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4/14/22 - Casting call in Burbank! (I'm too tall.)
2/19/22 - Look what I stumbled across during a visit to buy vacuum cleaner bags: the vacuum cleaner of my childhood!
2/2/22 - Going through my files, I found a bunch of text copies of e-mails I shared with my childhood pal Jimmy Rutherford from 2001; 21 years ago. I capture these here. Jimmy and I were great friends.
7/14/21 - In conjunction with a nearing retirement we're planning to move from our current address, which means that I am going through everything I own and have stored away. I intend to not move a single pound of anything we don't want. That being the case, I came across a stack of greeting cards I got as a boy. Mom saved them. Here they are! These are captioned, so read the notes by clicking the little "i" in the corner of the screen.
7/12/21 - No updates for a while! Well, here's one: My Thurl Ravenscroft musical fifth birthday card, played sixty years after I got it.
12/29/19 - I scanned my sixth grade Autobiography, just for kicks. It's here.
10/29/19 - I rediscovered another toy I had via an image on the Internet! I added the Horrorscope Movie Viewer to my Sixties Toys page. Maybe this completes it?
8/28/19 - I finally rediscovered a toy I had via a page on the Internet! I added the Hallmark Space Station for a Fine Young Astronaut to my Sixties Toys page. I think this completes it. I cannot recall any toys I had that are not on this page somewhere!
3/14/18 - Added Silverlake Memories.
1/5/18 - Added a Vickroy Park Reverie.
8/8/16 - Added the 1960 Electronic Thruway to the Sixties Toys page.
8/2/16 - Added the 1966 Milton Bradley Memory Game to the Sixties Toys page. Yes, that's right... I forgot to add the memory game!
7/19/16 - Posted a link to a special video about my father to the Dad's Gag Photos page and also to the 8mm Family Home Movies page.
3/27/15 - Posted a link to "Captain Russian and the Adventure of the Mummy Ring" to the Captain Russian vs. Miss Johnson page. It's from 1985; I was bored out of my mind during a week long and very dry Federal contracts class.
8/28/14 - Posted My Fourteenth Birthday. Also, I put a link in for a video on the Tiki Hut page.
8/27/14 - Posted My Fourth Birthday. Also, I put in some more photos of the fifth and seventh birthdays. Finally, I enhanced the Clark Family Cars article somewhat.
8/26/14 - Posted My Eighth Birthday.
8/19/14 - Posted My Fifth Birthday.
8/15/14 - Posted My Seventh Birthday.
8/14/14 - Posted Party!
8/13/14 - With a more user friendly version of Photoshop I was able to provide color-corrected versions of the Christmas 1957 photos and Christmas 1958 photos instead of the grayscaled ones I had there before.
4/8/13 - Added Walking Home from School.
3/1/13 - Added My 1968 East Coast Trip - Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
2/11/13 - As promised, added My 1968 East Coast Trip - Washington, D.C.
2/8/13 - Added My 1968 East Coast Trip - New York City. I've considered posting these photos for years but never have. Coming soon: My 1968 East Coast Trip - Washington, D.C.
1/22/13 - Added Vari-Vue flicker buttons to my Sixties Toys page. Images of these seem to be hard to find on the Internet...
1/7/13 - A reader who possesses some mad genealogy skills (as the kids say today) did some analysis of my "Mom Noir" piece and identified the location. The result is here. How cool! I also posted a bigger photo of my mother for the Madeleinese page. That's an excellent photo of her - I like it a lot. The occasion was my wedding reception on 20 December, 1980.
1/4/13 - The front page redesign is done! I hope you like it. I think it makes sense. I had fun coming up with that Seventies color palette...
1/2/13 - I did my usual yearly archiving thing with the "letters" (really e-mails) pages. Posted the first e-mail of the new year. Happy New Year, everyone! Also, I've been going through my other wesclark.com websites and freshening up the front pages. I need to do this with Avocado Memories as well... stand by. There are over a hundred links on the front page; I need to figure out some sensible organizational scheme for that.
