- [Narrator] Ken Kramer's About San Diego made possible in part by Walter Anderson Nursery, two locations, Enterprise Street in San Diego and Danielson Court in Poway.

Independent and family-owned since 1928.

And by viewers like you, thank you.

- [Ken] Suppose I said let's go to the museum.

Well you'd say which one?

There are so many, right?

Well come along this time.

There are some things to see.

In all the world, there are maybe five helicopter museums.

I mean a museum devoted just to helicopters.

Well, did you know San Diego's got one of them?

A fascinating display of rotorcraft, big, small, and smaller.

We head east to visit a place that celebrates Kumeyaay tradition and the remarkable geology of the Imperial Valley and the achingly clear nighttime sky.

How much do you know about a museum built to celebrate cars and the people who drove them here in 1935?

- Whoopie, what a lucky break for me, coast to coast, a trip to the San Diego Fair.

- [Ken] And the timeless beauty of the Maritime Museum's Star of India, glorious under full sail.

If you've only pictured such a thing in your imagination, I tell you the reality is wonderful.

You have to see this.

We've got a space aboard for you, plus things you've sent in and more stories too, all of them true about San Diego.

- [Narrator] Ken Kramer's About San Diego, the history and people of the area we call home.

Here's Ken Kramer.

- From the Embarcadero alongside the historic star of India, welcome to About San Diego.

We have a really extraordinary experience coming up a little bit later on in the program.

We are going to go sailing onboard this historic vessel.

But first we've discovered a couple of museums that we thought were pretty fascinating and thought you might too.

The first one involves a road trip.

Interstate eight, take the Ocotillo turnoff, make a couple of right turns, and there is what's called the Imperial Valley Desert Museum, a story of survival in the desert where they have a favorite saying.

- Well, we always say, give us 20 minutes and we'll give you 10 million years.

- [Ken] 20 minutes, 10 million years.

There are exhibits that do take you back that far like the Gulf of California.

Did you know, it used to extend all the way up to the Coachella Valley?

Topographic sand that changes color as you build dunes by hand and a little darkened room where you can go in and experience the Kumeyaay relationship to the night sky, listening to bird songs used in Kumeyaay ceremonies dating back centuries.

You look around so much of life and living in the harsh desert has to do with surviving, pottery that's lasted the elements preserved 1,000 to maybe 2000 years.

Geological artifacts dating back to time immemorial.

There's Dottie, an endangered Sonoran desert tortoise who hear, survives and thrives.

Even this museum itself.

Kristin o' Leary is its executive director.

- So initially the museum actually was on Main Street in downtown El Centro where there was a series of events like hurricane, like Tropical Storm Kathleen that came through.

We also had an earthquake that came that kind of forced our doors to close.

- [Ken] Skeptics joked that this museum out here just off the interstate would never open, never attract a crowd and be successful.

But here it is still a mostly undiscovered gem, but doing well, thank you.

- So much like the desert environment, we've had to really adapt.

- [Ken] Outside is a walking tour with little signs, descriptions of the land or plant life of the Yuha desert all around us.

It's a Kumeyaay word.

It means there is water and there are springs not far from here, but you go back 10 million years.

- I mean like what's right in front of us, those are the Coyote Mountains and those, we actually have a hike to that called the Top of the Ocean 'cause that is how high the Gulf of California used to reach.

It was the top of those mountains over there.

No, not at all.

It was quite deep and quite vast.

- [Ken] That's right, you still find sand dollars and fossils up there while everywhere we are walking now was once deep underwater.

I can never think of the parched arid desert here quite the same way nor of the Kumeyaay who millennia later lived here and survived here and still do have this relationship with the land and the nighttime sky.

There's an area on the grounds, an area protected from light and the desert wind, a place to savor the night sky as it might've been enjoyed in antiquity.

- But no, it's really, really beautiful 'cause when everything's dark and then this kind of will drown out the sound of the highway and you're really just taking it in.

- [Narrator] So there are star gazing events here that link us with the wonder and awe at the universe that the Kumeyaay treasure to this day is in rapping and welcoming.

And in fact, in the daytime there is the Kumeyaay word, howka, a word of greeting.

But more than that, it is a blessing.

And that's really what this museum is out here in the desert.

- But we think the trip is worth the effort.

- Just off the interstate at Ocotillo, the Imperial Valley Desert Museum where there's a commitment to tribal voices and tribal participation to 10 million years of historic authenticity and yes to survival.

