This was Leif's first birthday in Japan. He had expressed fascination with drums so we got him a drum set. He was thrilled to get it, sat down and began to play with a surprising amount of aplomb. He really had talent. We later saw that he had a lot of musical talent, but this was the first evidence.
However, we made a big mistake in giving this set to him at the birthday party with other kids there. They, of course, all wanted to play the drums, too. He didn't want to stop playing and didn't want to let anyone else have a turn. We didn't understand what he was really thinking. We thought he just needed to share them at the party, so we insisted that he give everyone else a chance to play them. He did . . . and never touched them again. I don't know for sure why. He would never talk about it, just acted like he didn't want them, but I think it was really that he was hurt that we not only allowed others to play his precious new drums but forced him to give them up.
He did have a good time at the party, though, and enjoyed his friends and his cake and ice cream. The second photo is of Leif and one of his friends playing with some of the toys he got.
We had moved to Japan in July 1980 and this was in January 1981. The pictures were taken in our living room in our quarters at the Sagamihara Housing Area.
Happy Birthday, Leif!
(I originally said that the second photo was of Peter A. and Leif, but I was wrong. Thank you, Darren, for catching that. The problems of writing blog posts at past one o'clock in the morning.)
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Is that really PA in the second picture? Wow.
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