12/13/12 - Okay, I'm done! After much staring at CSS code, this site now looks the way I want it to on Firefox, IE and smartphones. I will continue tweaking, however.
12/10/12 - I have finished improving the web site for the time being. If you see a page that is totally hosed up, please tell me what page and what it is you are viewing it on so I can fix it. By the way, way, yes, I know it's not centered for Firefox (and I'll try to figure out why), but this site is actually optimized for Internet Explorer.
12/9/12 - I have changed the formatting on all the .html pages; I hope they read better on a wide variety of monitors and devices! (It appears to me that they do.) If you see a page that is totally hosed up, please tell me what page and what it is you are viewing it on.
12/7/12 - Thanks to reader Andy Fekete, who alerted me, I was able to post a link to The Honor House Jet Rocket Spaceship to my Toys and Space pages. Thanks, Secret Fun Spot Blog!
With the assistance of a friend I figured out what I need to do to make this page easier to read on a variety of the wide monitors - CSS stylesheets! Those changes will be happening in the next few days. So expect this old, crusty 1990's era website to look somewhat different...
12/6/12 - Posted Bug Stories: My Adventures With Volkswagens. It's in fulfillment of two New Year's resolutions I made late last year. One was to lose some weight - I lost about 35 pounds in 2012. The other was to write an article of Volkswagen stories. Done and done!
I am aware that Avocado Memories doesn't look very good on wide monitors and is hard to read. (It looked fine on the squarish monitors of the 1990's!) I need to fix the HTML in order to reformat the text on the pages so it reads more like a blog - skinnier columns. I plan to start that during or just after the holidays. My HTML skills are pretty horrible - I do content more enthusiastically than I do formatting, and, believe it or not, my updates are usually accomplished via text editors. (I am writing this with the WordPad text editor that ships with Windows.) It's the way I've been creating and maintaining web sites since 1995.
A friend I know who can do web pages is supposed to show me what to do. It'll be lots of work. So expect Avocado Memories 2.0 in the next month or so.
12/4/12 - Added a link to The Foney Four (Issues 12-15; 1968) on my Captain Russian vs. Miss Johnson page.
8/21/12 - Added a link to a USMC Photo Album to the My Stint in the Marine Corps page.
8/13/12 - It being August, and forty years from when I first came across this place, I added mention of My Del Mar Thotful Spot to the With Dad at Del Mar page. Wish I was there now.
8/9/12 - Added a Books section to my Sixties Toys article. And why I didn't do this years ago, I have no idea!
7/16/12 - Added Topps' Who Am I? cards and Gerett Astrological Bank to my Sixties Toys article.
5/10/12 - Gus Ferrat, who now owns the house on 1631 N. Lincoln Street upon which this web site is based, sent me some photos of his Man Cave located in the back house we never seemed to have much use for. He did a good job with it! Take a look!
4/25/12 - I posted a link to my scanned sixth grade composition book to the Captain Russian vs. Miss Johnson page (scroll to very bottom). This was done per request of some fellow graduates of the Monterey Avenue Elementary School on a Facebook page...
3/15/12 - How could I write an article about my time in the Marines and not mention the "Lifer Scare?" I have added it here (at the bottom). I also added a short recollection of The Hammer. Finally, added a rare photo of Mom in action at Toppy's - rare because I can find nothing on the Internet about this business save what I have added.
2/10/12 - Posted The Evening of the Pointing Finger.
1/26/12 - Added a little essay based on some music I heard: I Was a Teenage Hermit. Not intended to be a cri de coeur, but that's kind of the way it turned out. Also, from 1969/1970, The Tums ad. What can I say? I liked it. And since we were big antacid users, we were occasional customers.
1/12/12 - A decades old mystery is solved! I added "A Recurring Dream" to the Disneyland/Yesterland article. (Scroll to the very bottom.)
1/3/12 - Did my usual yearly thing with the "letters" (really e-mails) pages. Posted the first e-mail of the new year. Happy New Year, everyone!