Do visit that museum.

And one more on our museum tour this time, now this is a place I had heard about and you know I had to go see it, but when I walked in, I frankly could not believe that there existed in San Diego County, this kind of collection of this particular thing.

Take a look.

In Ramona on Montecito Road west of town, there are a couple of aircraft to let you know you've arrived and just beyond is a hangar where inside for a few hours, three days a week, the museum is open.

A museum completely devoted to and absolutely jammed full of helicopters, talk about flying under the radar.

How is it that this place has gotten so little attention?

It's free to come in.

You never saw so many helicopters in your life.

The volunteers here, like Howard Northrop, just love it.

- We just want to be the best we can.

There's only like five helicopter museums in the world.

- [Ken] Since it was founded by helicopter builder and pilot Mark Deciero in 1992, Classic Rotors Rotorcraft Museum, it's called, through donations, has kept adding and displaying more helicopters.

- The range goes from little tiny ones that you can basically sit on with a little tiny gas powered motor on the back and it flies as a helicopter.

- [Ken] He means really little ones like this one here.

You go back to the 1950s and 60s and magazines like Popular Mechanics or Mechanics Illustrated.

- In the back of those magazines was a classified section.

And that classified article said, send $5 for plans to build your own helicopter.

- [Ken] If you followed the instructions and actually built one, it required a motorcycle engine like from a Triumph 650 and a gear shift lever and a clutch just like a motorcycle.

So you'd go out to the airfield, kick start it, and slowly shift through the gears to get the rotor turning.

And if you were really skilled, you could get it off the ground.

So there must have been a lot of them buzzing around.

Only cost $5 for the plans.

- They sold thousands of 'em, $5 a pop, there was no problem.

But actually there was only eight of them that were finally built.

- [Ken] Eight, this one at the museum is number two.

Same thing, you might remember ads for the Bensen, build it yourself gyrocopter.

Here's one that holds the record for the longest gyrocopter flight refueling an air, it went 16 hours.

So yes, they do have very small helicopters on up in size.

- To the largest, which was a large H37, which is the only one of six that are left in the world.

- [Narrator] Presenting the Marine's brand new transport helicopter powered by twin engines.

26 fully equipped Marines can get aboard.

- [Ken] Somehow, they squeezed one of the last surviving army versions of this gigantic helicopter in here and it is massive.

And oh, here's one tucked away here in the corner.

This is what was called the Monte Copter.

Named for the designer's son Monty, it's the only helicopter of its kind, a tri-phibian.

- In the 1950s, everybody was gonna have a car that they basically drove out of their driveway, got onto the highway and took off and flew.

- [Ken] Yes, but the Monte Copter did that concept one better because it could go anywhere, land, air, or into a lake or the ocean, whatever, it was a watercraft too.

Only problem in traffic, the blast from the engine kind of toasted whoever was behind you and it got 2.3 miles to the gallon, but today, here sits the only Monte Copter ever concocted.

There's so much history here and everywhere you look, the story of some effort to lift off vertically better and more efficiently.

Some were experimental.

Remember that aircraft we saw outside?

That was a prototype that if developed would lift off from a very small space and then fly away.

Tested at Gillespie Field years ago, it too is here now with its giant cousins, with the products of dreamers and engineers in war and peace time.

- We kept collecting more and more and then pretty soon, just preserving helicopter history was sort of our goal and objective.

- And finally, in a side room is the most extraordinary collection of model helicopters of every size and description.

Some that must be one of a kind some models of Russian rotorcraft.

So many so lovingly assembled and displayed.

Taken together for pilots for many who served in the military, some of these helicopters will be familiar, but for anyone who hears them flying by and you just look up, you know it's an instinct, this is an up close look at decades of rotorcraft development and preservation by some truly dedicated volunteers.

On Montecito Road at the Ramona Airport is Classic Rotors Museum, a classic place indeed about San Diego.

- [Narrator] Here's everything that anyone could want in an automobile.

Beauty, safety, power, speed, dependability, economy, and comfort beyond your greatest expectations.

- [Ken] Here's a quiz about San Diego.

Let's go back to 1935 and Ford was selling cars that had something very exciting, a V8 engine.

- This new V type 90 degree engine developed 65 horsepower.

Like all other Ford engines, it is simple and designed and construction.

- [Ken] And powerful, oh, the things this new engine could do.

