Looks like these guys are "expanding" their minds. I too have seen the looks on their faces before.

This photo brings back a lot of memories. I got married that year, six weeks before my 20th birthday. The paraffin brings back memories of frustration. I gave up on paraffin and went to lids, since I could never figure out how to open a jar without leaving bits of paraffin in the jam. Being in California, I'll bet your mother had a huge variety of fruits to make jam from. Did she bake fresh bread or rolls to go with it? Makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

OTY, I agree with you. In my case however the song "Those Were the Days" comes to mind. Two lines in particular stand out.

"Oh, my friend, we're older but no wiser
For in our hearts the dreams are still the same."

Call me an old softy but when I hear this song my eyes tear up, and things get blurry.

[Or, if you want a song contemporary with the photo, may I suggest "Seasons in the Sun." - Dave]

Heck yeah you needed paraffin, but we used it on our sleds with metal rails. We may have had a bit more days of snow each year than Larkspur. Our "field" didn't have a sledding hill but is featured in my Dad's slide from the year before here.

John Denver and Carole King for Herbal Essence.

Tterrace, I think you could illustrate the mid-century portion of a U.S. history textbook just with your photos, because so many seem so definitive of what the era supposedly was. I wasn't born until the mid-1980s, so this all predates me significantly, and it is strange what things seem to perfectly conform to certain stereotypes (especially the colorful sartorial decisions!) I have of the 1950s-1970s. Of course, I'm sure your reality was as complex, contradictory, wonderful and terrible as life is in any era, but the photos you share with us are each great little time capsules. Thanks for sharing.

The hair, the glasses, that purple shirt and brown pants, and a warm sunny day sitting in a flower filled field in anytown North American. This picture is, like all of tterrace's pictures, is so evocative of how I remember the early 70's. I can almost close my eyes and picture myself there. I actually got misty eyed when i saw this posting. I can't stop looking at it. I have nothing like this to record my own youth. I wish I did.

The new revised edition of "Larkspur Past and Present," the definitive history of our town, was just released on Saturday. It's packed with photos (we contributed over a dozen of ours) and thoroughly researched history. Significant emphasis on the varied home and bungalow architectural styles seen in the town. It's also a window on small-town American life of the 20th century, much told first-person by people who were there. Almost like a Shorpy on paper.

http://www.larkspurheritage.org/

We don't receive any financial benefit from sales.

I'm picturing the original Beatles video for "Fool on the Hill" when I see this shot. Tterrace never fails to deliver wonderful photos!

just popped into my mind as I studied this photo. Joni Mitchell sang this during the funeral scene in "Alice's Restaurant." A couple of decades ago, I thought that movie might seem as profound to my kids as it did to me when I was in my early twenties, so I rented the video and felt that when my four offspring saw it, they would realize how deep and intellectual I used to be, how cool and hip, how "with it" I really once was. Unfortunately the movie does not hold up over time for kids born in the mid-'60s and they laughed all the way through it while commenting on how lame the whole thing was, including that song. If only we knew then what we know now. We who felt we were so savvy, we had all the answers and would never grow old like our corny parents. The years fly by like greased lightning and suddenly we find we are irrelevant and next in line for roll call from the grim reaper. Time waits for no one but marches on quickly and yes, youth is wasted on the young. If I have not sufficiently brought you down to my level of depression and despair, I'll try harder the next time. Thanks Shorpy for taking us back to when the world was young and so were we. Just call me "Platitudes 'R Us."

Every time I see your pics, tterrace, I wish I'd been around in the '50s, 60s and '70s. Ever thought of putting it all down on paper (including all the photos, of course)?

In the 1950's and 60's here in Australia, California Poppy was the name of a popular hair oil. Wearing that or the alternative Brylcreem, a young man would set of with his young lady with the intent of sowing wild oats!

did you actually get to MEET tterace? I am jeeeeaaaalous!

Last weekend I hauled my Olde Asse down the mountain and accomplished some pleasant weekend client business in SFO, and thence over the Bridge and up the 101 to Novato for a brunch meeting on Sunday morning - before turning back eastward for Home and Hearth.

Of course one must needs pass Larkspur on that journey, so I actually rolled down the window (at 9 o'clock at night!) and waved a hearty "HI!" to La Familia TTerrace as I made my transit of those thanks-to-Shorpy-now-remarkable environs.

Don Juan once said to Carlos: "The world is weird," and I think he was both truthful and factual.

I think they're reenacting a scene from Harold & Maude.