Summer of '45

I got to spend some time with World War II this week. The war itself doesn't interest me—I don't care about battles and politics. That's probably why I didn't care for history growing up. But WWII on the home front does interest me more, because it's more likely to touch on cultural history, which is what I actually like.

First, on Thursday evening, I attended an event by the Mildred Berryman Institute for LGBTIQ2S+ Utah History about queer belonging during WWII. The lecture was given by one of my professors from grad school. It was enjoyable, and I learned a lot! But I didn't stick around long after it was over, so I could go swimming.

But the more significant event was on Saturday. The Utah Historical Society had a special bus trip to Topaz, where Japanese Americans were incarcerated* during the war. It was for members of the society, but then they opened it up to staff to go along for free. A free adventure? Why wouldn't I go!?

*The camps are often called internment camps or relocation centers or evacuation centers. But these terms all downplay the morally repugnant practice of forcing American citizens and immigrants to move into camps. Incarceration camp is more commonly preferred now.

We drove down to Delta to the Topaz Museum, which opened around 2014. Even though I have two uncles who have lived in the Delta area, I had never been. There were some other people at the museum who apparently thought it was a rock museum.

Inside, they had a room set up like an original barrack would have looked like, furnished with actual items from Topaz that people had donated. 

The ironing board was made by a woman while she was incarcerated. The table and chairs were made by an old man who had been incarcerated, but he made them years later.

In the back, they had part of an original building that was meant to look like it might have originally. It had tar paper on the sides and roof, with no insulation, making it super hot or super cold. 

The back left corner has original sheetrock, but most of the rest of it has been reconstructed.

And the museum had various artifacts. It was a wordy museum, and I didn't read much, but it was a clean, modern museum with a small gift shop.

Incarcerees used to collect arrowheads

Then we got on the bus, and one of the museum guides, Scott Bassett, came with us. He showed us various homes and buildings in the Delta area that were built from old Topaz buildings, and he talked about growing up in the nearby community of Sutherland. Since my Uncle Mike used to live in Sutherland, at one of our stops, I asked him, "Do you know Mike Melville?" He said, "Oh, Mike! He's my relative." So I said, "That means we're related, because he's my uncle." We eventually determined he's my third cousin once removed, and he's in the same ward as my Uncle John in Delta. One of my colleagues was disappointed we didn't get a picture together. 

That's my third cousin once removed

We stopped at the welcoming spot for modern visitors, where there's a plaque and "Topaz" written in barbed wire. 

Then we went on the grounds of the camp. All the buildings are gone, and the artifacts are pretty picked over, but there are some building foundations, lots of leftover wood, and bits of glass and metal strewn all over the ground. It is amazing that all these things are still sitting on the desert floor after more than eighty years, though I guess that's not really all that long ago. Scott was incredibly knowledgeable about all the buildings that had been there. 

This was sewer access

This was a bowl for making mochi

There was a really cool spider on a really cool web

This was a rock garden

There were tons of old nails on the ground

Tar paper from the roofs

Window screens

The top of a bottle

The West Desert is nothing like the Pacific coast, where all the incarcerees came from

Then on the way home, I read a book that I had bought at the museum. I have actually worked on quite a few articles about Topaz for Utah Historical Quarterly, and for one of them, I came across a diary of a third-grade class, which is digitized online, and I fell in love with it. This book partly tells the story of the class journal, but it's more about day-to-day life in Topaz generally. I have included some of the entries from the journal.

I was astonished to learn they used to collect spiders because they could use their webs in gunsights!

Of course, I'm interested in the entry about Easter . . .

. . . and the Fourth of July.

Another random thing from this week. I was working an a UHQ article about Topaz, and a reference to D-Day gave me a random memory. In fifth grade, our class had a pen pal from South Korea who peppered her letter with little stickers that had small pictures with English words. We were very amused by the placement of the stickers, like "Bye now! [dinner] [dinner]." But one sentence included "D-Day" stickers. What a weird thing to put on a sticker for children! (I just asked Google Gemini about it—I know, I know, I shouldn't use AI—and it tells me that "D-Day" in Korea referred to any big event, not the 1944 event.)

***

My week wasn't all about WWII. On Tuesday, I went to our state offices because we are moving buildings. We had to finish packing before our official move this week. I've been coming to this building in Millcreek for three and a half years now, but I won't miss it. It was an old, bleak building. But I will miss being close to the Normal Ice Cream truck.

On Wednesday evening, I went on a short trail run after dark (when it was cooler) to Springhill Geologic Park. As I got there, I saw a spider making a web directly across the trail. I didn't want to ruin the spider's progress, but it seemed unreasonable to turn around just for a spider. So I was able to successfully step over the spider's web without disturbing it. And then at the end of the run, I was able to step over it again on the way back. That's four times I successfully stepped over it, since I have two legs (unlike the spider).

And I still have five stores for the Independent Bookstore Crawl. One of them was located in Smithfield, but they have lost their brick-and-mortar store for now. They announced they were at Layton Fest, a vendor fair, so I went up on Friday evening, intending to get my map stamped. Unfortunately, right as we (my mom and I) got there, there was a storm, and all the vendors had to pack up. So I'll have to get my stamp another way. (I'm thinking of going to Logan's Art Beat this coming weekend to see them.)

Slow news week

I didn't have a lot of interesting things going on this week. And that's fine, because I will be busy most Saturdays for the next while. August 22, I will be going to Topaz incarceration camp; August 29, my ward has an outing in Midway; September 5, I will be in Montana; September 12, I'm going to Danger Cave; September 26 is the Restore conference; October 3, I will be at Wasatch Mountain State Park; October 24, I will be in Portland for the Western History Association conference; and November 14 is the Gather conference. That means I'll only be free September 19, October 10 and 17, Halloween, most of November, and all of December. But some of those days I will need to visit Logan, Cedar City, and Moab to complete the Independent Bookstore Crawl.

I went swimming on Monday and Tuesday this week because of the heat, and I went swimming on Thursday because of the rain. Though it flooded in some parts of Utah, there was no flooding where I was/am. At the Thursday swim, I swam 2,000 yards, the most I have ever done. 

I went running on Tuesday. And on Friday, I ran a route that was new, though I had been on all portions of it before. Connected to the Wild Rose Trail is the Eagle Crest Trail, which I pass frequently but have only been on a handful of times, because it is unpleasantly steep. (I thought it was called Eagle Ridge, but I guess they changed the name.) Well, now the new Bonneville Shoreline Trail (2021) cuts through the Eagle Crest Trail, so I was able to take BST and then go up the upper portion of Eagle Crest, which bypasses the excessively steep portion. This Friday run was more than five and a half miles total. 

And Saturday, of course, was North Canyon, which is my default for weekends because it's shady and not too busy. One portion of the trail is an aspen grove where there is an aspen stump directly in the trail, and there's some kind of mushroom growing on the stump!

Back in 2020, when I went up North Canyon almost every day, I began piling up rocks to block an unofficial shortcut on the trail. Six years later, the piles are substantial. 

This is the lower portion, and I think some of the rocks have washed away over the years from storms.

This is the upper portion. I can no longer toss rocks on here, because there are almost always lizards on the rocks, but they run away before I take the picture. I have to gently place the rocks down.

In February I took my bike in for a tuneup, which improved the brakes and the right shifting, but it made the left shifting worse. I took it back in soon thereafter, and the mechanic made some adjustments, but she told me to pedal faster and push the lever harder. That didn't help, and when I did my triathlon in May, I had to go up a hill in third gear because it wouldn't switch to second. So I took it back again yesterday, and they're going to look at what they can do, though the mechanic seemed a bit skeptical. Am I being fussy and picky? But I think it's reasonable for me to want my bike to work properly. I'm more likely to ride my bike when there's snow on the ground, and as I think about upcoming bike rides, I actually dread it if my bike isn't going to shift properly when I'm going uphill. Sigh.

That's it for this week!

Goatheads and postcards

Sometimes August weeks are just finding joy in ordinary things, or in doing new things that aren't all that unusual. The week actually started off cool enough that I was able to go running in the evening, which I haven't been able to do since before the Fourth of July. And several days a week I go out to pull up goathead plants. In 2022, I adopted a spot on Marialana Way, and I keep going back to pull up new plants. I'm confident that I have pulled up hundreds, maybe even thousands, of baby goathead plants there, thus preventing them from growing more. And yet even after four years, more keep coming up, meaning the abominable seeds are viable after at least five years. This year I've adopted a new spot where Lacey Way becomes Center Street. I've also seen other places where they grow, but I can't pull them all up. It's not my job to save the world all by myself.

Yesterday (Saturday), I found some really enormous plants on my usual route, but they were off the sidewalk a little bit, where there are a lot of weeds and it begins to go into the gully (and someone's property). That means I hadn't seen them until they were so big. So I pulled them up. Since I had just run seven miles in North Canyon, I felt a little woozy in the heat.

Within the last few years, I learned that there is a restaurant in Salt Lake called Goat Head, and since that is the plant I love to hate, I felt like I had to go there. So that's what I did yesterday. It's not that exciting of a thing to do, but it was new and different. Unsurprisingly, as I walked down the block to Goat Head, there were goatheads growing in the sidewalk.

Since I'm flexitarian, I had a vegan sandwich with seitan. But I was very tempted by chicken and cornbread waffles.

Now, you might recall that in April, I went to Ken Sanders Rare Books and bought a bunch of vintage postcards for Washington's Birthday, Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Two weeks ago, our neighbor Laura gave me a whole box of vintage postcards she had collected for Christmas, Halloween, Fourth of July, Valentine's Day, and even one St. Patrick's Day. (I'm not posting them all here, because there were so many.) 

Well, once I was done at Goat Head, I decided to go back to Ken Sanders and look at the postcards again. I'm glad I did, because the last time I went, I had completely missed their section of New Year cards! And I bought additional postcards for holidays I already had.

Though I own and buy too much stuff, I think there are several reasons why it is valid for me to buy these postcards: (1) They are only one to three dollars apiece at Ken Sanders, so they don't break the bank; (2) I literally work in history and have been interviewed twice by local news outlets to discuss the history of Pioneer Day and Thanksgiving, so these postcards are related to my career interests; (3) since they are old and already exist, I'm not contributing to mass consumption; (4) they are small and don't take up much space. I don't know what exactly to do with them, but I enjoy having them and looking at them. So here are all the ones I bought yesterday!

I was surprised how many New Year's cards had horseshoes and four-leaf clovers! I had never heard of that motif before.

I think people actually believed the cherry tree story!

I love this autumnal scene. In the nineteenth century, Thanksgiving was seen as a wintry holiday, but by this time (1910), it had shifted to autumn.

I love the acorn cap

. . . and the spiky seedpods. 

I love that image of the Mayflower. The cashier asked me my favorite of the postcards I was buying, and I said this one.

I love the corn! They sure loved cherubs.

More horseshoes and four-leaf clovers!

I love the icy, snowy scene here! (And the clovers!) I hope we get another snowy New Year's.

I love the cars in these whimsical scenes

The back of this card specifies it was for Lincoln's Birthday

And this one is specifically for Washington's Birthday. I assume that's Betsy Ross, but it doesn't say so.

I like the holly. The cashier liked this card.

This is such an interesting card! The Pilgrims are more historically accurate than they're commonly displayed, since there are no buckles and they're wearing colorful clothes. Interesting to have the "Indian" looking in through the window instead of at the feast. And is that snow? I love that it's framed by a wishbone and red, white, and blue.

Governors used to issue Thanksgiving proclamations every year before it was always on a set Thursday, and it's fun to see a proclamation featured here.

Despite the fall setting of the earlier Thanksgiving postcards, here's a winter one! This combines the nineteenth-century winter ideal with the twentieth-century Pilgrim mythology.

Just love that orange pumpkin

I've seen live turkeys and cooked turkeys in Thanksgiving imagery, but this might be my first for dead, unplucked turkeys. Of course, this was before you could buy a frozen turkey!