Christmas ZOOM!

The scanning and cleaning of my family's photo archive continues. Since liberating the multitude of photos from their albums a couple of months ago, I’ve been slowly working my way through the process of scanning and touching up each individual photo. I’m moving chronologically through the rows and rows of my personal history. I finished the stack of photos from 1973 earlier this week. As I whittled down the pile, I was surprised to find this gem among the Christmas pictures… my sister with The ZOOM Catalog I wrote about last month! I didn’t realize she got that as a Christmas gift. Weird how these various artifacts keep intersecting.

And note that the book didn't arrive with the coveted ZOOM sticker already affixed to the cover.

I’ve Got the Fever

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a gamer, but I have photographic evidence that between December 1981 and April 1982, 11-year-old me was stricken with Pac-Man Fever.

That’s me on Santa’s lap sporting my Pac-Man t-shirt (and some surprisingly high-waisted jeans) at the annual Lion’s Club Christmas Party.

And there I am three months later in my Houston Oilers bathrobe holding that most coveted of Easter gifts: Pac-Man for the Atari 2600!

Holiday Break 1989, Part 1: Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire

Twenty years ago I was on holiday break from Bowling Green State University. There are two things that stand out about those few weeks I was home, the first being the debut of The Simpsons in their Christmas special, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire,” in December 1989...

The Fox network was only a few years old in ’89. The Tracey Ullman Show and Married... with Children were the originals, along with 21 Jump Street, that I remember watching, mostly in college, on John’s little TV we had in the dorm room we shared.

That fall semester at BG, I took a music appreciation class of some kind (it’s a little fuzzy at this point) in the Moore Musical Arts Center. The first day of class, this cute girl and I chatted briefly and began a classroom friendship, but neither pursued anything beyond that until the end of the semester rolled around. Through small talk in class, we realized we were both from Northeast Ohio. She went to Central Catholic and grew up right in the geographic center of my high school social world. We decided to get together while home for the holidays.

I was at the peak of my punk phase at the time... my hair dyed jet black or blue-black or maroon or purple depending on the week, eyeliner, black nail polish and lipstick, my ears pierced a half-dozen times. She had a simple, girl-next-door beauty. And a boyfriend. Despite my appearance and her ties, her parents and I got along well-enough, and Maria and I spent a large part of those weeks home together. There were many late nights getting to know each other while we drank bottomless cups of coffee and I chain-smoked Marlboro Lights in a booth at the Denny’s on Everhard Road, and hanging out at her parents’ house.

The Jesus and Mary Chain album Automatic – released just a few months earlier – is forever linked to her and the time we spent together (it seems we listened to it constantly), and so is that first episode of The Simpsons, because I watched it with her at her parents’ house. Again, details are a bit fuzzy, but I remember her parents were out that night and that she was supposed to go out with her boyfriend, but we hung out together and, at my insistence, watched The Simpsons Christmas Special.

It could have been during the first showing of it on Sunday, December 17, but for a few reasons I tend to think it was the encore performance the following Saturday night that I watched with Maria: First, I don’t know why her parents would have been out on a Sunday night. Second, I’m pretty sure I viewed the very first broadcast of “Roasting” with my buddies because I remember watching the Married... with Children Christmas Special with Sam Kinison as Al Bundy’s guardian angel, which aired immediately after The Simpsons debut, with one or more of them. Third, it makes sense that I would have seen the original airing and then insisted on watching it again with Maria to share it with her.

There’s probably a good chance that later that night Maria went out with her boyfriend and I met up with my buddies, but that first taste of a larger Simpsons world, something sustainable beyond a one-minute bumper, is forever tied to a bitter cold Northeast Ohio night in North Canton. Somewhere around the eighth or ninth season I stopped watching The Simpsons regularly, and within a year or so of that stopped watching it altogether, but the nostalgia of that first special and the rose-colored memories associated with that period in my life were more than enough to get me to buy that Season One set when it was released on DVD. And every now and again I pop those discs in the player and ride the wayback machine to 1989.

