Thursday, October 25, 2007



This is Tom Peterson


To many - YouTube is a great way to share your videos with the masses (To most - YouTube is a great way to waste time). However, YouTube does more - it allows you to find treasured things from the past that may have been easily forgotten (some more than others resonate on that heart-felt tip). I found this video (below) and was pretty amazed that someone, somehow, saved this and eventually decided to put it on YouTube.

For those who didn't grow up in (the bad part) of Portland - you most likely don't know who Tom Peterson is. But if you are me (which I am - so I totally know where I am coming from dude) than you remember his store on 82nd Avenue (which is now called The City Of Roses Blvd in hopes to blur collective memories - it didn't work). I still remember being a kid - before starting school - before my parents had a car and walking down to Tom Peterson's to rent VHS - it was a hell of a walk (as in having my eyes covered so I wouldn't look at the prostitutes) but those were some good days.

I also remember being really stoned one night in high school and walking by Tom Peterson's huge glowing face outside the store and wanting it for a lamp.

Jason and I always wanted to put a giant word bubble with something really racist (or equally offensive) written in it and stick it up by his aforementioned glowing head.



Who would have thought that this simple (and terribly made) television commercial could flood my head with these memories (and many more).

On a side note - Tom Peterson played a few bit parts in some Portland movies. Tom Peterson on IMDB