Vinci knew that independent thinking would result in the building of the Hoover Dam, would he consider it a miracle of human genius? I believe so.

His drawings, as we shall see in further blogs, proves his vision for things unheard of and never before considered were, in fact, miracles in the making.

Leonardo da Vinci's water theory

2010-09-03T18:18:00.000-07:00

Leonardo da Vinci--Water Studies c. 1513

Leonardo da Vinci was intrigued by water, perhaps even feared water. His water theory can be considered the bedrock of hydrology in the history of the study of water.

He was probably the first hydrological experimentalist to design and build his own instruments to test his hypotheses.

Da Vinci developed hypotheses while describing and classifying hydrological processes. For example, he understood that because of the hydrological cycle, water would pass through the major river systems numerous times.

His description of water is "the vehicle of nature" ("vetturale di natura"), believing water to be to the world what blood is to our bodies.

Leonardo described water as "the vehicle of nature" ("vetturale di natura"), believing water to be to the world what blood is to our bodies.

Leonardo understood that water circulated according to fixed rules. The fact that it falls as rain or rises up from springs under the ground.

Accordingly, he understood that water is indispensable to humans, animals and plants, yet it can also be the instrument of their destruction. Its power is irresistible.

Leonardo's study of the motion of water suggests it was a way in which to understand his own fear of moving water.

He supposed the principle of erosion: "Water gnaws at mountains and fills valleys. If it could, it would reduce the earth to a perfect sphere" (Codex Atlanticus, 185v).

Leonardo studied water perhaps to be able to control it. He lived through terrible floods and storms, he witnessed destruction by water first hand.

This is just the tip of the iceberg regarding da Vinci, his water theory and his thoughts on the subject of water. More to come in future blogs...

hydrology--the cycle of life

2010-09-02T05:40:00.000-07:00

We are all familiar with the circle of life, as Simba the lion learns in the film The Lion King

However without the cycle of life, or the way in which water moves throughout the Earth, there would be no life at all.

Hydrology is the study of the way in which water moves throughout the Earth through different pathways and at different rates. The first example of this is evaporation of water from the ocean, which forms clouds. As the clouds drift over the land it produces rain. The rainwater flows into lakes, rivers, or aquifers. The water in lakes, rivers, and aquifers then either evaporates back to the atmosphere or eventually flows back to the ocean, completing a cycle.

As Leonardo da Vinci discovered in the early 1500s, "Water is the life force of all nature." In effect, water as it moves through its cycle is life itself. If we harm the water, we are harming ourselves.

However we do not always know or understand the ways in which we are harming the water. When a dam is built it is said to better use the water in an area, use the water to perform tasks, such as generate electricity or to be used for an area a long way away. To ask water to perform these tasks is not necessarily wrong, but if it means the water will be harmed too greatly by this use (and sometimes there may be no way of knowing until later) then we need to learn from this.

This gentle spirit of caring for water and its cycle will mean that life can continue for all creatures here on earth. To care about water means to care about ourselves in a beautiful and necessary way.

The Father of Public Power--David E. Lillenthal

2010-08-17T21:07:00.000-07:00

From http://www.tva.gov/heritage/illenthal/index.htm

The Father of Public Power
Boyish in appearance but hardheaded and knowledgeable, David Lilienthal built the TVA power system according to one guiding principle: affordable power for everyone in the TVA region.

When people met TVA’s three original Directors, he was the one who looked out of place. Two of the triumvirate were white-haired academics. The third, and the last to join, was not yet 34 — more than 20 years younger than either of his colleagues.

He looked even younger than that. During his first days at TVA in 1933, David Lilienthal was sometimes mistaken for an office boy. His youthful appearance belied his extensive experience and accomplishments.

The Tennessee Valley owes its network of municipal and cooperative power distributors to the vision of David Lilienthal, one of TVA’s three original directors.
Born in the back of a small-town grocery store in Morton, Ill., the son of a struggling Jewish family, Lilienthal grew up in Indiana with dreams of being a writer. He attended DePauw University, graduated when he was only 20, and went on to Harvard Law School. As a young lawyer he handled cases for the city of Chicago and, still in his twenties, developed a reputation for having a comprehensive understanding of public utility problems.

Through his litigation work for the city, Lilienthal came to believe there were some services so essential to modern day-to-day living that they must be made available and affordable for everyone.

From http://www.tva.gov/heritage/illenthal/index.htm

from the gallery

2010-08-13T04:09:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken from the gallery of photos inside the Hoover Dam Visitors Center. It represents the heart of the dam, those who worked to build it. When we think about what it takes to accomplish something great, it is never by the hands of one person, yet one person contributes so much. Synergy, in fact, in which the sum of the parts are greater than the whole.

Waiting for Work

2010-08-08T17:20:00.001-07:00

The folks down at Ragtown were waiting. It was spring, 1931, the heat starting to get to them. They made roofs with rags. They soaked their clothes to stay cool. They weren't praying for a miracle, they'd lived through so much, this was the miracle, to survive. They'd expected life to be so good, it had been good for a long time. But now, they waited.
They waited to hear the news about the job. It was all about the job. And Frank T. Crowe, the engineer representing the six companies that had landed the job to build the dam was driving into Ragtown, mid day.
Jeers and cheers went out into the warm air. "What are you going to do, when are you going to do it? We want a job, Mr. Crowe, we'll do anything!"
But Crowe didn't say a word. He was there to inspect the river, see it from this level, at the base of this red bull, the enormity of the project. He didn't answer anyone for there was nothing he could say...yet. It would all come soon enough.
Patience worn as a blanket used for a roof, anger filled the lungs of those witnessing Crowe's short visit.
It made no difference.
Crowe would do what he needed to do, when he needed to do it. Much like the people staggered throughout the camp there in Ragtown, just from a different viewpoint, different circumstances, but he too was waiting to make his move.
The Hoover Dam was built on this kind of time, in which waiting and needing were so intertwined.

The Norman Y. Mineta: A Boy from San Jose

2010-08-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

Here is a documentary produced by friend, Samantha Cheng, which unfolds the story of Norman Y. Mineta, born in 1931, who through his life has sought the path that gives the greater good.

Recognizing again, the resilience of American people, those who not just live upon the land, but with and for its people.

Apaches that worked on the dam

2010-07-22T16:43:00.001-07:00

the Ancient Cibuque or White Mountain Apache once lived here in Cibuque or Fort Apache.
Nine Apaches worked on the dam. Their reputation as canyon wall scalers preceded them. Sadly, their names to date are unknown.

Hero's Journey--IV Belly of the Whale

2010-07-20T20:51:00.000-07:00

Jake Adams, the protagonist of the novel, Hard Luck finds out he really is alone when he finds himself unable to act, so overwhelmed with desires of his heart and will.

Until now his life has been met with tragedy and loss yet he's been surrounded by the support of those who care about him. Now he begins to experience what Joseph Campbell notes as the new world and new self.

As the work begins in the diversion tunnels, the false light inside, the size of the tunnel itself of fifty feet in height, is a symbol of Campbell's "belly of the whale" in which the protagonist enters willingly, from the known world to another that will bring about metamorphosis.

The Mighty Atom

2010-07-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

Joseph Greenstein, the Mighty Atom, should have died as an infant, instead he lived and became one of the strongest men of his time. At 5' 5" and 140 lbs. he could pull a car by attaching his own hair. He developed secrets to his strength, based on near death experiences, which made him aware of the energy each person possesses.

A strongman to the nth degree, a man of this stature was needed in his day to encourage people in their striving and misfortunes, to be an example to others to develop good habits that help a person and not hinder them from helping themselves and ultimately others. When World War II broke out it was the Might Atom that went through the state of New York recruiting for the police force, offering men an opportunity to learn martial arts, to become stronger than they believed they could be.

A precursor to future superheroes, Mr. Greenstein, the Mighty Atom, was the authentic article.

Black Canyon

2010-07-15T21:30:00.001-07:00

This picture was taken before the turn of the 20th century. It reveals the darkness of this canyon, rock that reaches to the sky, the river subdued.

It is Black Canyon not Boulder Canyon where the final dam project was set. It is the highest section of the El Dorado mountains, yet a narrow passageway for the river itself. It is unique for it's precambrian mineral composite. It was virtually unknown until the dam was to be built.

The men working on this dam were told the Colorado River was wild. They believing it to be a river needing to be tamed. Yet when the workers stood on the shores here in Black Canyon did they feel the wildness of this river? Were they immersed in the relationship of rock against water, water against rock? Did those 5,000 workers question what they were doing? Were they really only here for a wage of four dollars a day? Did anybody stop to wonder, here in Black Canyon, not only the magnitude of the place but the smallness of their very being?

Guy Lombardo, Kate Smith, "RIVER STAY 'WAY FROM MY DOOR" (1931)

2010-07-15T11:08:00.001-07:00

Bandleader and musician, Guy Lombardo and singer, Kate Smith were very popular in the early 30s. The song, 'River Stay 'Way from Me' is timely.

At the dam site, radio broadcasts weren't heard much until the men moved into the dormitories in Boulder City in '32. However, this might have been just the tune to play at the first dance celebrating the start of the dam in July of 1931.

...What is music to a culture but an expression of its hope and an acceptance of what can change in the blink of an eye as well as over time...

Guy Lombardo, Kate Smith "TOO LATE" (1931)

2010-07-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

Picture yourself, after months of mucking on the roadbed, the groundbreaking for the dam begins. For this honor you've been invited to the American Legion for a dance. Here, women and girls from Las Vegas and the soon to be built town of Boulder City arrive, as well as those from Ragtown that may have temporary residence but nonetheless share in the excitement.

Men smoke cigars outside the hall, women sip fruit punch, cool and delicious. It's late spring, 1931, and the music of Guy Lombardo, with the lilting voice of Kate Smith play on the gramophone, as if made for this night. Yes there are some things that are "Too Late" but there's an amazing amount of work ahead that nobody knows just how dramatic it will be. And above it all, regained hope fills the air.

Time is money 1931 Buick

2010-07-15T10:25:00.001-07:00

Frank Crowe, the chief engineer of the dam, drove only a Buick, a big, bold, beautiful, Buick. When you saw Crowe's Buick parked in front of Anderson's mess hall, it meant that you would be in for a speech about increasing the speed in which you worked.

