The quality of merchandise at any swap meet will vary widely, and Denio’s is no exception. As you wander through the many acres of vendors’ stalls you will find brand new items of clothing, toys, tools and hardware, floor coverings, and kitchen items; you’ll also see just as many used items, in conditions ranging from pristine to one step away […]
Although I was completely unaware of its existence during my two visits to the Queen Mary in 1974 and 1985, the giant crane featured in the first half of this 1993 episode of California’s Gold was sitting a mere five miles away. It was that very same crane (built in 1941) which lifted the “Spruce Goose” from its original hanger […]
I first visited, and explored, the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, during the spring of 1974 (I shared my photos of that trip back in June 2017); but my images this week all date from 1983 — when we didn’t enter the ship but went only as far as the parking lot. Nowadays, the Queen Mary is closed for […]
A few days ago I was watching television and happened to see a familiar episode of California’s Gold — one that I featured here on my blog last May about the historic bells of the El Camino Real. You may recall that the last 30 minutes of that one-hour episode included a visit to the foundry where new bells were […]
Last Wednesday I featured an exciting episode of California’s Gold in which Huell climbed to the top of Half Dome; and this week he’s also in Yosemite. This time he spends some time at a much lower elevation, learning about the original inhabitants of the Yosemite Valley and exploring some of the structures similar to those I’ve seen at Indian […]
Later this week we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving in the US. While I have plenty to be thankful for personally, I also can’t help thinking about what this holiday must feel like from an indigenous perspective. Like most places in the world, California’s history contains both great feats of bravery and terrible acts of destruction and cruelty. Indigenous people and pioneers […]
Back in early May of this year, I shared some slide images from 1985 featuring the area around Jackson, California — specifically Daffodil Hill and Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park (Chaw’se). This week I’ve got a handful of previously overlooked slides from that same Gold Country trip. I can’t tell you exactly when they were shot, but the processing date […]
The Peña Adobe in Vacaville is another one of those sites I’ve passed by on hundreds of occasions, wishing to stop but never finding the time to do so. Well, I finally got there! This historic adobe, built in 1842 by one of the first European families to live in the area, sits right beside Interstate 80 and yet exists […]
This post was originally published as Memory Monday, Week 81, in August 2018. This week I’m wrapping up my series of Korean War photos; I know a lot of you have been enjoying it, and I very much appreciate all your likes and shares. I think my final group of photos really encapsulates what my dad’s experience at Johnson Air Base was like. As before, I’ve put double quotes around any explanatory notes written on the back of the photos.