Damn you, Kodachrome!

Getting the measure of one's family by going through dozens of shoeboxes full of slides (mounted transparencies for you pros) is about as daunting as measuring the length of California's coast by counting the grains of beach sand at the water's edge. But like a guy in his baggy-ass Bermuda shorts combing the beach with a metal detector, I occasionally come across a gem or two. So I continue.

Don't get me wrong. Kodachrome is a great film.

"They give us those nice bright colors

They give us the greens of summers

Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah"

But it made it too easy for my dad and myself to store thousands of useless family photographs. Useless, because they were only looked at once or twice in a darkened room and rarely were they marked as to why they exist in the first place. Those boxes full of memories are kind of like your phone's photo library, but not as well organized and a lot heavier.

Taken in 1972, shortly after graduating from high school. Not a great shot, but I was attracted to the evening colors.

I remember projecting some of my early shots in front of my parent's friends. I knew I was doing something right when one of them would ask, "what kind of camera are you using?" While I accepted the compliment, it’s the kind of question most photographers hate. Why? Let me put it another way. Would you wander into the the kitchen of a fancy French restaurant to ask the chef what brand pots were used to make your sublime Soupe à l'oignon? I think not, I hope. But if you must know, it was my dad’s Mamiya Sekor. Too much information?

I know why I used Kodachrome slide film. The quality was excellent, the reproduction was true-to-life, and it was relatively cheaper than having prints made, though I am paying for it now. For my dad, reasonably priced was his priority, which is sad, because he had a "good eye," as they say. Some of his slides are on film that stopped being manufactured back in the '70s, long before Kodak bit the dust. Ever hear of Pavelle Color? I had to look it up. Its first reference via Google was The National Museum of American History. It was a New York City-based film processing company that eventually was bought by Technicolor and finally put out of its misery.

My dad also bought his film from Costco's forerunner, Fedco, a warehouse/membership store founded by postal workers (no, it wasn't full of angry people). It had a store in Pasadena. The film was iffy, and most of it has been changing colors over the years. I've also come across Sears-brand film. Sadly, it's not Craftsman quality.

So, I sit at my desk with a Loupe or magnifying glass for a few hours almost every day, sorting slides over a small light table I purchased 30 years ago. For every box of 36 slides I study, I throw more than half of them away without running them through my film scanner. Of the others, I run them through my scanner in preview mode to see if they are worth further work.

What am I throwing out? Pictures of the sky, car doors, the ground, as well as fuzzy shots of blossoms, birds, cars, and scenery. The images that get a closer look have people, pets, or places I recognize in the frame. If not, it goes into the bin.

What could happen? Would it be that Aunt Nina's best hair-do gets overlooked because the photographer was stung by a bee when the shutter was released?

And what about the discards? Will I miss them? Did I accidentally throw out the only known photo of JFK eating a jelly donut? Possibly. Ich bin ein photo editor.

But one person’s discards could be another’s treasure. So, I prefer to believe that in a thousand years, some guy in Bermuda shorts toting a debris detector will scan a beach along the Fresno Sea and find a perfectly preserved Kodachrome image of a Buick Century's rearview mirror. He'll smile. He’ll pick it up. He’ll blow the sand from the emulsion before holding it up to the sky to get a better look, and say to himself, "Eureka! I’m adding this beaut to my collection!"

Quarantine Chronicles: Four-eyes

In May 2019, Fabienne and I headed east to see The West. The target: Yellowstone National Park. The plan was to get there before school let out to avoid the crowds, and by crowds, I mean other people’s children. The plan worked. It was the first time we were able to take such a trip since Fab quit being a teacher. 

Fabienne dressed for Yellowstone geysers where hot water met cold air.

Being a teacher was fine, but it meant always taking vacations during high season or taking vacations with someone else’s kids in tow. We had taken several trips to Europe the past 15 years with our own kids while chaperoning students from Clovis High School. I had a blast. Fab, not so much.

Our trip to Yellowstone was to be a classic American road trip. Fabienne hadn’t seen much of the U.S. by car, though I had been in this neck of the woods a few times since I was 9. I looked forward to showing her around. I even romanticized this kind of family tradition, but looking back on it, I don’t know why. 