Thus, even hood ornaments tell a story about the people that drove these cars. Time is money, and money is beauty.

desert roadrunner

2010-07-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

To avoid flying, the desert roadrunner runs! Up to 17 miles an hour! Oh, sure if it is scared, or going downhill, it can fly. Yet it prefers to travel by foot. It keeps cool as many other creatures of the desert do, by limiting travel during the heat of the day. And it gets hungry--mostly for snakes,(capturing rattlesnakes by wrapping its cape-like wings around it) lizards and insects. And it shares, the male offering tidbits of a tasty find with a female friend.

Yes, the roadrunner, at rest beside a creosote bush, with a call similar to a dove, is a reminder that creatures in the hostile desert environment populate the landscape by virtue of keeping the "road to itself."

Sure it is prey to hawks raccoons and cats, but the roadrunner avoids the thing it should do, fly, and avoids its predators by running. In other words, what is expected isn't always the answer. The unexpected, such as running instead of flying, is a preference and one that works for the roadrunner. Consequently it stands out as its main feature.

There were men who left the job on the dam to do something else, hitching a ride on a train car heading west, north, east or south, perhaps for a better job, or maybe even just to be near family or to try something else.

However, the men were expected to stay, since the pay was regular and the food was decent and it was a matter of principle to get the job done along with the others. Yet it wasn't enough to get some men to "fly" like the others. Thus names were given, such as drifter and grifter, describing their unexpected behavior. When really, for the individual, name or no name, it was just as adaptive to run as it was to fly with the others.

1. Art and poetry 1930s

2010-07-12T21:26:00.000-07:00

THE VENTILATOR, Arthur Osver, American (b. 1912), oil on Masonite

In the 1930s, American art took a unique point of view independent of European themes but rather the social concerns and aspects of traditional American life.

As a poet, William Carlos Williams escaped the disadvantages and hardships many of his peers succumbed to. He was a medical doctor by profession, and also a man with poetry to heal a people of his time and a beacon for those who look to his words still.

A Sort of a Song

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.
-- through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

William Carlos Williams

Events of 1931

2010-07-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

To get a better picture of any specific event a close up of other events may help. For instance, on February 5, 1931 a storm caused 2 houses to fall into the ocean off of Roosevelt Highway, (now Hwy One) near Topanga Canyon.

Gasoline was 19 cents a gallon. That was high, considering gas in the 1970's was still 25 cents a gallon.

However, coffee, Hills Brothers in the red can was just 37 cents a can and dog food was 95 cents for eleven cans.

Bobby Jones was going to teach the world golf in 1931 and Frank Sigafoos was traded from the Seals to the Angels in Coast League baseball.

Actor John Barrymore was romancing Dolores Costello (or the other way around) and William Morano was just 14 and hitched alone across the country to become an actor in Hollywood.

You might receive payment of moonshine for selling your car, and hopefully a fight won't start when the payment gets consumed before it gets to you.

In the Las Vegas Age Thursday, March 5, 1931 the headline states: Work to be rushed on great Hoover Dam project...

Rushed times, these were, while the going was getting stronger, building from the collapse, moving around the depression like we do, yes, like we do.

What went wrong

2010-07-09T20:32:00.000-07:00

What went wrong at the dam happened long before it was built. What went wrong occured before the dam was even conceived by a starry-eyed man needing water in the desert. What went wrong began when civilization began.

As Native American, Ohiyesa is quoted in the book Touch the Earth, "As a child I understood how to give, I have forgotten this grace since I became civilized."

Civilization--we know now is neither in sync with our instincts nor does it hold the promise of something better. Even in 1930 the promise of civilization was questioned, liberally by those who did not have to struggle or stand in line for a meal and a place to sleep. And ultimately by those who did struggle and did go hungry and homeless.

Conceptually and realistically what we have created for ourselves on planet earth is tragic. We find beauty within this tragedy, and thus we tell our stories to remind us of this beauty.

One story is of the Apache that came to do the high scalers job at the Hoover Dam. They were fearless of the canyon, familiar with the terrain, yet faceless to the bosses who wanted their expertise for the job not their intuition as human beings. The Apache were not familiar with the idea of hope or the promise of something better. But this is what they were given, a due reward from civilization itself.

Yet they did not give back, for they were part of civilization themselves. They took their due, spent the idea of hope the promise of something better, carried it around, not knowing what to do with ideals that had no worth to them.

Spread the Word | International Rivers

2010-07-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

Spread the Word | International Rivers

dam flooding

2010-07-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

Over time, the Hoover Dam has seen a diminished supply of water in its resevoir of Lake Mead. However, in places where hurricanes occur, massive storms cause resevoirs to overflow, water is not contained, as dams can't release water fast enough. Currently, downriver of the Rio Grande floods are keeping 40.000 people from their homes, until the storms have passed...

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heart and soul

2010-07-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

Here again is the beautiful Hoover Dam in all it's glory. Indicative of the way I feel writing this blog, that it is the beauty of this dam and the people that worked to build it that are its heart and soul.

I am going to try to add more newsworthy information from here on out about dams around the world.

I will continue to add the notes regarding the story HARD LUCK and incorporate the intelligence of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey.

I will also keep being inspired by what I find valuable to write about and hope I share this inspiration with you, dear reader.

So, thanks for reading. Your comments are oh so wonderful. Here's to the heart and soul!

Hope and tomorrow's wealth

2010-07-07T01:25:00.000-07:00

If hope is believing in possibility then the dam offered hope in the 1930s. Hope was needed in these times, since these times were harder than anyone had expected them to be. And maybe that's the thing about hope that makes it something we need. When we are faced with the unexpected, when our expectations are not met, we must believe in the possibility that things will be okay when we are scared or unsure about the future. We must believe in the possibility that although our expectations haven't been met, that things will be okay. Hope keeps us standing, keeps us working, helps us endure. Hope leads us into action to obtain what we need, what we will work for, hone skills for, be patient for whatever it is that will help us get what we believe we need.
Is Need also Desire? How related is Need to Want? The workers building the dam needed and wanted the jobs in the beginning because of the money needed to buy what they desired. However the job paid little, though they supposedly got what they desired, food and shelter. Yet after awhile, their needs so met, they began to want better quality. However, once a need is met, the desire for more begins. Believing in the possibility that what one already has can be more and better is the downside of hope.

The men who designed the dam to be built in Black Canyon had a vision of how it was to be done. They needed it to be built in a way that met this vision. They didn't desire to have a vision, they desired that vision to unfold. They were men whose needs of food and shelter had for the most part always been met, their "more" and "better" wasn't just for immediate living needs. The vision was beyond that immediacy, rather it looked to tomorrow's wealth. Yet even the designers needed hope that it would be a successful project, that the workers would do the work to build the envisioned dam.

As the dam was built ahead of schedule, it was because of every man's hope, a production of belief in possibility.

David Byrne: How architecture helped music evolve

2010-07-05T22:51:00.000-07:00

Architecture is on my mind...how the frame also frames, such as the architecture of the dam frames a time, indicative of the people of that time, open, hoping, inspired by modernism, fueled by the idea that what was being made would last. David Byrne comments on the topic of architecture and music and how they shape each other...

Architecture

2010-07-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

The architecture for the Hoover Dam incorporates an art deco theme, utilizing an artistic vision, a structure that comments on a period in time.

During the 1930s the investment in art was made for appearance sake, to demonstrate that no matter how "poor" a people were, art was not only alive but thriving. The building of the dam was a good place to demonstrate this, with its art deco appearance, as well as the interior of the dam, where the tours were planned to take place. The floors are marble using Italian design and Native American symbols to represent a culture that depended on outside traditions to complete it.

On a day every year that people come together to celebrate the American holiday of Independence, it is a good time to remember the interdependence of life, demonstrated graphically at Hoover Dam, through the people that helped build it to the art that represents a time in culture that continues because of its art.

What we recognize as beauty is not ever one man's sole vision though it may be credited as so. That one man is duly interdependent on so many other things---which the architecture of the Hoover Dam and its interior spaces mark the visions of many. A dam which serves many. An icon of American beauty.

Da Kine

2010-07-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

Joe Kine, one of the last high scalers to perform this amazing job, is a reminder that it is the heart and the soul of every individual which allows celebrations to spread across the globe. We're talking from international soccer to a day set aside to commemorate independence. For, without one, then none.

Joe Kine, how I would have liked to know you, the way you felt hanging so high in the sky against that red-black canyon wall. Did you ever fear for your life, were there moments that kept you wondering if today would be your last? Or did you just get used to what you were doing, not thinking of the danger so much as the job at hand?

Well, here's to you, Joe. And to the sculpture at the dam which celebrates your life as a high scaler. Though you were so much more than a scaler in your own "kine-ness" you represented then and now what we will always need in the future--a human being to be celebrated for performing the extraordinaire.

Corruption

2010-07-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

August, 1931, the mucking crew at the site of the Hoover Dam were fired if they did not accept the wage reduction. They were only making four dollars a day in the first place. Now, the bosses were saying they didn't need the mucking work done since they had trucks to do the labor, so they'd keep everyone on the job but pay them less.

The muckers said, we deserve to be paid as we were, and, like everybody else working on the dam. Besides, muckers pay was the lowest of all already.

The bosses said, you're fired. There's too many other workers lined up ready to take the job. See ya.

The strike ensued. The workers were fired. Then hired back if they had been good workers. For a only a little less than what they had made previously. But again, yes once again, they had a job. They were forced to be happy with these conditions, for there were no other conditions.

What do we do when we feel our backs are to the wall? Kicking and screaming are reasons for ridicule. Doing nothing is a quick way to starvation. These men did what they felt they had to do at that time. It was the best they could, despite the fact it seemed the only thing they could do.

Tying the "best" to the "only" is an existence that must be temporary, for it makes a man weary, resentful, and worst of all, hopeless. Unless of course, the conditions seem to slowly get better...exactly what happened August, 1931.

sign of the times

2010-06-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

High scalers at the Hoover Dam were a sign of the times. Hanging 700 feet above the ground, in tiny bosun chairs, knocking away loose rock, these men dared to demonstrate what it took to not only take a challenge but to become one. For who could top a feat such as this?

When the designers of the dam set to planning such feats did they realize they were molding men to forever be remembered for such a dangerous job? And though the pay for being a high scaler was about equal to the other dangerous job at the dam, those who walked into a tunnel to be sure the blasting had finished, it was nothing compared to a company man.

And how did one become a company man? The sign of the times offered only this: who would want to be when you could possess so much glory at a job that meant risking your life?

