Latest / California Frontier / 078: True Visual History of California Part 3 | David W. Rickman, Illustrator and Historian

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078: True Visual History of California Part 3 | David W. Rickman, Illustrator and Historian · California Frontier

• 0:00
  Damian Bacich: Welcome to the third and final installment of my interview with historian and illustrator, David w Rickman.
• 0:08
  Damian Bacich: In this final episode, we get into subjects such as the Russians on the coast of Northern California.
• 0:15
  Damian Bacich: David's work in national and state parks all over the west and the East coast as well, and his work with the Smithsonian Institution.
• 0:27
  Damian Bacich: We also talk about his well-known Sutter's Fort costume manual and his upcoming book where Worlds met about clothing and material culture in the American West, which is something I'm really looking forward to reading.
• 0:43
  Damian Bacich: So without further ado, let's sit back and listen to the final part of my interview with David w Rickman.
• 0:55
  Damian Bacich: I am Damien Bass.
• 0:57
  Damian Bacich: Welcome to California Frontier.
• 1:01
  Damian Bacich: Are there other illustrations that we, that we should look at and talk about?
• 1:05
  David Rickman: Please, please.
• 1:07
  David Rickman: Um, yeah,
• 1:10
  Damian Bacich: Let's see.
• 1:10
  Damian Bacich: Should we go on to the next one here?
• 1:13
  Damian Bacich: The
• 1:13
  David Rickman: yeah, so I've, I've had, I've been extremely fortunate, you know, for years I worked in exhibits for Delaware State parks and I'm glad I did because, you know, little pension and, and health benefits for the rest of my life.
• 1:28
  David Rickman: Very helpful.
• 1:29
  David Rickman: But since I took early retirement in 2010, I have been very fortunate to have a lot of really wonderful assignments come my way.
• 1:37
  David Rickman: And one of the best was Alviso Adobe, which was done by an ex, uh, a company called CI Group, uh, in the North Bay area.
• 1:47
  David Rickman: And they contacted me to do this.
• 1:49
  David Rickman: We met at the Aviso Adobe in Milita, and I.
• 1:55
  David Rickman: These were a couple of the illustrations that came out of that project.
• 1:58
  David Rickman: It was, it was such fun to actually be able to sit in a room and imagine what it might've looked like in the 1840s.
• 2:05
  David Rickman: And to actually put some of my, um, my research to use, uh, the fact that, uh, men,'cause these buildings weren't heated, uh, often sat in their, their cloaks and their hats, uh, while indoors.
• 2:20
  David Rickman: I mean, even Mariano Viejo has described doing that.
• 2:24
  David Rickman: Um, and the, the clothing on the figures on the right, uh, based on my research, he's an older man in the 1840s.
• 2:32
  David Rickman: So he's wearing knee Bri, he's not wearing the cals.
• 2:35
  David Rickman: Um, his wife's dress, interestingly enough, is based on a fragment of a dress that is in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.
• 2:44
  David Rickman: It's of most beautiful copper colored silk satin, which I'm afraid doesn't quite carry in this illustration.
• 2:51
  David Rickman: But, um.
• 2:54
  David Rickman: It was something that I wanted to show because so much had been said about, uh, what had been called the so-called Chino Blanda look, which is, I'm partly responsible for that.
• 3:07
  David Rickman: Uh,'cause I thought it was called Chino Blanda when I first started out decades ago.
• 3:11
  David Rickman: It wasn't.
• 3:12
  David Rickman: That was a phenomenon from Mexico.
• 3:15
  David Rickman: Pet Coten and, and, uh, shams were simply Petco and shams in California.
• 3:22
  David Rickman: But more importantly, in the 1820s, California women of a certain status began changing away from the pet, coten chamise and starting to wear dresses.
• 3:32
  David Rickman: And so I wanted to make sure that we had pictures of women wearing dresses in California, because that's so seldom is shown in the pictures.
• 3:39
  David Rickman: Um, or if they are shown, they're shown as these highly ruffled monstrosities that no California woman would ever wear.
• 3:47
  David Rickman: But you know, the imagination of some illustrators, uh.
• 3:50
  David Rickman: Go and, and movies go to things that are, are somehow ruffles mean Spanish.
• 3:56
  David Rickman: I dunno why.
• 3:57
  David Rickman: Maybe flamenco.
• 3:58
  Damian Bacich: Probably should we go to the next one?
• 4:02
  David Rickman: Yeah, please.
