A MAN and His Car

Living in California we are pretty much raised to think a car is an extension of our body. We also seem to think it's a constitutional right to have a car. No place is this more obvious than Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area during commute time. Pure hell. Car after car going by with a single occupant.

It used to be, I believe, that cars were a statement about a man's manhood. For woman it wasn't the engine—or so the dealers thought—but the color of the outside and interior of the car and whether it had a mirror the ladies could look at to do their makeup. Seriously, they were idiots. Though I find nearly all ads for cars pretty stupid and repetitive (don't get me started on the luxury models that we're supposed to put under the Christmas tree each year), at least there is an attempt to go beyond the clichés of the past with the male/female stereotypes. Now we're supposed to be reckless, off-road, and extremely hot looking. I'm just glad I ended up in publishing and not advertising. I would have been shown the door in no time at all.

This week's Sepia Saturday photo is of a fellow standing in front of a car. I immediately went to the big BIG box of photos I was given for Christmas. Surely in the hundreds of shots in that glorious box there must be at least one of a guy with a car. I stopped after finding the following three.

I do know who this fellow was. His name was Ben and he was a Naval officer.

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On the back of this one it says "Taken June 18, 8th grade graduation." Diggin' the car and the flattop.

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NO idea who this fun fellow is.

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I love my car. I love driving my car. I have always loved driving. I do like to drive fast, but I don't anymore. The fastest I've ever driven was on the Autobahn. I thought I was doing pretty good until I saw the flashing headlights way way way behind me approaching at a tremendous speed. No sooner had I seen them and pulled into the slower lane than a Porsche blur shot by. I pretty much stayed in the slow lane the rest of the time which was still moving very fast.

As I recall I have only one photo of myself standing next to a car. It was a bright red Audi in Germany. I loved that car too. It's long gone, but like with most cars, the memory remains.
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SNOW Driving

After yesterdays post I've done a lot of dreaming about my years at the family cabin in the Sierras. And so I add this snapshot to remind me of driving during the winter.


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Yes, there were the cold nights heading into the Sierras in snowstorms; anything to get up there for a weekend of skiing. It always came down to either putting the chains on ourselves or hiring a chain monkey. I was cheap; we usually put the chains on ourselves. It made it easier that I had a front wheel drive. And then we'd return to the line of red taillights making our way towards the summit.

But then there were days like the one in this photo when the freeway was empty; silence except for the sound of the chains on the crunching snow. Heading east over the summit for Truckee and a night of fun at our favorite hangout; wall to wall ski bums. It was a bit of heaven.

There was one thing I always took along on those weekend trips that I had to carry from the parking lot for the half mile tramp along the mostly snow packed road. Oh sure, I had to carry my skis, and my weekend bag of clothes, but the most important item was the briefcase full of LPs. Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark was always along. And so now when I listen to it I see the snow drifts and hear the heavy snow falling from the pine branches. I'd put it on for inspiration while getting ready for the night out.

Eventually there'd be the long drive home in the middle of the night on the empty freeway, again heading for the summit, heading west. We never really thought of the stupidity of what we did. We weren't going to get hurt. It wasn't our time. The walk through the darkness from the parking lot to the cabin, especially in a snowstorm, could be a slog, but then there was sleep followed by another day of skiing. It's my past and at times I miss it and would love to step back in time to do it one more time.
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A BLUE CHRISTMAS for One Fella

A couple days ago I finally saw the police report for the accident I was recently in. Oyyyyyyy, someone is going to have a really bad Christmas. I will give the fella who caused the accident good points for honesty, because I think most people might have withheld some of the following information since nobody pulled over to be a witness.

The fella admitted to driving 70 mph on a two lane road, tailgating, crossing the double yellow lines, and worst of all to be talking on a cell phone when the accident happened. I have a strong hatred of people driving with one hand on the wheel and the other on a cell phone. If I could do a citizens arrest I would.

So beside the fellas car being totaled I imagine he will also loose his insurance because the costs of this accident keeps going up.

I feel no anger towards him. He behaved stupidly, but it wasn't with malicious intent. It was an accident and he owned up to it.

Now, this image may or may not have been an accident. Did someone finally break and say, "I'm tired of Mitchell parking his car in front of our house! I'll show him." And then did the man storm out of his house with the new chainsaw he got for Christmas?


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This image is from Tattered and Lost: Vernacular Photographs.
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Tattered and Lost: Forgotten Dolls

BIG GIRL, little girl, a car, and Marcel waves

This is as close as I can get to the prompt this week at Sepia Saturday. I'm still relegated to sorting through snapshots already on my computer. No lifting of boxes to get to the real hardcore stuff. The way things are going I'll be sitting with my foot up for another four weeks. But, enough of that nonsense.


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A big girl and a little girl standing next to a car, each with marcel wave hairdos. Okay, big woman and little woman to be more precise. The Sepia Saturday prompt shows two women on bicycles. Well, I've got two woman and a wheel. That'll have to do. The only thing I'm sure of is that whoever owned the car had a membership with AAA, the American Automobile Association.

