Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Christmas Memories

My wife is listening to 1940s and 1950s Christmas music as she decorates the tree. Our Housekeeper is decorating our new Deck into the backyard for a Christmas party. I'm here at the computer thinking about all my dead friends and relatives this Christmas.

I'm looking at a picture of myself taken at my Dad's 2 1/2 acres in the desert near Yucca Valley, California on the upper mesa towards Landers. This would be 1976. I still have long hair and a full beard then and a 2 to 3 year old son. in the background is my father's grape arbor and garden where he had things like a fig Tree and grew watermelons in season too. He and I and friends and my mother completely built the house out there on weekends from 1968 until 1980 when he retired there with my mother. My Mom and Dad are gone now (Dad in 1985 and Mom in 2008).

My son is now married with wife and a son and living overseas but should return in the next few months. We are looking forward to that to be near my grandson, Son and his wife. He is now 42 years old.

I am also looking at a photo taken like in 1956 or 1957 when my Grandmother came and visited along with one of my aunt's her husband and their two children, also my other cousin from California and his mother.  In 1956 I was 8.

It's funny to look at this definitely southern California picture with me and my Dad and Mom and California aunt and son very tan and all our Seattle relatives white as a sheet. We lived at the beach, deserts, mountains on literally every weekend then. So, we were very tan from playing in the southern California sun every weekend, especially during the summers. Gas was likely 10 to 20 cents a gallon and minimum wage was around $1 an hour and a VW Bug new was $600 so you could not only afford to own a car but also for the gas to drive 400 miles a weekend which we did then. Even at minimum wage if you owned your car you might buy 10 gallons for only one hours work even if you worked at something like McDonalds at minimum wage. not like now at all.

Even in 1964 I only had to pay $600 for my 8 year old  1956 Ford Stationwagon I named my "Surf Wagon" for driving to surf and Scuba dive and to Free Drive and Body surf at the  beach then.

Life was an out of doors joy then always. Only the Los Angeles Traffic and smog then got me down much.

Now, out of the 10 relatives in the picture only two are still alive, me and my 5 years older cousin who is still practicing law into his 70s because he loves it. One of his daughter's who is a lawyer works for him too so he is very lucky to be near several of his many grandchildren.

Definitely a day for "The Ghost of Christmases past"

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