Long before hundreds of television channels, cheap air fares and the Internet, there was the View-Master.
 
A modern version of a stereoscope (a device first invented in the 1800s, it was used to look at early photos in 3D), this particular model was marketed to post World War II baby boomers, and their parents, as a way to see the wonders of the world without ever leaving home.
 
And, in the years before the phrase “educational toy” existed, it was that as well. 
 
Like millions of other 1950s households, we had a View-Master.
 
Dark brown and made of Bakelite, the device was lightweight; resembled a Brownie camera, and was nearly impossible to break.  Clicking its single lever down with my thumb, I spent many afternoons peering at the dozens of View-Master “reels” (actually, cardboard discs inserted into the top of the viewer, one at a time, which then rotated with each click) in our collection.   
 
Each disc had a set of 14 slides, all in life-like 3D. The colors were also spectacular because each picture had been shot with Kodachrome. Sometimes a disc told a story from beginning to end, like a Woody Woodpecker cartoon. More often, they were touristy images of exciting and exotic places—Natural Habitats of Africa; The Oregon Caves, and Garden Isle of Hawaii.   
 
I recently discovered our View-Master in my garage.   There were also 35 reels, most with a date of 1955, and each one was still carefully tucked in its own blue and white envelope.  Everything was manufactured by Sawyer’s of Portland, Oregon, whose owners introduced their creation at the 1939 World Fair in New York City, and patented the device that year. 
 
I’d forgotten that I’d found the same box before, in another garage at another house.  I wasn’t ready to give it up then.  This toy had been an important part of my childhood: it gave me the fuel that let me dream about corners of the world that I knew our family could never afford to see in person.
 
I’ve done a good bit of traveling since my little girl self sat in a cramped living room, enthralled with our View-Master. 
 
Journeys have included crisscrossing the country as a professional circus clown, which included driving to every gig in my Datsun 710 sedan.  In the rear seat directly behind me were my costumes, makeup and props.  Next to me, the front passenger seat had been torn out to make room for a long plywood board and air mattress.  In this way, the car doubled as my bed, and after I made curtains for the windows, it wasn’t half bad.   
 
There have been other far-flung escapades.  I can still recall strolling down the greenest of hills in Switzerland, right next to cows wearing leather collars with bells on them, clanging with every step they took.  I’ve seen old-fashioned windmills turning in The Netherlands, and gazed up at Mount Fuji in Japan.  I brought my tiny baby girl home from China, and spent time in the former Republic of Georgia making a documentary film.  This past February, I went to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, one of the most beautiful bodies of water on the planet.   
 
Each of these adventures has given me a perspective on the world that has helped shape me into the curious and questioning reporter that I am today.
 
But now, it’s time to pack up the View-Master and the reels.   
 
They’ll be in good hands, going to a friend on the East Coast who collects vintage toys.  As it turns out, he hasn’t been to nearly as many places as I’ve been lucky enough to see. 
 
But maybe the View-Master will change that.    

​I miss cafeterias.
 
I don’t mean the ones in school lunchrooms, but those that used to be in just about every city across America in the 1950s and ‘60s.
 
I loved the food, of course.  But the next best thing was how I got the food—pointing to exactly what I wanted, with each choice then handed to me by a female worker (never a man) wearing a starched white uniform with sensible shoes. 

​The line itself was both precise and artistic.  
. 
After grabbing a tray, the first stop was looking at the tiny white bowls of salads, all propped up on a narrow island of crushed ice.  Should I get coleslaw, or cottage cheese with a maraschino cherry on top, or sliced peaches?  Usually, I’d pick my favorite—strawberry Jell-O cut in identical, sparkly cubes. 
 
Under heat lamps and in the center of the line were the entrees.  There was chicken pot pie, and roasted turkeys
and hams and roasts, all carved to order.  Alongside were steam tables, with sides including mashed potatoes,
fresh succotash and brown gravy.  Next came baked-that-day bread and rolls, and then, on a second bed of shaved
ice, juices and milk. After that were desserts—featuring tapioca and rice puddings topped with whipped cream,
and displayed in crystal cut glass parfait dishes.  Sitting alongside those were from-scratch slices of fruit pie,
and chocolate and vanilla cake, too.     
 
The last stop was the cashier’s station.  Here, my entire meal cost, at most, a few dollars.     
 
Where I grew up—in Long Beach, a coastal city about 25 miles from Los Angeles—not one of these places was part
of a chain. 
 