Mess Hall

2010-06-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

Fine dining, three squares a day, as much as a man could want to eat, these were the sentiments of the workers at the dam, who ate at the Anderson Brothers' big tent or mess hall. With a cigar chewing cook and a lot of bull cooks (servers and bus boys) the meals were served three times a day to over a thousand men. Lunch of course was packed in wrappers, sandwiches and fruit. But breakfast there were eggs, meats, biscuits, gravy and lots of coffee. At dinner there were steaks and chops, potatoes and rice, vegetables of all kinds, with cream pies and cakes. The men could eat as much as they wanted, which in the beginning was quite a lot. Once they figured the effect of eating so much (hard to do when it's extremely hot working conditions) they cut back on the food but still poured on the salt by a recommendation for their health. Without enough salt in the diet, sweating all day like they were, salt was a saviour.
To sit with a group of seven other men at a table discussing the day's work was pleasurable. But what really counted for many men might have been the feeling they were getting taken cared of. They did not have to worry where the food was coming from, it just was and plenty of it. A false sense of security?
A continuation of the times they'd just left behind, but even more so, for being so desperate?
Nonetheless, camaraderie was high. Food was decent, even if it got tiring as the days turned into weeks then months without any time away from the job. The real pleasure then had been taken out of the equation. It wasn't every man for himself, oh no, it was every man for every man for every man the job must get done.

Hero's Journey part IV

2010-06-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey is an archetypal pattern that forms the underlying structure of every story ever told, even the story of our own lives. The fourth step of the 12 steps to the journey is The Crossing of the First Threshold.

"The Crossing..." in summary, is the point where the person actually crosses into the place of adventure, leaving the known rules and laws of his/her world and venturing into the unknown and dangerous realm where the limits are not known.

In the novel, Hard Luck, the protagonist, 14 year old Jake Adams has come to the Hoover Dam out of necessity. His parents are dead, his baby brother in an orphanage, the current economic depression has forced him to travel west from his home in Oklahoma. What he finds when he arrives is a picture of tragedy balanced by hope.

As he proceeds to get a job mucking and is glad for it, at the same time he wants to be like his buddy Eddie who work as a dynamite nipper. It's not until Jake realizes Eddie isn't going to encourage him, that he begins his fight as an underdog, thus crossing the first threshold.

Now he must not only communicate his desire but prove he will strive for it by engaging in activities that will ultimately strengthen the outcome of his journey.

The law

2010-06-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

The law doesn't measure attitude it measures justice. In 1931, this was the reality in Boulder City. The town was owned by the U.S. Department of Reclamation. The town prospered, the people that lived there even those that do today are comfortable, there's a feeling a safety that permeates the streets lined with trees, a park in the center of town and a community that continues to thrive.
Diversity however? Not so much. Oral histories of citizens that lived here while the dam was being built will say there were no Blacks, Asians, and if there were Mexicans they cannot remember. According to historians Native Americans did work on the dam because it was believed they could scale the canyons better than a white man.
Nevertheless, was it only the law of the town, not the attitude of the people that made Boulder City a study of a worthwhile community?

If attitude is 99 percent what makes a person "positive" and worth being around, then the law that existed in Boulder City, 1931 was meant for people with good attitudes and the attitude would be of a people that respected the law and the ways and means of measuring justice.

Hence, attitudes change and so does the representation of these attitudes. The laws may change, but they are positioned to represent justice. What is justice? It is what the law decides it is and living "under" the law means by way of society you are just.

The sage of sagebrush

2010-06-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

Sagebrush was everywhere in 1931, when the workers rode the transports from camp to the dam site.

With stems smooth and silvery with evergreen wedge-shaped leaves, the plant is part of the Artemis family named after the Greek virgin goddess of the hunt and wild nature. It is Nevada's state plant.

It can also grow the size of a grown man up to seven feet tall. It's stout at its trunk with silvery branches and dense clusters of tiny yellow or cream-colored flowers that bloom in late summer. It's seeds are tiny and black and each plant may produce up to one million seeds.

The sagebrush supports many wildlife species, such as pronghorn, mule deer, grouse and many small mammals. Sage grouse use large clearings in the sagebrush habitat to conduct spring mating dances. Early morning, one can see in these areas, known as leks, males inflating yellow air sacs upon their chest, puffing up their feathers and spreading their tail feathers before strutting around the lek in the attempt to bond with one or more females. The sagebrush then can be said to act as audience.

The leaves contain aromatic oils with a turpentine fragrance, and after a rainstorm, they perfume the air with a sweet, pungent aroma. For those that come upon sagebrush in the desert, it is delightful. There is so much of it everywhere, it can be said to give the feeling of prosperity. Especially to the men that came upon its abundance, after being so long out of work, and on the streets, standing in line for bread.

When it was actualized, when the men felt they had suddenly "hit it rich" by getting a job at the dam, three square meals a day and a bed to sleep in, suddenly men, like sagebrush, were everywhere.

Yet prosperity is not worth much unless it is useful beyond the day to day requirements for living. And it is known that sagebrush is not only an abundance of color amid the parched desert, it can be used for fuel or as Native Americans once did, used in building. The leaves and the seeds can be eaten. And the leaves, which contain camphor, can be used medicinally for coughs, colds, headaches, stomach aches, fevers and to relieve pain during child birth! Poultices of wet leaves can be applied to bruises to reduce swelling.

Beyond that, Navajo weavers would boil the leaves and flowers to create a yellow-gold color, used to dye wool. The Ute's used the shredded bark for candle wicks.

The men working on the dam made the dam prosperous, and each man had a use far and above his function as a worker. His thoughts created a tempo for the time. His communication with others offered insight to aid in understanding and perspective. In other words, what we see before us is outright amazing, no matter if it's the sight of something along the road. But it's the thing itself that harbors the real amazement. We must get closer still to what interests us. Study it in action.

The Lonely Road

2010-06-24T23:05:00.000-07:00

The dignity of work and the bridging of class, these were the themes of the 1930's, when author Nevil Shute wrote the novel, The Lonely Road.

The truest test for a human is to find him or herself on the lonely road of life and to make one's way forward, despite the sadness of regrets or loss, regardless of hope unrealized.

The most joyful of times is in the unexpected pleasures...of finding oneself in the midst of nature, with or without others nearby, nature bearing heavy of earth and sea, the surrounding of living things one knows really so little about.

To work hard is to realize dreams. To understand another, step down lightly in his shoes.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

2010-06-23T21:27:00.000-07:00

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", also sung as "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?", is an American songs of the Great Depression. It was written in 1931 by E. Y. "Yip" Harburg and composer Jay Gorney.

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

The song asks why the men who built the nation by working on railroads, in the cities building skyscrapers, who fought in the war, who worked so hard as farmers, all the work now supposedly done, what was being given to them, but bread lines.

It was a song that may have reminded the workers on the Hoover Dam that now the greatness of the country was being reformed upon resilience, the ability to bounce back, rather than through industry, the ability to build and grow, which sadly and shockingly had displaced so many.

It was songs like this that were etched in each man's mind, amid the noise of jackhammers, shovels, the jumbo's rolling in and out with men readying the way for dynamite. The music carrying feelings that these men might not otherwise have been able to understand, helping them to relate to eachother. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Oral histories

2010-06-22T21:18:00.000-07:00

What I love about this project are the connections I am making with museums and universities, newspapers, and now, hearing the oral histories from that particular time and place. Okay, so I'm not talking to the residents of Boulder City that lived there in '32, but resources are coming my way that include the oral history as told by these people.

So, after touring the dam this past week, romping through the museum in Boulder City, staying at the famous Railroad Pass Hotel, and researching like crazy at UNLV, the outcome is rededication. My own oral history of the process of collecting data is told by way of this blog. I'm hoping that here is a place, space and time, to look at the dam from many perspectives in order to gain perspective.

In this I feel satisfied. Even if only I am the reader. It is encouraging to use language in this way. What we express is a gift and often unto ourselves.

On Camaraderie

2010-06-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

Place a group of caring human beings together, willing to work towards a project or projects, and the outcome is usually productive. What is it that builds up the good in society but people who find camaraderie while performing or commenting on a project, a tast, even in recreation.

At the dam site, early 1931, workers were thinking of few things but that they had jobs, meaning a paycheck, meaning they could eat and have shelter. Society had come to a place where if these things were intact, then everything was decent with a man. Thus, to share the joy of getting what they felt they needed for a decent life, meant an additional joy, aka camaraderie.

A life that gives a person the feeling he is contributing for the good of others as well as himself is considered productive. And this is the foundation for camaraderie. We see it all the time. At the beach, surfers of a certain age will stand around talking about the conditions. Surf conditions yes, but also the condition of their lives. And often if one feels productive (in and out of the surf)it can inspire others to be as well.

Like the workers at the Hoover Dam, the conditions often depend upon talking to another to realize what we are thankful for and also for addressing common complaints that remind each of us we are still human. Yes,still imperfect and as thus, live in this beautiful imperfect world.

It doesn't take a lot to make a person happy, but to share with others about those things, to have the camaraderie, well, this is the icing on the cake of life.

We need each other, no matter how much we believe we can accomplish something on our own. And it's in the sharing that sweetens life, even if it lends itself to boasting or bragging. In the end without our "peeps" we are sorely at a lack.

David Gray "This Years Love"

2010-06-20T23:36:00.000-07:00

What better way to understand the human condition by way of Hoover Dam than to say it is a monument to the very core of love...it is this years love as it was that years love and into the future, again met with love. Not for the creation itself but for those involved in the act of creation, the coming together, for being the instrument, the example, for exacting the permanent quality of love itself.

The Tour

2010-06-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

Touring the Hoover Dam is a bittersweet experience. It is for one a tourist destination, aka trap. So many visitors to one site, the air is full of "I gotta have something to remind me where I've been," yet the gift store had only a few books on the subject, with a lot of stuff made in foreign countries, which belies the fact that the Hoover Dam supposedly is an icon of American ingenuity...don't get me started. Anyway, with the trapping is also a sense of wonder and awe, as in "can you believe what it took to build this dam?" mixed with all the dam jokes you can imagine...my dam feet hurt, when will this dam tour start, I've never seen such dam tourists...

