Looking thru the photos of CAS on this site, looking at some of the rural backgrounds, were like a trip back into my youth.
Of particular nostalgic interest is this one:
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www.eldritchdark.com]
On the desk in front of him is something many older people who lived their youth in CA would recognize instantly: an abalone shell.
These were *all over the place* so far as availability. In the 1950 and 60s, these shells were still readily available on the beach, in various stages of being eroded by wave action, and many people were still able to harvest large ones off the rocks of the Central CA coast at low tides. I, myself, in the early 70s, was able to find small ones the size of silver dollars secreted in rock cracks. These were too small to take. I could still find the occasional medium-sized shell on secluded beaches. This was in San Luis Obispo county, just south of Monterey county.
Just outside Santa Barbara, along US 101, was an abalone processing plant, with a pile of these shells the size of a large haystack. These were still being commercially being taken from the Channel Islands, just off the coast, into the 70s.
Now, none are available in the wild. It's less over-harvesting (although that was certainly a factor) than understanding that the abundance in the 19th to mid-20th C was the result of a confluence of unique environmental factors.
Based on the shell and the likely timeframe ascertained by his apparent age, this photo would have been from when he lived in Pacific Grove, which was very near a rocky area that likely would have once had lots and lots of abalone.
Times change; nothing stays the same...
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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