Category: Stories from the Past

Gerhard Christmas Cards

.

gerhard_christmas_card.jpg

My grandparents, Paul and Isabel Gerhard, started making Christmas cards in 1936, when they were living in Tokyo, Japan. This continued for 46 years, up until the year before my grandfather’s death in 1982.

The first five years — through 1940 — featured greetings from Japan and the early additions to their family, with the births of my aunts Laura, Marilyn and Sarah.
The 1941 card shows the three girls in America, after the family moved to the States less than a year before the outbreak of war between Japan and the U.S.

I love the pre-Photoshop cut-and-paste technique my grandfather often used in the cards. 1945, 1946 and 1947 are nice examples; the 1947 combo of diorama with cut-and-paste heads is one of my favorites. On the other hand, the 1949 beach scene looks a little rushed in its execution.

I suppose by posting these here I’m trying, in some small way, to make up for the fact that I don’t send out Christmas cards every year. Many thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for the Christmas memories!

Gerhard Christmas card album

Grandpa On Fuji-San

.

fuji_1934.jpg

While looking through some old photos, my father came across this one of my grandfather on Mt. Fuji. The caption on the back of the photo — in my grandmother’s handwriting — reads: “Paul V. Gerhard on the summit of Fuji San Jan. 1, 1934.” I’m not sure of the accuracy of that date, since in her memoirs my grandmother mentions that my grandfather climbed Fuji “with two friends on December 31, 1935.”

The weather on the mountain in this photo looks beautiful, though cold, of course. I could’ve used a jacket with that kind of hood on my hike last fall.

I’ve added this photo to my Four Generations On Fuji-San entry.

My First Note

.1 Comment

firstnote.jpg
In a recent letter from my mother, she enclosed a bit of my past that she’d wisely saved for a time when I’d need some stray bit of fluff to post on a personal website.
Apparently, what you see above is the first note I ever wrote. I forgot to ask my mother if she remembers when I wrote it, but I’d guess it was when I was around eight.
What I lacked in penmanship and spelling, I made up for in sass. And I doubt I grabbed $50 from the money jar — it was more likely 50 cents.
The movie I was referring to was actually Cat Ballou, that classic western romp starring Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin. This would have been the first of several times I saw this movie when I was a child, and I loved it.
When I wrote this note, my family was living in Denali National Park in Alaska. We had no television reception in our tiny Park Service community and it was before VCRs caught on. For audio-visual entertainment during the long winter months, the community association organized movie nights (once a week on Fridays, with a repeat of the same movie on Sunday). Each family got to choose one movie each winter. This method of choosing movies ensured an interesting selection, but a bad pick one winter could leave your family the butt of jokes until the following year when another round of picks offered redemption.
The first movie I saw after my family moved to Denali was the Peter Sellers’ movie, The Party. I was seven at the time, and for weeks afterwards a friend and I would re-enact, on a snow hill, the scene at the beginning where the soldier keeps getting shot when he tries to play his bugle.

Chopstick Fiasco

.1 Comment

chopsticks.jpg
The above picture was taken in 1981 during a family trip to Japan. Though my Grandpa and I shared impeccable taste in fashion, we definitely did not share skills with the chopsticks. Having lived the first thirty years of his life in Japan, he was a pro. I, on the other hand, can be seen using a crude scrape and shovel method. And look at the hand position! The chopsticks look like they’re upside-down.
After my embarrassing display of ineptness during that trip to Japan, I was promptly enrolled at the International Academy for the Development of Gifted Foreign Chopstick Users where, after years of stern tutelage that pushed me to my physical and emotional limits, I became the celebrated and much-honored chopstick master that I am today.

Early Radio Days

.

Back in the summer of 1988, I was living in Juneau, Alaska. I’d just finished working as a page in the Alaska Senate during the five-month legislative session, and had decided to stay in Juneau for the summer before returning to college in the fall.
I was working as a tour guide at the state capitol, but my heart was in the hours I spent at the local public radio station as a news intern. I was doing production work for the local bits of Morning Edition, and trying my hand at reporting. Here’s a story I did:
Juneau Salmon Derby (990kb MP3)
(Not quite sure what’s up with my voice. I think I was searching for a good radio voice. It sounds a little strange, slightly modulated.)
My favorite production task was choosing the short music clips that filled space between story blocks. The station had a huge collection of LPs, and I spent many a late night discovering new music and searching for that perfect clip.

Comic Book Geek

.2 Comments

comicarticle.jpg
When I posted the entry earlier this week on news articles touting the respectability of comic books, I must have been brain dead to forget my personal involvement in just such an endeavor.
In 1987, at the tender age of 18, I had my first-ever published article. It was a piece on comic book censorship, and it ran in the local daily in Kenai, Alaska, along with an article called “The Evolution of Comic Books.” I was the featured “expert” in the “Evolution” article, which was accompanied by a picture that to this day I’m embarrassed to see.
Re-reading my article, I’m pleasantly surprised at the quality (and by this I mean it doesn’t suck). Was I really only 18? Then I re-read the article in which I’m interviewed and come across this:

“Superman has been pretty much redone. He not as powerful, no romance with Lois… He’s more of a yuppie than he used to be,” Gerhard said.

Groan… And this proved comics were becoming more respectable? Well, it was the 80s and I was just a boy.
For the amusement of all, I’m posting both articles here.

Continue reading “Comic Book Geek” →