Hollywood Ave, Again

I've posted a picture before of my old flat where I lived as a kid, but I was looking on Google Street View and this shot of it looks so much better than my old snapshot that I had to post it. Ah, memories. This was a great place to live and I wouldn't change one single thing about that part of my life. So many friends and good times, so many great experiences... and all of it in the best city.

The house has changed very little, except that the front door used to be yellow and that tree wasn't there. Instead, there was a fir tree closer to the front left of the house. My mom used to have lots of flowers growing along the front of the house, too. My friend Miriam Shedd used to live with her family on the top floor of the flat to the right. Her bedroom window was on the left side and since my bedroom window was on the right side of our flat, we used to open our bedroom windows and yell to each other!

Baby Book Photos, Part 3

OK, this is the last batch of photos from my baby photo album. Scanning is tedious and there's no way I'm going to scan everything. 

This was taken in the summer of 1980 at my great-grandma's farm in Clarion. My cousin Jenny was helping me feed a lamb in the front yard:

Now we'll fast-forward to Halloween that year. Halloween has always been just about my favorite time of year (and it's also my mom's birthday) and when I was a kid we always made a big deal out of it. This was the first year I was allowed to help with carving the pumpkins:

I was Max from Where the Wild Things Are, my favorite book back then:

My birthday!

Visiting a park in my mom's home town, Lake Forest, IL:

Christmas 1980:

Opening my Fisher Price circus train:

My "Computer Fire Engine," hahaha! Yeah, right. That's overselling it JUST A TAD. More like "Slowly-bumping-into-stuff-and-then-going-the-other-way-until-the-wheels-are-gunked-up-with-carpet Fire Engine." High-tech:

I got my own table and chairs!

Check out my Christmas loot. That wallpaper was loud, but it was covering walls that had been covered with automotive gloss black paint(!!):

Christmas dinner:

For some reason there are only a couple of photos from 1981. My mom used to take me to Hollywood Beach along Lake Michigan, just a few blocks from our flat:

Both of these photos are from Memorial Day 1981:

A few photos from 1982... This one was taken in Des Moines at the Botanical Gardens around Easter, I think. My cousin Jenny is sitting next to me:

We went camping with my Uncle Al and Aunt Carol and my cousins Matt and Chad in the summer of 1982 in Tomah, WI. That's me and Matt with my parents in the picture:

There were only two other boys in my neighborhood; one was a few years older than me (and he was way too cool for me) and the other was a few years younger (he was a toddler) and all the other kids nearby were girls... so nearly all of my friends were girls:

My mom's birthday cake. I'm pretty sure my dad didn't make that:

My Aunt Anna made this lion rug for me that year (I think it was a Christmas gift):

There's kind of a weird gap in my baby book, but here's some photo documentation of my existence in 1983. This was from Halloween:

My E.T.-themed birthday! Not sure why has has antennae:

I had 3 birthdays that year: one at home (see above), one at my grandpa and grandma Nodland's (I got a new suit... awesome):

... and one at my grandpa and grandma Brackin's:

My first day of 1st grade, 1984. I look a little worried:

School Halloween party 1984:

My 8th birthday in November, 1985:

Ah, Summer

Baby Book Photos, Part 2

Hanging out with my mom and playing with a puppet that she made for me, June 1979:

August 1979:

These next two pictures were taken at the Brackin's place in Oskaloosa. They lived on 22 acres of mostly wooded land and there was a creek that ran through it. Growing up I stayed with them several times and had so many adventures exploring those woods and building bridges to cross the creek.

September 1979: My dad took this shot at exactly the right moment!

I still have this Tonka dump truck on a shelf in my garage. It was a birthday present in November of 1979:

For Christmas in 1979 we went to my grandpa and grandma Nodland's house in Ankeny first and then celebrated Christmas at the Brackin's house the next day:

Brackin's:

My dad rockin' his Christmas sweater:

February 1980: Jammin' with some gigantic headphones! My dad had lots of vinyl.

Easter 1980: It looks we stayed in Chicago for Easter this year.

This picture of me wearing a wooden Sesame Street puzzle piece was from the spring of 1980:

That's not a microwave in the background, that's a TV. The kind that hummed and buzzed and had things like "rabbit ears" and "vertical hold" and had separate knobs for things like "VHF" and "UHF." Nobody even knows what that is anymore... kids these days. It was hard work to watch something back then: