Anyway. Clear and cold, and no more rain due for a couple of days. I might get the last of the mulberry leaves cleaned away. It's almost time for the camellias to bloom.
Poking around in the USC image archives, I came across this interesting picture of a herd of 1920's era cars on a mountain road. It turned out to be a photo of the opening of the Mulholland Highway in 1924. This is the road which runs along the crest of the Hollywood Hills and Santa Monica Mountains for many miles, from Cahuenga Pass to somewhere west of Sepulveda Pass. Though I spent most of my life in Los Angeles, I never went up to look at this road. I heard about it all the time though. The views are supposed to be spectacular, especially at night.
This picture doesn't show the view, though. The thing which caught my eye is that herd of cars. There's something about those dangerous, gassy, noisy, inefficient, absurd looking early machines that I find very appealing. There were still af ew of them on the road when I was very young. My dad actually had an old Model "A" Ford I remember riding in a few times. It had a running board. I remember my dad racing a train to a crossing in that car. In those days, he sometimes drove with the same abandon with which he now treats kitchen utensils and cups of fruit juice. It's a wonder I'm alive today, to kill the ants his carelessness attracts.
But the cars are appealing. They look a bit silly, crowding the dirt road which gives every appearance of being in the middle of nowhere. That they are seen from the back makes them look even sillier. The rear ends of those cars were always their silliest part. Well, aside from the running boards. But the sight of all those drivers out for the adventure of driving on a new and dangerous road on that sunny day eighty years ago has a certain naive charm. As always, I think how little they knew of what lay ahead. As always, I think of how all of them are probably gone now, and their silly cars too. Looking at this picture is like seeing the start of a race that I know everyone is going to lose. Strangely, it still makes me happy.
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| On the Road Traffic gathered for the opening of the Mulholland Highway in the Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles, 1924. |
(click the image to see larger versions.)