Scott Piotrowski recently uploaded a 20-minute documentary from 1998, “158 Miles to Yesterday,” that he directed and produced.
The film, shot in 16 mm film and uploaded from the VHS tape, examines the longest unbroken stretch of original Route 66 from in Arizona, from about Crookton Road to Topock.
Now over 20 years old, the film contains historical value, much like the road-trip videos Anthony Reichardt shot on Route 66 during the early to mid-1990s.
Two people featured in Piotrowski’s film, Route 66 artist Bob Waldmire and Frontier Motel & Cafe co-owner Mildred Barker, since have died.
Piotrowski told me “it was the right time” to put the video on the internet, and “some other things may be in the works.”
Piotrowski also wrote a book in 2003, “Finding the End of the Mother Road: Route 66 in Los Angeles County.” It explored the various alignments of Route 66 in the Los Angeles region. The book apparently is long out of print, but it’s well worth your time to track one down if you wish to thoroughly the Mother Road in L.A.
Piotrowski, the California Historic Route 66 Association president, also still guides walking tours and mass-transit tours of Route 66 in Los Angeles. To make arrangements, he can be reached at rt66prods@yahoo.com.
(Screen-capture image of Angel Delgadillo cutting hair in his barber shop in Seligman, Arizona, from the 1998 film “158 Miles to Yesterday”)
That young man getting his hair cut is none other than the film’s Assistant Director, and the man that kept me on my path all these years when I thought about changing my goals and dreams. Without Michael Possert Jr. and the rest of the crew this film would never have been completed. Believe it or not, we had a crew of 17 with three cameras filming the Fun Run that year, the only year that it ever went west-to-east. Lots of details in there – like my cameos – that I’ll never forget being a part of.