The Three of Us

You've seen this picture before, Julie is about a week old and Richard is two. She was 5 pounds, 3 ounces when she was born, but she lost weight initially (I've been told most babies do) and here she is back up to an even 5 pounds. I had been to court for my divorce on the morning of December 30, 1965. In the afternoon I was being readmitted to UC Berkeley, and that night I checked in to the hospital and Julie was born the next morning. Three weeks later, I was back on campus. Life was certainly busy.



This was the same Christmas that Julie got the box from Richard; we are visiting my parents. You can see some of the toys they received -- there were lots more. Just as I had been the ultimate oney-oney, my kids were the first of their generation. They had the grandparents and great-grandparents and aunt and uncle all to themselves for the first few years. Actually, Forrest's daughter Carey came along not long after this, but for this time, they were it and they got all the gifts. (I remember that when I was little -- almost all the gifts under the tree were for me, and to this day a fully loaded Christmas tree makes me feel like it's all mine. Even a tree in someone else's house with nothing under it for me can make me feel special and good.) I was still going to Berkeley at this point.


Here we are in front of the Fairbanks Public Library. Notice that it is a log building. We lived half a block away, also in a log building. I was working as a Montessori teacher at the time. This is the library that a group of Montessori moms was coming out of one Saturday and heard Julie call across the street to her best friend, "You don't either have to be a virgin to get married, Amy Desrocher! My mom said she wasn't." Alaska being Alaska, that made my reputation. The moms thought it was wonderful to know that I was human. There were a couple of things about living in that house. One, it had once belonged to a very famous lady of the night. It was on the corner and all of the corner houses were on the same party line. Three times in two weeks we had accidents at that corner and all three times all four houses tried to call 911 at the same time.

Here we are in California, in San Francisco on the beach. In the background you can see The Cliff House and Sutros Baths. Richard was 23 and Julie 21 here and this picture was taken by Julie's father the weekend he came to California and Julie met him for the first time since she was a few months old. For the first time that he had known she was his. Not that I didn't tell him, once Kate had figured it out, but I did it indirectly and it took him 18 years to figure it out. Doesn't speak hint, not Michael. At this time, Richard had moved back in and Julie had moved to San Francisco to finish college and Missy was a kitten.
And this was taken in Juneau about seven years ago when Julie and Maya came up to visit. This is pretty much how we all still look, except I've got more white in my hair than I did then -- although in this picture it looks whiter than it was. Richard still has a beard. He started wearing one when he was in his early 20s and still looked 15 and we have all grown used to him in it. I don't have any idea what he looks like without it now; I might not recognize him if he shaved it off. This is the last time the three of us were together. That doesn't seem possible, all those years when the three of us were always together, and now we never are. Plane fare from California to Alaska is a bit steep and vacations have just never worked out for Richard and Kathy and me to all go down at the same time. And for Julie, Ted, and Maya it is equally expensive. I wish they would move up, but I don't hope for it, since Julie and Ted are big city folk and like a warmer climate.