Pomona, 2009

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After dinner, I decided to look in on some of the seminars that the FOHBC had organized as a part of the three-day event. There were two sessions with several talks running concurrently. Most were on some aspect of bottle-collecting (e.g. "Why I collect Historical Flasks", or "Black Glass - Identification and Dating") and hence snoozers from a shot-purist point of view, but then there was a talk by Stan Paher entitled "Death Valley California Ghost Towns and Mining Camps".

"Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps", by Stanley W Paher. Above is an image from the book.

After a tiring day of shot hunting, you might think that this would be guaranteed to put you to sleep within minutes, but the talk turned out to be riveting and was probably the highlight of the show. Stan has spent most of his life researching, documenting, and roaming through long-deserted mining towns and has a vast reservoir of knowledge. He sat in a chair at the back of the room and slowly clicked through a series of black and white images, retelling the story of how, in pre-Pro years, the area had been filled with mines and the towns that grew up around the mines. The ore that they produced contained precious metals. Nowadays, all of these mining towns are deserted, but the dry desert heat means that many of the structures and wooden buildings have been well preserved and still stand some one hundred years later. These are the settlements that were plundered by diggers in search of those prized amber whiskey bottles that are so abundent at western shows.

Stan ran way over time but everyone in the room left wishing he would speak for another hour or so.

Upon exiting Stan's seminar, I noticed that a talk entitled "Southern California Wineries" was just getting started. The speaker was Dave Maryo (LAHBC President), who related how Los Angeles had once been surrounded by wineries producing sacramental wines for the Catholic Missions. Now all but a few have been bulldozed and paved over for housing and industry, but those that survive still produce award-winning wines. The talk was short but Dave had arranged for a selection of wines to be on hand for attendees to sample*. And they were certainly good! There was an obligatory spittoon on the table for tasters to use between samples, but it remained completely dry, not surprisingly!! When the talk was over, I headed back to my room. My head was buzzing and I slept VERY well that night!

(*Dave Maryo later contacted me regarding the excellent wines that he had brought along with him:
"All but two wines were available for purchase from the hotel after the seminar in their restaurant. International competitions are held at the hotel as part of the Los Angeles County Fair and the hotel stocks the wines that win gold at the competition. All wines free for sample at my seminar had won gold medals for those vintages with the exception of Leona Valley. Leona Valley is a very small winery that does not produce enough volume to enter the international competitions. In my opinion the Leona Valley wines were still the best of all the wines sampled. Leona Valley and Agua Dulce wines were provided complements of the wineries and I purchased the San Antonio, Joseph Filippi and Galleano wines.")

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