My Summer Vacation

This summer I did a lot of really neat stuff. My father bought a new car. It's a maroon Buick and we went a lot of places in it.

(Anonymous snapshot. Buick. 3 1/4 X 4 1/2 inches. $20.00)

Dad took my sister and me to the zoo where we got to pet some of the animals. Not the really ferocious ones of course.

(Anonymous. Beach & Electric RR. Newport R.I. 5 1/2 X 8 1/4 inch albumen print with surface marks. $75.00)

My dad really liked driving this car so we continued on to Massachusetts. I know that we went into the mountains because we rented a boat and did a little camping for two days.

(John R. Hogan. Choosing A Channel. 1956. Exhibition label on verso.
13 X 16 inch toned silver print.--$2200.00)

Then we went on to Marblehead where I got to see some more neat boats.

On the way, we did stop at a lake somewhere but I'm not really sure exactly where it was. I know that we went swimming in it with some other kids. It was very nice.

It was very hot a lot of the time so we spent a lot of time at the beach. Sometimes I would just go with my parents and my sister, but other times we would go with some of our friends and relatives. Some of them looked Ok in bathing suits and some of them didn't. There was a place nearby where a photographer had a small studio with beachy backdrops.

My family would stop in on occasion to have a picture taken. Sometimes they did it in front of those backdrops. I really liked those backdrops a lot.

(Three Anonymous 2 1/2 X 3 1/2 inch Tintypes. SOLD: (1) Woman With Shells & Lighthouse Backdrop. (2) Two Bathers; (3) Four Bathers.

They all looked like they were ready to go into the water and some of them actually went into the water even though it was sometimes very, very cold

(Anonymous. 3 1/2 X 4 1/2 inch trimmed Real Photo Postcard. Some surface marks and damage. Writing on verso. Sold)

and some of them never ever did.

(Anonymous Real Photo Postcard. 3 1/2 X 5 1/2 inches. $25.00)

(Brown Brothers. Bathing 1895. 5 1/2 X 7 1/4 inch silver print with some surface marks. $75.00)

I guess that they just liked spending a lot of time on the sand.

(Anonymous. Woman On the Beach. 4 1/2 X 6 1/2 inch hand colored silver print. $50.00)

My two favorite aunts used to come with us all the time. They really liked the beach.

But, no matter what, everyone always had a very good and happy time on these outings.

My gramps usually spends the summer at Coney Island. A lot of his friends go there and he likes it a lot. He often sits on the boardwalk or the steps and watches the people. That's him with the moustache, hat, and suspenders.

(Laci Hussar. Coney Island. Ca. 1930's. 4 1/2 X 6 3/4 inch silver print. $350.00)

(Brown Bros. Atlantic City. 6 X 8 inch silver print. Some tears, dings and surface marks. $175.00)

I really liked seeing the people walking along, especially when they used umbrellas to shade themselves from the sun

We also got a chance to spend some time at Asbury Park. I liked boating and swimming.

One night, mom showed me this really, really, really old picture of her grandparents and her parents when they were kids a lot younger than me now.

(Anonymous tintype. 2 1/2 X 3 1/2 inches. Some damage. $35.00)

The one on the right that got rubbed out is my great-great grandmother. The little girl holding the pail is my gramma. They come from England and used to go to the beach a lot too.

My mom has some other beach pictures which she showed me. Some of their beaches were a whole lot fancier than ours

and some of them had these funny little wagons where people changed into their bathing suits.

(Anonymous. English Changing Wagons. 3 X 3 1/2 inch albumen print. Light tones. $45.00)

(Anonymous. Real Photo Postcard. 3 1/2 X 5 1/2 inch silver print. Some surface marks and stains. $45.00)

When it was really too hot and I couldn't go anywhere very far, my friends and I got together rolled up our pants, took off our shoes and went into a wading pool,

(Anonymous. The Wading Pool. 3 1/4 X 4 1/4 inch silver print. $25.00)

or we just jumped into a fountain along with a lot of other kids to cool off. It worked and it was really, really neat.

(Anonymous. Two 8 X 10 inch silver prints. Philadelphia. Some discoloration. $60.00 each)

We also had our share of picnics with lots of good stuff to eat. My cousin Vinny wrote to me from Washington which is very far away. He had gone to a fair and wanted to send me a picture of the Tilt-A-Whirl that he'd taken a ride on.

(Anonymous Real Photo Postcard. Western Wash Fair Puyallup Wash. Sold )

It made me feel very adventurous and I told dad that I wanted to go mountain climbing.

(Anonymous. Leni Riefenstahl (TNB). Real Photo Postcard. Autographed on Recto. $225.00)

But, my father said that it was too dangerous and rented the video of Alive instead.

THE END