NOTE: This was written as an open letter to my siblings. I was scanning photos from my late father’s estate in order to capture, catalog, and copy them for all to have.

March 24, 2022

Well, Siblings. I’ve just had a bit of a surprising epiphany … I’ll try to explain. Judy’s out of town, so I quick-like-a-bunny tried to get some scanning done. I came to a couple boxes that were just “scenery” — you know, flowers, sunsets… no people, family members or historical significance. I even contemplated NOT scanning them at all, much less retouching them and trying to identify dates and locations.

We hiked in San Gorgonio Wilderness back in the 1980s… I recently found a photo and would like to geo-locate it. I wonder if you or someone you know might recognize it.

I think we went up the Fish Creek Trail, at least that sounds familiar. Or maybe it was Falls Creek. We camped near the top (after visiting the peak) at Red Rock Flats or something like that–I think? Do you recognize this lake? Let me know. Thanks.

Unknown lake in the San Gorgonio Wilderness

UPDATE:

On June 10, 2022, I heard back from someone at the San Gorgonio Wilderness Area. They wrote, “That is dry lake – along the south fork trail – nice picture”

So, now I know. That puts the photo around here (34.121602713030775, -116.82910743966272).

Ocean City, New Jersey

Campus Crusade for Christ Summer Project

After spending Christmas 1976, and New Year’s Day 1977, in Naples, Italy, I continued my studies at the University of Minnesota. Although I would end up in a photo-journalism program at the U, I basically majored in Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC, now known “less threateningly” as Cru).

It was fitting if not predictable, therefore, that I spend the summer of 1977 on a summer ministry project. Among the many offered by CCC, I chose, applied, and was accepted to the project in Ocean City, New Jersey, from June 11 through September 6.

Project portrait in front of the Dimension Hotel, now a parking lot.

While preparing to remodel our basement family room this year, I moved several photo albums, and the binding on the 1977 summer project album completely fell apart in my hands. “Useless to reconstruct it,” I thought, so I decided to scan the photos, then put the prints in a box for posterity. I wasn’t prepared for the ensuing nostalgia as I relived, remembered, and realized how little I actually do remember, from that summer on the “Shore.”

Continue reading →

Continue reading →

Eulogy to Rev. Wayne E. Wattman

By Rick Wattman, Eldest Son, 26 March 2019
Delivered at Gladwin Heights United Church, Abbotsford, BC, Canada

I’m here to share remembrances, reflections, and impressions on behalf of my siblings about our dad, the Reverend Wayne E. Wattman. For particular historical details, we have provided a chronology of sorts in the bulletin, so I will focus on some of our shared memories.

Celebration of Life, 26 March 2019, Gladwin Heights UC, Abbotsford, BC

I am but one of his four children, and we each had different experiences in our time with him in our lives. We were each deeply impacted when he left our family, each in his or her own ways. These were difficult realities. Continue reading →