- [Narrator] The new Ford V8 goes through the air with the greatest of ease.

There he goes again, again and again.

- [Ken] And one thing more.

The cars that had Ford's V8 engine also carried this symbol on the hood ornament or the hubcaps or the glove box.

It was a very distinctive V with an eight.

You saw it everywhere in Ford's advertising and promotion.

- [Narrator] The Ford Motor Company is proud to present the new Ford V8 for 1935.

- [Ken] So that was the V8.

Now in that same year, San Diego was hosting a huge international exposition in Balboa Park and Ford had one of the biggest displays.

In fact, it was an entire building that was designed and built incorporating the V8 symbol.

That building is still standing and is a museum in the park today.

But which museum?

Is it the Air and Space Museum, the San Diego Museum of Art or the San Diego Automotive Museum?

It is the San Diego Air and Space Museum building today, but in 1935 at the exposition, it was the Ford Building.

- [Narrator] In this building, a brief cross section of the Ford plant at Dearborne tells the story of raw materials and their progress from earth to automobile.

- [Ken] It was filled with remarkable exhibits about how Ford cars with their V8 engines were built.

You could watch them completely take one apart and put it together again.

There were several models on display with the very latest features.

- [Narrator] All of the new Ford V8 cars for 1935 have all steel bodies.

You'll like the new easy gear shift too.

- [Ken] You could even go out back and test drive one over all kinds of simulated road conditions.

- [Narrator] Hop into a 1935 car and we are off.

- And from up above, you could see the structure of the Ford building back then and the Air and Space Museum today is in the design of that V8 symbol.

And if you knew that, you know a lot About San Diego.

To the inbox now or to the mailbag because sometimes these things do arrive by mail, when you do send us pictures of San Diego in past years, it's great fun for us to show them on the air.

When we're putting together the show, we sometimes just call these various things stuff because yes, it might be a photograph or a postcard.

We've gotten shots of random bits of memorabilia.

Take a photo, scan it and email it to the show at kenkramertv.com and if it's yours to share, we may share it, like right now.

Street names have hidden twists if you know to look for them.

Among all the Nobel Prize recipients in La Jolla is the name Nobel, of course, and Lebon.

if you know Lebon, it's Nobel spelled backwards.

Same thing in National City, there's Lanoitan.

That's national spelled backwards.

Well, Bill Birch wrote us to say in Claremont, there's Arlene, which intersects with Enelra.

Lunchtime, 1940s, this was a diner at Pacific Highway in Laurel called Boggs Brothers.

Made from an actual train, but it was called The Airway Diner because it was close to the airport.

Thank you, Iris Enstrand.

Joe Courtney took this picture in 1954 of Lucille's.

2444 San Diego Avenue, little heart-shaped cafe.

Three hotcakes for a quarter.

Truckers welcome, why would you go anywhere else?

South Seas Sizzling Steaks on Harbor Drive in March of 1955.

Home of rain on the roof, that was South Sea's Sizzling Steaks' slogan.

Thanks to P Hicks for passing these along.

One more from the lens of Joe Courtney at Gas Station in Old Town, mid-50s, you could fill up your Hudson Wasp for 27 cents a gallon, couple of pennies more if you wanted the high test.

A summer getaway was 10th City on Coronado, just down the strand from the Hotel Dell.

From 1900 to the mid-30s, you'd rent a tent for a week or so and there were dozens and dozens of them set up and ready to rent in a pretty good sized recreational community.

Well, you had to send a picture postcard back home, of course.

And Coronado historian Joe Ditler found one that is different.

Front and center is the public loo, a bathroom on the bay.

Another postcard, Vicki Estrada called our attention to the longest bar in the world serving Mexicano beer in Tijuana 241 feet long.

Of course, that was in the 1930s and 40s.

Today there's one that's 531 feet long at the Humble Baron in Shelbyville, Tennessee.

Tell them I sent you.

Little baseball history, great photo from the archives of the San Diego city clerk, 1968, corner of Eighth and L, there's the Western Metal Supply building that would become the cornerstone of Petco Park.

Mike Minnick sent us this.

It's his mother-in-law Lois Scetose in 1951 with Padre player Harvey Story.

Harvey was just a little under seven feet tall.

He played for several minor league teams.

Most he ever earned as a padre was $900 a month, but he said he would've done it for 20.

He just loved the game that much.

Two artifacts Mike Bryant found, products in places they came from are no more.