Meanwhile, crossing the dam by way of being inside the dam is an experience which is a bit heady, considering the location is seven hundred feet above bedrock--an unusual location and half-freaky if you are claustrophobic. Nevertheless, this interior "space" gives the dam's exterior another face, the way one might understand how a clock works by being inside of it.

Often the best part of the tour are the comments by the tour guides. For instance, today a guide suggested that the actual dam was an amazing feat to build, but he believed tunneling the four diversion tunnels were equally impressive, considering safety standards at the time and the fact that each tunnel is almost a mile in length--what with blasting dynamite and racing to get out before the blasts occured...

Anyway, this is exactly why a story on the men who built the dam needs telling, and not just building the dam, but those who worked inside those diversion tunnels. Just like being inside the dam walls, the story of the workers themselves tells how the dam was built.

Hero's Journey Part III--the supernatural aide

2010-06-18T17:16:00.000-07:00

Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey regards the supernatural aide as the helper, the mentor, the one person that gives the hero instructions that he or she could not receive any other way or from any other person. It is why the helper is considered supernatural, because he or she seems to come from out of nowhere.

In the novel, Hard Luck, Jake Adams struggles as the underdog of Eddie McIntyre. Eddie's searing put downs, which appear as joking around, means Jake not only questions Eddie's friendship, he compares himself to Eddie constantly. This exacts jealousy, which only frustrates Jake even more.

As a result, when Jake meets the Apache on the job, he is taught he doesn't have to put up with anything that penetrates his psyche the way that Eddie does. In other words, the Apache understands Jake's frustration and shows him ways to cope.

The summer of 1931 without unions in place to establish regulations to protect the workers from extreme working conditions, and carrying fears of unemployment just beneath the surface, these men were examples of their own kind of tough. They had to look out for, whether they knew it or not, someone or something to help them in a way that wouldn't change the hardship but change their ability to deal with it.

As the desert was unforgiving, the work unforgiving, the men forgave the conditions surrounding them and forged on, each with a supernatural aide, a helper, somebody in their lives that provided the supernatural help needed to endure.

E Clampus Vitus- Railroad Pass

2010-06-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

Historically, the Railroad Pass Casino deserves to be celebrated. Not for the fact it is the oldest remaining casino in Nevada, established September 1931, but because of why it was established in the first place. As an outlet of recreation and entertainment for those working on the dam.

It seems all work and no play makes the animal, human or otherwise, dull.
And there was nothing dull in 1931 as the dam was beginning to be the entity it would become. Men desired a place to meet women, um, duh. They also wanted a place where their play was not regulated, where a sense of freedom could be found. Not freedom itself, for that would be considered scandalous. No, the sense of freedom, up there near the top of the desolate canyon of the desert the men enjoyed the feeling of being nearly free.

Hero's Journey Part II

2010-06-15T18:03:00.000-07:00

To get a job, any job that paid you enough to eat and have a roof over your head, this was "all" a man was looking for during the 1930s Depression. His needs seemed desperate to obtain, his wants seemingly without virtue. The Depression at that time had tilted life out of balance and it caused fear in men they'd never expected nor experienced. To be refused meant the same thing for many people. Thus when one was refused a job or opportunity there was a rally among others in the same situation.

Part II of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey (see June 14 Blog to connect to part I) is the Refusal of the Call. In the story Hard Luck the emotions of everyone are riding on an exterior refusal, in other words the refusal for citizens of the U.S. to get what they need was predominant. When fourteen year old Jake Adams knows things are changing because of his response to other people he's around, he refuses the call to allow these changes to take place. Eddie McIntyre is quick to keep Jake in his place, limiting his esteem, and Jake allows this. Cora White is a girl Jake is interested in, but does she know it? And the boss, (and there are many) challenges Jake at every turn and Jake questions his ability rather than rises up to it.

All along, the sentiment of the time is also heaving downward onto Jake. He will need help now to let the changes that need to happen occur. But who will Jake turn to? Part III Supernatural Aid...

Hero's Journey part 1

2010-06-14T21:01:00.000-07:00

According to Joseph Campbell, the Hero's Journey is an archetypal pattern forming the under-structure of every story ever told. It is a pattern that illuminates the stages everyone must go through in order to grow. It's a journey of personal evolution that every human being can identify with. And it all begins with The Call to Adventure.

The Call to Adventure is the point at which the person is first given an idea or notice that everything is going to change, whether he or she knows it or not.

In the historical fiction novel Hard Luck, newly orphaned 14 year old Jake Adams arrives at the site where the Hoover Dam will soon be built. Camping in Ragtown, near the Colorado River, with thousands of others like him waiting to get a job at the dam, he is confronted with three things informing him that change is in the forecast. For one, he meets his antagonist Eddie McIntyre, a bit older and a lot more independent, Eddie sees Jake's hidden side the way a gardener knows what's planted underground. Secondly, there's Cora White, a pretty girl that is ill when Jake meets her and he's able to help her get well using his family medicine. Thirdly, there's the big boss that arrives in Ragtown with an entourage to investigate the passage upriver to the dam. Jake is impressed with the way he stays cool despite men literally begging him for a job.

For this story it is other people in Jake's life that furnish the impetus for change. As Jake confronts the mystery that these three individuals hold for him in his life, he can't get closer to them without sensing the change that is about to occur in his life.

Part II will consider what Campbell refers to as The Refusal of the Call.

A day of rest

2010-06-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

Today was a day off. A day decidedly "free" in which there was bike riding, preparing a nice meal, relaxing with entertainment of my choice. It was time that "recharged" for more work, necessary is how it felt, needed as much as water itself.

When considering the workers inside the 140 degree diversion tunnels, working shifts from 4 am to 12 noon or 4 pm to 12 midnight, every single day with no day off for months at a time, the stress seems unimaginable. Four dollars a day with a buck fifty taken out of that for meals, these were overworked underpaid champions of a project that could not be recreated in the same way today.

Yet it's interesting the values at the time the dam was being built, in that the men could eat their fill of all kinds of food at every meal, but to keep their job they had to continue on, like the river itself, to meet the demands seemingly already etched before them.

Which is why the width of the tunnels, the height of the dam, all the work inspires admiration and at the same time is a reminder that such amazing feats often require a negligence of need.

Why Society

2010-06-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

We are interdependent as all nature is, and the work at the dam replicates this truth a thousand times over. For the men that blasted and mucked the diversion tunnels could not do one without the other. The concrete poured could not have ever been done by one man alone. We need society to build, to do a job, which is not saying anything about the ethics of the job.

Why society is seen at fault for so many blunders may be that when like-minded people come together stuff happens. Stuff that nobody accounts for, stuff that no one really needs but then must deal with. Which explains the need by some to escape society, to be rid of it, to be done all the way from its core.

Men who came to the dam for work did so because there weren't a lot of job opportunities available at the time. They also came because of the shear opportunity to build something of such dimension. Those that came for the second reason often left before the job was done, upon seeing that this society of workers, as interdependent as they were, also were being snowballed into a project that treated men as machines. Or men as a labor force that could be controlled.

Society or societies are indicators to be used to identify patterns, cause and effect, the institutionalization of ideas. Do we buy into them? Do we avoid them all together? What seems to count for more is that we recognize our interdependence upon nature and in fact, to really "be alone" is a romantic notion, a fantasy, a fallacy.

Eddie Vedder - Society

2010-06-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

Xavier Rudd

2010-06-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

Canyon journey

2010-06-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

To be in complete awe is often more difficult that it seems. To see the river as awesome, especially as it is here, "The Little Colorado" to some it's likely to look like red water, stiff canyons and smell only of still air, instead of a magnificent product by and of nature that has no match.

What induces inspiration? Does it require a conscious act? To look at whatever one is viewing and deciding it is inspiring?

The workers at the Hoover Dam site may not have been inspired by what they were seeing for that's not what they were there for.

Yet in truth, even the smallest rock in one's hand can cause wonder, wonder that leads to further wonder, or inspiration. Inspiration to feel the worth in the moment as it is, the joyous momentum of discovery that happens as we experience ourselves experiencing the discovery...

On the other hand what may have been inspiring to the dam workers was the work itself. What they accomplished each day, how far they could drive into the diversion tunnels with their dynamite and shovels, how much concrete could be poured, how many rocks scaled in a day...

Thus, what inspires you may not be the same for me, depending on circumstances or how we see, not necessarily what it is we're seeing.

Living for success

2010-06-09T05:10:00.000-07:00

A dam in the middle of the desert, a dam to manage the water, dictating where it should go, and to whom, and when, and also using that water for energy, the ultimate in control, accomplished. Yet it seems success is a slippery slope when it comes by way of control. The difference between a demand and a choice.

When the demand for the dam occured, there were many reasons, such as ending the flooding in the Imperial Valley so that this land could be used more effectively for growing crops, as well as to use the hydroelectric energy, powering nearby Las Vegas and outgrowing areas. There was also money to be made by the 5 companies that won the bid to build it, and Southern California could continue growing at its own fast pace. Yet also, the men who were paid the slim wages were now off the streets. It made the country appear as though an economic recovery was taking place.

Yet at the expense of men working a job that went against nature and not necessarily for it? Nevertheless, it was a job that developed character and culture, proving just how mighty men working together really can be, capable of building a monolith.

Presently there's a suggestion to put the unemployed to work on the oil disaster in the gulf. Pay them so much and get as many of them working, and this time, to solve a problem that's gone against nature.

Thus heroes continue to be created, as men continue to work on demand and on behalf of something much bigger than themselves. The rise of success in our post-everything existence, we do what can be done, every one of us, rich or poor, jobless or well etched in a career and we rarely for a moment look beyond the work at hand.

Living for success accomplished with control.

Stones of meaning

2010-06-07T19:32:00.001-07:00

The Canadian Inuit use the symbol of an Inuksuk, which means "something which acts for or performs the function of a person." The word Inunnguaq is also used for this particular type of rock formation (that look more like a person rather than a conical heap of stones, and interestingly is shown on the cover of the Rush album Test for Echo).

I was given a small inuksuk today by a friend who recently traveled to Canada and brought back this "guardian spirit". Immediately I experienced a deep sense of gratitude and honor with this gift in my hand. It reminded me that all over the earth humans connect themselves with symbols unique as a design of stones, and with amazing feats such as massive concrete dams.

The surprise in all this is when we "use" a symbol of any kind to develop within ourselves greater understanding and appreciation of our culture, there's the chance we can see a bit farther into the future of our civilization. As Edward Abbbey suggests in his brilliant book, Desert Solitude,"Civilization is the wild river; culture, 592,000 tons of cement."