12/19/11 - I have added two more 8mm family videos on my youtube channel to my 8mm Home Movies page: Santa's Village and Halloween, 1960 and Burbank Home Movies, 1970s. That's it, I think!
12/16/11 - I have added two more 8mm family videos on my youtube channel to my 8mm Home Movies page: Pool 1960 and Pool, 1969. More to come.
12/15/11 - I have added two more 8mm family videos on my youtube channel to my 8mm Home Movies page: Christmas 1960 (my toys) and Dad and Del/Pottery Shack (May 1960). More to come.
12/14/11 - I have added three more 8mm family videos on my youtube channel to my 8mm Home Movies page: Me and Jimmy in 1964, part two, Disneyland Visit, 1969 and Knott's Berry Farm Visit (April, 1960). More to come.
12/13/11 - I have added some 8mm family videos on my youtube channel to my 8mm Home Movies page: My "Beatles Party" (April 27th 1964), Me and Jimmy, 1964 and The Marine Corps Follies (1974-1978). More to come, I think.
12/12/11 - I made a youtube video - The Marine Corps Follies (1974-1978) - to go with my article about my time in the USMC. I can now make youtube videos from my old family 8mm film files. The question for this site is, should I? Hmmmm.
12/1/11 - Avocado Memories has been up on the web for fifteen years this month! (I only started to list updates on this particular page in February of the next year.) Cool! I suppose I ought to update the mechanics of the site, that is, the way the site looks. It is hopelessly rooted in 1990's style HTML. But I haven't had the time to figure out any of the software packages which I would use to do this... maybe this can be a project when I retire.
Let's see... I really should post something new here. Hmmmm. Well, if you are of an age as I am, you will remember the Polaroid Swinger advertisement from 1965. Be warned! It is an addictive melody! I've had that jingle in my head ever since I accidentially rediscovered it. Barry Manilow sings it and, yes, that brunette is Ali MacGraw.
11/14/11 - I finally have graphical information solving a problem I have been wrestling with for years. What three snack foods did General Foods introduce in 1966? Bugles (which are still with us), Daisys and... what? I can never remember the third one. Whistles, as it turns out. Later on they - or some other manufacturer - came out with Buttons and Bows, but the three I remember were Bugles, Daisys and Whistles. I liked Bugles the best; they reminded me of the Irwin Allen show The Time Tunnel, which was on TV about the same time. Think I'll have some with lunch today...
10/28/11 - I added Analysis of an aerial view of the Burbank neighborhood where I grew up (scroll down some) to the Memories page.
8/23/11 - I added some more material to the Disneyland/Yesterland article. (Scroll to bottom.) Ah, Disneyland. I wish I was there now!
8/19/11 - I expanded upon yesterday's blog entry and created a new article: Disneyland/Yesterland. Thanks, Werner Weiss!
8/18/11 - A (blog) visit to Yesterland!
3/24/11 - Thanks to a recent viewing of the film Angry Red Planet (1959), where a solar system chart I mentioned in my space article appeared in a scene, I was able to find an image of it on the Internet. It was printed in 1959 by Rand-McNally. Here it is! And another childhood memory is preserved...
2/15/11 - Added my recollection of when the Eighties began for me to my When Did the Seventies Begin? article; scroll to the bottom.
2/11/11 - Posted my recollections of when it seemed to me that the Sixties had begun to my When Did the Seventies Begin? article; scroll to the bottom.
1/13/11 - At the suggestion of a reader, I have added a floorplan of the house at 1631 N. Lincoln Street when we lived there. (It has changed since.)
1/12/11 - Posted a link to my Burbankia site that's appropriate to this web site: Verdugo Hills Stories.
1/3/11 - Happy New Year! I updated the front page copyright date to 2011 and resorted the letters pages.
12/9/10 - Posted a link to some Family Portraits, 1966.
11/9/10 - I added a few newly-remembered toys (the Kenner bagpipe and a counting board) to my Sixties toys page.
