Your witness: Los Angeles' Perry Mason court building

L.A.'s Hall of Justice, where Perry could always get a parking space on the street right in front.

Raymond Burr in the role he was born to play.

Barbara Hale as Della Street, the best gal Friday in the business. And dig that crazy office decor!

William Hopper as Paul Drake, Perry's on-call rakish PI.

The great William Talman as Hamilton Burger, TV's losingest DA, but a man with great integrity deep down.

Ray Collins as Lt. Tragg, who's always convinced he's got Perry cold this time.

And Connie Cezon as Gertie. "Mista Mason!"

Los Angeles is the main location of the great 1957-66 TV series "Perry Mason." The old L.A. Hall of Justice is an establishing shot in most of the episodes and that building still stands in L.A. and looks just as it did in the TV show, only without the 1950s cars driving past it. It's had some notorious "guests" in its day including Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan but it's been unused since an earthquake damaged it in 1994. A restoration effort has been underway for many years.

"Perry Mason" turned 52 this year and it's, without a doubt, the best show in the history of television. Here's why:

Perry is cool. He's never nervous, always knows what to do and is neatly groomed. Ordinary people are always asking him, "Aren't you Perry Mason, the famous lawyer?" He works night and day for his clients, sometimes for free. And he's never wrong.

Della Street is smart. And attractive. And good at pretending to be someone else sometimes. She stays at the office just as late as Perry and never complains. You never really know if she and Perry are an item, and I've never known anyone whose last name is a synonym for pavement.

Paul Drake is REALLY cool. A big, barrel-chested P.I. with prematurely silver hair in a checkered sportcoat smoking a Winston and driving a T-Bird. He's got his own private back entrance to Perry's office, always sits on the edge of Perry's desk and greets Della with an ever so suave "Hiya, beautiful" (she usually just rolls her eyes back at him).

Hamilton Burger. William Talman is brilliant as the eternally crabby D.A. who always loses but isn't really a bad guy. His best bit: Slowly shaking his head "no" in disbelief while rising from his table in court and bellowing out a long, scratchy, irritable, "Your Honor!"

Lieutenant Tragg. Another grouch who's always positive he's got Perry beat this time. He usually shows up behind a door or from a closet one minute after the stiff is found, charging Perry's client with Murder One, very full of himself.

Gertie. She's Perry's receptionist, usually on the other end of Perry's or Della's phone ("Yes, Gertie"). She actually shows up on camera once or twice and is a real lollapalooza.

Nice clean murder. No rape, incest or other unpleasantries. Blackmail's most often the motive and the victim is usually very mean and unpleasant and had it coming to him or her anyway.

Everyone is nasty. Rich or poor, young or old, they all act like their shoes are on too tight.

Terrific character actors. If you watch this show a lot, you'll see the same fabulous repertory company of character actors over and over again. And I don't know the names of any of them.

TV's best theme song. The pounding piano. The fat trumpet. The big crescendo. Drama with a capital D.

Newspapers with giant headlines. "HEIRESS MURDERS BOYFRIEND," printed so big it looks like World War III just broke out.

It holds up in reruns. It's like listening to opera or your favorite Beatles records - you sing along with the best parts. And even if I've seen the show before, I can never remember who the murderer is, anyway.

They never break from the formula. Perry's client never takes the stand, the real murderer confesses, Perry's client is innocent. You can set your watch by it.

It's a period piece. Fabulous cars, great clothes, cool furniture. Will "The Practice" look this cool fifty years from now?

I rest my case.

Manly at-tire: Magnolia, New Jersey's Tire Store Muffler Man

Muffler Men and New Jersey go together like Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. A nice diversion off the New Jersey Turnpike in the southern part of the state is Royal Tire and Auto's magnificent specimen of muffler manhood. Nattily fitted in black shirt, faded red pants and rubber tire bracelet, this brute looks right at home on this busy Garden State thoroughfare. He also appears to be sporting pink lipstick, but, hey, we're not here to judge. You're spinning your wheels if you think you'll top this muffler man: he's got charm to spare, performs well under pressure, will belt it out and ply his trade, and won't leave you feeling deflated. I skid you not. (rim shot)

Staying the corset: New Haven, Connecticut's former Smoothie Foundation Garment factory

I love how the women in these ads look so nonchalant about wearing girdles around the house.

Ouch!

Today, a smoothie is a delicious frothy combination of fruit, ice and yogurt, but back in the era when women had to wear elastic torture devices to look good, a Smoothie was a top of the line girdle manufactured by the Strouse Adler Company of New Haven, Connecticut. Their factory first began cranking out unmentionables way back in 1860, and continued up until 1999 in the same brick building until they were forced to do some, er, belt-tightening and move the operation off-shore. Savvy real estate developers wasted no time converting the building into luxury apartments with a funky SoHo feel. And instead of being embarrassed by selling urban hipsters flats in a former girdle factory, they embraced it. A fabulous, huge "Smoothie" sign has been repainted on the side of the building and can be seen from miles away, just as it could in its hey-day. And wonderful original metal Smoothie script logos still adorn the other sides of the building. It's a cinch to see what a waist it would have been if the developers didn't have the guts to keep the girdle theme going, and that's not stretching the truth.