• 4:05
  Damian Bacich: Ah, here you are
• 4:06
  David Rickman: this is me many years ago.
• 4:07
  David Rickman: As you can see at the Smithsonian, I'm photographing a, uh, a cueta, which is actually made exactly like the, the old cueta that were used.
• 4:18
  David Rickman: I full size cues, I should say, that were used by the, uh, the Spanish sold tota, uh, where they got their name.
• 4:26
  David Rickman: funny thing about this one is even though it was made of multilayers, of white buck skin and um, and trimmed with red cloth the way the originals often are, there was no way to close it.
• 4:39
  David Rickman: And if an adult wore it, it would probably only come to their hips.
• 4:42
  David Rickman: So my guess is it would probably be for a child.
• 4:46
  David Rickman: And you come across from time to time articles of clothing that are made like an adult, but for a child I've seen BOTAs, uh, leather leggings, uh, worn by, uh, vaqueros Eros, and they are made for a toddler.
• 5:06
  David Rickman: And, and so that's what I think we're looking at here.
• 5:09
  David Rickman: But this was put in just to show that I do go to museums.
• 5:12
  David Rickman: I do look at real things because I think that's the only way to get to the truth about uh, uh, what was actually worn or used.
• 5:27
  David Rickman: And this is the first California history book, clothing book that I, I did, which was the Sutter Fort Costume Manual.
• 5:35
  David Rickman: Uh, and that was back in many years ago.
• 5:39
  David Rickman: And it.
• 5:41
  David Rickman: With my first attempt at seriously dealing with the sources, the, the actual artifacts and the written, uh, descriptions of what California's, well, I mean, there were many different cultures represented in this, including native Californians and mountain men and US sailors and so forth.
• 6:03
  David Rickman: But this was my first effort to actually put it down in a scholarly way, and it's the first one as far as I know, that would ever by anyone that attempted to handle this as a serious scholarly subject.
• 6:16
  David Rickman: I was able in 2012 to actually use some of this information for the, uh, the Sutter fort, I mean, I'm sorry, the Fort Ross, uh, bicentennial in 2012.
• 6:27
  David Rickman: But that was just one of many costume programs that I've actually designed.
• 6:32
  David Rickman: And, uh, uh, it was fun to actually see, be able to, to see it.
• 6:39
  David Rickman: Done.
• 6:39
  David Rickman: Well, I don't know what's happened to these costumes if they're still in use or not, but it was good to see it work once.
• 6:48
  David Rickman: Um, but the frustration with the Suter Sport costume manual was that I can do drawings of how things were worn or what things looked like, but the eyewitness pictures, and there are so many eyewitness pictures, uh, I would've liked to have included in the costume manual, but there just wasn't the budget or the, the means to do it.
• 7:11
  David Rickman: Um, since then, so much has come out that museums you can find online and you can find them for free, which just wasn't available back when the Su fort costume manual first came out in the 1990s.
• 7:25
  David Rickman: So, uh, some years ago, California State Parks approached me again to write Sutter Fort style costume manuals for the entire state for.
• 7:36
  David Rickman: You know, each individual park.
• 7:37
  David Rickman: And I said, uh, no, it's not, it's not many different costume manuals.
• 7:41
  David Rickman: It's one great big costume manual of, of what was worn in early California.
• 7:47
  David Rickman: So if we go, I think to the next slide.
• 7:52
  David Rickman: This is the book.
• 7:53
  David Rickman: It's where Worlds Met.
• 7:55
  David Rickman: It's been promised for many years.
• 7:58
  David Rickman: Sadly, we were almost ready to make the big push to finish it last year when the, the real force behind the project, uh, the lady who, um, originated it and even, and, and followed even after she retired from St.
• 8:13
  David Rickman: Parks, Karen be from San Diego, died unexpectedly about the same, well, at the same time that we were having the conference in, uh, uh, at La Parisa model, uh, two years ago.
• 8:25
  David Rickman: And so the whole project ground to a halt in 2024.
• 8:30
  David Rickman: And.
• 8:32
  David Rickman: The other person who was working on it, uh, a wonderful interpreter, uh, administrator, Heather Hol of California State Parks.
• 8:42
  David Rickman: Um, she was promoted to run all interpretation in California, so this little project kind of took the back shelf, so to speak, rightly so, because she needed to get her, uh, get firmly in control of what she was doing.
• 9:00
  David Rickman: But luckily, uh, late last year, they contacted me and said, we want to get it going again.
