OKAY, here it comes - The Hat

Below are the kids, sporting the famous leather hat referred to in Those Were the Days, My Friend.......oh, and I see there is a spiffy pair of leather boots to go with them. We picked hat and boots up in a riotous one-day trip to Tiajuana. We were visiting in Southern California, when I was eight months pregnant with Stephanie. Hmmmm.........must be a photo around here somewhere..........oh, here it is, I'll sneak it in above.

Each child has several photos taken in this getup, I am amazed at how patient they were about it.

That trip is a story in itself, for a later day.....as well as the trip that soon followed, when we spent three months basically living out of our car in California when Steph was a newborn. We started off with a St Bernard puppy sitting in the back seat between the two boys, and my typewriter (a writer must always have her tools!) and the baby buggy tied precariously on the roof of the car. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. By the time we were ready to head home the dog took up almost the entire car!

In Tiajuana, I was most distressed about the women who came up to me asking for money for milk for the babies they had strapped on their backs. I had little money, but gave what I had. The level of poverty, dust, heat and desperation there was a shock . We lived close to the edge, but we had resources to turn to. Those women did not.

This little gal is pretty tired of being photographed. I didnt have a proper camera of my own until she was around two or three, and she was at home while the big kids were in school, so she got to be the subject of my relentless search for The Perfect Photo. Her dad, who belonged to the hat and boots, was gone by the time she was seven months old........

All stories for another day. My life has left me with no end of material........