memory lane is a trippy place
August 14th, 2010
We were digging through some boxes of memorabilia recently, looking for my high-school diploma (so I could mail a copy to our county school superintendent and prove that I’m qualified to homeschool my daughter). I had not looked through most of that stuff since I put it away in the boxes, probably seven or eight years ago. Do you ever do that, bring the boxes up from the basement or down from the closet shelf and go through them, just to see what you deemed worthy of storing carefully away? It’s a trip, man.
Among other things, I had stored a piano jewelry/music box that my grandparents gave me when I was about Annalie’s age and an old toy that belonged to me and my brother when we were little, a wind-up “radio” that plays Hickory-Dickory Dock. I pulled them out and gave them to Annalie to play with, and she carried them both around all day. At one point she took a snack and lemonade with her out to the deck and sat out there chilling to her tunes for about 20 minutes. I couldn’t help but laugh, because it was for that very reason that I kept all these things: so someday I could share them to my kids.
Some of the other stuff I had packed neatly away were the photo of my graduating class from Omaha North High; Minnie Mouse ears from Disneyland with my name embroidered on the back; old trophies from bowling leagues, summer music olympics, and spelling bees; an old blankie, soft with age; 45s that I used to play on my Fisher-Price record player—Neil Diamond, the theme from Greatest American Hero, and of course Billy Bob and the Rockafire Explosion (Showbiz Pizza’s animatronic band); the tooth fairy pillow my mom made for me when I started losing teeth; and an unopened bottle of Crystal Pepsi.
Yeah, I said Crystal Pepsi. Anyone remember that? Some of you reading were probably barely in kindergarten when it was around in the early 90s. I rather liked the stuff; as I recall it tasted vaguely cinnamon-y. I don’t know exactly why I saved a bottle of it. Maybe when they stopped making it I just thought it would be cool to keep one for posterity.
Probably the best thing I came across, though, was a stash of old notes from my friend Erin. This note starts out, “Dearest Bethany, I love this pen. This pen belongs to Eboni X. Carter. This pen is awesome as is Eboni…” That’s pretty typical of the notes Erin used to (and still does!) write me. I had fun reading all these old notes and cracking up at how goofy we were in high school, and how little we’ve changed since then.
All the pins in that photo used to live on my bedroom curtains, along with a dozen more that I didn’t deem worthy of keeping. The Russian pins at the top left and the bottom middle are from Russian students who did an exchange with our high school every year. My high school’s sister school was in Pskov, Russia, and students from our school would go to Pskov for a month and attend school with host students, and then later the Russian students would come to Omaha and attend our school. Too bad I didn’t start taking Russian till I was a junior, because only 3rd- and 4th-year students (like Katrina) got to do the exchange program. The Little Mermaid pin was a gift from Erin on my 16th birthday, because I was very into The Little Mermaid back then. The other pins are from old jobs (Children’s Museum and Library Page), my high school (V-Up, North Vikings!) and the Omaha zoo. The stripey rock is just a pretty rock I found by the Missouri River in Dodge Park one day. I gave that to Annalie, too, for her rock collection.
We never did find my high-school diploma. I guess I’ll have to call my high school and see if they can send me a copy. But I don’t really care, because we had fun looking for it!
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I did this last fall, in an attempt to declutter my life and get rid of a few boxes of nonsense after so many moves in so few years. My favorite find was a jar of peanut butter and a can of tuna from one of my plays in college. There was a reason why it was one of the cast gifts, but I cannot for the life of me remember the story. But it triggered a lot of other great memories from that year.
Memory lane can be quite fun. And your experience has me wanting to go through my stuff again…since I don’t remember seeing my master’s or high school diploma. Hmmmmm….
:)
Oh how I loved Crystal Pepsi!! We drank a lot of soda my 9th grade year, when we were living in Bellevue. My first pick was always Crystal Pepsi; it tasted so clean and fresh. I remember sitting out back at my friend Mike’s house, with all my other friends, passing around a 2L bottle and eating Skittles. Haha. Good times.