• 9:06
  David Rickman: And, uh, at the time that I was out for the conference this year, um, I met with Heather in, uh, in Sonoma and we're moving ahead with it, and I'd like to promise that it will be out this year, but I promise that so many times that I would be embarrassed to do it again.
• 9:23
  David Rickman: But I think it's very likely that it will be out this year.
• 9:25
  David Rickman: This is the first volume.
• 9:27
  David Rickman: Volume two will go from 1848.
• 9:30
  David Rickman: Through the Gold Rush to 1860, by which time you have the railroad coming in, and anything that they're wearing in New York City, they're wearing in California.
• 9:41
  David Rickman: So it's, it's not really worth doing costume manuals for after 1860.
• 9:46
  David Rickman: I, there are some illustrations that I did for it, which are on the next slide, I believe, and here's where I want to, where this volume was fun because I was able to kind of break the stereotypes.
• 10:02
  David Rickman: My vaqueros in silhouette might look something like Joe Morris, but in detail, they're very different from Joe Morris.
• 10:09
  David Rickman: You'll notice the, the types of hats and the way the, um, the leggings are and such.
• 10:15
  David Rickman: They're very different from that Also with the women.
• 10:19
  David Rickman: The first dresses that were worn in California as they're described, they were very bizarre.
• 10:25
  David Rickman: They were long and very tight, and the sleeves were actually.
• 10:29
  David Rickman: Not connected to the dress, but held on by shoulder straps, which is very bizarre.
• 10:35
  David Rickman: Um, but that's my reconstruction of, of what was worn there.
• 10:39
  David Rickman: The idea is to, um, not overturn or break myths, but to show more fully what it is, uh, that was actually worn to the best of my knowledge at this point.
• 10:55
  David Rickman: Um, and my hope is that with this book, which will outlast me, um, it will serve as a foundation for someone to come along in the future who has more skills than I have, or new sources of information that I don't, and, and move this subject forward if they can.
• 11:16
  David Rickman: I, I really hope that they do.
• 11:19
  David Rickman: I'm just sorry, I won't be here to see it.
• 11:21
  David Rickman: Um, but yeah, it's, it's been a great, great project, this book.
• 11:27
  David Rickman: And it wasn't just about.
• 11:29
  David Rickman: California's, when I did both the Sutter Sport Manual and this one, it's about all non, uh, all, all people in, in, uh, California at the time, other than traditionally dressed Native Americans, which I have dealt with in in other publication.
• 11:45
  David Rickman: Um, so these are the Russians from Fort Ross, uh, as he might have appeared, including the pink shirt, which was recently misinterpreted by a, uh, a scholar as being a silk shirt because it's based on a, uh, uh, eyewitness testimony to one of, of, um, Bancroft's interviewers where one of the soldiers, uh, California soldiers stopped off at, at, um, bodega Bay.
• 12:12
  David Rickman: And they were just coming in from a campaign and the Russians gave them shirt that the, the Spanish soldiers thought were silk, when in fact what they were, were polished cotton from China and they were cherry red.
• 12:28
  David Rickman: So that's what I've shown this gentleman on the right wearing.
• 12:32
  David Rickman: And I just wanted to say, the reason I've got the picture of the Fort Ross, uh, coloring book there is that I've been researching Russian American costume for about the same main, uh, length of time as I have, um, uh, California clothing.
• 12:48
  David Rickman: Uh, it's been harder, uh, because I don't speak Russian, but interestingly enough, very little of the information, much like in California where very little of the information about California dress is in Spanish, not much about Russian dress is available in Russian because it's kind of like, well, it's, it is almost a rule that people don't set out and describe the everyday, so Russian who come to America, they might describe a California, but they're not gonna describe the Parsis who are working around them, the, the Russian workers, because.
• 13:28
  David Rickman: They're just workers.
• 13:29
  David Rickman: They're, they're, they're every day.
• 13:31
  David Rickman: And so, uh, a lot of the best descriptions of the Russian American company employees are in French, German, and Spanish and, and English, and not in, um, not in Russian.
• 13:45
  David Rickman: Although there was one vital document that I had to go down to the Library of Congress to get that was in Latin.
• 13:52
  David Rickman: And I had to pull out my high school Latin and just beat my brains over translating the part about clothing in it.
• 13:59
  David Rickman: But it was worth it.
• 14:05
  David Rickman: So I'd said I had done things about Native Californians.
• 14:09
  David Rickman: Um, this is an illustration that I did, uh, some years ago for the Alviso project that wasn't used.