Friends Like These...

I alluded to this on Twitter the other day, but it’s always amazing to discover how talented your friends are. Last year I got knocked back by a package from Dave.

(Coloring courtesy of my kiddo.)

This year, it was Alan. I know he’s creative, what with his producing audio theater and the like, but I had no idea he could draw as well!


But this is not to take away from my friends who I am already aware have humbling talent, like Pat...


I’m just a guy who fancies himself a writer and is a comic book fan. These friends of mine are talented artists.

And the World Will Be a Better Place...

’Tis the Season

After dragging my sorry ass out of bed and eventually out of the house after a grueling Black Friday morning, we headed out for our annual Downtown Akron tree lighting festivities. The city’s budget-cutting done back in July was felt on this cold November night when compared to last year’s event. Main Street wasn’t blocked off, the NBC affiliate personalities MCs were replaced with an Akron radio station DJ, and Santa didn’t arrive by train.

Everything was held completely within Lock 3 this year, but the fireworks remained a crowd-pleaser. The sky lit up beautifully in golds and reds and greens and purples and bright whites! It was a gorgeous display behind a beautiful tree, reminding us, once again, why we love this city and this community.

This year, we took our neighbors with us, who had never been before. We had a great time huddled together during the presentation and fireworks and taking pictures in front of the big blue-lit tree, and at the end of the night we ended up back at our house for hot cocoa and warm conversation, the always-perfect beginning to the holiday season.

You’ll Always Remember Your First Time...

Tracy is a hard-core shopper. She is the fiercest, most cunning bargain hunter I have ever known. Black Friday is a holiday for her. It’s my wife in her element. It’s something I have never been able to get my head around, before now. Tracy invited me to join her on Black Friday this year, an invitation that had never been extended previously. I felt honored to be asked to join my wife on her annual quest, and more than a little intimidated. My shopping skills and bargain hunting cunning have improved over the years simply by being married to this woman, and while I’m all about my beloved Banana Republic and some technology shopping, I’m no where near her league. So it was with a bit of apprehension that I accepted her offer of early morning pursuit.

After Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house, we’d made arrangements to leave the kiddo with them overnight while Tracy and I braved the Northeast Ohio elements and shopping denizens. After a few hours sleep in early night, our alarms went off at 10.30pm, and we were off, armed with bottles of water and snacks...

