I may have mentioned before that one of my pastimes is trolling through the vintage toys offered on eBay to see if I can spot any toys I used to play with in my childhood; in fact, I shared one of my previous finds back in February 2021 (see A Vintage game bird). It’s rare for me to actually find […]
Two weeks ago for Memory Monday I shared photos of the kids tearing into their presents during Christmas 1983, and this week you can see them after the toys were all assembled and ready for action. You can probably tell this was Southern California (Anaheim) by the fact they were wearing short sleeves and no jackets despite it being late […]
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 […]
I’ve posted some of these photos before, including back in 2017, but this is the first time I’ve rescanned them and got better results with the colors (although not always perfect). All of these images date from the first half of 1983 and were shot in and around my parents’ house.
This post was original published as Memory Monday, Week 76, on July 23, 2018. Typing “39th Fighter Squadron” into Google gets me a lot of information about the squadron’s history in World War 2 and Korea, mostly focused on the pilots who flew missions over hostile territory. But I don’t find too much about the hard-working ground crews who maintained the planes so they would return safely to base after the day’s job was done. My dad’s photo collection focuses mainly on his fellow flight mechanics, and of course the planes they constantly took apart and put back together.
This is a slightly edited version of a post that was originally published in July 2018 as Memory Monday, Week 73. CORRECTION: Last Monday I shared photos of a road trip from Northern California to the Oregon coast and said it was a trip my parents took. I later heard from my mom, who let me know [for the second time!] that this was actually a trip she took with her parents (my grandparents) in the summer of 1946, after she graduated from high school. Thanks yet again, Mom! I wish I had talked more with my father about the time he spent in Japan during the early 1950s; and I really wish I’d known about the existence of these photos! Many of them have no information, but a few have notes scribbled on the back — which I’ll be including as captions whenever possible. Below is an example of some images coming up next week. My dad was a mechanic and his favorite planes were the P-51 Mustangs, so he took a lot of photos of them. I’m not sure what “dragging the field” means; maybe somebody out there can clue me in? NOTE: Using Google, I’ve since found a few references to the phrase “dragging the field” which lead me to believe it refers to making one or more low passes over the runway to check that the surface is suitable for landing the plane: Don’t just land […]
This week I have a few more miscellaneous shots from around 1972-1973. Although I can’t recall details about these specific images, I definitely remember visiting a number of prisons during our Mexico trips. When I think back on it now, it seems incredible that Frank Gonzales was allowed to bring a large group of young people (and at least one […]
Welcome back to Mexico Monday redux! I can’t remember if I’ve shared the corrected versions of my slides this week, but they include some of my favorite memories. One or two of the images seem to relate to ones I’ve previously shared — like the one below, showing our VW camper parked outside an open-air restaurant along the highway, shot […]
This week, I have a collection of images from the summer of 1972. One or two of the places look familiar to me, but I’m not sure of the locations; and sadly, I can’t identify any of the people (although maybe someone in my family will remember). I do recall the yellow Camaro and the red Volkswagen “squareback” as part […]