Annie and Grandpa used to travel to Florida, pulling a travel trailer, to search for big seashells. They gathered a lot of them, and those big, beautiful shells are now on display in the houses of some of their grandchildren. Above you can see Grandpa coming out of the waters with his “catch”, along with a friend who used to hunt for shells with them.

This photo is taken on one of their freighter trips in 1969. It shows Herb with other passengers in a sort of lounge.

Shipboard dining aboard a freighter in 1968. It was a special occasion, or they had just been to Hawaii; everyone at the table is wearing a lei.

Annie and Grandpa both had great senses of humor; they would take a funny photo whenever they had opportunity. This one is from 1968.

Herb provides a free dental examination of this alligator’s teeth in this 1968 photo from Florida.

Herb finds a new friend in the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, 1967.

Annie and Grandpa went on a lot of trips during these years. They enjoyed traveling on freighter ships the most, since those trips carried only a small number of passengers. The passengers always got treated very well, and since there weren’t many of them they had the chance to get to know the crew and the other passengers. The other passengers were usually like them, and they got on well. They didn’t mind the fact that the freighters did not have a set schedule; sometimes they’d be gone for many weeks. They enjoyed watching all sorts of freight being loaded and unloaded in each port. And they especially liked the fact that not much happened while they were on board ship. The freighters didn’t go overboard on entertainment.

Grandpa had a 35mm Minolta SLR camera, and both of them used it well. They always came home with lots of 35mm slides (never prints). The archives that I inherited included dozens of slide trays full of their slides, and scripts for the slide shows that they presented to audiences in various parts of Orange County in between trips. The slide trays were bulky and no longer usable, but I removed and kept the slides from them. Most of the slides are scenic; the only ones I use here are ones that have Annie and/or Grandpa in the picture. The scenic slides are generally excellent in quality.

Herb enjoyed playing ping pong on the ship’s deck. What with the wind and the movements of the ship it must have been a challenging experience. My guess is that they had to keep a good supply of ping pong balls handy.

In this photo Herb poses in a field of lupine near Hemet, California.

Mary always loved flowers. Here she poses with proteas in 1965.

Herb poses by some of the freight boxes on the freighter in 1965. These appear to be tomatoes.