Earl S. Cryer

“Princess Piccarda.” Once owned by PT. Bamum. Carrara marble. Shirley says

American street gold

San Diegans,” declares Shirley Lindemann, owner/director of the Museum of American Treasures, “aren’t interested in culture. They don’t want to support the arts.” She indicates a butter-colored marble bust that tops a pedestal just inside the museum’s front door. The bust of a young woman with the high, shaved forehead fashionable during the Renaissance is labeled “Princess Piccarda.” Once owned by PT. Bamum. Carrara marble. Shirley says, “Few people realize National City even has a museum.”

“I’m going up to Pendleton today to pick up a load. Duffel bags, pants, cots, canteen belts."

Earl S. Cryer

From outside the low, yellow bungalow, it is impossible to guess that National City has a museum. There is no identifying sign, only some bells from ships and churches, leaning back like fat men in the planters by a flight of steps. The museum is up these stairs, through a wrought-iron gate. Baskets of tropical plants hang along a cement walkway between two wooden bungalows. An electric dryer hums in the comer of the patio. Propped against the bungalow walls are metal plaques commemorating buildings long-since demolished, defunct social clubs, dead sailors. Shirley’s keys hang in the lock of the museum’s open door.

Earl S. Cryer

“Princess Piccarda is my husband Hans’s pride and joy,” Shirley says in a flat tone. She continues to stare at the sculpture, explains that she doesn’t know where Hans got it. Hans was once quoted as saying he’d heard the bust had been stolen from the Medici family mausoleum in Italy. But Hans has aged; he’s 91 now and has ceded the running of his museum to his wife. His stories have faded with him. Right now, he is “out to lunch,” Shirley says.

Earl S. Cryer

Shirley, however, has her own stories to tell. They emerge between thoughtful silences as she leads me from room to room. She kneels to open a long jeweler’s case filled with cast-iron kittens and horses, an art-deco waiter and waitress. “He didn’t have the doorstops in one place,” she comments. Inverting a belle in a yellow gown and sunbonnet, she points to a pencil scrawl inside it. “See? He paid $4.50 for this. It’s probably worth about 75 now. These are really collectible now."

When Hans had settled in National City, he’d set jars, plates, vases, cruets on the patio and roof of his house to change color.

Earl S. Cryer

Hans Lindemann spent most of his time for over 50 years attending garage sales, estate sales, scouring second-hand stores and dumps. He bought antique books on herbal cures and carpentry, oil lamps, commemorative ashtrays and drink coasters, withered photographs, door knockers shaped like lions and pharaohs. “Hans always used to say there’s gold in the streets of America. He collected everything. Foil, string.... You wouldn’t believe the amount of junk I had to throw out when I started cleaning up around here.”

Earl S. Cryer

When Hans first arrived in the United States, in 1937, he would wander the desert around Las Vegas picking up pieces of glass. The sun had colored the pieces pale amethyst — a reaction caused by the high manganese content in glassware made before Worid War II. Later, when Hans had settled in National City, he’d set jars, plates, vases, cruets on the patio and roof of his house to change color. His collection of “desert glass” once numbered 10,000 pieces — the largest, he’d say, in the world.

Earl S. Cryer

In 1952, Hans tore down a wooden gazebo in his yard and began constructing a museum to house this collection. Shirley says Hans and Robert Brosch, a wood-carver, “virtually built the place by hand.” Robert painted the building’s windows with grapevines, spiders’ webs, sunbursts. In 1954 the building opened to the public as the House of Suncolored Glass. It was four rooms, which Hans and Robert built additions to as the collection grew. Hans lived in damp, drafty rooms at the back, splitting his time between the museum and Lubach’s restaurant, where he worked as a chef. The museum was featured in the October 1955 issue of Hobbies magazine.

