A prominent physicist before World War II, J. Robert Oppenheimer became the wartime director of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory. After the war he became an influential adviser to the government on atomic energy, but fell from favor during the McCarthy era. This story has become the stuff of myth and drama. Here we would like to present glimpses of the less familiar Oppenheimer—learning, playing, making friends, doing physics, winning recognition—as yet unburdened by the actuality of the bomb, by fame and by public responsibilities.