I’m not loaded with pictures of our San Bernardino surroundings. Not sure exactly why we shot this one, but I’m glad we did. This was our neighborhood grocery store, located at Waterman and Base Line Streets, just half a mile south of our house. Walked and biked down here innumerable times. It’s still (2004) here.

Please enjoy the middle-1950s collection of current vehicles parked outside. There’s our Bébé, hiding behind the gray car in the foreground. We used to enjoy the distinctive shape of the handsome Studebaker model just left of center. Not ours, alas. They made it so that we had to look twice to be sure whether we were looking at its front or its back. In case you’re not sure, this is a rear view.

When we came to “Berdoo,” our Pappy was already a professional photographer. While we lived there, 35-millimeter photography became available. Pappy got a slide camera, of course, and started a major rest-of-his-life project to record his family, his surroundings, his travels, and just about everything that might be enlightening to his students. I’ve inherited a bunch of cubic feet of his slides. Many of the pictures in this material come from his labors.