• 14:15
  David Rickman: But also years ago, I was given the opportunity to write an entry and a multi-volume history address that was published in England, uh, by the Burke.
• 14:26
  David Rickman: Company, the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion.
• 14:30
  David Rickman: And so I wrote the chapter on California Indian dress for that.
• 14:35
  David Rickman: So that, you know, I'm rather proud that I was able to, uh, to leave that because I've not able to include traditional Californian dress in my, uh, my costume manuals.
• 14:50
  Damian Bacich: I noticed the, the shawls that, uh, the women are wearing, at least one of the women, they, and maybe you've seen, they remind me of kumeyaay rabbit blankets I've seen at the Museum of Man in San Diego.
• 15:07
  David Rickman: Well, they certainly should because that's exactly what they are.
• 15:11
  David Rickman: Uh, it's interesting, it kind of woven, uh, blanket and it is woven.
• 15:18
  David Rickman: What they do is they take the skins and they, they.
• 15:21
  David Rickman: They string them out and they cut them into strings and then they weave them and they have the fur on them.
• 15:25
  David Rickman: And so they're, they're warm inside and out.
• 15:27
  David Rickman: Uh, that style of, of blanket is worn all the way up to the Arctic circle.
• 15:32
  David Rickman: Um, very popular.
• 15:34
  David Rickman: And so, yes, that's exactly what they're wearing.
• 15:36
  David Rickman: It's also a good way of dealing with the fact that when you're illustrating for the general public, you can't show naked people because fourth graders get the giggles.
• 15:51
  David Rickman: And then I just wanted to show some of the work that I did for the, uh, national Park Service.
• 15:55
  David Rickman: I've done a lot of work in, in the last 15 years or so, especially, I've done it for years for the National Park Service, but the last 15 years especially,'cause I've been working with an exhibit company out of Los Angeles, Henley Company, and we've done a number of these.
• 16:10
  David Rickman: This is actually a Santa Fe trail, uh, site in southern Colorado, and it's showing what are called comancheros.
• 16:19
  David Rickman: They were new Mexicans who would go out and trade with the Comanches, and they often would trade oh, blankets and, and uh, coffee and sugar and things like that for horses.
• 16:31
  David Rickman: And the lower on the left hand side is a picture of where this sign can be seen.
• 16:38
  David Rickman: And I like to joke that my art is seen in some of the most desolate parts of America.
• 16:42
  David Rickman: Um, this is out in the middle of nowhere as many of my waysides are.
• 16:52
  Damian Bacich: All right.
• 16:54
  David Rickman: And this is another one that I did, which was for a cotton, uh, mill in, uh, Providence, Rhode Island.
• 17:02
  David Rickman: And I, that was a, a great one because I got to crawl all over this reconstructed mill.
• 17:08
  David Rickman: And then I had to go home and, and, uh, uh, do a cutaway view of it.
• 17:13
  David Rickman: But I, I had to know how it worked before I could actually do that drawing.
• 17:17
  David Rickman: And so.
• 17:18
  David Rickman: Uh, going all the way down to where that mill wheel is and all the way up to the top.
• 17:23
  David Rickman: Uh, I was able to figure it out.
• 17:25
  David Rickman: Brilliant bit of engineering, but not like anything that I do for California.
• 17:35
  David Rickman: And then I did this, which is some of my natural history stuff, which I don't do often enough.
• 17:40
  David Rickman: But these are prehistoric lion and wolf that is on display at the, um, visitor center at, um, uh, in California for, um, for one of the beach sites on the beach parks.
• 17:57
  Damian Bacich: I'll have to go find
• 17:58
  David Rickman: the last, last one is actually one that I did for, um, a Cherokee Indian site, the Sequoia Birthplace Museum in Tennessee.
• 18:12
  David Rickman: And give you an idea that sometimes they'll do a little illustration on your computer.
• 18:18
  David Rickman: Or on paper.
• 18:20
  David Rickman: And then, uh, they blew it up to, I think, at least twice life size in order to make a mural out of it.
• 18:28
  David Rickman: But again, this was sort the great project I got very involved with how the Cherokee dressed and, you know, wearing turbans and these kfan like coats and such.
• 18:39
  David Rickman: So unlike what we normally picture American Indians dressing, and yet I think we do a disservice to the, the richness of Native American clothing and culture when we all just assume that they wore feather head dresses and buck skin.
• 18:56
  Damian Bacich: Right.
• 18:56
  Damian Bacich: This is, this is fascinating to see, and I guess there's one more here.
• 19:03
  David Rickman: And this last one is just those two Facebook pages.