The ghost of George Patton haunted Funk family vacations. My dad usually had only two weeks of leave, and I mean vacation time. We were going to beat the Russians to Berlin! Except, Berlin was a campground in Zion National Park. My mom was his navigator. My brother and I were his troops. Our 10-year-old Ford was his Jeep. We were going to cram as much fun as possible into that time or help us, god.

Dad loaded up the old red-and-white two-tone with all the gear that would fit and placed the borrowed 12x12, 50-pound canvas tent in the back seat between my brother, Kevin, and me so we wouldn’t annoy each other during the march to victory. It didn’t work, but it was worth a try – “He touched me!” My dad and I could put that tent up in less than 10 minutes. He clocked it.

The Funks hit the road at five in the morning, taking Route 66 from Pasadena east toward San Bernardino. We passed through the Sunkist orange groves just east of Sierra Madre on a road that my mom referred to as having “the whoopsie-daisies,” a series of undulations in the road that made our stomachs rise and fall. Each fall was punctuated by us, screaming, “whoopsie daisy!” The car had no seat belts, so each drop would make us float off the seats. A good day was when our heads would touch the headliner. I think that only happened when my mom was driving. 

At some point, we cut north over the Cajon Pass toward Barstow and onward toward Las Vegas. We always knew when my dad managed to push the car to 60 mph by the harmonic humming noise it made only at that speed. Maybe it was a feature, not a bug. 

Back in the ’60s, the trip to Vegas was somewhat arduous. By today’s standards, we might as well have been driving a covered wagon. The car had no air conditioning, no power steering, no automatic transmission. If you were wearing shorts or a skirt, your thighs stuck to the plastic seat covers. For this reason, my mom packed towels or blankets, and my dad always wore long pants with cuffs. He hated jeans. 

One of the many road-side stands along the way sold an air conditioner of sorts that would clip to a rolled-up car window — a cardboard box loaded with ice. It worked, kind of, but only for a few miles. Then it would just fly away.

So, we relied mostly on our car’s four–55 air conditioning system: all windows rolled down at 55 mph. If you sweated adequately, it worked. My mom didn’t. 

In Baker, we stopped at a stand for some cold drinks. I remember the thermometer reading 114. We three guys ordered iced teas while my mother asked for water. 

“You have to order a drink,” the counter attendant told her. 

“What?”

“We don’t sell water.”

My brother and I felt the temperature rise another five degrees and believed mom was about to blow. She hadn’t seen the film “Easy Rider” so she didn’t know the proper “hippy” etiquette in getting what you want from the waitstaff. But, maybe she did the film one better. 

She ordered three iced teas. She poured the first over her head. The guy behind the counter looked at her slack-jawed. The second she poured over a towel and used the dripping cloth to cover her head and shoulders. The third she drank. 

It was the first time I knew that my mother didn’t sweat. She was suffering from heatstroke and was too sick to complain about not being served water. 

We reached Vegas a few hours later. It was early afternoon. It was so hot, some of the temperature signs were blinking instead of showing the temperature. 

My dad searched for a place where we could cool off. Every place my parents could go, my brother and I couldn’t. Vegas was just for gambling, drinking, and mobstering back then. There were no casinos with lazy river pools or indoor mega shopping centers with talking Greek statues or Venice gondolas to ride. It would still be a few years before Circus Circus debuted.

Fun fact: If you have Amazon Prime, you can rent or watch the first episode of “The Rockford Files.” The second part of that episode has a Vegas flyover to set the scene. Between today’s strip and Circus Circus, there’s nothing but desert. Watch with sound off. The dialog would make your skin crawl if you didn’t grow up during those times. It did mine, and I did. 

We ended up in a movie theater and watched “Call Me Bwana,” twice. I remember it had Bob Hope and quicksand. I don’t remember Anita Ekberg.

By the time we got out, it was early evening, but still hot. We ate somewhere and got back into the car. We had to get to Zion. Patton’s orders. My parents didn’t spend money on rooms back then. 