9/24/10 - After 43 years I finally learn the true reason why poor Ferro Lad had to die! Go to the Death of Ferro Lad article and scroll to the bottom.
8/30/10 - Posted When Did the Seventies Begin?
8/26/10 - Posted Piglet Breakfast Buddy to my Sixties Toys page.
8/4/10 - Posted two of my blog links about family cars to the Clark Family Cars page.
7/16/10 - Posted The 1971 Sylmar Earthquake.
5/28/10 - Posted some memories I have of working at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in 1979: "Pneumonia Alley" - a place my Dad and I knew well.
5/14/10 - Posted some Vietnamese refugee camp photos to my Marine Corps page.
5/10/10 - Posted Burbank Restaurants to my Memories page.
4/30/10 - A reader sent me a great photograph of Cherokee Bookstore Burt, whom I claim is the original "Comic Book Guy" on the Simpsons. It is added to my Hollywood Boulevard was our Backyard! article. Thanks, Simon!
2/25/10 - Added my 1964 Sears train set to the toys page.
1/21/10 - Added mention and an image of "Avery's Alley" to the Cruise page.
1/4/10 - Happy New Year! I updated the front page copyright date to 2010 and resorted the letters pages.
12/22/09 - Posted Christmas 1957 to the Memories page. I think I'm done for awhile...
12/20/09 - Posted Christmas 1956 and Christmas 1960 to the Memories page.
12/18/09 - Posted Christmas 1971 to the Memories page. I am clearly on a seasonal roll.
12/17/09 - Posted Christmas 1964 to the Memories page. It's kind of weird, but I added the scar to the Christmas 1958 page.
12/16/09 - Posted Christmas 1958 to the Memories page. I don't know, though... I think it needs a photo of a scar...
12/14/09 - Posted Christmas 1961 to the Memories page. Since this website is really about my home in Burbank from 1965 on, I'm putting the earlier stuff there.
12/11/09 - My friend Mike came up with some additional photos of the event, so I included them on the Back Yard - 4th of July 1979 page.
12/10/09 - Based on photographic detective work, I renamed the Dinner with the Clarks, 1956 article to 1957 and added some photos.
12/9/09 - Posted Dinner with the Clarks, 1956.
12/8/09 - This time I set the controls on the Way Back machine to "only" thirty years ago: 1979. I added Back Yard - 4th of July 1979 to the home tour. Also, looking at one particular photo I remembered a vertical chimney-scaling ability that I have not previously described. So I added that as well. 12/7/09 - Since I'm apparently on a kick with decades which end with a nine, I've expanded the Home Tour page that describes Christmas 1969 - forty years ago.
12/4/09 - I added Dad and Me in the Back Yard, 1959 to the memories page. I also added a photo of myself to the Dad, Christmas 1959 posting of yesterday, restructured it somewhat and renamed it simply "Christmas 1959." Fifty years ago... wow...
12/3/09 - I added Dad, Christmas 1959 to the memories page.
12/2/09 - Me, Dad, a doberman and The Dangle Man... I added A Walk on Robinson Street, 1959 to the memories page.
12/1/09 - Added Christmas 1970 to the memories page.
11/27/09 - Added Pool - 1966 to the home tour.
11/25/09 - Added The Den - 1966 to the home tour. Also added The Back Yard - 1966 to it.
11/18/09 - Added Operation Orbit to the Toys page.
11/13/09 - Added Me in 1966.
8/10/09 - Added Porter microscope to my Toys page. I was at a yard sale over the weekend and stumbled across one. "Hey! I had one of these when I was a kid!"
8/5/09 - Added Our Econolite lamp and Another style to the Memories page.
6/24/09 - Added Standard Brands: Paint Central in Burbank.
4/30/09 - Provided a link to the Movieland Wax Museum postcards on my Links page.
1/4/09 - Provided a correction on Zippy the Chimp (I thought it was simply "Zip") and added an informational link on my Toys page. Thanks, Don!
1/3/09 - Happy New Year!Updated the front page copyright date to 2009 and resorted the letters pages.