Funnily enough, I had sorta the same day yesterday — I don’t THINK it was because of the whole diploma conversation, but that might have been part of why I finally got around to doing what I wanted to do, which was empty out this old suitcase I inherited from my mom’s mom for my classroom. (For a visual prop). But it was full of stuff — but, disappointingly, mostly fairly recent stuff from college, including all of the letters I wrote to my grandma while I was in college. But I did come across brochures from all three times I’ve traveled abroad, all of my high school ID cards, and some marching band flotsam and jetsam.
And also, I remember begging my parents to buy us Crystal Pepsi on some Winnebago Vacation across the United States, so I was probably in second or third grade… but I have memories of drinking it at some campground probably in South Dakota or something. :)
Looks like fun! I don’t know if we had Pepsi Clear here but we did have Pepsi Max. And while I’m a Coke drinker through and through I LOVED that PM.
My husband and I did numerous blindfolded taste tests with regular Pepsi and Pepsi Clear and without exception, we always chose the regular Pepsi as the Pepsi Clear. Looking at it made it taste different, which was a very interesting revelation in how our brain works.
Spelling bee trophies?
What does that say, I wanted to talk to you about your shirt??! I’ll have to send this to Eboni. It might scare her a little.
I only vaguely remember crystal Pepsi – I don’t think I ever drank it. I don’t remember you loving it, but I am not at all surprised that you kept a bottle (if you knew they were going to stop making it).
I also see your Brownie wings and Junior Bridge. What’s the purple thing. Is it from church? And a microphone? What’s the round metal thing? Wish I was there to go through that stuff with you! Maybe you have another box somewhere we could look through next time I am in town?
I was in middle school when Crystal Pepsi was around, we all loved it!
Ooh, I like your buttons! I collect buttons and still have all the ones from my youth. They are pretty generic, though! I am saving so many things for my future children, and I can’t wait till then!
I went through boxes like that about a year ago. It was super interesting – and brought back a lot of memories, both good and bad.
Remember Orbitz? That drink with the floaty balls in it? It was rather gross.
I hope you find your diploma eventually!
LOL! I’m so jealous over the pepsi! If you had a bottle of the pepsi blue I might just have to drop to my knees and worship your greatness! LOL.
What a great collection of things to keep.
I liked Crystal Pepsi too! Your find reminded me of New Coke too… crazy marketing gimics!
I should dig through some boxes at my mom’s house and see what I find. I doubt it’s as interesting as your treasures!
The Little Mermaid is still my favorite Disney film.
I remember Crystal Pepsi, but I don’t remember if I liked it.
I kept stuffed animals, yearbooks, dolls, and boxes of poetry.
I just gave the girls the stuffed animals.
I also gave SuperChic my little jewelry box with the ballerina and Rapunzel mybig jewelry box my Gram gave me that had pins, lanyards, a MD friendship bracelets that iMacs I n it.
HAH! Crystal Pepsi! I laughed out loud at that and the kids came running and they seemed utterly perplexed at my response to an old bottle of soda.
Sometimes I really miss the 90s.
Also, I feel like there were a few other clear sodas at the time… Don’t remember which ones, though… Hrm.
Crystal pepsi! Just a few weeks ago I was asking my sister if she remembered it… she doesn’t… she’s way too young : /
I think it’s awesome you kept one, so younger people don’t look at us like we’re crazy when it comes up in some random conversation : D
(gasp!) I had the Hickory Dickory Dock toy too!!!
I love that you saved an unopened crystal pepsi. I remember those days. We had a blind taste test to see if we could tell the difference between crystal and regular. I could tell every time but my Dad always guessed wrong.
I forgot about Crystal Pepsi! I remember liking it, but not being nuts about it.
I was recently telling my 10 year old son about what a big deal it was when Diet Coke came out and when McDonald’s Chicken nuggets came out too. He said “I feel bad for you, Mom. Imagine not having chicken nuggets!”
How fun! I did a little digging on my trip back home and it is so neat to find all the little things that were so important. Those notes from your friend are real treasures.
It is fun going down memory lane. Several weekends ago we were at my dad’s. He had all these old pictures up from when I was little. I thought it was cool so took pictures of them thinking I’d write a post one of these days.
We’ve just done the same thing, looking at some things of my brother’s that were brought out of the loft for him to take to his own house. Looking back, he was a strangely poetic kid in his writing and drawing.