Slides
One of my favorite activities with my family when I was young was slide shows in our living room after dinner. Dad would set up the projector on our piano bench and aim toward a blank wall next to the piano. We’d watch shows of old slides when we were little or a recent trip. I loved being in the dark with the gentle whir of the projector and the sound of the carousel changing images. Mom and Dad would add commentary and Dad would edit as we watched. I was always sorry when the show was over.
I credit my Dad for my own interest in photography and travel. His extensive slide collection, which he started in the 1950s, and number in the thousands, are all carefully dated and marked by hand, and now occupy six full cabinets in my old bedroom.
So most Mondays lately as this project grows, I’ve been going to see my parents at the house where I grew up with a new mission. Now 88 and 85, Mom makes us lunch in the same kitchen where she’s nourished me since I was five… Then, the three of us look at Dad’s slides. It is such fun to hear the stories and details as we look. I feel as if I am unearthing treasures, and I’m proud to feature some of his special images on this site, marked with his initials: RWO. I also wanted to feature a collection of them here.
I wrote about my Dad’s story, beginning as the Student Body President of CU Boulder - and you can read this part of his story by scrolling toward the bottom of this page: https://www.wanderlush.life/about
But this story today picks up where that story ends, after his goodwill trip to Europe when he was about 23. Dad’s passions have always been Sailing Skiing and Hiking, activities he still participates in, even at 88. Just last week he skied twice! It is fun and amazing to see these three passions a constant theme going back nearly seventy years!
After college, travels, and service in the Army, Dad first moved to Minneapolis where he started his career, lived with friends and learned to sail. Next he moved to Manhattan Beach where he lived on the beach and even there continued his love of skiing. In fact he met my mom at Mammoth Ski Area riding single on the chairlift in 1960. She was a school teacher in Palos Verdes and lived in nearby Redondo Beach. It turns out they went to the same high school, North High in Denver, four years apart. So soon after they married they returned to Colorado where they’ve lived ever since.
This past summer, my parents, three daughters, husbands and all 6 grandchildren traveled with them back to California to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. We saw The Wayfarer’s Chapel where they were married, and visited their old homes. Dad led us on bikes from Mom’s apartment right on Redondo Beach, up the strand, where he used to ride the six miles home to Manhattan Beach. Almost the entire beachfront has been scraped and rebuilt… but he rode us straight to his old house, surrounded on both sides by new McMansions, but his still stands! Amazing then, to come home and unearth more of these photo treasures that document these homes and California as it was then.
