Christmas 1970

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The tree without any presents under it. You can see that Mom did her usual window thing with the spray on snow. Or maybe I did it that year - I don't know.) The tree topper is crooked.

Let's see... what did the Clark Family get for Christmas in 1970? From left to right: An electric curler set for Mom, Williams 'Lectric Shave for Dad, an Instamatic photo cube for Wes, arrow bookends for Wes (with a Collected Sherlock Holmes and two unknown books Doctor Doolittle?), a bottle of Brut for Dad, a weird German puppet for Mom from her boss, a Life Savers "Sweet Story Book" for Wes and a white hen scented candle for Mom. A punch bowl sits behind the puppet; undoubtedly Mom's. I don't know where the stuffed bear came from. It wasn't mine. Finally, note the (Disneyland) silouettes on the wall. Angela DeTolla and I are staring each other down.

You can get a better look at that creepy puppet in this shot. I am wearing my very first pair of bell-bottom pants!

Above: This photo shows the way I used to decorate the house for Christmas. I would climb onto the roof and nail up our strings of red lights. Usually the nails would pierce the asphalt roof tiles, which would crack apart, requiring an eventual re-roofing (an instance when my parents shouldn't have trusted me). Nowadays outdoor Christmas lights are smaller and of less wattage, and you can buy little plastic s-hooks at Wal-Mart that make attaching them to a roof (without damage) a breeze. Had these been around thirty years ago my parents would have saved thousands of dollars...

Those black shutters never stayed on the house. The first strong wind would blow them off, and we'd find them in the street somewhere. They would be nailed back on, and blow back off in the next wind storm.

You can't see it because I altered this photo to restore the original contrast, but two black picture frames (a smaller within a larger) were screwed onto the middle of the garage door as trim... Dad's idea of decor.

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