• 19:06
  David Rickman: Uh, the groups, the Alta California clothing that I helped to administer, and the arts and skills of the Spanish Borderlands, which.
• 19:13
  David Rickman: To my amazement, uh, we're now at more than 3000 members on the arts and skills of the Spanish borderlands, and it grew far beyond my expectations.
• 19:24
  David Rickman: I thought we would just be a small group, but we have members as far away as Israel and, and Australia that, uh, writing in from time to time or at least tuning in to see what what's new.
• 19:38
  Damian Bacich: And I think that speaks to what we talked about earlier, the, the, the latent interest that there is out there for these sorts of topics.
• 19:48
  Damian Bacich: You know, people from Israel, 3000 people that gather together.
• 19:53
  Damian Bacich: You know, I.
• 19:55
  Damian Bacich: To, to discuss and learn about material culture in the Spanish borderlands of, of North America.
• 20:03
  Damian Bacich: It's, it's, and well, it's also a testament to you and the, the precise and, um, robust work that you do because you are serious about what you do.
• 20:15
  Damian Bacich: And, and so people know that that's a place where they're gonna exchange serious information.
• 20:23
  David Rickman: Well, well, thank you.
• 20:24
  David Rickman: Um, it, it, it had been a pleasure to, to do this and to discover just how many people find what you and I find actively fascinating.
• 20:36
  David Rickman: Equally fascinating.
• 20:37
  David Rickman: Um, it's, it's very gratifying.
• 20:41
  Damian Bacich: you've never been tempted to work in Hollywood.
• 20:45
  David Rickman: Oh, yes.
• 20:49
  David Rickman: And I, I'm sure you heard, or maybe you didn't hear that.
• 20:52
  David Rickman: I almost did.
• 20:54
  Damian Bacich: I don't think I knew about this.
• 20:56
  David Rickman: twice, I, I once, uh, I have a friend who is a costume, a well established costume designer in, in Hollywood.
• 21:04
  David Rickman: And years ago I went out and chatted with her and visited the set of a film she was working on in session.
• 21:12
  David Rickman: She's, she's really very well established.
• 21:15
  David Rickman: And, um, and after talking to me for a while, she very kindly said, David, you'd never survive in Hollywood because I don't respect authenticity.
• 21:26
  David Rickman: Um, she said, I can live with it.
• 21:28
  David Rickman: I know how to bend it and all of that.
• 21:30
  David Rickman: But, you know, she can also do very authentic when she wants to and when she's allowed to, but Hollywood doesn't allow her to.
• 21:36
  David Rickman: But a few years ago, thanks to my connection with the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles County, um, I was contacted by people who wanted to do a new Zorro series for the Disney Channel.
• 21:49
  David Rickman: And for a while there we looked like we were going to do it.
• 21:52
  David Rickman: And the, the, uh, natural History Museum History Department actually recommended me.
• 22:00
  David Rickman: That's how we connected.
• 22:02
  David Rickman: And I went out and visited them in, um, in Los Angeles and we had breakfast together and we talked about plots and costume and such.
• 22:11
  David Rickman: And as always, they assured me they wanted to be absolutely authentic.
• 22:14
  David Rickman: But you know, anytime you're dealing with history and Hollywood, you have to take that with a very large dose of salt.
• 22:22
  David Rickman: Um.
• 22:23
  David Rickman: We got very close.
• 22:24
  David Rickman: The only thing that happened was that, um, we had, um, the Hollywood Writer Strike followed by the Hollywood Actor Strike, and then a new series that came from Spain that appeared on, I think Amazon of Zoro, which was absolutely atrocious.
• 22:48
  David Rickman: I mean, pure, uh, game of Thrones level authenticity, and, um, that pretty much killed the project.
• 22:57
  David Rickman: But yeah, if anyone out there wants a consultant on early California costume, whether for Zora or not, um, let me know.
• 23:08
  David Rickman: Uh, or Old West generally.
• 23:10
  David Rickman: Um, yeah, the, the, uh, the thing about Hollywood is that you really do have to know how to work with.
• 23:21
  David Rickman: Both history and, uh, and producers,
• 23:26
  Damian Bacich: Well, you never know who may be listening to this.
• 23:28
  Damian Bacich: I'm, we're watching this video.
• 23:30
  Damian Bacich: I'm always surprised at at the reach it gets, so who knows?
• 23:37
  David Rickman: who knows?
• 23:37
  David Rickman: Well, I, I would be very pleased.
