Steve Jobs, neighbor and Frankenstein impersonator

13 April 2016, 07:54


Quora is one of the most active communities of folks discussing Steve Jobs and his legacy, and yesterday their director of product management – Sandra Liu Huang – linked to a story from Jobs’ local newspaper printed shortly before his untimely passing.

In the piece, a former neighbor of Jobs – Lisen Stromberg – described what it was like to have Jobs living in the locality, and discusses everything from Halloween parties (Jobs dressed as Frankenstein, apparently) to his emotions on seeing his son graduate from high school. Take a look, but below are some excerpts:

I watched as he swam in the pool with his son. He seemed like a regular guy, a good dad having fun with his kids. …

… The next time I met him was when our children attended school together. He sat in on back-to-school night listening to the teacher drone on about the value of education (wait, isn’t he one of those high-tech gods who didn’t even graduate from college?) while the rest of us sat around pretending having Steve Jobs in the room was totally normal. …

… It was at Halloween not long after when I realized he actually knew my name (yes, my name!). He and his wife put on a darn scary haunted house (to be specific, a haunted garden). He was sitting on the walkway, dressed like Frankenstein. …

… From then on, when I saw him holding his executive meetings in our neighborhood, I didn’t hesitate to smile and say hi. Steve always returned the favor, proving he may be a genius, but he is also a good neighbor. …

… While Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal and CNET continue to drone on about the impact of the Steve Jobs era, I won’t be pondering the MacBook Air I write on or the iPhone I talk on. I will think of the day I saw him at his son’s high school graduation. There Steve stood, tears streaming down his cheeks, his smile wide and proud, as his son received his diploma and walked on into his own bright future, leaving behind a good man and a good father who can be sure of the rightness of this, perhaps his most important legacy of all.


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