Twenty-five years ago today — on a spring morning in 1991 — I sat in the audience in front of the Oviatt Library at California State University in Northridge and watched Tommy receive his Bachelor’s degree. I think of that day often, with gratitude that I could be there to see that ceremony. Tom’s mom was also there, along […]
Category Archives: hiking
Consider a mental image: I am riding in the passenger seat of Tommy’s pickup truck, driven by my teen-age son, on a Los Angeles night — a night like the boy himself, bright, full of expectation and promise. Los Angeles feels to me at that moment like a place where anything is possible, a city […]
Recently I went through my family photos and found a few to add to this blog. The first is a photo that Tom took of me in the Marin headlands, one of Tom’s and my own very favorite hiking places. I posted it under “hiking in marin: the batteries, the dipsea trail, and beyond.” Also, I […]
I recently was going through my desk and found an old parking stub dated March 26, 1985… Tom’s 16th birthday. If my memory serves me correctly (a big “if” these days) it’s a parking ticket from Will Rogers State Park, which is located just north of Sunset Boulevard in the foothills of the Santa Monica […]
In the early months after Tommy’s death, I rarely dreamed about him, but lately he appears in my dreams very often. Like most dreams, these recent dreams about Tommy are a juxtaposition of fantasy and reality, of “wish fulfillment” and the ever-present memory of the boy and the man we all knew and loved so […]
We’ve had some very rainy weather here in southern Oregon but enjoyed a break between storms today. This afternoon I cleaned the leaves out of all the rain gutters on our house, so we’re ready for the next storm, which is coming soon. The freezing weather hasn’t really started yet this winter, but everything is […]
Below is a picture of Eagle Rock, which is located in the Santa Monica mountains near Topanga Canyon. And the following is a picture of the Trailer Canyon fire road, also in the Santa Monica mountains, and which is actually deceptively close to Sunset Boulevard, near the coast. These were both destinations that Tom and […]
One of my favorite memories of Tom is a bike ride I took with him and G a few years ago in the Elwood area, not far from Goleta. That area includes a large reserve for hiking and biking, and some scenic trails along the Elwood Bluffs overlooking the Pacific. We had a great ride […]
I was reminiscing today about some of the outings I took with G when he was little, and it reminded me of similar outings I took with Tom many years before. One of the things G and I did was to go to In-n-Out burgers for lunch. They have great burgers and fries there, and […]
The last hike Tom and I took together was on the Jesusita Trail above Goleta. G went with us also, and the memory of that hike is especially meaningful to me. Tom had already been diagnosed with lymphoma at that point, although he hadn’t started his really difficult treatment yet. He loved the mountains and trails […]
