As far back as I can remember, Mom and Dad would often take me to the beach at Santa Monica. In my baby book Mom wrote on my "two years old" page, "In the morning we took Charles to the beach and he had a grand time in the water. In the evening he had a birthday cake..." This photo, which was on the next page, may have been taken that day:
Here we are in front of the cliff along Ocean Avenue on our way to the beach.
The photo is dated 31 August 1942. Either it was taken earlier in the year before we moved to Tucson, or during one of several brief trips we made back to Santa Monica while living in Tucson. Here's another photo, taken after we got to the beach. It was dated 25 February 1942, so maybe it was taken some time during the previous summer...
Later on, while my family was living in Westchester, I visited the beach in Playa del Rey many times each year. It was an easy trip of only three miles or so down Manchester from our home. It was an even shorter trip for Jeanette. This is a picture which her friend Eleanore took some time in the '50s:
