Episode 34 - @hmdavidcalmod - From San Jose with Love

It's been a wild week. I was on a cruise with my family and had it interrupted by Hurricane Milton. I finally got this week's show together with the AMAZING Heather David. She's a veritable 5-tool player in the sign game: restoring, fundraising, author, and so on. She gives many-a-great reason to put San Jose, CA on your sign finding bucket list. 

You can follow her at:

Instagram

Flickr

You can buy her books at:

Preservation San Jose

Amazon

Calmod Books


One point of correction: the Atlas Sign has a kinda sorta not so much similar look to the Western Appliance sign. It had been a while since I saw the Atlas sign completely and it only has two vertical supports and not three. That's me screwing it up. Thanks Debra Jane for the correction!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome to the International sign finders. Glad you're back with us.
Hope to get another great weekend of getting out hitting
the pavement, finding signs, taking pictures of them and showing
them to everybody I know. For me, I found a
new one up in Kingwood. It's a new pizzaia tap
house called Perry's. You would, and they have like New
York signage. I just don't think of Perry being from

(00:48):
New York, but you know what they do them and
it's a pretty cool sign. It's good to see new neon,
especially up in an area like Kingwood. But tonight our
guest comes from San Jose, calip Now, when you think
of California, obviously you think of you know, the top
three cities, La San Diego, San Francisco, but we cannot

(01:09):
forget about San Jose. They do have a shart yet.
But also from a cultural sign finding standpoint, there are
a lot of cool signs in San Jose. And so
welcome to our show. Uh, Heather David, did I get
there right?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
You did?

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Thank all? True? You're welcome. For some reason, I want
to say McDavid and McDavid's the hockey player from Edmonton.
I apologize about that.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Whatever you want.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Let's not go that far.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
I'm easy going. You can mean David, David Eather, I
mean that's right, whatever you want.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
To call me. Oh and my memory had like seem
so journal. I had her on a couple of weeks
ago and for some reason I couldn't remember her name
was Christine.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
And I mean, Mike, you you forget, I know, thank.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
You you get. Yeah, it's been it's been a little
uh rough, to say the least. I've been working with
fevers and stuff and that's not fun. Yeah, yeah, you
should do that. Kids, stay home rest unless you have
a lot of bills. So, Heather, introduce yourself to the
sign finding community.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Okay, well, I think a lot of people might already
know me. Okay, my name is Heather David and I've
been researching and documenting historic vintage signs probably since about
two thousand and one. I'm really more of an architecture enthusiast,
but I got involved with signs because a lot of

(02:39):
times buildings and signs go hand in hand, and the
particular era that I'm most interested in would be mid
century modern post war roughly late forties to maybe or
least seventies. That's kind of my sweet spot. But I
love all history and I just want to give a

(02:59):
show out out to San Jose because Santose is actually,
I believe, the third largest city in California, and we were,
we were the first state capital. Santose just doesn't do
a very good job of marketing San Jose. Yeah, something
we've struggled with constantly. But there's so much to see
and do here that I'm constantly singing do you know

(03:20):
the way to San Jose? Hit a song? You know, Yeah,
but yeah, I mean it's there's so much to see
and do here, and part of the tourism, believe it
or not, is you know, we've got a pretty substantial
inventory of benage signs, and we've been able to demonstrate
that people actually care about them, both locals and people

(03:41):
from far away places.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Now, I recently got your the San Jose Science Project
Guide to British Signage of San Jose, and it is
a lovely little book. I just have to say that
thanks for Yeah, You're welcome and the sign We'll get
into that later. But uh, and even with San Jose,
you think a Silicon Valley before you think of.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
San Jose unless you live here.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I've known people from Santa Was, the
Los Gatos, I think I know them. Santa Clara, I've
met people from there.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Is, Santa Claina, Santa Clara. Yeah, the Santa Cla County,
Santa Seas claim to fame. I mean we were. We
were a major, major agricultural center in California. And then
you know, after World War Two, the land was flat
and the climate was great, and so it was right

(04:37):
for development, and so you would see tons of houses
going up and schools for the children, and shopping centers
and commercial strip malls and car dealerships and churches and
what what did you also see going up at that time?
Sign because signs, roadside signage was pretty key part of

(05:01):
the advertising for most businesses at that time. We didn't
have internet, you know advertising, you know, and even print
advertising was quite costly. If you invested in a sign,
it was there to stay.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, and hey, that was kind of the I talked
with Will about this three yeared rabbit. I've talked with
other people as well, because you had to get eyes
on products somehow. Absolutely painted sign is great, but there's
something about me, especially a animated Neon sign with you

(05:37):
know those bulbs that are going on and off, on
and off, and the and the light's going off on
and off, and you got to get people. You gotta
get butts in seats somehow.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Oh. Absolutely, But I'm going to be really controversial here.
Oh there's some great plastic signs too. Oh yes, I
mean great design is great design, and so it's interesting
to me. I mean it just it's almost like there's
two camps ofists. There are people that like neon and
only neon. There are people that are open to just
great design. And I'm one of the latter types of people.

(06:09):
Great design is great design to me. And the first
sign I ever shot was a plastic a flexic glass
sign that it's gone now, but it was so spectacular
that it did require me to pull over, get out
my Vivitar film camera and balance carefully on a traffic meeting,

(06:31):
hoping I didn't get run over and take a piece
of snaps. And to the best of my knowledge, up
until recently, those photographs I took with my old timey camera,
those are the only photographs that really were widely circulating
of that sign.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Sometimes that's all you got let right. All you have
left is maybe, if you're lucky, a postcard or an
old advertisement or a matchbook cover. So that's another reason
why we need to document these cultural artifacts because someday
they may be gone.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
There's a guy out of I want to say Chicago
matchbook match book t shirts, I think, and he contacted
me a while back about the Swayze barbecue joint in Houston.
I think it was Patrick Swayze's mom, or they're related somehow,
because Patrick Suoise is from Houston. They like to tell
you that he's the Garden Oaks area. But so he

(07:28):
showed me the design and so those matchbooks are really cool.
And the postcards Maring the Neon Queen, which she can't
get out and take pictures of signs in the Kansas City, Missouri,
Kansas City, Kansas area, She'll sometimes dig around and find
postcards of signs.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
And oh, I always get the postcard. I always get
the postcard if I can, because I want it just
as a reference. You know, I love shooting the signs today,
but if you can go back to the postcard era,
you're seeing them in their original historic context. And that
means interesting to me because the signs might have been