Instead, they were owned and managed by local families, and had names like Riley’s, Arnold’s, Crown and Royal.  Because they were not only cost efficient, but big and well-lit and noisy, lots of families ate there, too, giving off an ambiance of good cheer and wholesomeness.  
 
One exception was a small chain called Clifton’s, which in its heyday had eight locations.
 
The most famous of these was Brookdale, opened in 1935 in downtown Los Angeles.  The food was also great, and with a kitschy redwood forest theme, it was also the largest cafeteria in the world.  Here, guests could sit near a working waterfall that meandered through the entire dining area; animated toy raccoons and a giant stuffed bear holding a fishing pole sat on custom built perches above them.  During the Great Depression, and even later, customers who couldn’t afford a meal could eat at any Clifton's for free.   
 
With their homey food choices, lots of folks think that cafeterias took off in the Midwest. 

But California is where the cafeteria craze began.
 
It started in 1905, when a woman named Helen Mosher opened a small restaurant where customers selected their food at a long counter, and then carried their trays to a table.  She called her place the Cafeteria (the same name as a smorgasbord restaurant that had opened a decade earlier in Chicago); by the 1920s, there were so many similar establishments in Southern California that one writer dubbed Los Angeles “Sunny Cafeteria.”   
 
Brisk and breezy, they were marketed as the new and modern way to dine, a place where customers could choose as much, or as little, food as they wanted. And because the food sold on its looks, it was designed to be appealing.
 
As a kid, I never imagined that cafeterias might vanish by the time I became an adult.
 
In the last four decades, fast food conglomerates—big on advertising and cheap ingredients, small on fresh and healthy choices—have supplanted the mom and pop places that I had once taken for granted.  
 
Indeed, the cafeterias of today only provide food where people go to eat because they have to—schools, hospitals and prisons.   At best, the choices are bland and unappealing; at worst, they’re tasteless and made edible only because most of the food is packed with sodium and sugar.
 
I don’t know if the cafeterias I loved will ever come back.  
 
But I do know that I’ll never stop missing them.
  

Our dogs sleep with us.  Or rather, we sleep with our dogs.
 
Given that neither is teacup size—Sadie is 105 pounds and Hank is 75—this arrangement has its negatives.
 
For starters, our mattress is queen size, and like our dogs, neither The Hubster nor I are small. 
 
Sadie warms my side of the bed before I turn in.  But she always moves when I ask, settling in her big brown dog bed next to my nightstand.
 
Still, being a shepherd and The Hubster’s dog, Sadie wakes every few hours to nudge his arm or breathe on his face to make sure he’s okay.  And she doesn’t like anything getting too close to either of us.  That means barking when there are raccoons and possums and skunks outside, which has been known to happen every night for a full week.  She’s an early riser, too, typically 5 a.m., which is when I’m in my deepest sleep. 
 
Hank likes to jump on after we’ve settled in.  After licking my face, he settles into his sweet spot—on top of, or wrapped around, The Hubster’s legs.  He’s a happy hound who had a great puppy experience: not being separated from his mother too soon; daily runs through a vegetable garden, and cuddles by friends of the couple who fostered him.  Also, he was the only male in the litter, definitely an alpha dude, so it’s not his way to give up space.
 
Why do we put up with this? 
 
Because there are way more positives.
 
Most important, Hank and Sadie are family.  
 
With that in mind, we’re serious about pet ownership.  Our guys don’t wear plaid jackets or ribbons on their collars, but they eat premium food; have lots of space to run, and chew on soup bones (no splinters).   Of course, there are hugs and kisses and brushing and on-time visits to the vet.
 
And now, a new study has concluded what we people who sleep with dogs have long suspected.
 
Folks who take their dogs to bed with them feel more contented, secure and loved.    
 
The study was done at the Mayo Clinic and surveyed 40 adults, mostly women with an average age of 44 years old.  Each participant had one dog, and none had sleep disorders.   The findings in this research backed up an earlier Mayo study, which surveyed 150 patients, and concluded that sleeping with one’s dog makes for a better night’s sleep.
 
However, there’s a catch.
 
While all of these pet owners had their dogs in the bedroom with them, none of the animals slept on a bed. For those of us whose canines sleep next to us, researchers found that a good night’s rest is hard to come by—especially if the pet is large and stubborn like Hank.
 
We love our sleep, but we love Hank and Sadie more.  So for us, there’s only one option.  
 
Save up for a king size bed.