Birthday Cake, a Cigarette, and Thou: 1982 in Oakland, California

Happy New Year!

To honor the birth of 2016—as well as this shiny new blog—I figured a birthday theme was in order. Also, I recently discovered a small collection of 34 year-old birthday snapshots, and I need an excuse to post them.

They were taken in August of 1982, at 19 Ramona Avenue in Oakland, California. The bow-tied birthday boy is yours truly—and yes, I'm holding a Kodak Pocket Instamatic.

I insisted on that bow tie, but I can't remember why. I do remember it was a clip-on. And yes, that's an original Wometco Home Theater descrambler on the TV. We used it to watch SuperTime (later called Star TV), a subscription television service that broadcast over KTSF Channel 26 in the early-1980's. In the evenings, they'd play two hit movies, one crappy one—and then soft-core porn. I feel like they showed Seems Like Old Times and Serial every night.

And speaking of Serial. Those colors. The smoking. The potted plants. I miss the early 1980's.

Okay, maybe not so much the smoking.

*

I love that these adults were forced to watch me open presents. I must've been like that evil kid from the "It's a Good Life" episode of The Twilight Zone. Oh, and I don't remember who the dude with the sunglasses and chops was, but he's frickin' awesome.

"Oh, yay. A shirt." The blonde was my babysitter, Jessica Butz. I think the brunette was her friend, Rachel. I remember thinking they were both, like, so grown up. One time, we were locked out of Jessica's house—and to pass the time until her mom got home, she read to me aloud from the Halloween II paperback novelization. Yep, she was a keeper.

The kid eyeballing my brand-new Freddie the Frog puppet was named Andy. He grew up to headline some Oakland-based punk band. You can read more about them here. I loved that puppet for years. Well, until 1985—when my taste in Freddies abruptly veered toward the Krueger. That was the end of the innocence. Thanks, Wes Craven!

"And that's the truth."

If you wanna share a story about Oakland or Piedmont in the 1980's—please leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you! :)