Happy birthday, Leith

My brother always saw to it that I was well-fed.

Someone driving by asked if we were lost when I got out to take this picture in Leith, North Dakota.

Leith, North Dakota welcomes you...

...as does the Leith Run in Ohio.

Today is my brother Leith's birthday and I wish everyone was lucky enough to have a brother as good as he is. He was my mentor when I was growing up and it seems appropriate that his birthday falls on or near Thanksgiving because I've always been thankful for having him. There's a connection here roadtrip-wise, too. Leith was a bit of a map-savant as a child and always told my parents what route to take and which exit they needed on our many long road excursions. He was only nine, but without his navigation skills, we probably would have wound up in the Georgia swamp or something on the way from Connecticut to Grandma's house in Florida (I, on the other hand, was always content to snooze in the way-back of the station wagon). More recently, Leith's unusual name has popped up on some of our roadtrips. We visited the tiny deserted town of Leith, North Dakota, and passed by the Leith Run near the Ohio River. If anyone out in blogland knows of any other places named Leith, I'd love to add them to our collection. So happy birthday, Leith, and remember: the time to laugh is when the profit is made.

Central Standard Time: Odell, Illinois' antique gas station

A spectacular example of well-preserved Route 66 petrolium-abilia resides in the pleasant little town of Odell, Illinois. A 1932 Standard gas station greets you like a cheery "Howdy" while you're tooling down the mother road. As was typical with other towns along 66, Odell was a bustling community with 10 gas stations up until the interstate was put in, robbing Odell of its traffic and causing most local businesses to disappear. This particular station kept selling gas, though, up until 1967. The station was a body shop up until 1999 and then the village of Odell purchased it for historic preservation. And what a beautiful preservation it is. Crisp blue and white paint, antique pumps, and cool old lettering on the roof shingles. It now serves as a tourism station and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Inside, friendly folks will give you pens and pads with the nicest town slogan I've ever heard: "A small town with a big heart, where everybody is somebody." We could use more places where everybody is somebody, couldn't we?

Rover in a Rover in Thomson, Georgia

Little dogs rule.

Semi-conscious: Trucks seen along the way

Is she supposed to be drinking home heating oil?
Probably the weirdest truck advertisement I've ever seen.

Objet DART

Mmmm...Kozy Shack...

Don't even think of using a radar detector, Mr. Kozy Shack Driver Man

You see a lot of trucks when you're on a roadtrip and to borrow a line from the great Ray Stevens, they're all beautiful in their own way. They make for good pictures out the car window when you're a little bored or stuck in traffic. 10-4, good buddy.

Get a load of this: North Platte, Nebraska's Norge Ball

They've got an awesome water tower in North Platte, too...

...and the grains don't come more amberer or wavier than in Nebraska.

We made an overnight stop in North Platte, Nebraska a few years ago. I had never been to the Cornhusker state before and I really liked it. Nice folks, nice wide open spaces. As is the case with long trips, every few days a laundromat stop is required. We found one in North Platte with a most beguiling sign. An odd globe bedazzled with Wonder Bread style polka-dots beckoned us to the North Platte Wash & Dry. I was three sheets to the wind with awe at its hypnotizing effect. It was dilapidated yet enchanting. I figured it was just a one-off roadside oddity, but upon further research came to find out that a whole chain of 3,400 Norge Village laundromats had these same globes dating back to the early 60s. Debra Jane Seltzer, the awesomest roadside architecture authority of them all, has a whole page of Norge balls on her amazing website. She says only 50 or so exist today, so I'm awash in gratitude to have been in the presence of such a cool one.

Marxism in Moundsville: West Virginia's Marx Toy Museum

If you grew up in the fifties and sixties, you probably played with or watched TV commercials advertising Marx toys. They specialized in plastic figures, including Johnny West and a cadre of Wild West action characters, Big Loo, a space age robot, and the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots ("hey... you knocked my block off!"). The little northern West Virginia panhandle town of Moundsville (there really is a mound there) is the home of the Marx Toy Museum. In it you will find toys and artifacts from the 1920-70s. It's all the collection of one man and his son, Francis and Jason Turner. None of the toys have been restored; rather, they all look like they've been stashed in an attic or basement for the last half-century, waiting to be put on display in their slightly worn condition. It makes sense to have the museum here, as the nearby town of Glen Dale once hosted Marx's biggest factory. By the 1950s, Louis Marx was the world's most productive toy maker and he even made the cover of Time magazine in 1955. Unfortunately for the local people, he sold the company in 1972 and by 1980 it went out of business. I think my favorite relic on display was the "Ben Hur" action set. Any objet d'Charlton Heston is tops in my book. In fact we give high Marx (p.u., that pun is awful) to the whole place.