THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL PHOTO ARCHIVE • FRAMED PRINTS • STOCK IMAGES

My brother and the neighbors helping construct our custom tree house. Lumber was expensive back then but we were thrifty and got the job done under budget!

My brother feeding his bear. I guess this bear likes his meals through his nose for some odd reason.

A 1963 Ford convertible. 3-speed manual transmission with electric overdrive, 352-cubic inch engine. The paint was metallic teal, which doesn't show up well in this Ektachrome slide I developed in my folks' kitchen sink. Did thousands of those. This was taken at Meramec State Park, near Sullivan, MO, I think. Almost as soon as I bought this car, I got drafted, so the guy I bought it from took it off my hands & sold it again. He was a prince. This was in an age where, as they say, hearts were light and cars were heavy.

My Mom, Caroline Holder's first summer job was here at the Children's section of the Bronx Zoo when she was 16. She is the first girl on the left in the middle row.

Big River, between Hematite and Victoria, Jefferson Country. Missouri. Stayed out of its banks too long, and roadbed failure followed. Local photographer sold these pictures to locals. "June 10, 1938" stamped on the back.

St. Clair, MO, late 1930s. This quaint little sandstone-covered gas station was enlarged in the late '40s, and later razed, replaced by a parking lot for the bank next door.

My Dad Lorne (bottom left) and my Uncle Ray (top right) with the rest of the baseball team from Rossland High School in Rossland BC Canada. I don't know what the trophy was for, but I do love the pinned on pennants they are all wearing. This would be about 1935.

My mother, Kay Black behind the wheel of the little red Mercury during her and George's 1954 multi-state honeymoon (South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah).

My brother, Bob and me exploring the wilds of the front yard, summer 1959 in Dayton, Ohio.

Picture of newlywed Kay Black taken by her husband, George, in April, 1954, probably in Wyoming.

My 3 year old father Robert is sitting on his father's lap. On the left my uncle Nick, 16, seated next to my grandmother Gilda. My grandparents were born in Constantinople (Turkey) and had emigrated to Toulon in the south of France in the 1940s.

My great-grandmother was an amateur painter. Photo taken in Toulon (South of France) in 1970.

My mother is 21 in this photo taken in Toulon (France) in the summer of 1967.

My grandparents lived in Le Havre (France) in 1952. Here they are happy to have an aperitif with a friend (the one who takes the photo). My grandmother Antoinette was born in Corsica in 1917. My grandfather Armand, who was born in Paris in 1921, was director of a cinema in Le Havre, a port city in the North of France.

My father Robert was born in Toulon (South of France). Here he is walking in a street in Toulon in 1962 looking like a movie actor.