While this may appear to be a stock photo of the Beverly Hillbillies visiting Joshua Tree National Monument in 1965, it is, in fact, my father driving his creation, a heavily chopped and modified 1950 Ford with a flathead V8 and 3 on the tree. One of the earlier varieties of soon-to-be popular sand and dune buggies.
The dopey 11-year-old kid standing up in back behind the driver is yours truly. Also shown from left to right are my grandmother, my brother, my mother and a friend of the family. On second thought, maybe it was the Beverly Hillbillies.
Sometime after this photo was made, I was taught how to drive the buggy right there at Joshua Tree, some 60 years ago.
Here, in Tucumcari, New Mexico. The year was 1910. I’m pretty sure of that date, ’cause the gentleman standing under the ‘E’ in El Paso, is my great great grandfather.
Now, some people don’t go for repairing and colorizing old photos and such, but it is my family’s photo, so there’s that.
The main drag in Sedona, once upon a time.
My grandmother and grandfather moved there in ’74, and stayed until 1980. Then they moved to Moreno Valley, California.
Imagine that. A life full of excellent choices, punctuated by one mistake.
Sedona, Arizona, 1976. Before the invasion.
I rolled into town, driving my ’67 Volkswagen. Back then I wasn’t really tuned into the special places in the world.
Even so, I knew this was one of them.
Like most things in life, there’s usually a back story. That dapper cowboy, actually a sheep herder because the name sheepboy conjures up things nobody decent wants to think about, in the door of the wagon is my Great Grandfather, Brigham Carter.
The photo is on a prairie, somewhere in Utah, between 1902 and 1905. He lived to be 91 years old, and I recall that he attributed his long life to a gin and tonic each evening.
He wasn’t your average Mormon, after all.
In this photo, it’s 1959 and yours truly was about 5 years old, and visiting a brand new attraction in the desert that just a few short years earlier was a mining boom town in ruins, before Walter Knott restored it to its earlier splendor, and a little bit more.
I’m talking about Calico, of course.
Sadly, I don’t remember the visit. However, I do remember the lady sitting in front of the Maggie Mine. My mother, Shirley.
Where did railroad track laying crews eat in the 1920s? In well- appointed dining cars that looked like diners, of course.
The fellow standing up behind the counter was Summers S. Butler. My great uncle on my mother’s side.
He was a member of the track laying crew for El Paso & Southwestern RR, so I can only guess that it was either a help-yourself kitchen, or members took turns working the counter.
1975, Jerome, Arizona. My mother and grandmother, in front of the Ore House.
Little has changed here, except the passing of both.
I miss all three.
Desert race in Apple Valley at Dead Man’s Point in about 1969. The 15 year-old fellow in the dark leather jacket on the Triumph, briefly leading the pros, used to be me.
I think I finished this particular race second to last in my class, which is pretty much where I finished most races if I didn’t crash first.
I’ve changed a bit over the years, but only a little.
Like Toby Keith sang: “I ain’t as good as I once was but I’m as good once as I ever was”
