This is my little sister, Share Wise, at home at 943 W. Herald Street, West Covina, California. I believe I shot this image around 1977 when Shari was in 8th grade. This series is from the negatives that I recently scanned. She has since been married and had at least a couple of other last names, but this is how I knew her back then.

I’ll bet a dollar she remembers who the guy was; I don’t. Sure enough, it took her some time, but she came up with his name, Scott Gilbert.

Shari believes this might be 1978 or 1979 on one of our excursions with high school friends to the beach. Might have even been playing hooky and cutting class.

But I do remember this guy well: Wags. I first met Steve Wagoner at Barro’s Pizza on California Avenue in West Covina in 1980. I’d been working there part-time for a guy by the name of Terry Love, who apparently was fired, to be replaced by Steve. I started with Terry in 1977 and liked him in large part because his weirdo friend Jeff was the first person I’d ever met who had purple hair. Jeff introduced me to punk rock, KROQ, and a record store where I went and bought the Talking Heads: 77 album because upon hearing the song Psycho Killer, I had to have it. By 1980 I took on more hours, and right around then, Shari met Wags.

After a while, my sister got a job with Steve and me, and for a good couple of years, the three of us hung out quite a bit. If I had to guess, I’d say this photo was taken up Highway 39, also known as San Gabriel Canyon Road, where we’d go to walk in the trees and listen to the streams trickling through the mountains back in 1980.

Steve was a surfer, and every chance he could, he’d head to a beach. These two were a large part of my life from 1977 to 1982. I know you might be thinking, “Of course, she was a large part of your life; she’s your sister,” but after 1982, we drifted in different directions, and while we’d get together a few times after Shari’s son Shaun was born, we started a long period of estrangement. Dysfunctional parents can have a large impact even on the relationships of siblings.

Shari informs me that this was 1983 and that she was looking at her newborn son Shaun. Shari and Steve had moved to Arizona for a short while and, upon moving back to California, had a son and took an apartment in Covina, California.

While you can’t see much of Shari and Steve I’m posting this for them to remember their old apartment.

Shari’s fat and I’m a dork, while Sally, who was also a dork, looks awfully normal here. I wish I could remember Sally’s last name; I owe her an apology for being stupid and horrible.

Going surfing at Huntington Beach.

This is our paternal grandfather, John Alexander Wise, and it was probably the last time Shari ever saw him. He was a cross of W.C. Fields and John Wayne to me when I was still five years old living in Buffalo, New York, and he’s also the guy who gave me my first camera.