(08:09):
modified over time. True.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
And what's really cool about your Instagram page? Because you
said you're both on Instagram and Flicker. Correct, Yeah, so
this is probably amplified ten times over a flicker. You
will show sometimes the sign and then the postcard, maybe
a two separate posts. What was it? Oh, he is

(08:32):
a plastic sign. I think you also had a postcard
of it. I'd have to go through your feed again.
Maybe I'm putting two things together that are not together.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Now, it's probably there.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
My Insta I guess my Insta handle if that's what
you call it is HM? Is it hm? David Kelmoud? Yes,
So I'm relatively new to Instagram, and I'll tell you
why it took me so long to get on Instagram.
With all the arrest of that cool kids, her has
been extremely good to me. Flicker Flicker. I cannot tell

(09:11):
you how many people I have met through Flicker. I
can't tell you how I cannot tell you how many
stories have been served to me through a Flicker. The
thing about Flicker is that the content is static. So
you do a post and you tag it okay, and
then when people do Google image search, it comes up.
So somebody is researching a particular sign and you've tagged it,

(09:35):
it just comes up in the Google imag search and
the people reach out to you. So I've been connected
with the children of famous signed designers that I'm able
to put the pieces of the puzzle together through Flicker.
I can't even search my Instagram. If someone knows how
to search Instagram, let me know, because I can. I
don't even know if I posted something before. Sometimes I'm

(09:56):
just like, did I post that before?

Speaker 1 (09:57):
It could be a little It could be that means
the search engine optimization. Has it hit Instagram in a way?
You do that?

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah? Really, I think it's still the content is kind
of kept under wraps, but Flicker is really out there.
So you know, I just have had so many amazing
experiences through Flicker, and I'll just give you I don't
know if you want to hear them now, but I've
had a couple signed restoration stories that were facilitated by

(10:29):
research that I uncovered and posted on click.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
We could do that at great Okay, that'd be a
great stopping point. So tonight we have Heather David. She's
doing the Lord's work there. San Jose, go and follow
her on Instagram. It's oh achib David Kalmud, ad that
in the show notes. Don't worry. I'll have that in

(10:52):
the show notes, but also have her Flicker accounting in
the show notes as well, and maybe some links to
her books. Yes, books once out of print, one's still going.
And also she's got other projects in the waiting in
the wings, so you don't want to miss out on that.
You're listening to International sign Finders. Welcome back to International

(11:31):
sign Finders. Glad you're stile with us. We have segment
two with Heather David she is HM, David Kalmod. That
doesn't flow off the tongue as well as you would hope,
but uh right, no, it's no. I'm thinking for me
as a broadcaster, I will make it. We will make
it flow off the tongue. How about that? Him, David Kalmod.

(11:55):
There we go. That sounds I got it. I put
in my mind to it. I'll get to it. Uh yeah,
I need to. I need to find a better hobby.
But uh, glad you're with us, and we were talking
about Flicker just before we hit the brake, and uh
it tell us about the restoration projects that you've got

(12:18):
going that you were able to either kickstart or you
currently have going from using Flicker.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
So I mean, I don't want to say that I
spearheaded anything. Okay, It's like I do believe in connections.
So there are two. I mean, I've been involved in
a number of preservation historic preservation projects in the San
Francisco Bay area. Okay, so that's one storyline. The other
storyline would be I, based on my passions and interests,

(12:51):
I uncover stories and I put all of my research
up on Flicker and I tag it so that people
that might also be looking for these stories can easily
find it. So a couple of things that happened. One
summer I was underemployed. I was waiting for my book Motel,
California to be It was at the printer, so it's

(13:14):
being printed. I had a couple months that I was
underemployed because I took time off from work to do
the book, and I got loaned boxes and boxes of
back issues of Signs of the Times magazine. Now I know,

(13:34):
I know it was the mother load. I could have fainted.
And you know, I had been buying Signs of the
Times magazines randomly on eBay, and they were very expensive,
so I had a few just because you know, you
never know what you might uncover. But I was loaned
all these magazines, and so I spent three months turning

(13:57):
the pages and taking photographs and scanning information and signs.
And I did that because I was documenting one a
California based sign company by the name of Electrical Products
Corporation that had disappeared in the early sixties but was
really a crucial piece of the sign industry on the

(14:23):
West Coast in particular. And then I felt the story
needed to be told and uncovered. But along the way,
of course, everything that was of interest to me, I
scanned and uploaded to Flicker. And I don't know if
you've been to Las Vegas recently, but the Blue Angel
Motel was restored beautifully for a long time. The Betty

(14:49):
Willis was designer of the signage, and for a long
time the Blue Angel Motel had a really, really unfortunate
makeup job. She looked a little bit like whatever happened
to Jane. It was just girlfriend did not look that good.
And what I was able to uncover in an old
back issue of Science at the Times was a photo

(15:11):
of the Blue Angel Motel shortly after it had gone up. Okay,
and the folks that restored the sign used the I
was told the folks that restored the side used the
image from that they were able to find from Flicker
as a guideline or a restoration that would be historically accurate,

(15:32):
and that that's what I was told. Another story that
I have is I was really close to Chuck Bernard,
who was a very extremely talented artist, slash sign designer,
slash author. He was a former art director for at
Art Signs in Las Vegas, and we were really close

(15:55):
and he gave me a copy of the shop floor
instructions for Vegas.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Picky.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
He must be familiar with Vegasickey, she's the cowgirl. Yeah,
she almost like she's wearing a Dallas Cowboys outfit. And
actually she was kind of like the outfit for Vegas.
Vicky was kind of inspired by Dallas Cowboys or cheerleading
time outfit. But anyway, she was kind of languishing along

(16:26):
Fremont Street for quite some time and no one really
knew what was gonna happen to her. For a time,
they were talking about even splitting the sign into two pieces,
so it would be instead of a few sided sign,
it'd be like one sided sign, and you know, maybe
one would go to a museum. One piece would go
to the museum, they a piece would go who knows where.
So anyway, that was really everybody was up in arms
about that. But he gave me the shop floor instructions

(16:49):
for how she was to be painted and produced, and
I said to I'm gonna go. Look, you know you've
got to sign these. He looked at me like I
was crazy. He just he really thought that my enthusiasm
for signs was a little bit out there. But I said,
you know this mine means so much to people, you
really need to sign this for me. So he signed
the shop floor instructions. I was so proud. I skipped.

