Thursday, June 19, 2014

Throwback Thursday

It's not the best photo, but it was an important moment. This was taken (by Ken, I think) just after we arrived in California in August 1986, the year we moved from Washington, DC. We drove my Subaru across the country to San Jose, where friends C&J lived. They were very gracious to let us stay with them as we got settled. It's a long story, but we were, and still are, very grateful for their generous hospitality.

We made it! My good old Subaru hatchback, with the escargot on top. I was 26 years old.

We packed the hatchback as full as we could get it, along with a car-top carrier that was called an "escargot." Kind of like a snail's shell on the top of the car. We were moving me and my stuff since I was going back to school and needed to be in the Bay Area for classes. Ken spent a week or so, then went back to Washington for another month to finish up his job before moving out. I flew back to DC and we rented a truck, packed our furniture, put Ken's car on a trailer, and finished our move to California in October that year.

They said, "Californy is the place you oughta be."
So we loaded up the truck and drove to Silicon Vall-ee.
San José, that is. Swimmin' pools, computer nerds.

6 comments:

  1. That hair is so much of its time. It 'fitted in' in that era; today it would just turn heads - for all the wrong reasons. (Btw: Around then I would have been sporting an Afro!)

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  2. you were a handsome computer nerd? WOW!

    1986 I was living in springfield VA with a crumbling marriage, a job I mostly liked (beltway bandit for HUD), and a 1 bedroom condo. thinking about it now makes me wanna hurl!

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  3. Oh to be 26 again and think nothing of self-moving across country (twice!). You look really, really happy.

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  4. Can't believe you guys drove a truck towing a car cross country! That's some hard driving, but you were going to the right place at the right time, non?

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  5. raybeard, my hair is usually about a decade behind the times...

    anne marie, no, not a computer nerd. I wasn't smart enough. I was studying architecture.

    stuart, I was ecstatic. I enjoy new adventures. I did it again at 43 when I chucked it all and moved here.

    judy, I think they were Ken's. That was also his t-shirt. I used to wear his old clothes.

    evelyn, we put our house plants inside the car and it became a kind of a greenhouse! The agricultural guards at the California border had a good time with that. lol

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