Sunlight

 To much 

you burn

Too little 

you die?

My father came from Seattle and was always a sun worshiper. I think he really got into this first in Arizona when he worked on his aunts Gold Mine there in 1934 when he had just graduated from High School as the Valedictorian of his class. I have a picture of him posing with a pistol while guarding the mine. He didn't have to shoot anyone but he did have to shoot over someone's head to protect his Aunt's mine then. Things were very different then in 1934 in Arizona than now and more like the wild west of the 1880s in some ways then especially out in the country where the mine was.

Later, my father at age 23 or 24 chartered a yacht with his first wife (he was married at 21 a girl of 17) which was more normal then in I believe 1937 when he married for the first time. He and his brother and his first wife went to Tahiti in the yacht they chartered in 1939. I have movies of this that I converted from 16mm color to first VHS and now to DVD by the way. It's amazing to see how different people were then in Tahiti in 1939 or 1940. Soon, though they realized there was going to be war in the Pacific So, they took the Great White Steamship that came by Tahiti once every month or so and sailed north on the freighter to Honolulu where my father's first wife got a job at the newspaper writing there in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii.

So, she was there for the  Pearl Harbor attack on December 7th 1941 which she witnessed first hand because she lived and worked in Honolulu. However, after that she was scared and took another steamship back to Seattle where my father and brother were working at that point.

So, they were gone from Seattle about 2 years with most of their time renting a house in Tahiti which was 2 dollars and 50 cents a month to rent with all the bananas they could eat. They had goggles for spear fishing there too and took boats between the islands of the Tuomoto Archipeligo until they took the steamship to Hawaii and then my Dad and his brother took another Steamship home to Seattle, Washington. I think my father was then 24 and his brother was 22 and likely my father's first wife by then was 21 because she was 3 years younger then him.

By the time I came along in 1948 and we moved to California my father on weekends would take us to places like the Borego Desert from the San Diego area where we lived then when I was 4 and 5 years old. He loved wearing shorts and taking his shirt off in Southern California because this was hard to do in Seattle because it is cloudy and rains and snows a lot there most of the year. So, he really liked the sun of Southern California and eventually retired to Yucca Valley up on the Mesa towards Landers about halfway between Yucca Valley and Landers. My father and I and friends built his retirement home for my mother and father there from 1968 until he retired in 1980. He passed away in 1985 there when I was 37. I found I really wasn't prepared for his passing at all and had expected him to live to 100 or more because he was such a larger than life personality and he was also 6 feet 2 1/2 sort of like a Spiritual John Wayne in temperament but larger than life in every way and convinced everyone he would live forever.

He was an amazing person and my mother and my son who knew him well will always miss him.

By God's Grace