Dam liberation

2010-06-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

We meet the people of the past through their choices. Not just the shoes on their feet or the hat on their head, but how they held and carried themselves.

The people in these photographs are a reminder of something as significant as attraction, notably, liberation.

Liberation can mean believing one does not have to follow the rules or norms but does so anyway. Fashion speaks to this idea often. For the workers on the dam, they too had opportunity for liberation. Surprisingly, it was often by the clothes they wore.

Whether it was choosing the expensive brown Boulder cords, Blue Levi's or Apache leather boots, for a worker to head off to the company store, whip out the scrip (wages paid with credit from the store) it was the choice that mattered. The choice to buy what felt good and seemingly looked fine for the times, and often to each other. A worker didn't have to buy these things yet they represented a kind of liberation that often was not denied.

Without scrip, but dollars or plastic cards, it matters not, we are instilled with the spirit of liberation. And as insidious as it seems, fashion webs us to the attractive past as we find the attractive present--by how we hold and carry ourselves. With the kind of pride learned through the premium of choice.

Stateless Environment

2010-06-05T15:59:00.000-07:00

Staying cool in a world gone hot

2010-06-04T18:11:00.000-07:00

Taking the heat, taking it and bearing down to it. It is beyond discomfort, it is a kind of disfiguration. Staying cool in a world gone hot requires change.

In all this, which is really not much at all, we forget we can be cool, we forget we do have choices, and what that takes is exploration.

Not necessarily exploring space, although space is a good representation of why we need to pay attention to the way things change, since by stars we can navigate. The real exploration is inside ourselves.

What we find as truth in this exploration, is seeing how things really do change. However it also applies to the external world gone hot. It is the magic that brings men together to do jobs like build a dam in the middle of a steep canyon, challenged by seeing the change they themselves can produce.

The limits to any exploration is that the deeper you go, the less you might possibly be seeing. The men that tunneled for the Colorado to be diverted were nearly a mile in the tunnel when they came to the end of it, when they saw that first flash of daylight. Or if it was night, they could smell that first breath of fresh air. It was here that no one could, absolutely no one was thinking, Oh, wow, look what we are doing...to the river, to the land, to our future...but rather oh yes, oh yes, look what we've done.

New friends

2010-06-03T01:35:00.000-07:00

I went to work today, set out to do a good job. When I arrived I was met by old friends that once were new. We signaled in the way that we do, our hello's, our laugh about one thing or another. And then we settled into the day.

Is there anything more rewarding than returning to a place where you feel you make a difference? It can be numerous places and different people on a regular basis, but what stays and what keeps are the old friends that once were new.

True for the workers on the dam all five or so years, 1931 into 1936, families were made, unions were sought, companies were formed, men and women graced the desert with each other, for they had today, the future would take care of itself.

This kind of embrace of a place in time reminds us to seek new friends along the journey, working hard as we go at whatever it is we do. It's really very simple. What we do is who we are.

Love in the time of diversion

2010-06-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

Desperation hung in the air. The men were hungry and anxious for they knew not what was to come of the future. Basic needs had been stripped bare. And there were so many of them seeking jobs. Where would there be a place that they could all find work and at least care for themselves with some kind of dignity?

The Hoover Dam linked these desperate men by providing a big job, which in turn made the men feel not just important but real again. For many, there was nothing more they needed than to believe again in the future, and all they could see of the future was having a job and a paycheck. Dreams of anything else were sheer fantasy, like feelings of love without anything to love.

The dam today is a powerful medium, a message of what men can do when they have no choice but to work as if in a fairy tale. To blast through rock, to dig and shovel, then pour that holy concrete day in and day out, it was the hardest work there could be. Yet a job that provided renewed pride just for the opportunity to be working aside other men towards an end. The outcome, the finished job, the happily ever after.

Crying for fair

2010-05-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

Fair. Equivalent. Equal. Only in mathematics can we celebrate such an expression when it means what one gets the other gets as well. Mothers and teachers make such distinctions quite often because children come to expect this, are told being fair is the best way to be.

And yet there is war.

Thus on this side of the equation someone wants something for which the one on the other cannot or will not give. Mutually both sides cry for fair. They fight for it. Are diligent until the end for it. And so a warrior that has learned what fair is by way of upbringing or education must then learn how to fight for what they believe fairness is.

In the 1930's as the Hoover Dam was just starting to be built, if a man got a job working on this project he probably didn't cry for fair when he was told he'd only make four dollars a day and be expected to work eight hours straight. In fact, most workers accepted this wage with great satisfaction, just to have a job at all, even though many had earned twice the amount and more before the depression.

Thus maybe being "fair" is really just ideology, unless of course it's mathematics.
However, for those who have fought a war on behalf of fairness, towards an idea of what fair is, let that person be honored for it, to the nth degree.

For without the people who take a stand for what they believe, there is only mathematics, and in that the equation of humankind becomes nil.

Hard Boiled Hats

2010-05-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

A fun fact: Author Franz Kafka might have been the first to develop the first civilian hard hat when he was employed at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1912.

However in the United States, the E.D. Bullard Company was a mining equipment firm in California, selling protective hats first made of leather. His son, E.W. Bullard, arrived home from World War I with a steel helmet providing the idea for a "Hard-Boiled Hat", made of steamed canvas, glue and black paint.

These hats weren't used in the beginning of the building of the dam, but once discovered became imperative (though not required) at the Hoover Dam work site. However with rocks capable of falling hundreds of feet onto a man's head, yes, the hard hat was coveted by anyone wishing to avoid such tragedy.

Technology is like the first hard hats these men wore. It provides a kind of protection nobody expected even just a few years ago. Protection? What, seeing that one's sheer identity can be robbed as a result of logging on to a computer?

Yet if we look at it more closely, moving towards its evolved state we find that as we connect, in any given virtual social network, it seems such thing as theives and weirdos do get filtered out. Of course they can try to sneak in, much as the thieves sneaking around the dam job site would steal whatever the men might carelessly leave about, namely their money from slim paychecks. Yet to rob from a working man is not only a poor route to go, it will always have zero virtue in the eyes of the successful thieves, that can steal from the rich to give to the poor.

Thus maybe what we get ourselves into helps us in our creating a way out. And it's this act of creation that is the thrill, the real high-lying outcome of it all.

What the hard hats did for these workers in those days, in terms of protection, was a necessity.

And what technology does now (for those willing to express themselves through it) is protect the developing creativity, shared one to another. Yes, technology might be considered a necessity as well then.

For art is expression that inspires us to wonder. And not only is it safe to wonder, one might say it is a necessity.

Old friends

2010-05-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

A good friend's father reunites with his military friends regularly. They are getting old now and its harder to get together, but the trip becomes that much more memorable, meaningful, insightful. The longer time stretches over an event, a time in one's life, it receives more color, rises more distinctly from the mundane. Our perceptions of what matter may change but we hold tight to how these perceptions continue to affect us.

The old friends of the Hoover Dam may have insisted on calling the dam Boulder. As if the name gives meaning to the experience as much as all the work that was accomplished together. When they use the words "old friend" and look into each other's eyes, do they see the fella that high scaled seven hundred feet above the canyon? Do they remember sitting across the table from their buddy as he devoured another pork chop or biscuit? What is recorded is a feeling for a time they know not to forget. And how do they "know" such things?

How do we recognize what needs remembering? We recognize it by the medium that is its result. Job sites will do this, especially ones in which hold so much wonder, like this dam does. It becomes a medium for which we set our memories upon. As a good friend, offering up sincere messages for the future, universal for all to learn from.

Thicker than water

2010-05-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

This Todd Hannigan video is a reflection of the way water is used so liberally and melodically effectively--to compare experiences, feelings, and objects.

Truly we do gravitate to the natural elements such as water in and of our universe. We love water, it's obvious, and we know the human body is made up of mostly water, yet we cannot become it. And it seems objectifying it oftentimes invites greed.

Regarding the use of dams as a means of "giving" water to people who need it, such as in poverty stricken Southeast Asia, how can the dams be refused? Malnourished thirsty people versus decision makers thirsting to control. Thus once a dam starts to be built, (or is removed for that matter) it has become its own medium, it takes on a story all its own. Thicker than water for sure.

Faces of a time

2010-05-26T17:37:00.000-07:00

In this picture is grandfather, just one of many who helped build the Hoover Dam. He is the one that hides his fatigue, that has known easier times. There is however a greatness of spirit in his eyes. He has overcome his fear, the fear of not being able to take care of his family, and in this fear he has joined his spirit with so many others.

How do people overcome their fears but with the help of their friends? In work in war in waging a life of strife, there is a presence of patience among men and women. There is solitude in the most remarkable places and times. Amidst the building of the dam, these men may have been alone with their thoughts but had one another to see these thoughts through, to level, to balance, to befriend.

Seeing the Dam-Age

2010-05-25T15:03:00.000-07:00

Marshal McLuhan, who coined the phrase "The media is the message", has an anecdote in Gutenberg Galaxy which demonstrates that what one sees in another person, in a situation, in history, is a learned response.

The anecdote centers on a team of French health officials showing a group of African villagers, that had never seen a film before, a public health movie.

After the film was over the team asked the villagers what they had seen. The officials expected to hear something about the health dangers of water after it's been standing too long, which was their own, albeit, perspective and purpose.
And after a period of silence one of the villagers spoke up. "They have chickens there, too," he said.

The health officials were obviously set back by this answer. But what did they expect? The villagers had not learned to see film in the same way. They had not learned what to see. And equally so, the health officials had missed the chickens altogether.

As the Hoover dam was being built, it was very likely that the workers forgot or maybe never even considered why it was being built. In other words, they did not see the "why" of the dam so much as having learned to see the "how" of it. They worked to build what would serve themselves through employment. For most it was all they needed to see.

Perhaps if those same workers had learned to see the whole of what they were creating, for instance, to see the permanent damage the dam would do to the river's ecosystem, it may have changed the course of history.

However for many, what they saw within themselves was desperation, confusion, and disappointment. They'd been taught to see a dream and come close to living it. But then it vanished right before their very eyes. Faced with an economic depression that only a few saw coming, building the dam was viewed as hope itself, as relief from such devastation.

And were there teachers or gurus or spirit guides or what have you on even a single corner? There were just more people like themselves. A generation that would have to learn to see not just their own dreams but also into each other's future.