10.45 pm – Stop at Get-Go to pick up gift cards for Toys “R” Us and Home Depot.
11.00 pm – In line at Toys “R” Us awaiting its midnight opening. The line eventually wraps all the way around all four sides of the building, but we are there just before the rush of people arrives. We are located along the first side of the building, in a decent position to get in and get out reasonably quickly.
12.00 am – After an hour of standing in the light Ohio drizzle (under our umbrella, of course – remember, Tracy’s a professional), the doors open and we file in, but not before people from the parking lot attempt to get out of their cars and just saunter in among the folks who had queued up according to etiquette and form. There is some shouting and some name calling and some rude gestures around us, but we make it in without incident. Tracy has given me clear instructions: go immediately to the Electronics department and get two [REDACTED] and a [REDACTED]. Meanwhile, she will get the other two items and meet me in Electronics for checkout.
12.10 am – I have the loot I was charged with finding, Tracy has hers, and we meet up for checkout. The store is a madhouse. I’ve never seen a store so completely packed before. It is impossible to move, and heaven help the folks who are trying to navigate a cart through the aisles of crushed bodies and strewn-about merchandise.
12.30 am – We complete our checkout, make it back to our car, and are off to our next stop.
12.35 am – We head to Old Navy. Scheduled to open at 3am, we park the car and head up into line, fortunate to be under an overhang and spared the drizzle-y rain that continues to fall.
12.50 am – We begin to reevaluate why we are going to Old Navy. Do we really need anything here? Do we really need a free copy of LEGO Rock Band for the Wii when we are a Guitar Hero house? Is there a better way to spend these next precious hours of pre-store opening positioning?
1.00 am – The decision is made. Screw Old Navy. We head to Target, scheduled to open at 5am.
1.10 am – In the parking lot of Target, the rain is coming down, there are about ten people in line already. We decide to stay in the car and try to sleep until 2am.
1.37 am – The rain is coming down harder now and neither of us can sleep. I suggest that we should get out now and stake our claim in line before others arrive for a number of reasons, the most immediately pressing one being, if we’re committed to this, I want to be under the overhang in front of Target so we don’t get soaked all night. I see a twinkle of pride in Tracy’s eyes as she readily agrees.
1.42 am – We are in-line outside of Target. Where Toys “R” Us fell horribly flat with the rushing of the gates at midnight, Target deserves credit for the brilliance of their plan to keep order. They used their carts as a barrier of sorts that the line has to follow. There is no way you could walk up to the door at 5am and stroll in without being in the line, so kudos there.
2.00 am – I head over to Walgreens to use the bathroom while Tracy holds our spot in line.
2.15 am – Tracy heads over to Walgreens to use the bathroom while I hold our spot in line.
2.30 am – I sit in the car to warm up while Tracy holds our spot in line.
2.50 am – Tracy sits in the car to warm up while I hold our spot in line.
3.10 am – No one shows up after us for a long time. We pass the time chatting with the few folks already there, discovering that the guy next to us roomed at college with a girl I graduated from high school with and currently works with one of our recent neighbors. Small world in the wee-early morning hours.
3.15 am – I suggest running home to get my thermal underwear on, and Tracy readily agrees that I should so I can bring back her hooded sweatshirt.
3.45 am – I return from home, forgetting to bring Tracy hot cocoa (I'm clearly the amateur here), but one of our line-mates’ mother has arrived after having bought out all the hot cocoa available at the Speedway down the street and hands the warm cups out to anyone who wants some.
3.45 am – The parking lot fills up and the line begins to really grow.
4.00 am – Target employees distribute free “green” bags and store maps to everyone in line.
4.15 am – Lawn chairs and blankets and all the other amenities the early morning line holders have with us are systematically returned to our respective vehicles in anticipation of the doors opening within the hour.
4.50 am – Tracy and I consult the store map and review our game plan one more time: Similar to our Toys “R” Us excursion, I’m to head straight to Electronics to get [REDACTED] and an external hard drive, while she will grab a cart and pick up [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED]. At which point we’ll call each other on our cells and plan our attack on the registers and checkout.
5.00 am – Target's doors open, and we file in. I head to Electronics and grab [REDACTED] and then head to the computer aisle to get the external hard drive, only to find the spot on the shelf empty! And I was the first person there! Two, three, four people and more show up and aisle is a jammed up mess. I have a Target employee try to locate the drives.
5.10 am – The Target employee eventually returns with a box of five external hard drives. We all follow him up to the register area. In the meantime, Tracy has called and reported that she has everything she set out to get and was on her way to meet me in Electronics.
5.15 am – Tracy points out that I grabbed the wrong [REDACTED] and now my greatest fears are being realized: that I would screw something up on this mission. Achebe was right. Things fall apart.
5.20 am – I am off to other parts of the store to try and located the right version of the [REDACTED] I was supposed to get. It’s nowhere to be found.
5.30 am – Tracy checks out with everything else we needed to get (all the things she had grabbed plus the external hard drive). The clueless employees find multiple different versions of [REDACTED] but not the version we needed. So we wait in the checkout line at Electronics with five others who are trying to score the same item, letting others go ahead of us so we don’t lose our place as the checkout line continues to grow.
5.35 am – Here is where my wife’s patience and Zen approach is a sight to behold... Standing in that line as Target employees continue to bring out boxes of the wrong version of [REDACTED], I realize how hot, tired, and hungry I am. I look at Tracy, who looks like she hasn’t slept in days, and tell her we should just buy the wrong version and exchange it later. But she keeps telling me to wait another five minutes, to give them a chance to bring out more boxes from the back, that they will eventually find what we were after in the backroom.
5.50 am – A Target employee makes his way to the Electronics register with an armful of the right version of [REDACTED] we need! Because we had kept our place in line, we are given one from the employee and quickly pay for it and work our way to the exit. I am stunned at how long the front register lines are! They stretch from the front door more that a quarter of the way around the store!
5.55 am – Tracy stops at the restroom at the front of the store, I take our loot to the car, load it up and get the car started.
6.05 am – We pull into the Home Depot parking lot, with things looking much less crazy despite the fact the store opened just five minutes earlier. I drop Tracy at the door and find a place to park.
6.08 am – I walk into the store and hear Tracy call my name. She has the single item we came for: a new pre-lit tree for our entryway.
6.10 am – A Home Depot employee tells us we can checkout at the Returns desk and we’re in and out in a matter of minutes.
6.15 am – We’re across the street at Acme, in hopes of buying some donuts for breakfast. They don’t open for another 15 minutes. I say forget it. Let’s just head home and get some sleep.
6.30 am – Home. Quickly unload the car, get out of these clothes that feel like we’ve spent days in, and hit the sack.