A glass case opposite the doorstops contains Hans’s culinary medals: London, 1930; Essen, 1933. Shirley points to each in turn, saying that in Europe, a medal from a culinary competition is "like winning the Olympics is over here.” There is an autographed photo of Ginger Rogers. He cooked for her. He cooked for King George V, Bugsy Seigel and Virginia Hill, William Randolph Hearst. Next to the medals are Hans’s ice-carving tools, black with mineral deposits, and a photo of Hans, hammer and pick in hand, assaulting a block of ice as large as himself. There are photos in souvenir folders from resort hotels — an ocean liner Hans made out of crustaceans, a naked woman made of fish pate.

Shirley leads the way into the museum’s central room, dominated by an artificial, flocked Christmas tree. Since she couldn’t find a place to store it, Shirley has left the tree up as a display for seasonal decorations: the tree’s base is still ringed with dusty, heart-shaped Valentine’s Day candy boxes. Valentine cards perch on the tree’s branches. Shiriey picks one up. It’s made of yam sewn through a flattened aluminum pot-pie dish. “My daughter made this for me. She was saving things even then.” She taps the aluminum. “She’s 31 now.”

Shiriey has lived in National City all her life. Her sons and mother still live nearby. Shirley is 50-ish, blond. She met Hans ten years ago at a National City restaurant they both frequented. She, too, is a collector and began helping out at the museum. She jokes that Hans married her out of gratitude. “When I came in here, it was just a mess. Hans was a buyer. He didn’t believe in conservation and preservation. Things were displayed just as he’d bought them, dust and all. He, well, he didn’t have an eye for display.”

Shirley explains, "I have always been artistic. I was a hairdresser back in '54 when I started out. People say they like the display cases.”

Over the next few years, she cleaned out Hans’s jumbled shelves, dusted, and polished. She reorganized things: celluloid campaign buttons and documents signed by presidents in one place, all the artillery shells carved and pounded into vases and urns in another. Many of her husband’s “not-of-museum-quality pieces,” Shirley says, she has “de-assessed” and taken to a retail space in Ocean Beach.

The desert glass, now relegated to one trapezoidal case, sits on an antique lace tablecloth Shirley found crumpled up in a cedar chest. Compotes are piled with grapes painted gold, apples covered with red glitter. To support the plank on which the glassware sits, Shirley and a friend hauled up 50 bricks from the lot next door — the lot Hans cleared in preparation for an addition to the museum, which he hoped the city would fund. He wanted to call it the Hall of America. At one point, Hans had willed the existing museum to National City, envisioning planning committees and volunteer workers and service clubs pitching in to promote it as a tourist attraction. In the mid-’70s, Hans had plans drawn for a 50-by-50-foot concrete block structure: separate rooms would honor People, the Armed Services, Presidents, and Famous Americans.

Hans once complained that in more than 20 years, the Sweetwater school district never brought a school group to visit. He felt ignored by the chamber of commerce. Eventually, Hans altered his will, leaving the museum, its contents, and the land next door to Shirley.

“The roof leaked. It kept leakin’ and leakin’,"she remembers. “All 32 windows had to be taken out and recaulked.” The museum was closed during the renovations. Shirley worked for a year and a half, a carpenter worked for six months. The museum reopened in time for the National City Historic Site tour last October.

In the museum’s largest room, display windows, like a retail store’s, are built into the walls. More long glass cases run down the center of the room. At one end is a wishing well Hans’s friend Brosch made out of panes of desert glass in a wood frame. At the other end is a wooden Buddha, carved for the 1937 film version of The Good Earth, and a Reginaphone, dated 1889. Shirley opens the cabinet’s lid and sets an armature on a punctured metal disc. She winds a crank; the disc moves and the armature slips from hole to hole, causing a mechanism beneath the turntable to pluck metal strings. It sounds like a celeste.

