Classic Rock Music Monday

The stuff that now passes as "music", particularly rock 'n roll, leaves me cold. So, to start off the week, here's a video of a classic rock artist. 

To begin this week, we have Robert Plant with his 1993 hit, "29 Palms". It is my favorite song by Plant in his post-Led Zeppelin solo career. One reason is that my grandmother lived in 29 Palms, California during the early 1960s and we used to go there to visit. I was last there during the 1992 Rodney King Riots. 

At 75, Plant is still active.

From Wikipedia:

Robert Anthony Plant CBE (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band Led Zeppelin from its founding in 1968 until their breakup in 1980; since then he has had a successful solo career, sometimes collaborating with other artists such as Alison Krauss. Regarded by many as one of the greatest singers in rock music, he is known for his flamboyant persona and raw stage performances.

1951 Ford Coupe

Above, the 1951 Ford Coupe model we had, but not quite as gussied up.

Some cars one's parents owned while one is a kid stand out more than others for varying reasons.

One such car was a 1951 Ford Coupe that my parents had around 1962-1965.

It was like the model (same color) above, only it wasn't customized like this one.

One weekend around 1962, we were going to 29 Palms, California to visit my grandmother. We were either on U.S. 101 or had already transitioned to what is now Interstate 10 in East Los Angeles (we had left the downtown L.A. area) when the car's engine blew a rod. This happened near California State University, Los Angeles.

Above, looking west on U.S. 101 towards downtown in
1950. Our car blew a rod about 2-4 miles east of this point.

What seemed like eternity, we were on the side of the freeway waiting to be towed off. Finally, we were towed to a friend of my dad's home in South-Central Los Angeles. We were there until my grandfather picked us up.

My dad's plan was go replace the engine with a rebuilt one from work. At the time, he worked for Engine Rebuilding Corporation on McKinley Avenue and 55th Street in Los Angeles. He was able to get an engine from them relatively cheap (employee discounts do come in handy). Once he got the engine, he and friends installed it into the Ford. 

My dad worked at Engine Rebuilding until 1976 when he sustained a back injury. He was on temporary disability for awhile. Once healed, he went to work at Hughes Aircraft in El Segundo, only a mile from home. He worked there until he retired. Engine Rebuilding Corp. went out-of-business in 1977, I found. That's likely why he didn't go back. 

We had the car until around 1965 when he gave it to my uncle. My uncle later totaled the car not too long afterwards. 

Mockel Painting

Above, the Mockel acrylic painting. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

A few days ago, I was dusting around the house when I came to a small acrylic painting (pictured above) of a desert smoketree from the Gallery of Henry R. Mockel.

I never took a real look at the painting or the backside of it before, even though it has been in the family for decades (at least since the 1960s). That got me curious about the artist.

My grandmother lived in Twentynine Palms for a time until health issues caught up with her. Henry and his wife Beverly published books on desert flora and opened the gallery in Twentynine Palms. I am guessing that my grandmother bought the painting there while she lived in the California desert town. 

According to ArtPlantae Today:

Impressed with what she saw during a visit to California to attend a nursing conference, Beverly Mockel returned to Cooperstown, New York to talk her husband, artist Henry R. Mockel, into moving to the Golden State. When she succeeded at this task, they moved to the town of Calico in the Mojave Desert in 1958. While residents of Calico, the Mockel’s often took trips to Joshua Tree National Park to see the wildflowers. They made frequent stops so Henry could paint flowers along the way. Eventually they decided they should move closer to the flowers, so they moved themselves and their 47-foot house trailer to Twentynine Palms in 1961. After settling into their new home, Henry and Beverly opened the Pioneer Art Gallery in what is now the Historic Plaza. One can only imagine that this new exciting desert lifestyle was quite a change for Henry, a former bookbinder, farmer and cattle rancher.

The painting is signed by Beverly. She may have painted it herself as the Desert Sun described her as an artist along with her husband Henry:

Henry and Beverly were trained artists and philosophers from New York who landed in the remote desert. Here they turned their efforts to creating illustrated books by hand with old presses at their studio.

I now know a little more about those behind the painting, which hangs in my living room next to the bay windows on the west side.