(17:12):
I took a photo, put it up on Flicker, tagged it,
and I was told that when Yesco restored the sign,
which is now at Circle Las Vegas and looks absolutely beautiful,
they pulled Chuck's autograph off the off the shop floor
instructions and blew it up and put on her boot.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
That is awesome.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
When I was in Vegas and I went to go
see the restored Vegas Vicky, I was really emotional because
I knew that Chuck, who's now gone no longer with us,
we'll never get to see the restored Vegas Vicky. But
I went to go look at the boot, and sure enough,
there was the there was the autograph. So I love
stories like that. I love connections I've run into, you know,

(17:55):
people reaching out to me and saying thank you so
much for writing about my father and celebrating his work.
You know, I don't think anybody knows who he is,
and I don't know. I think it's important. The stories
behind the signs to me are almost as important as
the signs themselves.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
And for me, this is where I get a feeling
of imposter syndrome because I don't I haven't delved into
some of these stories as much as I should, maybe
because my excuse is here in Houston. They're just there
are many old signs and you don't get to hear

(18:33):
these stories as much. There's some new sign makers like
mister Neanderthal and Houston sign Maker, and there's another guy
on the West side of Houston. But when I was
going through Salt Lake, the Rainbow sign makers, the Sun
would pop up in my mentions and explain the sign,
and to me that was amazing because to me, you know,

(18:56):
I'm just going through there. I'm finding these signs like
these are pretty cool, and they would come and tell
you a little bit of the history. And that's the
one thing I need to get into a bit better
as the history, uh, because I can get very superficial, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
But he has their own angle. I wouldn't. I wouldn't.
I mean, you're providing a platform for people like me
to talk about what we find. Maybe that's that's your calling,
that's you're that puzzle piece.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, I mean I come across as the blank canvas
that people paint the stories off, you know.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
What I'm I don't do a good job of putting
myself out there. I really don't. I mean, that's not
my thing. I'm kind of a I like to walk
down lonely roads by myself and take photos and then
go research, you know, and talk to people and network
and and put together the stories and write for this

(20:00):
Society for Commercial Archaeology and other articles unior magazines. I'm
not out there, you know, just doing my own podcast.
I asked them, thinks I should be, but you probably
should think And everybody has their own thing and we
all we are we're all part of the solution, right
because yeah, you have to demonstrate that these signs matter

(20:23):
or all bets are. H. I mean, that is the
preservation angle. The signs have to matter to people.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
And then you know, amazing because we were talking before
we came out too the podcast about you showed was it, Oh,
San Francisco and San Jose like a one city block
having fifty commercial signs on it, and now there's one.
Sorry I took Sorry if I took away your thunder

(20:51):
there over that. But imagine the stories from like Syracuse
cans which has a cool the only one, the only
side I know of is this. Uh it's a dang it.
It's a movie, Marquee, beautiful movie Marquee. I wish I

(21:14):
would have gone and taken a photo of it, but
it didn't because you know, time was winding down. You
got two hungry girls of the back with my wife
and we need did it to the next stop as
fast as we can, Or like Chickashet, Oklahoma, which has
a ton of signs that they're restoring, and you know
San Jose larger market, uh, larger area, and then you

(21:37):
can have small little towns across dotted across the United
States that all have similar stories, maybe not as large
as San Jose or San Francisco or La but they
had a sign presss as well that a handful of

(21:57):
those doing the work are trying to say.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
And the thing that people I don't think stop to
think about is most of these signs are one of
a kind. Yes, I mean one of the signs in
Houston are Houston's history. The signs in San Jose are
Santase's history, our unique history, and so then it becomes
for me a historic and cultural place marker. Yeah, it's pretty.

(22:28):
Some people may esthetically like it or not esthetically like it.
Some people may appreciate it, some people may not appreciate it.
That's not always the conversation I'm interested in having, because
everybody has different tea. For me, the conversation I'm I'm
interested in having is what does it mean in the
larger context of our history and our story.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
For me, finds as a child were historic place markers.
So I knew, you know, I knew I was home
because of the signs that I saw. I knew when
we went on road trips, you would have a you know,
it would be like like a trail, a Brent trail
from one place to another year because you could see

(23:10):
a sign and you knew you were like half an
hour away from so and so or I just I
don't know. I mean, for me, it's been I like them.
They're pretty. They were designed to be likable. They were
designed to be noticeable. If you if you designed a
sign and nobody stopped to look at it, well then
it was an epic fail, wasn't it right? You know,

(23:30):
people say to me, why why do you like signs?
I'm like, why wouldn't you like signs? I mean they
were designed to be light, they were designed to be noticed.
They were designed to get you pull your car over
and open your wallet exactly.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
And I mean and Richard Gutman got into that a
few months ago. But that is a great place to
stop for our second segment. When we come back, we
will talk about those individual design signs and what they
meant for the community and what they also meant for
the business as well, because you know, there's got to
be that symbiotic relationship between the community tourists. Will add

(24:08):
in tourists as well, because they they play a part
of this and also the company. Uh, you're listening to
International Sign Finders, Welcome back into International side Finders. Gladger

(24:38):
with us. We had the amazing Heather David gus HF
David Kalmud that flows off the tongue. Forget what it
said the previous segment, it flows off the tongue. I'm sorry. Yeah,
sometimes I get a little too honest. But we're talking
about the historical implications of signs and what they should

(25:00):
mean to people, even though they don't always mean that
to people. Now we're talking about the you talked about
the uniqueness of signs. Now the Western Appliance sign. If
you find the San Jose Science Project or go over
to Heather's Instagram account, you will scroll down and you'll
find this amazing Uh. Was it upside down pentagon with

(25:24):
like a trita in the background. I'm describing this very poorly,
I know, with the arrow saying park in the rear. Uh.
This sign is very unique. And if we could put
a marker for a sign that means San Jose, you
could probably do that. There's some other ones and the
sign Guide that can tell you this is San Jose.

