San Diego

Recently, Em, Wendell, and I traveled to San Diego so Em could participate in some ongoing research studying Williams Syndrome at the Salk Brain Institute in La Jolla. We also toodled around seeing my old haunts in SoCal.

My stepmother has made a shrine to my late father in her bedroom closet. Saki is added daily to a small bowl, and she burns candles and incense. I wonder if he knows? It was pretty sweet.


This is the house my dad built, with his own hands, in about 1960. It was yellow then. I loved it. Across the street was a "camp" for juvenile delinquent boys. We weren't allowed in the camp when the boys were there, but it was vacant most of the year. We built forts and hiked, leaving home early in the morning with the only command to "be home before the street lights go on."


I went to a church school for 5th & 6th grade. There were only about 75 students. We took penmanship and French, and read from the old McGuffy readers. Devotional every morning involved scripture chase -- I won a Bible in 5th grade that I still have.

This was my junior high. I remember it as utter torture.

This was my 1st high school. I was in love with John Satzinger, who didn't know I existed. Then I was in love with Steve Blomquist, who dumped me for the bishop's daughter. The driver's ed teacher was completely hot -- looked a lot like David McCallum, who was on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Many girls openly sobbed in class when he announced his engagement.

We went to Sea World -- this is me and Em in one of the aquariums. Wendell didn't believe me that the flash from our aging digital camera would make all the fish disappear.

While Em did her research, Wendell and I hit the zoo. This is the gorilla ignoring Wendell, or Wendell ignoring the gorilla -- hard to tell.