Shirley pulls me from case to case, holding me at each one while she meticulously describes its contents, pushing me on to the next one when she’s finished. At “Kitchen Implements,” she draws attention to the Hopalong Cassidy Kool-Aid, the rubber batter scrapers with advertising slogans on them, the MixMaster she rescued from her mother’s trash bin, the “old plastic things” — kitchen gadgets, like something called a Zipout Shrimp Tool — she’s started collecting. Pre-20th-century gaiety pours from the Reginaphone. Shirley steers me over to “Education,” with the yam-stitched picture cards her father made 80 or 90 years ago in elementary school; to “San Diego History,” to “Dishes,” to “Women’s Personal Belongings,” to the bathroom she’s decorated with laminated hygiene ads from the ’20s and the kitchen with a vintage icebox bearing a price tag: $199.

There is a Religion display, with a bas-relief Last Supper cast in bronze, or perhaps lead — “I don’t know,” Shirley says. “It’s heavy.” There is an altar piece made of mother-of-pearl, with carved figures reclining in recesses at the base of the cross. “Hans told me it was from an African church. He told me it was hidden in a cave during some invasion.” Next to the cross is an elephant tusk, 82 inches long, elaborately carved. Hans once told the San Diego Union it is the largest carved elephant tusk in the world and took ten artists ten years to complete. Shirley says it’s from the Imperial Palace of China but then adds, “Hans says two Japanese girls saw the seal on the end and said it was the Imperial Seal and bowed down to it.”

There are more cases of more miscellany, the forgettable items that give color and form to the past. Ads for pencil leads, circa 1925; bells; bookends. A tea set in a wooden box, labeled “This was Jack London’s Chinese tea set from his sailing vessel Snark. ” An Amtrak menu that Shirley saved when she was six or seven. Railroad spikes. Yardsticks and matchboxes embossed with advertising slogans. Plates and silverware pinched from local hotels 50 years ago. The beginnings of Shirley’s Olympic items collection: T-shirts, pins, sun visors. Celluloid and Bakelite cosmetic jars and hairbrushes, men’s sock garters, razors. “This wind-up toy belonged to my father,” Shirley says. “These were my jacks, my piggy bank, my brother’s Pinnochio doll....”

Although Shirley opens the museum faithfully every Sunday afternoon, there are few visitors. “These are parts of our history that are no longer valued. It’s a nice place for extended families to come visit. To bring a grandma over to the kitchen comer and say ‘This is how we had to do things’ and show them how to use an old rolling pin.

— Mary Lang

I'd Walk a Mile for a Camo

When you enter the Goodrich Surplus Store on India Street, south of Washington, Arnold Schwarzenegger glares down from a poster on the left, above a stack of large strongboxes or high-security footlockers. Arnold is swathed in bandoliers of bullets, grenades, and knives. He wears camouflage utility fatigues and camo paint. He hefts a machine gun, a shotgun, and a .45 automatic pistol. The poster is from the movie Commando, and the legend over Schwarzenegger’s head reads, “Somewhere, somehow, someone is going to pay.”

To the right is the cash register, behind a glass case that features cigarette lighters in the shape of hand grenades (“EXCITING combat lighters!") or imitation Zippos with inscriptions like “Vietnam: History will remember the war. Will America remember her man?” or “U.S. Marines. Mess with the best, die like the rest.” Among these items are first-aid kits and other novelties, ranging from imitation G.I. can openers to bullet key chains. From the ceiling hang a parachute and a cargo net. Both for sale.

Goodrich’s has the look of a slightly wonky emporium catering to the most utilitarian needs and to the most lurid paramilitary fantasy. Immediately the mind summons an image of the average shopper here as someone described by a neighbor — “He was such a quiet man....”

Snakebite kits, insect repellent, sun showers, Buck knives and survival blades up to eight inches long, .50-caliber machine gun shell casings, helmets and liners and decorative stickers proclaiming, “Warning, if you unlawfully enter these premises you will be shot, No questions asked, No explanations accepted”; “No One Leaves Here Alive" "Boycott Jane Fonda American Traitor Bitch"; “Burglar Notice; This is a stake-out location. When challenged by police 1. Do not move or turn 2. Drop your weapon immediately 3. Raise your hands”; “If you haven’t been there, shut your mouth”; or “Insured by Ruger.” You can also buy camouflage condoms; “Don’t let them see you coming,” as well as a condom patch kit: “Get more bangs for the buck.”

