Charles’ 
Slide of the Week: February 9th, 2007
Totem Pole Motel, Southwest USA 1960
With his paper bagged purchase in hand, a boy wearing blue jeans and a bolo tie poses in front of a trading post with a motel or a motel with a trading post. Whatever it is it’s a sensational Southwestern sensory overload to say the least.
In the center next to the front door, a wooden Indian sits in chair. His moccasins don’t touch the ground. Motel is spelled out in four rows of neon framed in a rustic font on a fake wood grain signboard. A coke machine is snuggled up to the mock adobe building.
And then there’s the finishing touch, a trio of totem poles –daddy, mommy and baby, who’s peeking out from behind that dangerous-to-get-to-close-to silvery-golden-green succulent. Or are they giant Kachina Dolls? Whatever they are they are related to Tiki gods and they remind me of the giant totem pole I made for a class project in third grade. I stacked six five gallon Baskin Robbins ice cream containers together, paper mache’d them and painted them with a colorful, exotic faces. Does anyone paper mache’ anymore?
Speaking of…the other night I paid my once-a-year visit to Baskin Robbins. I was craving a big ‘ol scoop of peanut butter and chocolate. It was delicious as usual and I was enjoying every quick melting bite and lick of the stingy scoop I got until I looked around and realized Baskin Robbins no longer has a different flavor for each day of the month. They’ve always had 31 flavors. Is less really more? Never with ice cream!
Here’s to totem poles, paper mache’, 31 flavors and YOU!
Charles Phoenix
Los Angeles
February 2007
8 Comments on “Totem Pole Motel, Southwest USA 1960”
Privacy Policy: Oh yeah...one more thing...I promise I will not share your email address with anyoneÉIÕm not that organized! You'll receive my Slide of the Week email and that's it!
file: single-slide-inc.php
February 9th, 2007 at 10:53 am
What a great picture! I’d say these are giant Kachina dolls, not totem poles, actually. I grew up in Arizona and there were a lot of these road-stops up north near Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon area especially….tourist-y places where you could go home with fist-fulls of fake turquoise and spearheads. You could also wander in the woods up north or in the deserts down south when I was younger, and find authentic pieces of pottery and jewelry laying around on the surface or just under. We’d make weekend trips just to collect the stuff and we never went home empty-handed. Of course, we didn’t know you weren’t supposed to take the treasure home! I remember we’d find at least a couple of corn-grinders each time we’d go. Such fun. Great slide…thanks, as usual!
February 9th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Please, Charles, bring back paper mache totem poles! Next online project maybe?
February 9th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Boy, does this bring back some memories! Of particular note to me is the oval “ATA” sign. My father was a BIG fan of AAA (as I am today) and we never went on a long road trip without a Triptych. But I remember being very disturbed when we would pass motels with this cheezy “ATA” sign. It was like the motel wasn’t good enough to pass AAA’s muster, so they had to settle for second best, and hope no one would notice that the middle letter didn’t match So sad. Only AAA approved motels for us, thank you very much!
So here’s to AAA and you, Mr. Phoenix!
February 9th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I have a vague memory of making a paper mache cow or bull laying down with his (or her) leg bending outward in front, and hiding it in the bushes outside our church, to retrieve later and present to one of the nuns. It’s the weirdest thing . . . maybe it was a dream. Oh, also peanut butter and chocolate ice cream from Baskin Robbins is great to use in a beer float . . . of course how I figured that out, well, that’s another story, involving skinny dipping. Sounds like another dream. Life is funny. Thanks again Charles for opening the floodgates of nostalgia and creativity. I vote for a paper mache project.
February 10th, 2007 at 2:29 am
While driving from Santa Monica to Maine on more then one occasion we stopped at just about every single place that looked just like that. I bought lots of stuff, from neon colored decals of each state visited to little cactus filled covered wagons. Trading posts ROCK.
RIP Jerry.
February 11th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Oh yes….paper mache. Very light weight and goo-ey. I used it to build the L’arch D’ triumphe as extra credit in French class. It was the only way to get better than a “D” score on my report card. Où sont les toilettes, s’il vous plait?
Tom
February 12th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Neat picture, Charles. Gets me thinking of family vacations during the summer. Did you see the old Coke machine in the back? I made a papier mache mask once. Why not visit Baskin Robbins the rest of the year as well?
Just curious.
February 23rd, 2007 at 11:04 am
Three cheers for peanut butter and chocolate! It’s the only reason I ever go to Baskin-Robbins these days, too. There’s a certain amount of atmosphere lacking at my local BR - it’s right next door to a tattoo parlor.