Encyclopedia of Surfing enthusiast Andy Allison sent me photos of this rare 1971 GAF View-Master reel titled "Instructional Surfing With Linda Benson" (scroll down, click play), and for a minute or two the Boomer in me went very soft-focus. All those heavy-saturated but fading shades of blues. Kodachrome, for anybody closing hard on 60, is sweetly weaponized nostalgia.

Then I remembered how every View-Master I encountered as a kid lived at the bottom of the toy chest or on a shelf next to the unopened jigsaw puzzles. You could throw as many 

 at us as you liked but we were still watching TV, not clicking through the same seven pics of Scenic USA or Man in Space or The Mod Squad, stereoscopic or not. (Turns out, surprise surprise, there was a lively aftermarket for View-Master-ready porn reels; which, had we known, would have been a game-changer by the most literal definition possible.)

Anyway, I realize now that parents bought View-Masters for kids the way kids bought ties and scented soap for parents. An inexpensive default  Christmas gift. A 16-page how-to booklet came with the Benson reel, though, so who knows, maybe Kim Mearig or Tom Carroll or someone of that vintage picked up a few tips while peering into Benson's 3D demonstration—which was shot, by the way, at the Big Surf wavepool in Tempe, Arizona.

Meanwhile, the red-and-white floral-print wetsuit here is an absolute winner, and any time spent with Linda, be it 2D, 3D, any dimension you can name, is mood-improving.

WATCH-AND-LEARN DEPARTMENT: VIEW-MASTER'S 1971 "INSTRUCTIONAL SURFING WITH LINDA BENSON"

Subscribe or Login

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos

Contests