Life in a box…

…my former life, that is. And the lives of generations past. My husband and youngest daughter and I were out in the workshop today going thru boxes. Very dusty boxes…full of china, photos, negatives, letters…some had already fallen to the tiny teeth of mice and rats, but most was intact.

I found a letter from a Catholic priest to his counterpart in Lima, Peru…a letter of introduction for a young Australian woman with three children who was traveling to meet her American husband. That was my mother…and through one of those twists of fate we ended up in San Francisco, USA due to a medical emergency that required expert care for my father not available in South America.

And then there are the press passes and photos. I thought there were only one or two shots ever taken of me with camera…but more are showing up. It’s kind of exciting…and morbid also. Some toe tags from a multiple fatality accident I think in the 1990s down near Fresno on I-5. All I can remember is that at least nine/maybe more were killed. I wasn’t with the first crews on scene, but did the follow up over the next few days. One of the few times I picked up something from a scene…there were dozens of toe tags blowing around in the wind.

A pass from one of Vice President Dan Quale’s visits to the state. Me at a ball game at Candlestick (very out of focus). Lying down taking a snooze with a CP16 on the grass on a summer day in Sacramento.

Oh…and that photo above? Kindergarten. Montezuma School. Stockton, California. 1955