The Brookston Family Blog
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I’ve known Jim since kindergarten and today is his birthday. Here are a few more recent pictures of Jim and me.

Jim and me during one of his trips to California in the early 90s.

Goofing around with my friend Keith at Taco Bravo.

Jim lived in the town where they held the twenty-fifth anniversary of Woodstock in 1994, so he was able to get tickets easily as a town resident. Keith and I flew out and met him at his house then walked over to the music festival where we camped for the next three days. At the beginning, trying to find the stamina we’d need to endure.

The first night.

After a few drinks and a few sleepless nights, giddy and goofy.

When Porter came home from school he was wearing his latest art project, a pasta necklace. I guess he wants to be more like mommy, who’s recently taken up beading as a hobby.

Porter’s original creation.

A pasta necklace.

Bruce has been at Anchor Brewery seemingly since time began. There’s a big picture of him when he was very young in the stairwell at the brewery that I see every time I’m there. He’s been doing the distilling for Anchor’s whiskey and gin for several years and plays bass with the Hysters (Anchor’s big band) and the Rolling Boil Blues Band (the Celebrator beer band that’s all industry musicians). If there’s a nicer person in the beer industry, I’ve yet to meet him. Happy birthday Bruce.

Jamming with Tom Dalldorf at the Englander for the Celebrator’s 13th Anniversary party. (The 18th anniversary party is this Sunday.)

On stage at the Northern California Rhythm & Blues Festival several years ago.

After Porter left for school, Alice puttered around the house watching the Wiggles, Wallace and Gromit and playing with Porter’s toys. Just before nine, her normal naptime, I got the crazy idea she wanted a bottle.

She started playing with the third stage to Porter’s big Apollo rocket.

In fact, she started sucking on the jet engine trying to extract its rocket fuel.

She walked around for a few minutes trying to get milk out of the Apollo rocket. Eventually she traded me the rocket for a bottle of milk.

But she then got hungry for a plate of Tribbles.

This morning Alice started playing with this little videogame that Porter’s grandparents had picked up for him at some fast food restaurant. It apparently bose some resemblence to a telephone because Alice would hold up to her ear and say something approximating hello into it.

The video phone.

“Hello? hello!“

I guess one of the dangers of Alice and Porter growing closer, which is a good thing, is that Alice seems like she’s now feeling left behind when the school bus whisks her big brother away every morning.

Waving goodbye to Porter at the bus stop.

Watching the bus fade away down the hill before returning to the empty house.

Wow, this mornings motivational motto marks our six-month anniversary since I started presenting these each week. I’m not sure what I’ll do once I run out of them. Anyway, this week’s skiing disaster is my shout out to all the athletes and fans in Torino right now for the winter olympics.

I’ve known Jim since we were in kindergarten, so he has the distinction of being my oldest friend. We went through a lot together over the years and happily we’re still great friends today, even though he lives on the other side of the continent. Jim lives in upstate New York with his wife and daughter, where he helped develop the very first color plasma television. He recently took a new job with Panorama Labs. Because he’s been in high tech, he’s had to come to the Bay Area fairly regularly on business so I’ve had a chance to see him not just when I’ve been home visiting but also when he’s been out here. Oh, the stories I could tell and, of course, vice versa, which is why I won’t. This is how detente works, doesn’t it? This is only part one of Jim’s birthday gallery, there will be more later today. Happy birthday, my friend.

This was the oldest photo I could find of Jim. It’s from a birthday party for me in 1969, so we would have been 10. That’s me in the back mugging for the camera and Jim is the one in profile.

This is another birthday party two years later in 1971. Check out the sideburns on my stepfather! That’s Jim in the striped shirt and another classmate of ours on the right, Darryl.

Goofing around at a party in my basement. I think this was taken during our senior year in high school. From the left is Bugs, Joe and Jim.

This was taken shortly after high school when we were both home visiting. All I remember is that Jim stopped by my place very, very late at night and we sat up talking, while Jim worked on his modeling poses.

Jim having a serious discussion with one of my Mom’s scarier dolls, which she collected. And yes that’s a Miller High Life in his hand. Ugh.

My last year in the Army Band, I got thirty days off to be the musical director of our local community theatre. We did South Pacific and since we couldn’t get enough string players for the pit orchestra, Jim played all the string parts on a keyboard synthesizer. For opening night, I wore tails and Jim wore shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. We had worked out our costumes in advance just to be goofy.

Fast forward a decade to May of 1990. This was taken on my Grandmother’s porch in Mohnton, Pennsylvania during a visit home. Anybody remember me when I had a beard? This was my second one in my life and like the first, it didn’t last very long.

After our visit to Blackie’s Pasture yesterday, the kids weren’t quite ready to go home yet. Not until they had some ice cream, at least.

Me and Porter showing off our cones.

Porter again had his Thai ice tea/pumpkin cone but this time he asked for a sugar cone.

Sarah had cookies and cream.

Naturally, Alice wanted some too.

So Sarah gave her a spoonful of her own.

“Ooooh. That’s good!”

“I want it all!”

“Ice cream headache!”

Porter clinks cones for an “ice cream cheers.”

More toasting with a full mouth of ice cream.

Unlike many place names, Blackie’s Pasture — where we tooks the kids yesterday — was actually once a pasture and Blackie was a swayback horse that retired at age 12 and spent 28 years there in Tiburon. In 1995, a statue was erected in Blackie’s honor. Yesterday on our walk back to the car, Porter actually wanted to sit on Blackie.

Porter riding Blackie.

Porter and Alice on Blackie.

The three Brooksketeers.

Check out those funny faces.

Sarah wins the race.

Okay, finally. It looks like day 6 introduces “hot spots” which Sarah has been asking me about every day. I guess she’s heard people talk about those. And now that I know what one is, I can see why. We have quite a few of them. FlyLady defines a “hot spot” as an area in your house which “when left unattended will gradually take over.” FlyLady claims to have two of them in her house. I think we’ve got at least ten of them in the downstairs alone. And my other “mission” for today is cleaning the back of the toilets. Yippee. Monday’s going to be a great day. Can you just hear the sarcasm dripping from my words?