One of my favorite things when I was a little kid was my mother's old collection of scenic View Master reels. They were, in a way, my "internet". They showed me the world (actually, only parts of the US) and I spent many hours looking at them and pretending I was looking out the window of a bus or passenger train. Most of the reels have copyright dates in the late 1940s, about 10 years before I was born. They were still in perfect condition in the 1960s and 70s but now most of the transparencies are faded, dirty, or damaged. This one is still in fairly good condition.
One of the images is of a giant redwood tree with a tunnel carved through it for cars to drive through, so when I heard that the Tunnel Tree had fallen in a storm it was almost like I was reading about another celebrity death. But it turns out that it's not the same tree. The tree on the View Master is the privately owned Chandelier Tree.
This is the Tunnel Tree, also known as the Pioneer Cabin Tree.
And now...
This is very sad. It was a famous tree so it's still sort of like a celebrity death but I have to admit I'm relieved that "my" tree is still standing.
One of my students in Soils mentioned the tree this morning when I talked about roots and soil anchorage.
ReplyDeleteI had a View-Master, but by the time of my 1970s childhood, most of the reels available were cartoon or fairy-tale related. (Still, I kind of loved the 3-D effect. I remember I had one reel of a Snoopy story in particular). I suppose like a lot of other things now, Viewmaster has probably gone "virtual" as a smartphone app or something....
I've also seen the forerunner of those - stereopticon pictures. My grandmother still had one and a few of the pictures, and we were allowed once or twice to gently look at it. (I don't know what happened to them after her death)
Recently when I saw a TV commercial for a virtual reality device I thought how sad it is that kids today will never know how cool View Masters were. I have always wanted a stereopticon.
DeleteOh, yes. A candidate for a position here and I had a long discussion about how the "virtual" shouldn't replace the actual - with a side of how kids who played with Lego (among other things) seem to do better in lab because they are comfortable with manipulating stuff and have better fine-motor skills.
DeleteI wish I had a vintage View Master. I don't care about the VR devices but the View Masters were just kind of fun and cool.
My aunt had Viewmaster wheels. As I recall the images were mostly of snow scenes where folk ski. It may be that she had this wheel too as I recall the tree.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad to see the death of such an old tree. The tree in your first photo looks a lot healthier, let's hope it is!
ReplyDeleteI too have wonderful childhood memories of View Masters. The pictures I saw were all of exotic, far away places. So romantic!
Hello Dee, thank you for commenting. I love your roses. :-)
DeleteHi Lynn, thanks for visiting my blog. I am so pleased to hear that you enjoyed it.
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