Beaches and Memories

Sometimes our virtual worlds and corporeal worlds collide -- overlapping times and places. Bits of memories seemingly lost float to the surface of our daily perceptions.

Huntington Beach California, a quiet sleepy beach town in the middle of the last century.  Oil rigs touched the sky as you moved north towards Long Beach and Los Angeles. A small nuclear power plant (one of the first I believe) marked the expanse south on the way to Sand Diego. And the beach? It seemed to go on forever.

I spent my first years of life in that simple town, one where the library took up a good portion of the main street.  I was in the "bookworm club" each summer and would read a portion of a book to the librarian and tell her the story IN the book.  One of my favorite books (this in the children's section of the library) had the word "ennui" in the title. I remembered that when a friend gave me a pair of lassitude and ennui shoes; that was our first holiday season in Second Life.

Things come together in strange ways.

I can remember walking down main street with a girlfriend. It was maybe four blocks then, perhaps five. We wore our dad's oversized white shirts and curlers. Curlers of course let everyone know that you had a "date" that evening, so you wore them as a status symbol -- especially if you were too young to date.   The tiny bakery sold the best ever chicken pot pies. These came in heavy duty pie plates which you were charged for. You traded them back for a refund on your next visit.

A five and dime sold everything a young gal could want including lots of linens printed for embroidering. And as you reached Huntington Beach Boulevard (Highway 101) you found the pier. It was very famous back then and surfers would come from all over to "shoot the pier" which meant navigating between the pillars. It was illegal of course and dangerous, but that didn't stop the free-spirited surfer boys with the woodie station wagons and sun-bleached hair.

 The Huntington Beach of Second Life isn't "my" Huntington Beach really, but the creator has done a notable job in recreating the FEEL of my birthplace.

Be sure and visit. Be sure and take some sunscreen --- and of course your swimsuit. 



Swimsuit by Cherry Blossom at Cosmopolitan
Hair: Opale . Elly Hair


Some historical photos from the last century. 

Pose by: SEMotion