(25:48):
That's the beauty of mcm design is it's almost one
of a kind, if not one of a kind.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Some are replicated like Munger Moss and uh of the
Holiday Inn and there's another one. I know I'm missing that.
All the rest Haven Motel and Missouri and sit there
in the Silver part of the America in the Midwest.
But wester your appliance that has a tie here to
Houston and Atlas Science Alas Science kind of took that

(26:17):
design and made a plastic version. It is a really
cool sign, even though it's plastic. But that sign has
influenced outside of its spirit. Seems like I can only
give you one anecdotal evidence of it. But for San Jose,
what does Western Appliance mean to you guys?

Speaker 2 (26:40):
I think for the folks in San Jose, both for
the people that it's interesting. You've got the people that
grew up with Western Appliance, Like I bought when I
first moved into my house, I bought my washer and
dryer from Western appliants. We all bought our appliance is
there Hekia. You've got the people that you know, experience

(27:00):
the business. You have the people Westernpliance is on a
street that's our de facto antiques row. It used to
be it used to be filled with car dealerships. Now
most of them are used car dealerships. It's just it's

(27:21):
like a time capsule of San Jose history. There are
so many signs located on San Carlo Street in San
Jose and in an area called Burbank, So that's kind
of like the epicenter of where you can see a
lot of signs in one place. And so when we
did our first San Jose science Guide, and I really
need to give props to the to the folks in Tucson,

(27:41):
because I stole their idea. I'm I'm not gonna take
credit for this. Tisson just On Historic Preservation Foundation put
out a science guide of their own back in twenty twelve,
and it was called the Neon Pueblo. And if you
have not been to Tucson to do sign peep and
needed to get yourself.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
To Tucson, you're not kidding, I really do.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
I mean, it is just not only are the people
so welcoming and there's so much to see in Tucson,
but the sign inventory is just incredible. There's so much
to see and they're very actively involved in historic preservations.
So they were ahead of the curve. I mean they
put out their booklet again, I want to say, it's
called the Neon Pueblo. I think if you can find

(28:25):
it sometimes you can even download a PDA or if
you can find a booklet for sale maybe on eBay
or Amazon. They did a great job. And so how
the sanse Science Project got started is I've been, you know,
documenting signs in San Jose since two thousand and one. Oh,
you wanted to act. You wanted me to answer your
question about Western Line too.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
The way if we go as that's fine too.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Kind of got to go back to do you understand
how why the Western Fly sign ended up on the
cover the first San Jose Science Guide. There are now
three San Jose Science Guides by the way.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Yeah, So first of all, stole the idea or borrowed
the idea if you will, from Tucson because they just
did this booklet. It was amazing.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
You're standing on the shoulders of giant I am.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
And so I said to myself, and of course i'm
you know, I'm a lot of my projects stem from frustration.
I'll be honest with you. Yeah, I mean that's how
I if I do something, it's because I'm just tired
of waiting for someone else to do it. And so
we had been documenting and celebrating our signs in San
Jose since the early two thousands. Our local alternative newspaper

(29:32):
ran a number of great articles on the signs, and
everybody's like, somebody should do something, and we need to
save those signs. And I'm like, you know, years go by, right, yeah,
two thousands, and now we find ourselves In twenty seventeen,
I had had a cop I picked up a copy
of the Tucson Guide and I went to the sa
as a Preservation Action Council and I said, you know,

(29:54):
why are we doing that? You know, what is what
is our problem here? P really need to be advocating
for science. And at the time, the preservation and this
has changed, Preserpation Action Council in San Jose was largely
focused on architectural preservation and that was really when you're
a volunteer group, you have limited resources, and so they

(30:19):
were really originally they were kind of intrigued by the
sign narrative and they were willing to invest in the
first Sanaise Science Guide. And I'm grateful for that, because
I didn't have the money to produce it. So we
got funding for the San Jose Science Project Preservation Action
Council of San Jose to produce the first San Jose
Science Guide, which is build on about twenty six signs

(30:44):
in and around the San Carlos Steins Creek San Carlos
area of San Jose, blank area of San Jose, so
the people could do a driving tour realistically in one day, okay,
of that area. And so we put together the booklet,
did the best we could to research and document as
much as we could of every sign and we're thinking,

(31:06):
you know, how many of these booklets should we produce.
We did an initial print run a three hundred booklet, thinking,
oh gosh, I hope, I hope weekend recoup our investment.
They sold it, literally can here, booklet's gone. We asked
ten dollars for the booklet, you know, basically covering the
cost of production, hoping that maybe if there's anything left over,

(31:28):
we could put it toward maybe the beginnings of our
advocacy campaigns. And the first run a booklets sold out,
second run of booklets sold out, third run it, so
you're starting to show especially show. You know people at
the city of San Jose, these signs mean something to people.
You've got proof here when you can't keep these booklets

(31:49):
in the stock people are buying them is Christmas stocking staffers.
They're you know, people from out of state are buying
them as kind of souvenir booklet if you will, of
their lives. You start to really show the importance of
these signs. And so the Western Appliance sign, for me,

(32:11):
it was really kind of it was my sign. It
was the sign that meant I'm home to me. There
are many signs that mean a lot to me in Santase,
but I happened to live maybe ten minutes from Western Appliance,
and when it was turned on at night, when I
was coming home from anywhere, I would always look to
see if it was one. And it's huge. It went

(32:34):
up in about nineteen sixty two. It was produced by
Electrical Products Corporation that was going through a merger with
Federal Sign out of Chicago, and so Federal Sign gets
the credit for the sign, but it really was the
designers at EPCHO that designed that sign. I actually talked
to the person that sold the sign to Western Appliance

(32:56):
before you passed away. I was really trying to research
all the signs for the guide. It took me six
months to actually get in touch with him. Lona Story
months and years to come together. The Western Clients site
is totally unique in that at the time, city sign
ordinances said, you know what, you can't have a rooftop
sign anywhere, you know, And so the people at EPCO

(33:23):
they built the sign. The legs of that sign goes
straight through the store.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Oh oh wow.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
I was like, so it's not a rooftop side. If
the post go through the store and when you go
into the store you can actually see the legs of
the side. I think that's brilliant. Yeah, kind of way
around because it's so big and right now, what we're
trying to do is make sure that it's maintained because
it's such a big sign. There is a business in
the old Western Appliance store, but I don't know if