Fun fact: Did you know that Motel 6 got its name because the rooms were $6? That’s about $51 in 2020 money. 

The rest of the drive was uneventful. After we arrived at our campsite in Zion, my dad and I set up the tent (I handed him the poles). He rolled out the sleeping bags and my mom went immediately to sleep. The three guys ate dinner, then sat around a campfire before calling it a day. 

That’s when I looked into my dad’s eyes and said, “Dad. I think I left my glasses back in Altadena.”

That was another reason I was looking forward to this 2019 spring trip with Fabienne. In a way, it was to be my first time, too.

Just like going to Europe, but your'e staying home!

Here are 15 tips on how to get that European traveling experience you crave but can’t get this year because your neighbors wanted to eat freedumb waffles in a strip mall over Memorial Day. 

1) Pack 50 pounds of your favorite traveling gear into a suitcase. Plan well, because you can’t go home after step 5. 

2) Store the bag in your bedroom. 

Pretend you’re waiting for your plane by getting down on the floor with your luggage. Only 4 hours to liftoff!

3) Pack a carry-on with your must-have or you’ll-die-without-them essentials (books, magazines, laptop, two 2-pound weights for power walking, gummy bears, lip gloss, etc.). The bag should be too heavy to lift over your head.

4) Find the most uncomfortable chair in your house and place it in front of the TV. Find your remote and place it on the chair. You will be sitting in this chair for the next 12 to 18 hours with your carry-on under your feet. If traveling with a spouse or companion, place their chair in front of you or behind you. No kicking! And, only one remote per plane.

5) When you’re ready to take off, turn your home’s air conditioning down to 68 degrees for the duration of the flight. 

6) During the flight, you’re allowed 4 ounces of diet Coke or ginger ale every three hours. If flying from the West Coast, you’re also allowed 2 ounces of pasta, 1/3 chicken breast, two saltine crackers, and 3 ounces of coffee for lunch or dinner. If you are vegetarian or vegan, you will be eating steak. You’re only allowed to use a spork. You’re not allowed to eat in the kitchen or bathroom. Otherwise, feel free to move around the cabin.  You’re only allowed in the kitchen for 10 minutes. 

7) After 18 hours, add another 45 to 90 minutes before you can land. Be creative. 

8) Once landed, go to your bedroom to collect your bags.

9) If traveling with a companion, pretend your companion is TSA. Unpack your bag in front of them and wait while your companion examines the items. Repack your bag. Now switch roles. Baggage check is the only point in the trip where you and your companion can mock the other for the things each of you chose to bring. If traveling alone, unpack your bag anyway.  

Looks comfy, don’t it?

10) Move your bags to the one room in your house that will be your vacation hideaway for the next three weeks. If it’s your bedroom, this part is natural. Otherwise, make sure the vacation room has a bed or cot and access to a bathroom. The rest of your house is generally off-limits because you’re on vacation. You can use the kitchen, but nothing from the refrigerator. Imagine you’re running an Airbnb, only this time you’re the guest. 

11) Once situated, turn off the air conditioning in your house. Feel free to open one window.

12) Pretend that it’s raining for the next ten days. Did you pack a coat or umbrella? Too late now! 

13) Ready for a little side trip? Grab a mask and head to the most foreign (to you) grocery store in your town.  Aldi’s qualifies, but the point of this excursion is to experience what your neighbors are actually eating. Grab some mussels, or blood sausage, or haggis, or herring, menudo fixin’s or glass noodles and a few other delectables you’ve never seen before and take them home to eat. You can do this every day.

14) Does your town still have statues? Some funky old buildings? A cemetery? A church? Grab your phone or camera. It’s time to ogle.

An exercise band makes the perfect clothesline while traveling abroad.

15) After 13 days, you’ll probably have to do a bit of laundry. Remember, you’re on vacation. Your bathroom sink is now your washing machine. Hang wet items from a makeshift clothesline. Feel free to use curtain rods or the back of the TV for drying. If you packed an exercise band, feel free to use it. You probably weren’t using it anyway.

 Are you having fun yet? 

 Don’t forget to write!

And don’t forget your mask!