One large section of the store provides everything one might conceivably need for that six-month camping trip in Tierra del Fuego including, for the Earth-minded sur-vivalist, “Liquid Gold Toilet Tissue for RV, marine, and portable toilets. Disintegrates rapidly. Completely biodegradable.”

But perhaps it takes a real man to stay behind and face nuclear war, AIDS, ozone depletion, or economic collapse at home. For him, a savvy gift idea might be a few black T-shirts bearing day-glo death’s heads and busty bimbo motifs, like a hooded skeleton clutching a swooning blonde in fish-net stockings, with her skirt hiked to her waist. She looks dreamy. The skull-face looks jazzed. The lusty existential slogan: “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” On another shirt, a skull wearing a green beret and toting a machine gun announces its wearer as “Bad to the Bone.” Yet another death’s head, smoking a cigarette, poses the question “Who Wants to Live Forever?” The ever-popular “I’ll give up my gun when they pry it from my cold dead fingers” is available, complete with a colorful rendering of cold, dead fingers. Oh, and a gun. These themes are repeated with slight variations, culminating in that most democratic of apocalyptic sentiments, “Waste ’em all... Let God sort ’em out.”

If those recent, zany paint-ball war-game antics in Otay Mesa sounded like fun, here’s where to stock up on camouflage paint, safety goggles, paint pellets, and a PM II rapid-fire long-barrel pump pistol powered by C02, $179.98.

For the budding outdoor individualist, there are inflatable rafts, boogie boards, and Boy Scout equipment, including uniforms, Webelos handbooks, and merit badge activity kits.

Just a few paces away are ammunition crates for .50-caliber machine guns or the handy, wooden 105mm Howitzer shell boxes. Among the literature displayed are the bestselling Department of the Army Field Manuals on Booby Traps and Incendiaries as well as the most-asked-for US. Navy SEAL Combat Manual (Elite Unit Tactical Series).

Need combat helmets, liners, dummy grenades, K rations (ham and chicken loaf or diced beef in gravy), hand axes, flak jackets, canteens, “Ollie North for President” posters, Genuine Government High Energy Survival Candy? Look no further.

Greg Wirkus, the manager for Goodrich’s, seems amused, pleased with the unusual merchandise his store offers and the demand that is out there. “We’re basically a camper-oriented store, from kids to fathers to yuppies who camp on the weekends. We’re not really a mercenaries’ store. They don’t need any help in finding or getting this stuff. As for survivalists, yeah, we get ’em. They come in, they know what they want, they pay cash, and they’re gone. I’d characterize them as Vietnam veterans who literally live in the woods and only come into town twice a year on supply trips. Some of them are a little scrungy looking. They need a shave and a shower. Some of them don’t come with shoes on. Mostly they wear old Vietnam-era military clothes with their patches, rank, and names still on it. Kind of spooky, some of them. They walk around and talk to themselves sometimes, ‘Hey, remember,’ ” he imitates a spacey customer, “ ‘Joey bought it wearin’ one of these.’ Couple of times a month we get these guys. I used to get ’em more in my El Cajon store because it’s closer to the rural areas.”

Where does he get this stuff?

“I’m going up to Pendleton today to pick up a load. Duffel bags, pants, cots, canteen belts. There’s not as much available through the government as there was ten years ago, and the prices have exceeded some of our budgets. But the demand is very high. We go through a lot of wholesalers now, like in L.A. and places.”

Looking into the knife display case, Wirkus is asked about the legality of owning such weapons. “It has to be in full view.

Anything over four inches, I believe. Most of them are, per se, hunting or fishing knives. The Rambo craze of the 12-inch knife is nonexistent today. Five years ago, I would sell 100 a month. The market is very thin today; there is only the upper echelon of $ 150.00 knives people will buy to collect.”