I used to have a membership with the California version until I bought my last car which came with its own service for a few years. When it ran out I didn't bother to go back to AAA because of the cost. My car insurance offers me full roadside assistance for $12 a year. Why pay 40+? Well, I do admit to missing the maps. I loved the AAA maps and TripTix. I like having a paper map to find where I'm going. So many people use GPS on phones or systems in their car. I rather hate those systems. I like being able to see the whole and not the minutia. Yes, a GPS map can show me up close the road I'm on, but it really doesn't do justice in giving me scale of where I'm going. And frankly, I've seen way too many stupid directions come out of computers and smartphones. Give me an old fashioned map and I'm quite content.

I am an excellent map reader. Do I have proof for such a statement? Well, I only got lost once on a trip by myself in England and Scotland. Once. I had the Royal Auto club big map book that I'd bought in London and my little blue rental car with the crummy transmission. I drove around for a month with only getting lost for about 10 minutes in a town near Dartmoor. Actually when I think back on that crummy car I'm probably lucky it held together through the whole trip. I squeaked and rattled all over the countryside until I returned it back to London, both of us showing some wear.
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COMING HOME from grandma's house

Traveling this weekend in the United States will be a challenge. Not much you can do about it. But if you choose to drive like this family you're just asking for it.


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I'm guessing on their way to grandma's for Thanksgiving they all faced out the front of the car. But for the trip home they seemed to think they just had to look out the back and put it in reverse. The half-assed backwards way of travel. I'm betting there are some folks tied up in traffic about now who don't think this is such a bad idea.

Though not a float for a parade, it makes about as much as sense as the prompt this week for Sepia Saturday.
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She's got the MOVES LIKE JAGGER

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WE BUILT IT OURSELVES!

With this weeks Sepia Saturday showing budding scientists and/or inventors, I had to find an image showing what can happen when you set out to solve a problem. Remember, "Necessity, who is the mother of invention."

I give you...THE CAR. One of a kind. No other models rolled off the assembly line. A classic for sure.


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The dog sure liked it, but then dogs just love going for rides in anything. I think a dogs greatest sorrow is that they can't drive.

Name THIS CAR!

Okay car lovers, what the heck is this? I was saddened when I scanned this neg to see it was so blurred, but I figured it was good enough to have car lovers curious.

A driveway dragster? You tell me.


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Okay...NAME THIS CAR!

Another photo from the Arthur Bowen estate. This photo was also taken in Germany in the early '50s. Any ideas?


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NAME THAT CAR!

Arthur Bowen, son of schoolteacher Gertrude Bowen, was living in Germany in the early 1950s working for the U.S. government. He wrote postcards home to his mother about wanting to buy a car. Amongst the photos from his estate were a couple of photos of cars. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to figure out what this car is. I already know because he wrote the information on the back. 

Any guesses? I think you'll be surprised by this one.

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CAMPING without too much labor

How fast could this camper put their campsite together?


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I'm hoping to do some camping later in the year. I wouldn't even think about camping on this busy weekend. If the campground is full of people, the road home sure would be backed up. I prefer to camp in the offseason when kids are back in school and things are a bit more quiet. With luck I'll head north to Oregon. If I'm really really lucky I'll find a day to go to Powell's Bookstore in Portland. My heart beats a little faster just thinking about it.

AMUSEMENT PARK rides

This week’s Sepia Saturday shows a miniature train with children on board. I’ve decided to use this as my jumping off point for a few amusement park photos.

These first two vintage snapshots were purchased years ago. I have no idea where or when they were taken, but I’m guessing the 1930s. I’ve always thought the one poor boy is upchucking his cookies after the ride.

Click on either image to see them larger.

Looking at these little cars I think back on the Disneyland ride Autopia and how desperately I wanted to drive the cars myself. As I recall, when Disneyland first opened there was a lot of dirt near Autopia. Disneyland was far from complete when I first visited around three weeks after its opening. I remember the sign which showed how tall you had to be to actually ride in one of the cars by yourself. I was way too short. It wasn’t until I’m guessing 1962 or ’63 that I finally was tall enough to go zipping around the track without a parent in the car. In those days you were actually able to steer the car within the cement “trough” that wound round and round. Later they more or less nailed you down on a metal beam that meant you didn’t do any steering. You were left just pushing the gas pedal. By that time driving one of these cars wasn’t nearly as exciting as simply driving a real car in Los Angeles traffic. Ahh, simpler times.

This last photo is of me in the early 1950s, possibly at Fairyland in Oakland, California, though I don't think they had rides. So actually most likely at Balboa Park in San Diego.

Children's Fairyland, U.S.A. was the first theme park in the United States created to cater to families with young children. Located in Oakland, California on the shore of Lake Merritt, Fairyland includes 10 acres of play sets, small rides, and animals. The park is also home to the Open Storybook Puppet Theater, the oldest continuously operating puppet theater in the United States.

Fairyland was built in 1950 by the Oakland Lake Merritt Breakfast Club. The sets were designed by artist and architect William Russell Everritt. The park was nationally recognized for its unique value, and during the City Beautiful movement of the 1950s it inspired numerous towns to create their own parks. Walt Disney even came to Fairyland often to get ideas for Disneyland. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

I have fond memories of Disneyland and Fairyland. I look at this little girl with the butterfly wings and wonder what became of her.

To see more images from an amusement park visit Tattered and Lost Ephemera.