(33:51):
they've got the money to maintain the sign. It's very
expensive to maintain sign. I think the Western Appliance when
it was in the store was just like five thousand
dollars alone on electricity now alone, you know, not including
their greatness work. But yeah, I mean we need to
do something to preserve it because if you just leave
them alone at a certain point in time, they just

(34:14):
fall apart. You didn't call demolition from neglect, right exactly. Yeah,
that was my sign. It still is my sign. I
love western appliance. It's Western appliance to me, says I'm home,
it says it's it's our welcome to San Jose sign,
just like Las Vegas has it's welcome to Las Vegas sign.
And in LA you might say that LA has the

(34:35):
Hollywood Sign. That might be their most iconic sign, although
there are, you know, hundreds of beautiful signs in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
You could probably say number two of you Bob's Big Boy.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, Bob's Big Boy.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
There's also I mean, there's just there's so many Los Angeles.
I mean, if you get a chance to do a
downtown tour of Los Angeles, your job will just drop.
If you get a chance. The Museum of me on
Art and Glendale.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
Does Oh, I need to go there so bad.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
It's an amazing museum. And I hope you've been to
the American Sign Museum in Ohio.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
I have not. It's been it has been, oh, nineteen
ninety six, nineteen ninety seven is when I was least
in Cincinnati.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, not to get there.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
I do to Oh your Jennings.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
You could bring a sleeping bag and you could leave
me there for a week.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
And they they just opened up the main street.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, you didn't even see that yet.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yeah, I'm just blown away by what they do. And
also in Kansas City they're they're opening up the Loominee
On Sign Museum.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah, a lot of a lot of a lot of
see it's taking at Yeah, but it's people raising the
issue and taking the time to celebrate these signs, whether
that be an article, whether that be a photograph, whether
that be I have there's a local artist who he'd

(36:02):
a she road car that paints the signs in San Jose.
She's an urban sket courage so talented, and she's got
a vintage Signs of San Jose booklet, she had an
exhibited the History San Jose Museum. She's so talented. And
so it takes people to celebrate these signs in their

(36:24):
own unique ways to prove to the folks that can
make a difference that these these are worthy of preservation.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Awesome that's a great. Uh, jumping off point into segment four. Uh,
we're talking about the preservation San jose Man. It's great
when you have a locale that gets it, if that
makes sense. Pocatella light at Hope.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, I think the public, I mean I don't think that.
I don't think that people got it right away. Yeah,
but yeah, to prove it where we did the Sandy
Science Project kickoff in twenty seventeen. Again thanks to Preservation
Action Council, this is would have happened. They helped us
produce the booklet and Lisa Waits this was a designer

(37:14):
on the booklet with me, and she did a phenomenal job.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Oh wow, it is.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
She's just yeah, you know, you gotta have good packaging
and she was just I couldn't have done it without her.
But anyway, so.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
What I guess what I'm saying is they now get it.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Oh, they get it absolutely edit because.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Of great people like you and Quirky and toied up
in Denver and jeez, I can't remember who it was
Preservation Utah. They've been working with Salt Lake City and
I believe Moab in places like that to preserve the sign.

(37:53):
You know, find a way to preserve the size even
with the old companies like Rainbow h and was surprised
we Yesca works with them as well. And also you
got to give a shout out to Pokatello Whydaho and
they're Light Light Pokatelo at Night uh series where they
have taken all those amazing signs of downtown Pocatello. And

(38:16):
you would never think pokatel Idahoe is a sign Haven.
It is a sign Haven. I I got to take
pictures of it and I didn't get hardly any and
it bugs me.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
This means you have to go back exactly you know
it just when you are photographing something. Somehow the memory
of that experience, I mean, you carry that with you
in a way that I mean. It's just it's interesting.
I was I was photographing and building. I want to
photograph a building. And I was with a bunch of friends.

(38:50):
We were going out to dinner. I said, pull the
car over, I really need to shoot this, and they said,
you know, no, no, no, no, we don't talk. I'll
shoot it for you tomorrow and I'll send you a picture.
I go, you don't understand, it's not the same I
need to shoot it exactly feel it. I need to
see it, and I need to see it now, So
pull over the car. It'll take me thirty seconds to

(39:11):
shoot this, So.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Sorry did you You must be familiar with Neon Speaks
and I am, okay, good.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
But I just it's slip my mind to do them speaks.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
It just happened. And so many of the people that
you've spoken to, we're either at Mean Speaks or involved
in Neon Speaks. And I have to give credit to
radl Aholman and Albarna because they are the connectors. You know,
we are all trying to advocate for our unique resources
in our own geographic regions. They bring everyone together and

(39:55):
where we can share our knowledge and share our experiences
because we're stronger together than they are alone. And I
cannot thank them enough. I've met so many people through
Neon Speaks, and it is the conference for celebrating neon
signs and preserving neon signs. They even have a book

(40:17):
about neon preservation. No one had taken the time to
put together a book on how to how to preserve
a sign correctly. So yeah, I highly recommend Neon Speaks
and Randall and Holman and al Barna Art to be commended.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
You're like the eighth person who's told me I need
to get out there.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
You need to eat it. But you also need to
interview them. They're probably exhausted after the conference. Yeah, but
you know you really need to speak with them because
we all want to help each other. Like I care
about the signs in Denver. I care about the signs
of Nissan. I care about the signs in Phoenix. I
care about I mean, I really do care. Of course
I have a bias the signs in my own backyard,

(41:02):
but there just aren't People don't get it. There aren't
that many of these hand crafted signs. Let exactly, I'm
squinger almost.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, that's been stripped.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
It's heartbreaking and horrifying and depressing.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
I was talking to Macaronic and he talked about London.
You know, apparently there used to be able a few
more Neon signs in London, but they would make Neon
signs for brought for for theater shows. They created one
for oh what's her name? She's the famous mystery author

(41:39):
from England. As soon as Escape My Tongue. But they
have a eightieth anniversary Neon sign for her show being
shown on on the stage. And that's how amazing those
signs are. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Well, the Nelon was had a heyday. I mean, he
didn't have a hate day. And I think Neon had
a kind of a you know, we lost a lot
of Neon and in the seventies because of scrappled signs initiatives,
the SOS initiatives. I like to say that scrapple science,
the SOS initiatives. That's a new acronym now the SOS