An hour and a half later, Tracy got up for work and was out the door by 8.40.
Two hours after that, I woke up feeling like I’d been on an all night bender, and to find snow accumulation on the ground.

I asked Tracy sometime between Target and Home Depot and the drive home, what pleasure she gets out of doing this year after year after year. Her response? The thrill of the hunt, and the ability to get some really great gifts for our family on a reasonable budget. My wife has expensive taste and high standards, and what I saw on Friday morning was a side of her I hadn’t before – she was patient and calm among some of more interesting characters you might never hope to encounter. She is naturally driven and organized, but her Black Friday mission is more akin to a surgical-strike than a shopping trip. I have new respect for Tracy after seeing her in action.

Friends asked me if there was a surge of adrenaline when the doors opened or when finding the right items. Tracy’s answer was yes. Mine was no. My only reaction when the doors opened was one of fear – not of my fellow shoppers, but of letting my wife down by grabbing the wrong item or getting shut out of the right item because of one of my mistakes. Tracy said I did good Friday morning and that I made her proud.

Friends and family have asked if I’ll go with Tracy again next year, and here is the response I gave them: I have heard that women forget about the pain of childbirth and decide to get pregnant again, choosing to go through that potentially excruciating process a second or third time. Unless, I completely forget how miserable I was Friday morning, and how exhausted I was all day Friday, I don’t think I’ll be joining Tracy on any future Black Friday adventures. But I’m glad I did it once, so I can say I’ve had the experience, and I have even more respect for my wife and what she goes through each year to help make our Christmas special.

"That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

Open Season

We've been going to the annual Lock 3 tree lighting in downtown Akron since it started five years ago. At that time we lived just around the corner on Merriman in Highland Square. Since our flight to the suburbs a couple years ago, the trip to downtown has gone from a five minute drive to a 15 or 20 minute drive, but it's worth it, because this is what Akron is all about.

This year was the best yet. As usual, the Cleveland NBC affiliate simulcast the festivities and Santa arrived by train, sang, and lit up the Akron U. Polsky Building and the Christmas Tree by shooting sparks across downtown, then started the fireworks display the same way!

The fireworks launched from the art deco YMCA building were spectacular this year, lighting up the sky with reds and greens and whites. It's this feeling of small town mixed with city that keeps us here in Akron -- a part of the community.

We wandered the Chriskindl Market, our senses assaulted by the smells of fresh waffles, roasted almonds, hot chocolate, brightly colored ornaments and finely detailed clocks and carvings, and holiday music in the air. And we watched the ice rink fill up with skaters and families crowd into the heated German food tent. Across the street, the Peanut Shoppe, an Akron landmark, was jammed with holiday revelers and had a line out the door.

And as we were walking from our car to Main Street when we arrived, they were playing "Deck the Halls" in what my wife and I swear was the version played over the opening credits of A Christmas Story. Another perfect day after Thanksgiving in northeast Ohio.