Stephanie says

Yellowstone Park Dark of winter, the perfect time to sort through a multitude of cardboard boxes filled with three generations’ photo collections. Treasured finds surface during this process, i.e., this giant postcard from our 1958 Yellowstone Park vacation. The Thompson and Reynolds families motored off on a madcap road trip, a 2,000 plus mile trek across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, back through Idaho, through Eastern Oregon, to Sitkum, (just about 40 miles shy of the Pacific Ocean,) us in the family station wagon, the Reynolds sedan towing a small camper. Four parents and five children (six year old me, Michael eight, Susie nine, Joe 11, Charmagne 14,) were in on the adventure. Mom mostly drove while Dad played guitar and we all sang any song that came to mind. Whenever the parents’ stamina wilted, Michael and I sang our favorite, “This is the story of 26 men who road the Arizona territory. Ride on, ride on, ride on.” Ride on Ride on Ride on Ride on ...

Lo, 30 years ago: Tuesday 1/5/1982 dawned predictably gray and overcast with the occasional downpour in Salem. The world was smack in the middle of a recession, work scarce, and Jim was home. At 38 weeks along, I was ponderously pregnant, a veritable earth goddess of fecund amplitude, childbirth (please, please) imminent. Tomato soup and sticky cheese for lunch then time for “Perry Mason.” I went to pee during a commercial, (probably at every commercial break by then,) but this time it was an unending stream. An absolute novice at this pregnancy stuff, I thought “I wonder if my water just broke?” It seemed too convenient to have that occur when I’m on the toilet, in the middle of the day. But then again, I’d had the textbook case of an ideal pregnancy, a picture of glowing good health. Unscathed by morning sickness I had a few nauseous moments, in particular when a jellyfish flotilla washed onto the Manzanita shore. Living at the coast at that juncture, I habitually walked the do...