Today some may view the dam as a sign of our failing times, that it's ruined a great river by capitalizing on the river's wealth.

Yet one can also see the dam for its wealth in and of itself--as a feat such as Stonehenge, without need for anything other than awe.

Nevertheless, it's a icon for discovering "they had chickens, too."

We see what we learn to see. We learn to see the whole.

Diverting the flow

2010-05-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

Deep inside the earth the dynamite "Hercules" made way for the river to be diverted. When it was time, the river, as wild as it was, went willingly. As if it only needed somewhere to go.

In moments of desperation it seems alright to just go for it, full force, needing only a place to go. In time, such actions are cause for wonder.

Do we stop the flow? And as we divert are we ever completely aware of the consequences?

And finally, the consequences change over time. Tunnel workers at the dam in the early 1930's may not have thought at all about the consequences of a river diverted except that it was to "tame" and use the wild water. We revisit that time to understand change, to witness it as if we were there all along.

Seeing beyond privacy

2010-05-23T19:47:00.000-07:00

Privacy is a thing of the past, so says many. We need strategies to understand and philosophize this phenomenon that has begun with or without us.
While the dam was getting built, men worked side by side every day in elements that were harsh and "unreal." They endured with a kind of camaraderie the way soldiers depend on one another. This is common in many jobs, the "looking after" of other employees, the celebrating small victories on the job together. Privacy then is not an issue but rather privacy is shared.
Can we share with others what we feel might help ourselves/help others? Absolutely.
As the dam got built...so did the workers. As technology increases the capacity for "sharing"...so too our capacity for seeing beyond "privacy".

Dynamite

2010-05-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

Imagine dynamite blasting from under the earth and you are there. Inside the diversion tunnels the noise was horrendous. Men reported they lost partial hearing ability after being submitted to the explosions. The river however was a sweet repose, even as it rushed and pushed its way. The Colorado in its natural response to nature would never blur the senses. Our aptitude to demolish, eliminate, destroy is uncanny. Our ability to build such things as the Hoover Dam also uncanny. Yet to live without taking more than we need might appear easy, such as a life beside a river, but it requires the discipline of doing nothing. Is doing nothing possible? And have we demolished, eliminated, destroyed the grace of holding still a moment?
Let the dynamite tell its story. It's much more spectacular. It brings results.

Getting the blues

2010-05-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

The blues. Everyone I know gets down sometimes, it's a fact of life. Yet sometimes there's this shame associated with feeling blue. As if it's a bad thing. I was blue this morning, before sunrise. I was in a state of mind I'm not kin to, tired of hoping for anything that wasn't already on my plate, or in my lap, or driving me to my next project. Tired of hope, what a thought. Yet the thing about getting the blues--a lot has to do with exhaustion.

And that's the thing. Pushing oneself to exhaustion the goal is to get tougher, stronger. And yes, exertion does that. But if we're smart we see the signs of wear and tear. If we can't change the course of our activities, we surely can change our attitude. Whatever it is that is making us tired of hope.

At the dam, workers in 1931 didn't know what to expect when they got their jobs. They worked as hard as they could digging into rock for the diversion tunnels and of course the blues came.

Men then had to deal with feeling down when they wanted to feel up. This contradiction--this kind of hurt beneath the surface, they wore like invisible medals. Medals of fainted hope.

Inherent necessity

2010-05-18T15:09:00.001-07:00

A shrinking river...A Southern California family using an acre foot of water from the Colorado per year...
An acre foot is the size of a football field covered in a foot of water. The Colorado River produces 440,000 million acre feet of water to Southern California every year. Can it keep producing this amount?
The river touches seven states and all take what they can from it.
Building the dam was the first inroad to having access to the Colorado in a way only imaginable at the time. Before the dam, the river was seen as a menace when it would go "out of bounds" flooding the valleys of southern California.
Now the river is a necessity. And with all necessities the price keeps rising.
Who will afford it? Well, who had the dam built in the first place? No, not who built the dam. Who wanted it built and why and what happened to these people?
Nevertheless, both the river and the dam have become necessities now, but what of the future?

Bees Do

2010-05-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

Bees live an average of three weeks. During this time they are busy making honey. Their workload is heavy and they go nonstop. How much honey do they produce in this time? It takes 12 bees to make 1/4 teaspoon of honey. Yep, only a small sip drip of honey in all three weeks of work. Is it enough? The question is, do we appreciate the hard work it takes to produce what they do?

Sure the queen bee may live for three years outside the three weeks. She may get to know many bees in her time. She is destined to be singled out, revered. Yet it's the worker bees that create her world.

The workers on the dam weren't ashamed of their hard work, day after day, drilling into that solid rock of Black Canyon. They inched their way into the rock, setting dynamite to blast through for the diversion tunnel. It was hotter than 125 degrees sometimes and work did not stop.

There's something amazing about a man setting his mind to accomplish a job when the odds are against him. To go an inch? A mile? Do we stop measuring when the work becomes something that is needed? Or more specifically, when we feel needed?

Nostalgia- a resistance to mourning

2010-05-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

Sitting beside the CEO of a local bank on a plane to NYC we got to talking about how things had changed, and how we remembered the way things used to be, la de da. We both became quiet after that. And then I said that I believed nostalgia was a resistance to mourning. That it was good to look back and reflect. And his reaction of this successful man gave me notice. He nearly gasp, saying, "Yes, I believe you are right." Repeating what I'd said as if for us both to remember.

Considering the Hoover Dam we may wish to look back to a time when there a washed out desert as the Colorado ran free, that is now a mass of irrigated fields. Those were days of free surrender from a river so bold that is no more. And it may be sad this has changed, only because it once was.

Then again, remembering the dam and how the workers at the site felt when they were building it, we become nostalgic for that time because it happened with a certain beginning and ending. To think of the dam in this way, i.e.; what happened as it was built, we resist mourning. We look at the past in its greatness. Even if the past was "wrong" in many ways. We see the people, the place as it was changing before our very eyes. It helps, this nostalgia. It helps us to keep the faith as we direct our courses out into the future.

Trip to Hoover dam ( Music by Pepe Mogt )

2010-05-11T16:03:00.000-07:00

Tents of life

2010-05-11T15:21:00.000-07:00

Living in a tent...it's something not everyone does. Yet those who do or have in the past understand the reality of simple pleasures. Water, food, being clean...and yes, the thought is again of people "down on their luck" or experiencing "hard luck". Not "campers" who have someplace else they can go.

When times are tough there has always been alternatives. It's just that we make living so hard that if we must endure greater hardships than we "expect" we feel sorry for ourselves instead of seeing the moment for what it is. We call "unfair" only because we compare our lives we've made so hard with other lives. Sure some people want to give up living for whatever reason, but those who can embrace the alternatives seem to have a resilience at their core.

On the other end of this spectrum, consider the workers on the Hoover Dam who went to work for $4 bucks a day (even in 1931 this was not a lot.) They got used to the wage, they pushed themselves harder at their jobs for small raises and to prove their worth. Getting themselves and their families out of the Hoovervilles or tent cities seem to mean the work provided a better life. As if there was shame in living in tents.

The tragedy then is not that a man dies but that he fought so hard to stay alive.
We fight today to stay alive when perhaps we should instead just fight to live.

Live as in being so present in the moment we don't see work as work. We see our needs, we live our needs so our wants become these needs. And we thus circle back to the simple pleasures of food, water, being clean...

The State of Power

2010-05-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

Water is power. Always has been always will be. Water is rarely free but rather owned, depending on where it comes from and where it goes. The Colorado River is a fluid source of revenue, ha. Yet it's true. What is worth fighting for is to see the water used for more than development, ie; households and businesses, and be able to flow long enough and strong enough to make it back to the sea.

This connection of fresh water to sea water is powerful. It provides a circle of replenishment.

Why we break circles and cycles must be because we feel we can have power over the very thing that is power. We say this is a "Man's world." But that's a cop out. It is a greedy, corporate world that we're all a part of yet want nothing to do with. And those that seek to make changes away from the greed find themselves paddling up a dry river.

Will the madness ever stop? Can we live with the promise of more diversion, greater loss, disrespecting the power of water by wanting to control it all?

Time will tell, dear friends. Meanwhile, let us drink the sacred and share in its ability to quench our ever-alive bodies.

Ragtown Mother's Day May 1931

2010-05-09T13:44:00.001-07:00

Ragtown, near the Colorado River and Black Canyon, where the dam is starting to be built, has become too hot to be outside, yet too hot to go inside. A mother and her child's new dog briefly pose for a photo on a day like most others. Except this day a celebration will ensue at sundown.

The child's father is returning from the hospital. He's been there for two weeks, near death, diagnosed with what everyone says is pneumonia. However, he could be sick from something else; something no one is willing to speak of.

Working inside the diversion tunnels, the threat of carbon monoxide poisoning is high. It is a known truth, it's a risk that every worker faces, that every worker will try and forget about.

When her husband arrives he is too weak to even hold the dog, not to mention his child, too heavy for his arms. Yet he is alive. And mother and child (and now dog) are depending on him for their survival.

When they first arrived in Ragtown, they were without any other family, without insurance, without anything but what they could carry in their arms. No one thought their lives would turn like this. And now, for the first time, it's understood the importance and value of celebrations.

Even when staring death in the face, survival depends on resilience. It's true, they know, bouncing back from tragedy brings great joy and necessary hope.

Women of Boulder City

2010-05-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

The Boulder Dam Hotel was a needed addition to the town of Boulder City as the dam (Boulder/Hoover) was being built. It served the many who came to the dam as tourists, but also provided employment for residents of the town. Naturally, since many of the men worked at the dam, the jobs were filled by women.

Often, the jobs the women took became a bone of contention with the men. Some still believed a woman's place was in the home. Just as some men today believe women should carry the responsibility of a job. Regardless of the times, the forces of the status quo made people question necessity. And necessity is something that can always be questioned.

Nevertheless, Boulder City was known for it's friendliness, cleanliness, near-holiness among its residents and it made it easy for women to move about, establishing businesses, schools, parks and hospitals to again, having a menial job that gave them some economic freedom.

It's here at the Boulder Dam Hotel, comfortable, spacious and immaculate that became a place where some women for the first time in their lives could begin to take responsibility for their own life. Such menial tasks as housekeeping could mean economic freedom for a woman. She could further her education to become a doctor, teacher or architect. She could afford to pay her own way east and visit family. For often time, she had already up and left behind everything on behalf of her husband's last ditch effort for a job working on the dam.