(42:20):
dance for sabold signs, not scrapple designs. But yeah, the
highly Beautification Act. Really, you know, just all that and
a lot of sign companies. The sad thing is a
lot of sign companies were happy to help out with
getting rid of the old science because then they could
sell a news sign. True, So they were part of
part of this, uh you know, wipeout of a lot

(42:42):
of you know, handcrafted and designed artifacts. But then there
was a revival and Neon, I think in the eighties
and and now I want to say that there's a
revival now. I mean, look, if you ever go to Austin,
my goodness, look at all the neon often.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Uh Dallas. Uh, Dallas has a lot of old neon
as well. Surprisingly, I was talking.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
To new neon too, because I know has a new
neon deep.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Lu uh deepllo. Yeah yeah, it has a ton of
like new neon. And we accidentally drove through there on
our way up to Oklahoma City to see my mom
before she passed, and Uh, I was like, we need
to take pictures. My wife said, we gotta get we
gotta get to Oklahoma City. It's like, dang it, so
I gotta get. I need to have like a separate

(43:34):
bank account for at a first sign hunting expedition.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, you do. It's hard. It's hard to get in there.
I mean it just it really Again, I cannot thank
Debor Jean Seltzer and architecture at Dot Calm enough because
you know, Debora Jane travels all over the country on
her own time and dime, and that's her vacation time,
and that you know, I've given her some money because

(44:01):
she's paid for the gas herself and you know, some
public service. And I think the difference between her and
John Martley's you know, Rest in Peace. He was amazing
and what he contributed is it just could never be replaced.
But I do feel like she goods that extra mile
and really digging up the human stories behind these cultural
artifacts whenever she can, and she gets new information, she

(44:23):
immediately adds it to her website.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yeah, and holy teo, and she is a database. I mean, yeah,
the website is amazing. Her mind is even greater. I know.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yeah, she's kind of photographic memory too, So sometimes I
tell her, like, there's a building and we've had we've
had some I mean, most people would not find this fun,
but for Debora, Jade and I. One day, we were
trying to figure out the relationship between Hyatt coffee shops
and Copper Penny coffee shops, and we were like going

(44:57):
back and forth and deep diving in a newspaper, paper
dot com and for hours we were like putting together
the pieces for the mergers and acquisitions and architects and
we were having a grand all time. But I think
ninety nine percent of people would just think we're nut.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Yeah, I I For me, I've been trying to figure
out what to call like, uh, you know size that
have popcorn on them, Uh they're there, you know, or
ah the night in Shining Armor for the costume shop

(45:33):
in Salt Lake or Flowers Is it is that a
type of sign or whatever? Uh, it's not mimetic architecture,
because that is an architecture. But my missus is an
old Platonic term which talks about having those memes means
something like you can look at that and know, okay,

(45:55):
that's they're representing popcord, you know, like the theuld buttons
on your gene. That's kind of there's a there's a
fifty dollars word out there that is slipping in my
mind and I'll share it with you. Like the old
icons or Mac computers, when you look at a map,

(46:15):
it was a map and that was that represented the maps.
You didn't have to think, oh my gosh, is this
no flat iconic or something like that. There's a big
word I can't remember, and I wonder if that ties in.
She yeah, So we had a big log conversation. I
was wrong, and I admit it about the.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Mamedic mind being wrong, because that's how you learn. I mean, honestly,
I don't mind being corrected. I'd like to get the
right information personally, so but.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Sometimes I'll push something let me know, Yeah, yeah, sometimes
I might push something a little too much because I'm like,
why can't it be? But yes, So that'll bring us
to the head of segment three of International Sign Finders.
When we would come back, what are some of Heather's
bucketless places as she would like to go and take

(47:11):
photos up we listen to International Sign Finders. Welcome back

(47:32):
to International Sign Finders. Glad you're with us. I still
can't remember the name of that term, but I learned
it in my my graphic design and my what is
it interactive multimedia class. We learned about those different times,
like the different icons, like the flat icons and you know,
the icons of Google make and things like that, And

(47:55):
I wonder if there's a connection there in the greater
scheme of things. But you know, we're talking about out
the cultural implications of signs and what a sign means
and what does sign mean to a community? Oh yeah, yeah,
it's a especially San Jose that Western appliance. Man, I

(48:15):
got to see that one. Now, that's a bucket list
item for me.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
I actually it's not lit up right now, but I
know it still lights up. I don't know what the
condition of the neon is. It's been a couple of years. Yeah,
but let me tell you what signs mean to people.
Because after the Sanaa Science Project was lodged. So in
twenty seventeen we released the booklet of the San Jose
Signs Guide. We didn't know what was going to happen.

(48:41):
It could have just been a huge money loss for
a Preservation Action Council, but they took the chance. We also,
I was so grateful. Lawrence Johnson has a documentary film
called Neon. If you have not seen this film called Neon,
please do yourself with a differency it. It's absolutely fantastic
story of Neon. Really well done anyway, so he was

(49:04):
kind enough to say, look, go ahead and show your
movie for this launch of this initiative that you're doing.
It's community based initiative. At the time, the Preservation Action
Council and the Sales Science Project were separate. Preservation Action
Council was kind of focused, largely focused on architectural preservation,
and we were like, you know, screaming from the rooftop,
so we need to do something about the science. So anyway,

(49:28):
so we showed the film. It was a huge hit.
We showed it at the Jose Theater, which is the
oldest theater left in San Jose nineteen oh five, and
we filled the place. So we're, you know, really showing
and we only had three weeks to put this whole
event together. We really showed that people were really, at

(49:51):
the very minimum intrigued, but more so there were quite
a few people that were passionate about the subject, which
is great. That's what we wanted to see. So then
after that, maybe three or four months later, Preservation Action
Council comes back and one of the board members says
to me, we want to addvocate for sign. We want

(50:11):
to preserve a site. And I said, have at it.
I'm exhausted. You know, you launched the initiative. I'll help.
And sure enough they picked the Stevens Meat Products sign,
which is also in the guide, the Sansy Guide it
had been and you like the Stevens Meat proct sign
because it's adorable. It's a little pig and he's cheff,

(50:32):
he's dancing and his tail is wagging too, so it's
an animated sign. It was produced by Electrical Products Corporation,
which you know, I'm obsessed with that company. They also
did Western Appliance. They also did the Hollywood sign which
wash and so it's long history in California and beyond

