July 1995

It may seem strange to you that I should be writing about July at the end of December. I was prompted to do so by the photos from my father's Flickr account, which popped up when I was setting up my Flickr account on one of my Christmas gifts: a Kindle Fire tablet.

It may also seem strange to you that my father, who passed away well over a year ago, should still have a Flickr account. I know it seems strange to me. (It seems even stranger that Facebook still asks me if I would like to suggest friends for him. I know Dad would enjoy chatting with Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, but they both refuse to respond to my friend requests.)

The pictures were from the end of June and the first week of July, 1995. Loretta and I had only been living in California for a few months when my father flew out to San Jose to celebrate his brother's 75th birthday. We drove up for my uncle's party, and Dad came back with us to spend the first week of July with us in Southern California.

We visited all the usual tourist spots. Here's a picture Loretta took of Dad and me at the Griffith Park Observatory:

Griffith Park

And here's one of the two of us at the beach:

Zuma Beach

We visited Dad's cousins and his aunt—my Great Aunt Louise—in Thousand Oaks. Aunt Louise lived to be over a hundred years old. I wish my father could have lived as long.

Dad and Aunt Louise

We took the ferry to Catalina. Here's a great picture Dad took of Loretta and me at the Blue Parrot in Avalon, where we had lunch:

Lunch at the Blue Parrot

And here's one he took of some fish we saw on the "submarine" tour:

Fish in Catalina

One day when Loretta was at work, I took my father to Universal Studios. He loved the backlot tour and behind-the-scenes stuff. I think my favorite—the Back to the Future ride—may have been a little too thrilling for his taste. But he was a good sport about it—as he nearly always was about nearly everything.

Universal Studios

We never got to "The Happiest Place on Earth." I wish we had. My father, who was as much a child at heart as I am, would have loved it.

And I would love to have a picture of him wearing mouse ears.