1956, Roy Rogers fruit juice can from the continental Beverage company of La Jolla and 1970s Dragon Aid from California Juice Products of San Diego.

General Dynamics Converse Space Division from 1985 to 1993, Ron Seas worked there when every employee got a jacket, which he's kept in the closet.

Says the zipper doesn't work, but all these years later, it's still hanging in there.

- Uh-oh, it's a whole city down there.

- [Ken] And one thing more, remember our story a few weeks back about Burnell Hopkins' remarkable miniature city in the front yard of his Valencia Park home?

- It's cool, it's laid back and everybody is just in good spirits.

- [Ken] Well, we went back for a couple of reasons.

For one, his city of Bonita Drive has expanded, added a low riders club and an amusement park and a transit system with stations and a commuter train.

Lot of visitors dropped by the 5600 block of Bonita Drive to see his growing city, including one particular day.

- There was a group of bicyclists.

There was like about seven bicyclists.

They came by and they came and they was excited.

And then all of a sudden out of the blue, he goes there's one thing you don't have.

And I'm like, okay, well what's that?

He's like, you don't have bicycle lanes.

He said, I'll tell you what, I bring you some bicycles if you put some bicycle lanes out here and I said, okay.

- [Narrator] So there they are.

And the other reason we wanted to come back to the miniature city of Bonita Drive.

Well, Burnell's story touched a lot of people, kids, visitors of all ages.

It brought a little brightness to viewers all over the county and beyond.

And it brought something else, a regional Emmy award for this show.

And so on behalf of producer, Suzanne Bartol and myself, our thanks to Burnell for doing that story with us and for being such a great story himself about San Diego.

(light music) Now to the reason we've come here this time, the Maritime Museum and the beautiful Star of India.

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to be aboard and to see this ship under full sail, get ready.

First, a little history.

The Star of India used to be known as Euterpe, the Greek muse of music and poetry.

In her career, she sailed from Great Britain to India and New Zealand, weathering storms and mutiny, was renamed and hauled salmon from Alaska to California, circled the world 21 times.

And what did it look like out on the water?

Well, you don't have to imagine, let's go.

Here it is, the Star of India, an iconic presence in our city, an iron hold ship launched five days before Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Visitors to the maritime museum's Star of India always wanna know, does this ship still go to sea?

Can it really go sailing?

The museum's volunteer crew has been training all year for this.

The Star of India is sailing.

You can begin to feel the water beneath the ship, moving with the tide.

She'll be pulled further out, where with enough good wind, it will catch and fill the sails.

The ship is now powered by the wind and it's a remarkable moment.

Here is the Star of India, 160 years old, the oldest active sailing ship in the world at sea again as she was indeed born to be.

(light music) Seeing this wonderful ship on this beautiful day, you realize there is nothing anywhere that can rival this totally unique experience that right now this is incomparable.

There were quiet moments of reflection.

A memorial for members of the museum who had passed.

- [Speaker] Ruth Linder, Kim Lowman, Carol Linguist.

- And of sheer joy, what a thing this was.

(joyous music) And it turns out the winds were kind today, sails now and then adjusted to take best advantage in ways that seasons sailors aboard the Star have understood for decades on end.

The Maritime Museum's companion vessels came alongside and salute.

And then in the setting sun, a spontaneous gathering of ships and boats.

A kind of honor guard for the final few miles back to port.

I like to think it was a show of gratitude, it surely felt that way.

A salute to our very own, our wonderful Star of India.

Long nation sail as something elegant, historic, and beautiful about San Diego.

What a day and what an honor to be included.

And with that, that's it for this time and this episode of About San Diego.

If you wanna see any of these segments again, if you wanna pick up home and a T-shirt or a mug to advertise that you like the show, we would sure appreciate that.

Or if you want to send us stuff, you can do it at kenkramertv.com and we'd love to hear from you.

Until next time, and as always, I am Ken Kramer.

Thank you for watching and for caring about San Diego, bye-bye.

(ragtime music) - [Speaker] Okay, I'm doing the video.

- [Narrator] Support for this program comes from the KPBS Explore local content fund.

Supporting new ideas and programs for San Diego.

Ken Kramer's About San Diego, made possible in part by Walter Anderson Nursery, two locations, Enterprise Street in San Diego, and Danielson Court in Poway.

Independent and family-owned since 1928.

And by viewers like you, thank you.