Picking up a handful of bandanas with Japanese flags, Confederate flags, Budweiser logos, urban camouflage (grey and white), and homing in on one red bandana with a yellow hammer and sickle insignia in the upper left comer, Wirkus says, “You see this? Communist bandana. I’m just waiting for some Vietnam vet to come in here and take his Zippo to it. Torch it. I guarantee it’s gonna happen. Question is when.”

A customer is browsing through a series of signs featuring the barrel and cylinder of a revolver clutched in a fist and pointing toward the viewer. One sign reads, “Burglars and Thieves Watch Out for Flying Objects,” another, “TRESPASSERS If You Can Read This, You’re Too Close.” The other side is identical but reads, “Now If You Can Read This, You’re Dead.” He eyes a businesslike-looking slingshot with a range of 125 yards and asks, “Hey, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve got in here?” “Mine detector.” Wirkus supplies. “What? A mine detector? I thought you said a lie detector.”

“We got a lie detector too.”

“Shitfire! I could use that.”

Wirkus shows him what looks like an aluminum suitcase, which opens to reveal a small polygraph kit with printout paper, dials, electrical leads, and display gauges. “Does it work?” he is asked.

“I don’t know. It’s 79 dollars and change. Wanna see the mine detector?”

“Sure.”

Wirkus digs under a clothing display and produces a case with foam-rubber lining that holds what looks to be a Worid War II-or Korean War-era government issue device. It resembles a metal detector you might see on the beach on a cloudy day wielded by a lonely-looking weirdo in plaid.

“Does this work?”

Wirkus laughs. “How should I know? All my military goods are ‘as is.’ No refunds, no returns. How old is it? What does it run on? We do not know. Guaranteed military, though. They’re still being used today. $149.98.”

Wirkus walks back to the counter, lifts a handful of evil-looking metallic objects with sharp ends. “Wanna buy some dental tools?”

“Nah.”

“Okaaayyy ... ” Wirkus says and shrugs as if to say, “Don’t come crawling to me when you’re out there at the Arctic Circle with an abscess.”

Rabbit pelts. You can buy rabbit pelts at Goodrich’s. “Ladies buy them, sew them into purses or bedspreads. People buy 20 or 30 at a time.” He moves down the row of watch caps, border patrol and SHIT HAPPENS baseball hats. “Gas masks. Somebody you know is moving to L.A.? A gas mask. Perfect. An elderly couple came in, they live in a 30-story high-rise. They wanted it in case of a fire in the building.”

Okay. Who would buy a plastic container for 25mm cartridges?

“River rafters. They’re waterproof. Put anything in there, it’ll keep dry.”

The metal machine gun ammo boxes? “Waterproof, fireproof. Store records in them. Of course, a lot of people use them strictly'for ammunition. It’s an all-purpose thing. Put a grate in ’em, it’s a portable barbecue.”

Let’s take the cargo net. Wirkus brightens, okay, let’s. “Going to the dump? I’ve sold ’em to contractors who need to move large loads with backhoes. Move boulders.” His eye travels over the ceiling. “And the parachute? Standard 28-foot parachute, in the 50-dollar range. Nylon. Very rare now. Sold to large boat owners, say, for sea anchors. You anchor in the ocean, two miles deep? Whattya do? You don’t drop a regular anchor. You drop a parachute, a sea anchor. Acts like a giant jellyfish at the bow of your boat... or stem. Incredible demand. Rip-stop nylon. Not the original silk of the early ’50s. It’s an effective, slow deterrent against the seas. It doesn’t totally stationary you. You hook the shroud lines to a chain or rope on the anchor line, see?”

So Wirkus and Goodrich Surplus are not in the business of selling fantasy?

He looks thoughtful, shakes his head. “No. It is a factor, fantasy. Reminiscing about the old days. People trying to portray a movie figure or movie scene, that kind of thing. Top Gun, Rambo ... hype. I’d be reluctant to say we’re selling fantasy.” Wirkus adds, “These things are durable and useful.” He says it with finality, sensibly — as though fantasies are neither of those.

— John Brizzolara