(50:52):
of EPCO anyway. So Weak Proud funded thirty five thousand
dollars to fix that sign. That came from everyday people,
seven seven fundraisers that Preservation Action Council volunteers did. We
sold guides, pins, t shirts, magnets. It just you know,

(51:18):
seven fundraisers raised the money and got that sign fit.
That's what signs me to.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
Mean to people.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
Yeah, they're willing to put there. I mean I saw
a little kid with little dimpled hands putting a dollar
in this piggy bank or plan. Oh wow, that was
teared up. I almost teared up. As you shoot, Silicon
Valley has there's money here, right, there's a lot of
money here. We weren't seeing ten thousand dollars checks. We
were seeing five bucks here, ten bucks there, twenty bucks here.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
So is it everything thing? Not just uh how do
I say a passing fad? In a way it sides
to to let do rselfing to the field here.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yeah, it just took off from there. The sign has
since been moved to History Park in Santase because Google
was going to come and do a massive development that
since been put on hold, but they moved the sign
for safe safe keeping and lit it back up again.
So it's had two relighting ceremonies and everybody from people

(52:20):
that used to buy the sausage from Stevens Meat Products,
people that used to work at Stevens Meat Products, people
that the family members of the former business. I mean,
it's just been a big celebration. You see all the
different connections that the people connections, and all the different
ways in which this sign mattered. And that's just one sign.

(52:44):
So if you put all the signs together on a map,
you start to put together the story of your unique area.
And you can do that with buildings. It doesn't have
to be signed. You can do that with buildings. Harder
to do with today's architecture. Harder to do with today's
signage is so much of it is really I don't know,

(53:05):
what would you say, it's just not much, not much,
not much. Jeopard goes into a monument sign looks like
it looks like a gravestone. Let's just fallow lit.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
It in and the old and the new totem signs
and uh, I think to this is it doesn't match
like the old scaffold signs or yeah, no thing or
even even a badly drawn bunny still has some sort
of uh hitchy what is the word I'm thinking trying

(53:39):
to think of, uh, some sort of attachment in our
psyche to what that once was or what it is
still now. You know.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
But you also understand too from a historic context. You
understand why people are not putting a lot of money
into signs today. Yeah, because you know it's not the
primary form of advertising from.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
A small business exactly.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
I mean you have to have a sign, right the
old the old industry saying used to be a business
without a sign is a sign of no business. I
love that. But today, I mean, so much of traffic
two businesses is coming from like you know online, you know,
yell Insta, you know Facebook? Yeah, I mean it just

(54:26):
you know, the a lot of businesses are leveraging social
media because a lot of times it's free, right or gay.
That's how we started with this as a science project.
I think it has over two thousand followers on Facebook.
You know, it doesn't cause anything if you up there
as a community page.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Yeah. Oh, I found that word that I was thinking of.
I wonder if there's a tie into a skewomorphism.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Oh, I would have never thought of that. I don't
have a pervig design background.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
Yeah, I I am in multimedia. Uh that's that's the
uh certificated I'm going after is basically rapt design interactive
multimedia video editing all combined into one. So I'm a
jack of some trades.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Or will That's something to be proud of.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Yeah, I you know, I'm knocking on wood right now.
So in the few moments we have left, where's the
place that you would love to go to to go
hunt signs?

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Well, let's see today, a book just a Cook just
came in. I'd buy a lot of books. I'm still
like living in the age of like, I like to
hold a book in my hand. I bought a book
called Out of Season, a Vanishing Architecture of the Wildwoods.
So I'd like to go to Wildwood, New Jersey. My
husband is from upstate New York, New Jersey area, so

(55:50):
I would like to go there. There's a group on
Facebook called Signs United. I think they might be on
Instagram to you, and they went to Wildwoods and I
and go and I really regret that. So I'd like
to go to Wildwoods. I definitely want to go to Denver. Yeah,
if you haven't seen the there's a Denver signs video
that just makes me cry that Kuirky Shol put together.

(56:12):
It's called Neon Denver. Oh, you've got to see it.
I mean, I've watched it probably five thousand times.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Just tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
He's He's like me, we stay on the down low.
We just you know, we do our thing in state,
stay quiet. But that video is to be seen by
as many people as possible, because I literally it was
so well done that I was in tears.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
He's a cinematographer or videographer, I believe, if I remember
rising from our conversation.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Yeah, it is absolute pro Let's go to Denver. That's
on my list.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
I came.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
I was at In Vegas earlier this year for then
about a preservation foundation had a home and History weekend,
and oh my goodness, they have restored so many signs,
especially in downtown. I would highly recommend Las Vegas because
I just did not realize how many signs they had restored,

(57:06):
especially around Fremont Street and the old motel row leading
into downtown. Not not the strip. Strip is becoming more
and more corporate by the day, with is a shame.
But downtown, oh my goodness, Downtown's happening and lots are
great in historic preservation happening downtown and and I kind
of I kind.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
Of say Vegas is sign of hunting with ADHD because
there's something you ever wear.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
Oh astretch.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Yeah, damn.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
I like to see, you know, I like museums. Don't
get me, mom, I really like to see if I can,
the signs in their historic contact.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
I like to see. You know them at are close
to the original inception. Sometimes you know you can't have that.
But the Western Appliance sign where it's always been, I'd
hate to see it move. Not that it would be
easy to move, but it just kind of feels like
it just belongs there. It's a place marker. Now, yeah,

(58:05):
it's not buy and it's a historic place marker. I'd
like to go to Portland. Got some neon action going
on there. I've been to Portland before, but never there
to deep dive into their neon. I've been to Seattle.
That's awesome, highly recommend it. But like you said, I mean,
oh Utah, I mean Yesca's presence in Utah, got to

(58:28):
go to Utah. I'm down for Houston. I'm sure you've
got some signs there, and I'm sure you know, over time,
signs might just miraculously get uncovered, something sitting in an
old field or somebody's garage, and then all of a sudden,
you guys have a piece of history to put back up.
You know that you didn't know existed.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
Andy, what's so interesting you say that about old field?
There was one that I loved. I couldn't find anything
on it. It's on a street called low Copy Road,
and it's it kind of a country part of Houston
is so strange what I tell you, I've been to
such as a Houston where I've seen horses raising in