The women of Boulder City, many torn from their past, would keep on choosing to add new life to their future. Like the Colorado River on a course altered by the dam, they were also destined in their direction all along.

Boulder City

2010-05-03T15:41:00.001-07:00

Receiving a haircut, outside the barber shop in Boulder city 1935...By now, the nearby dam is nearly built. And Boulder City, also known as a reservation (since this is government land) is a pretty little town, with schools and churches, parks and shops along a main street. A town as much a part of the dam as the workers themselves, a celebrated city for its so-called cleanliness (no booze, no gambling, no prostitution...supposedly). And the city would try and remain this way even with the permissive Las Vegas so near.

How and why? The residents either obeyed the reservation rules, set and enforced mainly by a city controller named Sims Ely, or they had to get out. A gate at the entrance of the city meant everyone was checked for booze in each car. If caught, they were kicked out, never to be welcomed in the city again.

Sims Ely, an older character, noble in his efforts, demanded the town start clean and remain clean, without any "outside" influence.

However, as nice as things looked from the outside, the town was built fast and furious. Much of the building materials weren't of good quality. Some folks were hit by heat prostration right inside their own houses, as if they'd spent all day without water in the desert. Still, no one wanted to complain for fear of being kicked out. Families did not want to go back to the Hoovervilles outside the city, where cardboard was used for walls.

During the time the town was new, its reputation for civility was a national sensation. And it held this reputation shadowing the entire dam project.

Perhaps it's true that what one builds is often exaggerated in the mind of its creator. Yet this label of safe living made the place that much more friendly, and some would say more valuable, for keeping the town "clean".

We may argue that the rules were too tight, that prohibition had ended so being in the possession of liquor was no big deal, but isn't it true that bending or breaking rules do have ramifications, consequences that affect everyone? There seems a fine line between "following" and "living" the rules...

Hot times in Hoovervilles

2010-05-03T15:25:00.001-07:00

They still exist, Hoovervilles. HWe just call them a different name such as Tent City, in Sacramento, CA, where recently the "residents" were kicked out...And do we hear about where these people go afterwards? Well, it'd be worth knowing, considering these times.

If you've ever been desperate, in a place that was a simple roof over your head (even a tent, or for that matter a blanket) and there are other people around you are in the same predicament, you can half way stop being angry about your situation. Though you don't lose sight of the fact that things aren't as good as they could be, you can still feel gratitude, camaraderie, you can feel as though you are in the midst of recovery.

The Hoover Dam workers found Ragtown, a so-called Hooverville by the side of the Colorado River. Many lived there for months, calling it home. Here a man could talk to other men about jobs and the means by which to get by. A woman could share childcare duties with other mothers to get chores done by the river without worrying their kids would get swept into the fierce current.

In Ragtown, nobody cared much about wardrobe, except if it was clean enough, or where they'd get their next meal. Sharing became the norm.

What we share today is similar to what we shared in the 30's at the time the dam was getting built. Ideas and tools and laughter and food...

Doesn't it seem like we share what we've got even with strangers when we can rally with hope for tomorrow?

Hoovervilles of Today

2010-05-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

From NPR

Sacramento Tent City Reflects Economy's Troubles
by Richard Gonzales

Date: March 16, 2009

Job losses, home foreclosures and a deepening recession are sending scores of newly homeless people into a makeshift camp along the banks of the American River in Sacramento, Calif.

The tent city, spread over an area the size of several football fields, has local officials scrambling over how to handle the area's homeless crisis.

More than a year ago, a handful of homeless people staked out the site on the northern edge of downtown Sacramento. Now there are more than 100 tents and anywhere between 300 to 400 people living without running water or sanitation. Their only protection from the elements is nylon tents and plastic tarps.

A single mid-day meal is available at a nearby faith-based charity called Loaves and Fishes. That's where social worker Jim Peth says he's seeing a lot of the newly homeless.

"That's been very recent," Peth says. "And you can tell because they're much better dressed. They're disoriented; they don't know where to go. So they're easy to spot."

Take, for example, 53-year-old Dave Cutch. His clothes suggest a suburban hiker, except that he stands in a muddy patch outside a tent that he's called home for the past two months. A year ago, he was a welder in Colorado.

"So the company I'm working for, I get laid off," Cutch says. "I qualified for unemployment — 24 weeks. My car's paid off, my truck's paid off, my bike's paid off, everything except for my house payment, right? But I feel like I'm still going to pull out of it."

Months went by without work. Cutch lost his house, his car was stolen, his savings ran out. This past August, he took up a friend's invitation to come to California, but that didn't work out, either.

"Trying to get back on my feet, you know," Cutch says. "Daily, I still go out looking for a job. But the thing I'm running into is when I put the application in they ask me, 'Where do you live at?' And I go, 'Actually, I don't have a place to live. I'm homeless.' That's it. They don't hire me."

Tent cities have sprung up in other locations, including Portland and Phoenix. But the one in Sacramento is drawing national attention, much to the chagrin of city leaders. Mayor Kevin Johnson says he can foresee making the tent city permanent, but not on its current site.

"We need tough love, meaning we have to be compassionate to this population," Johnson says. "I am very committed to it; I feel we have a moral obligation."

At the same time, though, Johnson says the city must eventually adopt a "zero tolerance" approach to the river-side campsite. "It can't happen tomorrow, though," he says.

Elizabeth Hodge (Bobblehead) wrote:

Remember when the military bases were closed? Most of the housing on the bases still exists and are unoccupied. So government housing is available, it should be extended to those who need it. Within driving distance of the tent city is a former military base with plenty of housing, empty, and decaying. Tuesday, March 17, 2009 1:29:24 PM

Sandra Hucher (helpfulBrit) wrote:

Could we make this discussion a little more helpful by brainstorming ways to help these not-wanting-to-be-homeless people? Seems to me they can choose a spot that the Mayor approves and put these people to work building themselves a community of housing and vegetable gardens. Make it eco-friendly. The city would pay them a wage and local businesses could donate lumber, plumbing, electrical stuff, etc. Just like Habitat. There must be many of those homeless who have many skills they can share. They could form a committee and work together. The city should pay them out of their part of the stimulus bill - or just from their coffers. It will be a positive and long lasting effort that will benefit Sacramento in the end. In these times we really have to be a bit more creative to help each other. I should think plenty of retired people would be willing to help also. Getting into action of building something rather than dreary job searching would lift morale and achieve a lot more, I would think.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 2:04:02 AM

Text by permission Copyright 2010 NPR

Learning the ropes

2010-05-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

There were young men on the job who delighted in an opportunity to perform feats of extreme danger. They could hang all day by ropes against the canyon walls, as if performing a highwire act.

Yet there were also men such as the elderly gentleman who had to close his store for lack of customers, due to a downturn in a once thriving economy, leaving only a sign on the door that said: Stay well.

As the lone pharmacist in his small town, now without a drugstore, he knew people would have to travel thirty miles away for their medicines, or more likely, go without. It was difficult to leave them. Yet this day in May, 1931, under the hot sun of a brilliant Oklahoma sky, this man started out all over again, heading west. Heard there was work on a dam being built in the middle of the desert. Hitched a ride and said good bye to his past--determined himself to stay well.

There were many men like this that came to the Hoover Dam to work during this hot, dry month of May. Yet having to learn the ropes by working a job they'd never done before didn't give them reason to complain. A job was a job and they knew it had to be done the best they could do it. Otherwise there was somebody else waiting in line for the chance.

With more hope and guts than even they expected to have, these older men didn't arrive asking to be cared for, or asking who was going to help them. They had to set their pride down and be set apart by their willingness to learn and to keep well, despite the harshest conditions.

Thus their hard work without complaint truly involved a greatness of spirit. A formula ensuring care for the deepest of needs.

The brilliance of design

2010-05-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

Ahtletes know the brilliance of design, the way architects do, the way doctors must. There is an exactness a regiment that if followed offers known results. It does not take discipline to design something brilliant. Discipline is needed in carrying out that design.

Were the workers on the dam disciplined? If they weren't in the beginning they learned. Their so-called discipline was mostly fueled by the opportunity to earn money. Money not made, but earned.

Discipline as a result of this brilliance of design offered young men an opportunity to be a part of something bigger than imagined. A dam that shot up into the sky 735 feet, was a feat uncontested at the time. A brilliant design that would only come to life by hard work.

Hard work was not known by taking days off as much as it was by working in shifts. There were 3 shifts for every 24 hours a day, and working "around the clock" the dam was built in record time. Thus, part of the brilliance of the design is timing. The dam designers may not have considered the workers who ultimately put their lives on the line. Yet they must have known the discipline needed to carry out the design.

Not only was the dam built with amazing speed as men acquired this discipline, the dam remains today as a design of brilliance.

The fallacy of permanence

2010-05-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

The Hoover Dam in all ways appears permanent. When it was just beginning to be built, the idea of doing just this, building something that would last "forever" was exciting. Much like the pyramids in Egypt that still stand today, the Hoover Dam exacts that much attention.

It is an odd power to be part of something that will seemingly outlast many lifespans. Envision now what the dam might look like thousands of years from now. Will it appear the same? Will it still be responsible for redirecting the Colorado River?

Another way to see the future of the Hoover Dam is through viewing the past lives of the men who built it. Could they possibly know that the dam they were erecting might someday be unnecessary? Who would have bet on that? And yes, the men building the dam were often gamblers, taking whole paychecks to a tent-casino and blowing it all in one night. But would they have bet on this fallacy of permanence?

The Hoover Dam operates at full capacity today. As much as we know of the past, we also know of the future. We do things and will continue to do things that hold promise. It's the promises we believe in. It's the promises we work toward.
It's the promises that keep standing long after we are gone.

The end of the river

2010-05-01T14:03:00.000-07:00

What we think is the end isn't always. Oh, for sure this is nothing new. Only that, when referencing the Colorado River, the end has and always will be the Gulf of California.

Of course the Hoover Dam has changed that end. Still, the river meets the salty ocean water in the bay, one way or another. A meeting that is as complex as any relationship and also as simple. River to sea is how it will always be. Just now, since the 30's the course of this flow is metamorphasizing, in one word: Silt.