12/15/08 - Added the 1969 Monogram Moon Landing Site model to the Toys page. 
12/1/08 - Nothing added, I just noticed that today Avocado Memories has been on the World Wide Web for twelve years. Wow, how time flies. Good thing I jotted it all down while I could still remember it! Not sure I could construct it anew today...
10/7/08 - I checked out a library book of magazine advertisements from the 1970's recently and found this, the Eleganza catalog. I recall seeing these passed around when I was in the Marines. Even back then, I knew it represented the ugliest clothing ever designed for men.
7/11/08 - Thanks to reader Rob Brown I now have a recording of the fondly-remembered Richard Rogers theme march to The Great Adventure. (What's that? Click here!)
5/1/08 - Posted Those Juvenile Delinquents!
3/17/08 - Posted Mom's arm as a seat belt.
2/11/08 - Thanks to Darryl Eisle, who sent me a souvenir Sargent's menu, I have posted links on my Sargents page.
1/1/08 - Happy New Year! Created a new letters page for 2008 and moved the 2007 letters here.
12/19/07 - My desire to document my childhood toys in excruciating detail continues with these additions to the toys page: Jon Gnagy art set, plastic rattle blocks, the Spirograph and a Bingo set.
12/11/07 - Hard to believe that this website has been up for eleven years now... wow. Anyway, this being the Christmas season, our thoughts turn naturally to the toys of our youth. I have added to some of the illustrations on my Sixties Toys page: Lego, The Gilbert Home Laboratory, The Thing bank, Jack and the Beanstalk game, Agent Zero M, U.N.C.L.E. gear, The James Bond Attache Case, The Lost in Space Roto Jet Gun, Captain Action, Fireball XL-5 and the Batman Utility Belt. My Christmas toys nowadays are more expensive, but not more fun!
11/13/07 - Posted a link for two more gripping accounts of the Battle of La Providencia here. (Or you can go here directly.) Also, posted the Clark Family Slave Refuge Story here.
6/22/07 - Posted an appropriate poem at the top of the first home tour page, written by none other than Abraham Lincoln. It sort of sets the scene for what follows. I think he'd get a kick out of that. Also, I see I forgot to mention the Clark Secret Door in my tour of the Den. Click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page.
3/23/07 - No more Santa Claus Lane Parades - scroll to bottom of Hollywood Boulevard was our Backyard!
3/5/07 - Thanks to Jeff Shirey, I have now a reawakened memory of the Fritos and Nabisco dinosaur premiums which I have added to my Toys page.
3/2/07 - Posted Fritos at Disneyland to the Memories page.
1/21/07 - I let an anniversary slip by... I see by looking at the very first e-mail dated 12/30/96 (click here, scroll all the way down) that Avocado Memories has been on the Internet for ten years, now. Wow. My thoughts about this are contained in an article I wrote for my first web site, JonahWorld!: "Ten Years in the Virtual Camp." Nothing more to add, really, except that I'm amazed at, 1.) My unceasing narcissistic ability to write about myself, and 2.) The fact that complete strangers would find this readable.
1/5/07 - Posted Two Unsettling Stories - inspired by a recent viewing of a Twilight Zone episode!
1/2/07 - Created a new letters page for 2007 and moved 2006 letters here.
12/7/06 - It being December and all, I posted some new stuff to my popular Toys page; see just under "Other." I get more e-mail about this particular page than any other. By the way, I do not own these toys, nor do I know how to buy them (save perhaps on e-Bay).
11/21/06 - I felt it necessary to provide a foreward to my account of my service in the United States Marine Corps.
10/6/06 - Posted a fourth account of the Battle of La Providencia to the Warlords of Burbank article.
8/29/06 - Posted a funny photo of myself to the Patio Culture and the Promise of Joining the Adults' Club article.
7/18/06 - I was thumbing though an old high school yearbook and found this, about Tim Burton's swim team career at Burbank High School.
7/12/06 - Posted The Burbank Golden Mall (from my Burbankia page) to the Memories page.
7/10/06 - Posted The Dip to the Memories page.
