Yosemite: 1963

In the summer of 1963 it was very hot in Glendale where I lived. I was 15 years old and was working summers from 12 to 17 with my father in his electrical business. He let me take a week of that summer to go to Yosemite with my best friend, Mike, and his 17 year old sister and mother in their station wagon. We planned to camp in Yosemite Valley in Tents and his sister and mother would sleep in the Station Wagon. However, his sister and mother got Tomaine Poisoning which hit them their first night in Yosemite. Though all this would be handled completely differently in 2012 at that time a Air Force Coreman who was a medic was camped next to us. He took care of  Mike's Sister and mother who lay incapacitated in their Stationwagon for about 1 week. The Medic told us to go have fun since we were only 15 and likely would just get in the way and so we did.

So, basically imagine two 15 year olds who love camping and hiking and swimming in rivers being let loose on Yosemite with no parental restrictions. We were in heaven. So, imagine all this is happening within the context of the movie: American Graffitti by George Lucas before the whole ecological movement hit California and the world. So, Yosemite at that time was sort of Party time National Park style then with hot rods, swimming and inner tubing down the river, jumping off the bridges into the river, 85 to 95 Fahrenheit weather during the day etc. So, it was heaven for 2 15 year old boys turned loose on the wilderness to do whatever they wanted. Mostly, at first we just wanted to walk out into the wilderness and explore the trails. One of the trails we explored was the one to Vernal Falls. Since we were camped near Camp Curry this was the closest to our Campground so we just got up the first morning and made sandwiches and filled our water bottles and took off for the day. After a couple of days of this I sort of found God in Yosemite from all the beauty and wilderness and hanging out with my friend hiking. Before dark we returned to the campground and found people racing their hot rods and getting pulled over by Park Rangers. There were campfires and people singing Hootenanny kinds of camp songs. There was the Cedar chip Firefall from Glacier Point at I believe 9 pm every night that everyone stayed up for and after that was over at 9:30 or 10 pm people tended to start quieting down generally for the night. So, by the 2nd or 3rd day we discovered all the beautiful young people jumping off of the stone bridges into the ice cold river. But when it is over 90 Degrees Fahrenheit out cold water feels pretty good, so we jumped off the bridges too into the water and had a really great time right along with all the other teenagers and kids doing this. By the end of the week Mike's mother and sister had recovered enough to drive us home to Glendale California which was about 5 hours away by station wagon. Mike and I had had one of the most memorable weeks of our lives living it up in Yosemite with no parental guidance at all. Of course we tended to be very responsible boys and didn't get into mischief other than that which was acceptable at that time in Yosemite National park in the Valley near Camp Curry.