A Box of Memories
“Alex, it’s Mom. I cleaned out the attic and found this old box of…stuff. Toys, CDs, some books. A lunchbox? Mostly crap. I’m giving it away. Call me back.”
Memories fired off. Childhood memories closely tied with the items.
I called her back. Eventually. “Don’t get rid of anything. Not yet. I’ll be home in a few weeks. Leave the box in my room. I’ll go through it.”
A yellow water gun rested on top of the box. One of my earliest memories – probably 4 or 5 years old – was rolling out of bed and spotting a present on my floor. My dad had returned from a trip to Maine. I tore away the wrapping paper. Revealed: a Super Soaker! This was the closest a toddler would get to having a machine gun. I filled it at the hose outside, and went Scarface on our garden.
I dug further into the box. I pulled out a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure still in its plastic casing. Michelangelo, the orange guy, the funniest, and the coolest. I owned Ninja Turtle toys, films, and books: I kept the VHS tapes stacked next to our living room VCR, the books next to my bunk bed, and the action figures in their plastic casing neatly organized in my drawer. The plastic casing – because where else would they sleep?
More stuff. This time, a book. A Goosebumps book. I used to stack the books around my bedroom, different piles for “read,” “not read,” and “too scary to read.” It was a big deal when a new Goosebumps was released, like a new iPhone, but for elementary school kids. I remember on a trip to Disney World with my family, R.L. Stine, the author of the series, led a haunted parade. When I got back to school, I told everyone that I met him. I hadn’t.
A Full House themed lunchbox. Until it went off-air, the television show Full House was my only consistent weekend activity. It was part of ABC’s TGIF. I had a crush on Michelle. Both Michelles, apparently. After learning she was played by twins, I had multiple hour long conversations with my Mom about how there were two girls, and that they were both on the show, and played the same part. Mind blown.
Another gun: This time, a Nerf gun. At dress rehearsal for my 5th grade graduation, each student walked down the aisle with another student of the opposite sex. Waiting for my turn to walk, I remember telling my friend that I should bring a Nerf gun to graduation and shoot everyone in the audience instead of walking with some girl. Good thing he didn’t report me to the principal or call 911.
Next: I spotted that famous portrait of the swimming, naked baby. Nirvana’s Nevermind – on cassette. I remember yelling at my Mom from the back of the car, “I’m not getting a haircut!” We were on our way to the barber, against my will. I loved Nirvana, and idolized Kurt Cobain. If I was hanging out in my bedroom, Nevermind was on repeat. Kurt’s hair was long; mine would be too. I cried for my beautiful locks. I was so misunderstood! Teenage angst! I was only 10. I got a bowl cut.
Another cassette: Dave Matthews Band’s Crash. This was the band you liked because everyone else did. I never went to a “Dave” concert, but I told people I did on a few occasions. “Those older guys bought us beer!” “We packed a tight bowl during Trippin’ Billies, bro!” I used to listen to my Crash tape at the breakfast table on my headphones, spooning cereal into my mouth. “Dave” was a hero for middle class suburban Jewish kids.
Mortal Kombat! I owned the game guide. My elementary school friend Scott owned the game. On Super Nintendo. With two controllers. I bought the guide so we could unlock the Fatalities, Babalities, and Animalities. A perfect partnership. I only owned regular Nintendo, which meant Scott had a better life. “Mom, I’m going to Scott’s house after school today!” “Again?”
Cardboard discs were scattered throughout the box. Pogs. The perfect hobby for a kid with obsessive-compulsive disorder. I bought them by the hundreds at the local arts and crafts store. My friends and I stuffed them in tubes. No one actually played the game. What a lousy game. I liked the unique prints, the slammers, and most of all, trying to have a bigger stack than the other guy. It’s how we showed our masculinity before we had any.
Under some pogs was a CD. On it, a pretty girl in jean shorts sat with her legs folded: Britney Spears. I first heard the song “Baby One More Time” during lunch in the middle school cafeteria. There was never music played at lunch. I asked someone who it was. A girl told me, “It’s Britney Spears, duh!” I later bought the album not for the music but “for the pictures you idiot she’s hot.” What a great album.
In the corner of the box was a little scrap of paper with a signature and #3 on it. Allen Iverson was the greatest thing to happen to Philadelphia in my youth. My grandmother ran into Allen Iverson at a hotel in the city. An elderly Jewish woman asked this young, thugged-out athlete for an autograph – for me. The autograph is nice, but I would have traded that signed scrap of paper to have seen the interaction go down.
I wasn’t sure if I could remember anything from my youth beyond what my parents and relatives have told me, like the time I “puked on Uncle Matt’s shoulder at Alligator Grill.” The box of stuff narrated me through my past, reminding me of stories that I thought were lost. Childhood memories are challenging to recall on their own. We forget. We block them out. We mature. But a memory that’s grounded in something safe, a hobby we turned to for a laugh or an escape, becomes impossible to forget.
I gave the box of stuff away. It will become someone else’s past. My memories aren’t gone; in fact, they’re stronger than before since I started writing about them. I don’t have any more action figures in their plastic packaging, but I do have a closet filled with guitar cases, empty boxes of DJ equipment, paint brushes, and stacks of records. Also, a computer with more pieces of unfinished writing than I’m willing to admit. It’s not hoarding; it’s remembering. I keep this stuff around to remind who I was. Otherwise, I’d forget.
