Snapshot No. 6: The Year I Got an Oscar

As I've written, despite my interest in Christmas in the 1970s, I don't have a lot of pictures of my own 1970s Christmastime self.

Which makes the shot to your left all the more precious.

It's from 1978. I'm 11. I'm holding a bag of off-market Bubble Yum, and an Oscar Goldman "action" figure. My father's standing behind me, and my older brother's to the left, but I cropped them out because, well, would you really be able to see them anyway? It is not often, after all, one is confronted by such stunning dorkiness.

And, no, I'm not talking about Oscar Goldman. I would never, ever trash talk a doll that came armed with an exploding suitcase.

--Joal R.

Snapshot No. 2: Before the Gap

"I am 3. Maybe. I look like Frances Farmer after a rough night fighting Hollywood phonies. Definitely. I am dressed like a clown. Sadly. I am opening a box. Of something. I want to remember. Badly. But I can't.

My Christmas memories don't kick in until the mid-1970s, a few years after this picture was taken, a few years after my parents stopped taking pictures on account of they were old and tired, a condition with which I now empathize as I am now old and tired (although blessed to be able to take pictures without having to worry about whether my Magicube supply is running low).

In the late 1970s, my younger brother and I began to chronicle our family Christmases on our own, which means the red-letter day I came into possession of an Oscar Goldman "action" figure was preserved on film.

But there is a gap. There are lost Christmases waged on brown, Astroturf-hard carpet that I see only in my mind's eye.

I look at this photo — this photo before the gap — and I think one thing: I should have brushed my hair. After all, you never know when a random Christmas photo, not unlike an impromptu Nick Nolte mugshot, is going to be your defining moment.

Also, the clown suit. Really?"

Joal R.

Living room on Cedar Street, Glendale, California
Circa 1970