• 23:39
  David Rickman: Um, I think I've told you though that, um, Zoro doesn't quite make sense because Zoro is a ranchero who's protecting the rights of the missions and the Indians, which doesn't quite fit with the history.
• 23:53
  David Rickman: But, um, we were actually able to, to overcome that in the way we were doing the story.
• 24:00
  David Rickman: Um, but yeah, it was, it was a disappointment.
• 24:03
  David Rickman: It would've been fun to, uh, to do and see how far we could go toward making it actually look like 1830s California.
• 24:12
  Damian Bacich: Wow.
• 24:13
  Damian Bacich: Well, I would be, I would love to see that.
• 24:16
  Damian Bacich: Hopefully it'll happen.
• 24:17
  Damian Bacich: Who knows?
• 24:17
  Damian Bacich: Who knows?
• 24:19
  David Rickman: Yeah, I mean, there has never been ne, well, first of all, there's never been an authentically costumed western ever.
• 24:26
  David Rickman: Um, so why should I expect that there would be an authentically costumed film about early California?
• 24:32
  David Rickman: Uh, that, that's I think asking too much.
• 24:38
  Damian Bacich: You're probably right.
• 24:40
  Damian Bacich: Well, David, I, I took a lot of your time, but this is fascinating.
• 24:45
  Damian Bacich: Um, I'm looking forward to hearing more about the book.
• 24:49
  Damian Bacich: Hopefully, hopefully it won't be too long before it's out because I think a lot of people would love, would love it, not just people who work for the state parks or who are museum, uh, curators, but I just think the visual aspect is fills in a huge gap conceptually for people who are interested in history and California history and just the, the, the background of our state and the west in general, I think.
• 25:20
  Damian Bacich: Right.
• 25:20
  Damian Bacich: It's the whole, the whole west, because California really shouldn't be seen in isolation.
• 25:26
  Damian Bacich: It's part of this, this much broader, uh, geographical and cultural area.
• 25:32
  Damian Bacich: So I'm looking forward to that and be waiting for ba with beated breath for it.
• 25:37
  Damian Bacich: Well, maybe I shouldn't wait with beated breath, but be waiting for it.
• 25:41
  David Rickman: Probably not.
• 25:42
  Damian Bacich: Right, right, right.
• 25:44
  David Rickman: Well, I'm also looking forward to, uh, next year's conference and to seeing you there.
• 25:50
  Damian Bacich: in Mission Dolores, for those of you who don't know, uh, the California Missions Conference will be at Mission Dolores in San Francisco.
• 25:59
  Damian Bacich: I think we'll be celebrating the 250th anniversary.
• 26:02
  Damian Bacich: Of the founding of Mission San Francisco, the Asis and the Presidio of San Francisco, right?
• 26:08
  Damian Bacich: 1776.
• 26:10
  Damian Bacich: So you've got time to plan for it now.
• 26:14
  Damian Bacich: I believe it's the weekend of April 18th, but I will double check that.
• 26:20
  David Rickman: We keep moving it back and forth from April to February.
• 26:24
  Damian Bacich: Right.
• 26:25
  David Rickman: I hope it's in April.
• 26:26
  David Rickman: I hope I, I do hope it's in April.
• 26:28
  Damian Bacich: it is, it is, it is.
• 26:29
  Damian Bacich: It's been, it's been nailed down for April.
• 26:32
  Damian Bacich: I think that the, the fee, what I understand is the feedback from this year was that people, that people like having it at April rather than on the President's Day weekend, which also happens to often coincide with Valentine's Day.
• 26:48
  Damian Bacich: So it, uh,
• 26:49
  David Rickman: as I did this year.
• 26:50
  Damian Bacich: right, right.
• 26:51
  Damian Bacich: right.
• 26:53
  David Rickman: Well, I look forward to seeing you there.
• 26:54
  Damian Bacich: Likewise.
• 26:55
  Damian Bacich: Well, thanks so much, David.
• 26:57
  Damian Bacich: It's been great.
• 26:58
  Damian Bacich: I,
• 26:59
  David Rickman: Thank you, Damien.
• 27:00
  David Rickman: It is been an honor to, I'm, I'm very, uh, flattered that you asked me on.
• 27:06
  David Rickman: I'm grateful.
• 27:15
  This is the California Frontier Show.
• 27:18
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• 27:25
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• 27:31
  Then be sure to tell all your friends about the podcast.
• 27:35
  If you would like to connect with me, the host, send me an email at damien@californiafrontier.net.