Neon Slideshow

Neon - 30 years in the making

This book of neon photographs was originally produced for a creative arts class at San Francisco State University in 1979. The book was printed using the then-novel technology of a color photocopier, and over each copy was a clear sheet of acetate, which recreated the movement and shimmer of a neon sign glowing in the night. The text was painstakingly added using rub-on letters.

When I turned it into my professor, she commented that I should consider publishing it. At the time, I didn’t have the time or resources to find an agent or publisher, and put it aside for three decades.

Now my son is an art student at the same university and is an accomplished photographer, which makes me proud beyond words. Today’s technology now makes publishing this book possible. Photos from the original book are on the right-hand pages in the original order. Added now on the facing left-hand pages are additional photos that were taken for the project but omitted from the original book, as well as few more recent photographs. In the back is a listing of the signs, where they were located, and the sign’s fate, if known.

I hope you enjoy these images from the past.

Thirty Years in the Making.....

NEON

By Betsey Shapiro

Book Preview

Christmas Break at the Hotel Rubi

Or
Why I Became a Travel Agent

Back in the days when it was still called Christmas Break, not something politically correct like Winter Recess; my family took a little vacation.

I was twelve years old, and vacations in my family would consist of spending at least a thousand hours in the backseat of the Ford Galaxy sucking in stereo blasts of second-hand smoke, with notes of menthol on the right, since Mom smoked Kools. The constant barrage of the smoke was laced with eau de coffee, from the thermos that Dad had filled at the last coffee shop we stopped at. It was a constant inferno, since the front windows were cranked all the way down, in lieu of air-conditioning.

“Enjoy the scenery,” my mother would implore. My reward at the end of a long day of defending my back seat territory from my older sister and younger brother was the promise of a swim in the pool at the Travelodge.

Our destination was Mexico. In hindsight, who the hell in their right mind would think that piling the three suburban kids from Northern California into a clunker of a car and driving to Mexico is a vacation?

Our first stop was that kiddie-heaven known as Disneyland. After that, what else could we kids possibly have to look forward to for the rest of the trip, but boring scenery?

The first sign that our vacation was headed south in more ways than one was in Gila Bend, Arizona. Here, in the tumbleweed-filled Sonoran desert, both the car and I broke down. Not good news for Mom and Dad.

My dad was an engineer at NASA. Yup, an honest-to-God rocket scientist. In his spare time, he liked to restore old cars. Suffice it to say, not one of our six (yes, six) cars had ever seen the inside of a mechanic’s garage. It was a point of pride for dad that no one worked on his cars but him. But in the desert, he didn’t have the tools needed to replace the broken water pump, so he had to do the unthinkable, and take it to a garage.

Meanwhile, Mom had the task of finding a local doctor for me. It seems the steady diet of secondhand smoke and coffee fumes mixed with the dry desert dust sent my tonsils into overdrive. Since Gila Bend wasn’t big enough for a Kaiser Clinic, not only did Mom have to track down a doctor who could see me right away, she would have to pay him. My parents didn’t like to pay for anything.

My only memory of seeing this doctor was that he had a terribly thick Mexican accent, and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I had lived twelve very sheltered years in the upper middle-class suburbs, and never actually met or spoke with someone whose first language was not English, until now. I was sick and scared, but whatever I had, he took care of it, and as soon as the bill was paid at the mechanic, we were back in our backseat purgatory.

In Nogales, we crossed the border once a “Tourist” decal was pasted on the windshield, and continued heading south. Our destination was the seaside resort of Guaymas, Mexico. Never heard of it? Most people haven’t. There’s a reason for that.

Dad had once gone to Guaymas on a fishing trip, and remembered that the biggest hotel in town was the Hotel Rubi. It had a large neon sign on the roof, spelling out the name in large red letters, and that’s all he remembered about the place. Before we left on the trip, Dad had written to the hotel for reservations. Since this was before the age of Internet travel reservations or credit cards, he painstakingly typed out a letter with our dates of arrival and accommodations requested, using a sheet of carbon paper so he would have a copy for his records, and sent off a deposit check.

We were supposed to arrive on December 30, but with the waterpump and tonsils excursion, we were running a day behind. So, on New Year’s Eve day, we found ourselves enjoying the scenery on Mexico’s Highway 15, trying to make it to the hotel before the next year.

A quick stop in a small dusty town for lunch and our car was immediately swarmed with young boys, all offering their shoeshine services. Could it have been the “Tourist” sticker on the car that tipped them off? Dad tossed some coins at a couple of the boys and asked them to watch the car while we had lunch. I have absolutely no recollection of what we had for lunch, but I do remember the words that were added to my rapidly developing vocabulary courtesy of Dad when we returned to the car.

Because it seemed that the boys misunderstood Dad’s request, and instead of “watching” the car, they were “washing” the car. With their shoeshine rags. Dirty, greasy, shoe polish soaked rags. The car wasn’t white anymore. It was kind of a cordovan brown. The worst part was that they had applied shoe polish to the entire windshield. Eventually Dad had rubbed off enough shoe polish with his handkerchief for him to squint through, and soon we were off, enjoying more scenery through the shoe polish haze.
By the time the “old shoe” pulled up in front of the Hotel Rubi, it was dark and the New Year’s Eve festivities were in full swing in downtown Guaymas.
We were relieved to be finally at our destination but it seemed there was a problem. With gestures, broken English and mangled Spanish, it finally dawned on us, that the hotel had never received our reservation. There we were, the whitest, blandest, most suburban family this side south of the border, with three sullen, restless, hungry and tired children, standing in the lobby of the Hotel Rubi, when it finally dawns on my parents. The man at the front desk was saying there was no reservation because he doesn’t want us here.
Maybe because Hotel Rubi was a brothel.

So. What to do? It was dark. New Year’s Eve. The family had been driving all day and Mom and Dad were desperate, so they begged two rooms for just one night. At a brothel. On New Year’s Eve. Somehow Mom miraculously grew two more pairs of hands to cover the eyes of the three of us as she marched us down the corridor, lest we see something we shouldn’t.

My sister and I had our own room, while my little brother stayed with Mom and Dad. What fun we had, jumping up and down on the sagging mattress while pulling on the cord for the Venetian blinds over the transom window. Every time we yanked the cord, it would send out a huge blast of dust to settle all over everything in the room.

Muttering under her breath, Mom showed us how to brush our teeth carefully using only the water fro the pitcher of purified water she had managed to round up, while telling us about the dire consequences of drinking water that came out of the faucet. We fell asleep to the sound of firecrackers and gunfire welcoming in the New Year, Guaymas-style.

Early the next morning, we were out of there, and on the hunt for, more suitable accommodations for a family. Since it was high-season in the area, it took a few inquiries around town before we finally found a bungalow at the Hotel Miramar that was a minor step up from the illustrious Hotel Rubi.

We spent what was left of the vacation playing and lounging on the beach of Bacochibampo Bay, and then headed back home in the Galaxy, enjoying the scenery during what was probably the longest, chilliest and quietest drive home that Dad ever had.

Although we never went to Guaymas again, the adventure stayed with us. The mere mention of Hotel Rubi still evokes laughter among my siblings.

Sometimes people ask me why I became a travel agent, I just smile, and say I like to help people. Dad definitely should have used the services of a good travel agent.