Silt is the by-product of fresh water that has been contained and ultimately controlled. It is what leeches up from the ground and is of no nutrient value.
Not only the end of the river is full of silt at the mouth of the Gulf of California, it is increasing every year in Lake Mead, which is the reservoir for the Dam. Not a good ending.

To make an ending that is satisfying, it must lead to something else in a way that is nourishing. In a story, the end brings the reader to a place of new wonder, if it is a good ending. For the dam, the build-up of silt brings our civilization closer to an ending that does not offer so much new wonder as it does new visions for the future. We need to see beyond the end of the river, now that we know what's happening there.

Working with nature demands constant attention. It is a relationship. And though relationships do end, they should be cherished, regardless of the outcome. Thus the vision can unfold for what lies ahead, or in other words, new beginnings.

Surviving and Dreaming

2010-04-30T13:38:00.000-07:00

The Hoover Dam at the time it was being built was a place where men felt they could survive (by way of a paycheck) and dream (by way of being part of such a fantastic project). In the beginning, the stimulation of both surviving and dreaming was enough to blast through any rock canyon and do it with amazing strength and speed.

Yet what happens when fatigue sets in and the pay becomes standard issue, in other words, what happens when the thrill is gone?

For many, there was only one thing, to keep on, get the work done, see the job through, to the end. For others, young and old alike, the dreaming began to take priority and so they stayed long enough to get to the next job, whatever it was that felt closer to that dream.

But what about those conflicted with wanting to stay (for whatever reasons, the pay, the camaraderie, the security of having a job to go to) yet also wanting to leave the dam behind for another opportunity?

In fear of compromise, we do it everyday. The link between surviving and dreaming are like old friends. They are both very different yet hold equally important modes of resilience. Not staying for security and yet not leaving for opportunity, decisions were also made based on what was best for oneself.

How do we know what this means, to do what's best for oneself? Especially at critical times in our lives? Do we always stop and weigh the good with the bad, take account of the pros and the cons? Not always. But in the end, it seems we make our decisions by way of prior and ongoing education and through the experience of our own unique indeterminable past.

We draw from what we know so far...
Thus leading us to what we will know tomorrow...

The science of production

2010-04-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

Without a product, without production or the making of the product to be used, sold, shared, etc., our lives would be so different. It seems we are all involved in the production of life. Whether life is as we believe it to be, as we build it according to our needs and wants, or merely accepting what it is, according to how it's delivered and received, it is a constant flow. Constant as the Colorado River coming down from the mountains into a varied collection of tributaries, all reaming into Black Canyon to be met with another production--the dam. What life would be like without the dam is hard to speculate, since it's changed so much of the way life is for so many people that rely on this product.
Is there any way we can ever go back to how things once were, ie; pre-dam? Not likely. Even if we dismantled the dam or fed the river a different direction, perhaps towards another dam, once we have produced something, once we've made something into a product, it is what it is.
Is this a warning about thinking through whatever it is we set out to produce? Of course it is. But not by way of a blog named Water by Dam. This is only a space for mirroring the ideas we all share, mirroing them clear as fresh water from the tap...remembering exactly where that water comes from, how it got here in the first place...its value...water as a life-supporting nature-made product...

Spring heat

2010-04-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

This is the Santa Margarita Ranch or Ranchero. I was fortunate to take a tour of the land a couple of weekends ago. As it is spring, the heat began to saturate by days end, and that offered some ideas concerning the spring of 1931 when the building of the dam began. One such idea was about heat. Right, heat. It's inevitably the cause for complaint when you've got to work in it. But what about the heat we put on ourselves? The kind that comes when we want something to happen so badly and whatever it may be isn't budging, not even an inch.
Some of the workers at the dam knew about this, wanting to get out of mucking, shoveling rock and mud all day, and into blasting, setting the dynamite, being part of blowing up rock. Seriously, the excitment of that job compared to anything else not only meant more pay, it credited the worker with good judgement. The heat a guy would feel everyday he had a shovel in his hand compared to riding a jumbo inside a tunnel to set a blast, well it could get to be boiling.
What boils most of us are the things we want changed but it just doesn't happen. And if it does, it's not soon enough. For myself, just standing aside a toaster waiting for my toast to pop up is a wait too long. I give myself heat to be patient about it, but dang, I want it now so I can get on with something else.
Maybe the something else isn't even meaningful. And that's the thing. Whether we've got a shovel in our hands or a stick of dynamite, we gotta cool ourselves down thinking there's anything better to be doing. Cooling down is a matter of just being okay with the moment. And all that means is finding the worth in that moment, as it is, not as it could be. And usually somebody notices the way we do find the worth, and that's when it happens. Amid our own rush of sweat and beating heart we're given over the reigns to what we hoped for. Plugging dynamite, setting it in stone. Living like we're important, all because we found importance in the moment.

Unfinished business

2010-04-24T18:56:00.001-07:00

Unfinished business. It seems we crave the sense of completion. Yet is it natural or have we been conditioned to not stop until a job is done? Sometimes, doesn't it seem we are actually working against what we've set out to accomplish by diligence just to complete something?
In this picture we see that even after the dam was "finished" there was work to be done later on. So maybe what is set down as completed, accomplished, is really just a moment when things are perceived that way.
Thus the idea of struggling to finish something is not what got the dam built two years before schedule. The workers didn't struggle with the work at hand. They just worked. They worked as if nothing else matters. And it seems this kind of focus is the reward for getting to a place where one feels "done" even if the job in the end will never be exactly that.
So if business is unfinished, it's deciding at the end of the day (moment) it's all that will be done. We take the hanky from our pocket, wipe our faces, look to the sky and go on.
Satisfaction is in the focus, the process, the outcome be what it will.

Dam Daze

2010-04-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I imagine the heat of it all, down in the canyon, mid summer. I imagine walking inside one of the diversion tunnels, where the stale air was said to reach 140 degrees or more. I see myself riding a huge jumbo rig back up against the rock inside this tunnel, handing off the dynamite or Hercules to my partner to set into the rock. The sweat is dripping and we don't notice it anymore, our job is getting done. Our work at hand is so important to us we nearly faint from heat exhaustion but barely notice the stagger in our walk, the weak grip we take as we exit the tunnel waiting for the blast to complete...
The exciting times of working and living so close to the bone, being so taxed, unaware of anything else but the work...this is not the life of kings and queens, but rather of somebody that has left behind peaceful desires for a paycheck and yes, the knowledge I've done a good job. Yet, being in the tunnel, suffocating from heat, sweating to exhaustion, muscle to muscle, the heaviness of it all, it seems as if it's all I ever wanted. Otherwise, knowing the ridiculousness of the job, (cutting into walls of canyon rock for what good reason but to build a dam that would "control" a river for the benefit of development?) wouldn't I walk right out? Take a ferry across river, hike my way into the mountains, live off the land as I went? But nobody did that. And if they did they were no hero.
Sometimes I imagine what we'd be like if we didn't follow what we were made to believe. Yet we do follow...and we do the work...and at the end of the day we are too tired for much dreaming. And then we return...into the heat mist of the next day...

Stand alone

2010-04-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

Facing fear, we all must stand alone. Though it may seem we need to rally the defense with others when we are afraid,recognizing our aloneness helps us in our responsibility to care for others as we care for ourselves.
What continually inspires me about the building of this dam is the way in which each man worked for himself yet came together on behalf of this great project. Every day there was something that could possess a man and fill him with fear. Yet everyday each would stand alone between the walls of Black Canyon and do a job that often could mean the end of his life.
Maybe its this sensation of knowing danger intimately, working hard to the point of exhaustion, and at the end of the day celebrating surviving that gave the workers of this dam the courage to do it again the next day. Yet the celebration of survival is sweetest when shared. Thus as today is Earth Day, it's a good time to remember to share our lessons, enjoy the fruits of our labor, and be alone against our fear and together for our accomplishments, our joy, the things we live for...

This magic moment

2010-04-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

Evenings for workers wasn't this picturesque. Shifts went 24 hours, and electric lights were a simple necessity. Nevertheless, viewing the yellow-gold shine cast against the granite black rock for the first time had to be magical. Also, considering the eventual hydroelectricity from the dam, it might have been like seeing the future before it actually arived...

Dangerous dam work

2010-04-20T14:58:00.000-07:00

Standing against the rail looking down into the concrete of the Hoover Dam reminds me of the dangerous, wearisome, death-defying jobs that were required to get this dam built. The first job was the drilling of the four diversion tunnels so the river could be diverted. Since this job on the dam began late spring, by mid summer the men were inside 116 degree tunnels on big rigs to carry in the Hercules or dynamite.
The extent these men went to do this work offers an interesting perspective. The men made no more than four dollars a day yet nearly killed themselves to outperform each other, believing it so worthwhile, so "important." Of course it was important to manage the river, the Colorado, for the sake of future development.
Yet, even today we see people taking on jobs that they must be prepared to lose their lives at. I wonder if it is in our DNA to not just work hard but for some of us to work dangerous.
Men are quoted saying that building the Hoover Dam was the best time in their lives, not because they were fed well or had money in their pocket, but for the camaraderie. Perhaps a dangerous job enables feelings of empowerment, makes us work harder, offering a kind of ennobling of our spirit.

The view from here

2010-04-18T08:39:00.001-07:00

So, this is the front side of the Hoover Dam as it is today, a symbol of power, control, unshakable beauty and strength. It is immense and it does inspire. It is also a sign of our very short time here as inhabitants on the land deemed by name as America. For had we known what the dam would be capable of (development, development, and more...development) mostly in sunny California, would we have destroyed a river for it?

The history of this dam building deserves sincere thought. Which brings me back to wanting to share the letters from Jake Adams to his brother Moses, sometime around 1931 when the groundbreaking had just begun...

The Hoover Dam

2010-04-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

An art deco dam in the desert built in the 1930's presently bears the name Hoover Dam. To me however, the dam deserves to be called something pastiched, ancient layered by new, like The Waterbydam.
As much as a dam represents the end of a river as it naturally flows, the need for fresh water to keep millions of people hydrated, nourished, fed and clean obviously demands water management. Look at any ancient civilization and you'll find that when water ran out, so did the civilization.
In 1931, the Hoover dam became a project the U.S. government supported by allowing six companies to band together and win a bid to put depression-fueled unemployed men back to work. The work began late spring and was fierce under the desert heat. Backbreaking as well. But hungry men with an ambition to earn their keep found steady work at a pay they felt they had to rationalize. Despite themselves, the dam would be built...