Early Years Pictures

This is not a true picture gallery, but some pictures and narrative to explain them. Unfortunately I have few pictures from the early years even though I fancied myself to be a photographer when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I do have a picture of our house in Mexico City circa around 1948. The house was built in 1942 during WWII. The house was quite large, bigger than it appears in the picture. Mother had a baby grand piano in the living room and the famous Mexican composer Agustin Lara played on it once. I was too young to be at the party, but I heard him play from the upstairs landing of the black marble spiral staircase.

We lived in a neighborhood in the southwest part of Mexico City called San Angel Inn. The American School where I attended was located on one of the main avenues called Insurgentes about 10 miles from our house. Almost all my friends that attended the American School lived in a neighborhood west northwest of Mexico City. Consequently, I really had two sets of friends, the Americans from school and the Mexicans in my neighborhood.

With my American friends I enjoyed sports at school, namely football and boxing, and extracurricular activities like Boy Scouts, Demolay's, and the Gamma Gamma Gamma fraternity. The picture of the Gamma Gamma Gamma formal was taken at the time I was sort of dating Gail Brittingham. I was very naive for my age and this little anecdote proves it: Several boys and girls were at Gail's house having an afternoon get together. Behind Gail's house there was a wooded barranca (ravine or gorge) with many walking paths. Gail suggested a game. The boys were to count to 100 while the girls ran to hide. The boy that found a girl would get to kiss her. We did and I took off after Gail. As I came over a rise, I found her standing there waiting for me. I ran up to her and said, "Don't worry Gail, I won't let anyone kiss you." I was in love with Gail, but more like a sister. That is Gail standing in front of me at the Gamma party. Gail married Johnnie Halbert, the tall fellow on the right with a cigar in his mouth. Unfortunately, the marriage didn't last. Gail was killed in automobile accident sometime in the middle 1960's in San Antonio, TX. She was a beautiful and wonderful person.

Additional pictures are in this gallery: Additional Gallery.

With my Mexican friends we would go on camping trips, we established a photography studio, and we built model airplanes. On one camping trip we decided to tackle Popocatepetl the snow covered volcano east of Mexico City. We drove to the camp site and discovered we didn't have any water. I took a back pack and climbed about four hours to the snow line. There I packed the back pack with fresh snow and climbed back down. We had to abort our trip because the back pack had salt in it and the snow melted into salty water. This is a picture of Popo as we called it. We had more adventures than I can recall, like exploring the sand caves about five miles up the ravine behind my house. These caves were extremely dangerous and would frequently cave in. We didn't care, we were fearless.

On one occasion three of us decided to drive to some hot springs south of Cuernavaca, Mexico. We took my 1937 Ford and started the trip, but not far up on Mount Ajusco (south of Mexico City on the road to Cuernavaca) the engine quit. We thought it was the fuel pump so we took it apart, cleaned it and re-installed it. About a half mile later the engine quit again. This time it must be the carburetor so we went to work, cleaned it and pressed on. With difficulty we made it to the summit and didn't have any trouble going downhill or straight and level. We made it down the mountain road to the rustic spa and enjoyed ourselves for too long, as it became dusk. The parking lot was not paved and it was all but empty when we thought we were ready to go home. Unfortunately, the car would not start, and we ran the battery down trying to start it. We determined the carburetor wasn't getting enough gas. I siphoned gas into a coke bottle and in so doing happened to swallow a mouth full of gasoline. What a horrible experience, as I burped gas all night. Anyway, by pouring a bit of gas in the top of the carburetor, and pushing the car and popping the clutch, we finally got it started. However, when the gas we put in the carburetor gave out the engine quit. Next, we found an empty large coffee can and drained a can full from the bottom of the fuel tank. We took the hood off the car and place it in the rumble seat. In those days automobiles had generators instead of alternators, and when the battery was discharged it took quite a while to charge the battery again. It was now dark, but my friend Gabe sat on the left front fender siphoning gas into the carburetor, while my other friend Chato (Francisco Valadez) sat on the right front fender with a flashlight verbally guiding us while driving up the mountain road. Gabe maintained our speed as he basically controlled the accelerator. Chato, of course, kept us from going off the road into who knows what. We finally made it to the main road and a service station where we parked and spent the night. The next morning we mentioned our problem to a truck driver and he told us it wasn't uncommon in those days for the push rod to the fuel pump to wear down and not pump gas. It was easily repaired by installing a flat washer in the push rod as it was designed to slip apart allowing for spacers to be added. Once that was done we made it home with no further problem.