6/21/06 - Posted the new Clark Heraldic Crest to my Rolaids article. My daughter Julie made it for me for Father's Day...
3/17/06 - Posted Sargents. Also, Zetz 2006! (Click here and go to the bottom of the page.)
3/9/06 - Added the Covered wagon lamp to the memories page.
2/22/06 - After years of searching, I have found an image of a 1960's era Rolaids bottle, which I have accordingly made the logo of my In Praise of Rolaids! article.
1/24/06 - I attended a business meeting this morning where some proposals for the interior decor of classrooms was being discussed. The architects pulled out some paint samples: harvest gold, rust, avocado. The Seventies are back! What amuses me is that nobody is calling it avocado anymore. Today's color was "G.I. Green." (It's usually "Olive," or "Sage.")
1/17/06 - How could I have overlooked seeing Sophia Loren in a wet peasant blouse and she, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra shoving a giant cannon across Spain? I address that here.
1/11/06 - Added a link to Mark Stevens' TVlamps.net website to my links page. Again. (End of year configuration management problem.)
1/9/05 - Posted a great web site link to the Links page; it's for Los Angeles Time Machines, a site that lists old bars and restaurants in the L.A. area.
1/3/05 - Created a new letters page for 2006 and moved 2005 letters here.
12/2/05 - Added Holding Up My Pants - a little examination of the Seventies belt buckle fad.
10/21/05 - Thanks to reader Bruce Bartlett, I have added a image of the Honor House Six Foot Rocket X-1 to my To The Final Frontier - In a Cardboard Box article.
9/7/05 - At the request of reader Amy Rose, I have added Captain Russian #41: "Captain Russian Meets the Mafia" (September 1968) to my Captain Russian vs. Miss Johnson page. Not one of my better hand-drawn comic books; my daughter pronounced it "lame."
8/24/05 - Added the Broom Tail Horse to the Toys page. My memory of this was reawakened a few days ago when I saw a wooden one in a store.
6/14/05 - I knew one of you would be able to help me! Mark Donnell sent me an e-mail and identified the TV show I remembered from my youth. Details here.
6/6/05 - I'm stuck. I therefore turn to you, Gentle Readers. Help me identify this TV show!
2/11/05 - Nerd that I was and am, I posted an image of my 1970's audio equipment. Looking back on it, it's funny how much my sense of self-worth was wrapped up in that stuff...
2/10/05 - Wrote a little postscript about watching old movies with Dad here.
2/8/05 - At the suggestion of a reader, Jacob Vulpine, I have written an article of CB radio use: Citizen's Banditry.
2/1/05 - Avocado Memories has been on the WWW for eight years, now! Someday I'll tire of writing about myself...
1/25/05 - After about 43 years I have made contact with an old family friend, Del Casher. He's in my Home Movies article. I used to know him as Del Catcher. Anyway, I was surprised to learn that he invented the wah pedal and worked with a host of greats
, including Elvis, Frank Zappa, Leo Fender, Lawrence Welk and others. I always knew he was a good L.A. session guitarist, but as it turns out, he's one of the great electric guitar sound innovators as well. How cool is that? 
12/3/04 - Added 
3/23/04 - I have started slowly going through each of those old Instamatic prints and fixing levels and colors using Photoshop. This'll take awhile. 
10/6/03 - Added 
4/1/03 - Added some text about "The Future We Were Promised" to the 
2/10/03 - Added Captain Russian #2 to the bottom of the 
7/19/02 - Added 
11/5/01 - Added a photo of the 
12/22/00 - Added 
3/13/00 - Added a Falstaff beer sign image to the 
1/30/00 - Added the 
12/15/99 - Added 
11/3/99 Added photographs of my 
1/20/99 Added 
5/4/98 How could I forget to write up the experience of giving the Lincoln Cafe drains a 
2/2/98 Added a 
9/10/97 Added the "Why this web page?" section on the top page. 
4/17/97 Added 
2/28/97 Added a peek into our magnificent 
