Around 1950 my parents rented a place at Redondo Beach, south of Seattle. It was really just a little beach-front summer cottage with a fireplace and a wood stove for heat. I could walk across the road to play on the beach when the tide was out. When there were storms, the waves crashed against the wooden bulkheads and sent salt spray into our front yard. On the hills behind the house was a damp, dark forest of firs and alders, and the soggy ravines were full of skunk cabbage, devil's club and thick patches of nettles. Down the road a bit a small, noisy creek ran through a park and into the Sound; huge silvery salmon came up it to spawn, and you could easily catch them by hand. A half mile up the road the other way was a dock and an arcade which ate my nickles and quarters in shooting galleries and pinball machines. There was a merry-go-round beside the arcade with the usual collection of wooden horses and fanciful riding animals; I don't recall seeing it running, and I probably would have been too self-conscious to ride it anyway at the advanced age of ten. Sometimes on weekday evenings, though, when no one was around I would slip under the canvas cover, mount the biggest of the horses and take long rides into the night.
The photo was taken at the State Fair Grounds in Albuquerque with my FED-3 and the Jupiter-12 lens.
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