Here’s another oldie.

It’s a photo taken when Meda and I were in Scottsdale, Arizona, for the annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association. It was the first week of May in 1973. And it was during what I think was the only short period when I didn’t have a beard.

We both remember this particular trip for several different reasons.

Meda remembers it very well because she was presenting results of her research done as a graduate student for the first time. It was, in retrospect, the research that launched her career.

An online search quickly turned up the conference program.

Meda was on a panel titled “Perspective on Sex Roles” chaired by Nona Glazer-Malbin, then at Portland State University. There were five papers being presented.

Here was Meda’s listing in the program:

Meda Chesney-Lind, Univ of Hawaii: Judicial Enforcement of the Female Sex Role: An Empirical Examination of Dispositions

Her paper was published later that year in the journal, Issues in Criminology.

It happened that Meda’s brother was going to school in Phoenix at the time, so we stayed with him briefly before moving to the conference hotel. Memorable because the waterbed sprung a leak, which creates a scene that does stick in your mind.

There’s still another reason I remember this trip. It was the first time we ever rented a car, and we found ourselves in the parking lot of this cactus garden unable to figure out how to get past the ignition lock and start the car. At home, we were still driving Meda’s ten-year old Dodge Dart, which had no such modern bells and whistles. I felt like a total nerd having to find a phone and call the rental company to ask why the key wouldn’t turn.

Ah, the trials of youth.