stroll down memory lane. warning childhood pictures...

so i didn't accomplish much today. i did pick up these fun pictures of me as a kid from costco. after my dads funeral we all sat around looking at slides and divided them up a bit. i was given maybe 50 slides of myself. costco can change those slides into pictures and make a cd of them. so that is what i did. i also ran other errands so i guess it wasn't a total waste. it was just all dark, gloomy and cloudy when i woke so i opted out of seward. of course, by late afternoon the sun had finally come out and by the time it got dark there was nary a cloud out there.
these first two are of me in laguna beach, california. we spent a great deal of time there as my grandpa had a nice little beachhouse there at 151 dumond drive. i miss that place!

there is no way i'd allow a picture to be taken from the rear these days, but at 7 or 8 you can pull this off.

this is me in the beachhouse, though i think the image is reversed from actual. my mom looks to be cooking back there.

me at 2 months old. i was born with a mop of black hair as you can see. have no idea when it all changed to blonde, but maybe i should go back to my original dark hair...hmmm?

my mom usually sewed for us for easter sunday and my dad usually got out his fancy camera for the event.

an old picture of disneyland. we went there on occasion. my mom usually took me on "it's a small world" several times while the other kids did the more adventurous rides. in the old days you were given a book of tickets. certain lettered tickets let you on certain rides. i remember the "e" tickets were the best rides and were the prized tickets. don't know when they did away with this practice.

must have owned alot of swim suits over the years. it is fun to get back to swimming. i never did swim teams or any of that. my mom did put us in swimming lessons at a very young age. i have papers that show me in class by age 3. i think with all the time we spent at the beach my mom just wanted us to know how to swim. i do have many memories of being flipped around my the surf and ending up with a suit full of sand.

i was so lazy today that i hemmed and hawed about going to the pool. i'm glad i kicked my butt and got there. got in my 35 laps and it was pretty enjoyable swim.
now i just need to add some tennis back into my life. we learned playing against the wall of the grocery store behind our house. i wasn't bad.

this looks to be another of those easter sunday outfits. thank god or there would be no pictures of me growing up.

i'm guessing this is our old cat cleo. i have little memory of this cat. the cat i remember first was "kitty". i think i was 5 or 6 when kitty appeared at our so pasadena home and adopted us. she gave birth to many kittens. we kept "thai" and "smokey" and eventually "thai" had many babies and i ended up keeping "iggy" and "fido". this meant that i had that line of cats into my early 30's from the age of 5. my parents never bothered with spay or neutering and i spent many an afternoon in front of "ralphs" (the local grocery store) with puppies and kittens to give away. i remember some folks giving me the what for about spay and neutering, but hell i was a kid, what did i know?

another cute suit...did i have the life or what??

okay...i'm a little biased but i was kinda a cute kid!

i'm hanging and my sister is helping. i have no recollection of this day. our shoes look pretty rough. we weren't poor, but i don't think with 7 kids there was much spare money around. in thsoe days nobody cared what shoes you wore though. we were able to be just kids out having fun.

okay...this is me, my brothers joel and tom and my mom. not sure who the other lady and kid are? just another day at the beach.

my dad made this rocking horse for us. he made others just like it over the years. i got loads of fun from it. i'm sure now-a-days it would be deemed too dangerous and people would be offended if given such a gift. i think we are over the top with safety. too much protection will make us weak. of couse, i'm all for some added safety, but it just seems like it's gone too far. kids need the freedom to explore thier world and discover all that is out there.

new poem...

-

pictures,

proof of years past,

who is the child,

that grew so fast,

all those years,

fade away,

for now i'm old,

hair turning grey,

memories,

of happy days,

romp and splash,

a child at play,

the pictures,

will live on for years,

a mosaic,

of a childhood dear.

-

and a bonus new poem, since i was a slacker yesterday.

-

blue skies,

returned today,

seems like months,

that it's been grey,

the garden now,

is overgrown,

unplanned neglect,

from weeks of rain,

can't control,

the weeds gone wild,

so instead,

i'll read awhile,

please stay sky,

another day,

so i can,

go and play.

-

thought this cute. i'm on the stairs of our south pasadena home.

easter sunday.

buried in sand. i don't look too unhappy about it. i'm guessing that is my brother tom...probably the one who buried me in sand. for as much as we fought we also had many fun times together.

more sand. good thing there was that hose right outside the beachhouse. i spent many minutes removing sand from myself at the end of each day.

thanks for indulging me in my romp down memory lane. hope it's sunny out and i wake bright and perky and ready to conquer it.