(59:07):
people's yards in the sit limits.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
That.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yeah, so I'm out on this one part, you know,
kind of country, not really city. It's almost like run down. Yeah,
it's like an old rundown, small town out in the
middle of nowhere, but it's Houston. And writing somebody's yard
was this old sign. And I did research of what

(59:33):
little bit I could to find out where this is at,
and the sign, well, this side could have represented nothing
that zero. I probably need to go to the archives
in downtown Houston or the archives at University of Houston.
I just got to find time to do it. I
live Houston is twenty four hours away from Houston. That's

(59:54):
how big Houston is.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
Yeah, at Houston, you could fit York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Richmond, Virginia, Raleigh,
North Carolina. I think Louisville, Kentucky, Oh Jesus, a few
other towns if you're the big towns like Pittsburgh, all
within all with pump from Milwaukee, all comfortably within the

(01:00:19):
city limitsy Houston. The only town bigger than Houston is
Oklahoma City and Jacksonville, Florida. That's how big Houston is.
Uh so, yeah, I just gotta go down there. And
I live on the outskirts up of the lake up
in the area called Taskacita. But there's kind of a
resurgence of neon in Houston too, some unique signs that

(01:00:42):
have gone up as well that are kind of saying, hey,
we'd still like neon in Houston. It's not old, but
we're still moving into a new direction, if you could
say that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
I think new neon can help you save old neon. Yeah,
And if people are attracted to new needs. Yeah, science,
why wouldn't they be attracted to older neon signs?

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Like the magistic metro makes the case for the old too. Yeah,
thank you for that is a great point. Uh. And
also I have a collection of old signs that I've found,
like old skeletons of signs. Oh wow, all over? Uh
think bad about a hundred maybe, Uh, I might start

(01:01:28):
using Flicker for that, put up the old stuff because
I want to. I want to kind of have a
collection of the old signs. But Instagram, once you start
posting a whole bunch of stuff in one day, they
start getting you're spamming and they start shut throttling you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
So I cannot I mean, I cannot stress how great
clicker is. Yeah, I mean, I just you know, I'm
not I like Instagram too. Instagram is great for instant gratification.
The name says it all. But if you're trying to
document something, you're trying to like tell a story, and
you want to make it easily accessible to people, the

(01:02:10):
barrier to entry for Flicker is very low. It's don't
I don't know what the latest you know, yearly subscription
fee is, but it's not much and basically you know,
when I was documenting Electrical Prize Corporation, I started with
one post. Now the set is like, I think, three
hundred images. It to me years together. But I think

(01:02:30):
there's more an Electrical Prize Corporation from my Flicker set
than anywhere else. And then all of a sudden you
see a Wikipedia page, because that's how important this this
sign company was in in terms of the California sign history.
EPKO had the patents the claw you know, the Claude
Neo patents. Uh, and so they were producing me on

(01:02:53):
until the patent expired in the thirties.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
M that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Anyway, it's just this this I would really recommend it,
and you use it for searching too. So like if
I'm going to go to a place and I want
to put together a to do list of what I
want to see, I look at Flicker, I do a Flicker,
and I look at Deborah Jane's website and that's why
I decide I want to map out where I'm going
to go.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
And she's got so many great maps too. Classic.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
The only person who has more has more pins on
their maps is Nick Girlic just south of bar Amarillo.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
We found out that the limit of pins you can
have on one map is ten thousand. Oh my goodness,
the limit can be exceeded. Uh So that will bring
us to the end of our show. It's been a
it's been informative, it's been fun, and thank you so
much for joining me on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Father, Thank you for the opportunity. I love the chat
about signs, I love the chat about history.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
Yeah, and I need to I need to get it.
Is it something that I need to do and stop
being I've got ADHD so I get distracted really easily,
and that's my excuse that I'm sticking with it. So
I just seem to hunker down and do that. But
are there anythings you'd like to plug? Your Flicker page,
your books where you can possibly go to find them?

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Well, I mean sure. My book Motel California right now
is available on Amazon. Okay, I think I have maybe
two hundred copies left. I self published. My other book,
Gets Misery by the Bay, is out of print now.
My Instagram page you already kind of referenced HM David Kalmud,

(01:04:45):
but most of my research is on Flicker. I think
I have over ten thousand images. On Flicker and let
me now, I'm trying to make sure that I got
the right user name for people.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
I apologize about, Hm, David.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
It's been so long. I should have been prepared.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
No, And I didn't mean to bury your Instagram name
because mine's just frustrating. Like Houston Underscore sign that has.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
Been publishing Calmon is my you know, that's my publishing company.
I had a suit Man publishing company in order to
publish my books. Oh wo, So that's the reason there.
But yeah, I'm hm David. Yeah, I remember there for
a minute on Flicker, and I have on Flicker, I
don't know, twelve fifteen thousand images on Flicker, man.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
I think the only person that has more is Danger
Dave out of Dallas. He's got twenty eight thousand.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Wow, and they're all organized. So like, if I go
to Tucson, I've got to set on Tucson. If I
go to Reno, Nevada, I've got to set on Renow. Yeah,
wherever I go, I put together a set.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
The reason why I say, dad gum is man, I'm
so impulsive. I just just shotgund it out into the
universe and hopefully it stays together in one good area.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
Well, there's something to be said for, like you know, again,
making the information really searchable and findable. Yeah, because then
information tends to lead to more information. And I'm just
a super curious person. So just like I can't help it.
I want to know the stories behind the signs. I

(01:06:38):
want to know the human stories. When you can make,
you know, an inanimate object, you can humanize it with
the human stories. You give it a chance for preservation.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
Yeah, you really do.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
And so at the end of the day, that's what
I'm interested in. I like picture books, believe me, but
I want to expect and see things in person.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
And that is an amazing place to finish the night's episode,
I want to thank Heather for joining us on International
sign Finders and go to our side, go to our
show notes page and look up the different links on
how you can join Heather in her journey and not

(01:07:26):
only sharing the pictures of San Jose's past at other
places as well, but in her journey and help you
preserve these signs so people can have that historical marker
in kernelized, not just as a community, but individuals can
have that marker kind of placed on their hearts. Maybe
I'm sending to religious right now. Maybe I should do

(01:07:48):
like a sermon about this, how you should get out
there and save neon signs, but glad you're with us.
Get out there, find your signs, share them with us,
and until that styme episide finding