Parents Attic

My parents moved out of my childhood home recently, and by "recently," I mean in 2016 and by "childhood," I mean from ages 13-23. May as well throw out the fact that they've moved thrice since then, but the key point is that a large portion of stuff I've amassed over the years ended up back in my possession, i.e., no longer in someone else's house where I could forget about it.

This led to several dump-offs where things arrived in my foyer, and I needed to find a place to stash them before they were noticed and, in turn, had to admit that I never throw anything away. In a strange turn of events, I did have a spark of hoarder-purge and managed to let go of a lot. This was followed in later years by the next generation collecting more things, but that's another story for another time that will never arrive.

To archive the things that would end up either in a dumpster or on Facebook swap groups, I decided to memorialize them by taking pictures with my Windows Phone on the kitchen counter. If you're wondering why they all have a grainy, washed out, bluish tint, that's why. If you wonder why I didn't use my very expensive camera equipment, then that will go unanswered.

StarWars Record Tote

Year: 1986

Status: Sold

Starting off the fun, we have this Star Wars Record tote. Sporting a rather solid latch and some iconic movie photography that will be familiar with anyone who pretended to watch the movies, this was meant to store smaller vinyl records. I imagine these would go hand in hand with some sort of storybook, since we're not able to fit the full-sized platters in there. There goes my idea of having a stylish home for my growing deathcore collection.

Not to fret, though. It was just big enough to store these companion books, which in and of themselves came with audio cassettes for the illiterate. I know they were meant for children, but they'll never progress if we coddle them. I do have the tapes still, and I do intend to digitize them at some point, just as soon as I replace those fuzzy tape cushion things that are turning into dust.

They are a mix of Disney and Sesame Street from the 80s era but, of course, pull from times much earlier, before the Renaissance, when they weren't just recycling the same things since the 40s. It was a sweet spot between Kathleen Kennedy and Mickey Mouse using the n-word while threatening to blow his brains out because Minnie wasn't interested. (I'll review the 1934 Disney Annual one day when I want to lose all my readers.)

Books, books. We don't care. Let's look at the other three sides of the tote. There's Darth Vader apparently forgetting that he doesn't like fire and a mashup of Yoda, silhouettes fighting, and some ship right in the middle of it. The last shot is filled with a posing Chewbacca, less in a purposeful manner but more in a way that implies that he was on his way to much more interesting matters and someone shouted, 'hey' before snapping a quick pic.

Spirotot

Year: 1980-something

Status: Thrown Out

Arts and crafts were the pastime du jour before the internet. School vacations were always welcomed, but there remained the pesky questions about how to fill the time. At a certain point, you were raiding the dot-matrix paper bin and drawing random doodles. And when the doodling grew tiresome, it was time to devolve into random shapes and patterns; that's where Spirotot came in. With a selection of gear-like discs, they fit into the cutout on the cover neatly, rotating inside the n-number of notches with n-1 teeth, thus guaranteeing to shift positions with each pass of the pen.

The result was a spiraling repetition of the patterns within each disc, within the cutout, within the cover, within your house, within your meaningless time off from school. It would only work if you clamped the paper inside the clamshell, so you either had to use small notepaper or deal with the edges being creased. I would have demonstrated, but the pens had long since dried up.

I sort of regret not keeping this since it's a picture-perfect 80s specimen, but I feel like the plastic began to disintegrate with touch. Or at least maybe I'm telling myself that to avoid regret.

Candy Bar Wrappers

Year: 1993

Status: Thrown Out

The 90s were a time for collecting. Everything was valuable, and you dared not throw anything away because we all saw what happened when we did that in the 80s. Of course when you realise you should collect something and everyone else has the same idea, it has the opposite of the intended effect. That didn't stop me from holding onto the precious Disney-themed candy wrappers. They were limited editions, don't you know. Perhaps they would garner some interest now, but I'm not going to check. These ended up not making the cut, but all is not lost. We hid a few in the crown molding at my parent's house when it was being built. Someone will find them one day.

Morning Math Poster

Year: 1991

Status: Thrown Out

The next few entries were from 5th grade. I arranged them in that order purely coincidentally. At this time, we would have a morning math quiz based on the topic of the week. They weren't overly complex, but if you got all of them correct, you got to put a sticker next to your name. I would say this was a time before participation trophies, but my brother won a pet contest by entering a goldfish (he had just won at yet another booth) and got a ribbon for 'wettest pet.' In any case, competition was fierce, and a single mistake would knock you out of the running.

Enough made it to exhaust the supply of smiley stickers, forcing the teacher to move on to shaggy ghosts and hot air balloons. And if those weren't enough, feast your eyes on the glorious Memphis aesthetics. I bet you thought that was an 80s thing? You fools.

As you can see, I won. And what was my prize? Well, to keep the poster, of course. The runners-up were the clique of the three blonde girls. Many of the names have been lost to time and ink-rubbing, but it might be for the best, since who wants to cop to only getting two stickers? Not I.

Homework Survival Kit

Year: 1991

Status: Thrown Out

Continuing the trend of my caring about school for some reason, we had to create a Homework Survival Kit. Using some sort of box, we were to collect a series of things that were essential to completing our work. I think I had an assortment of protractors and compassessessess, none of which I needed to write a book report, but they were cool and looked good when drawn on the outside.

None of these survived, and instead the box contained a book about frogs, and that's not half bad.

Furry Funnies Cereal Mockup

Year: 1991

Status: Thrown Out

I can't really wrap my head around what academic purpose this project held, but it might have just been a way to keep us kids busy. Looking back, I really have no idea how teachers filled 6 hours a day with content, especially when it was just them by their lonesome, so kudos for the random attempts at busy work.

The task was to create a cereal mockup. This was right around the time SNL re-aired their collection of faux commercials, so I was inspired, however loosely, to make something in that vein. The thought process was that the cereal was more or less just spun sugar with a small microchip that played a voice while you ate. THen they would dissolve, and I guess you just ate the metal pieces too. They're microchips, though. Small.

Content aside, you can see that my attempts at a sense of humor have not changed in the slightest. I'm not sure where Dr. Danndylions came from, but the non-nutritional information listing feels on point. We can also see the copper and steel as part of the ingredients, so I accounted for the electronics. And if you aren't satisfied, then Who Cares!

Misc Figurines

Year: Mid-1990s

Status: Kept

Red Rose Tea. Yes, I drank it. Did I like it? No… But how else would I get the ceramic animal figurines that my grandma collected? You think $8 blind boxes from Funko were bad? Try buying a box of tea as a 7-year-old, and then getting a duplicate. Then needing to drink one-hundred cups of tea before you could justify getting another.

By the 90s, these figures popped up in antique stores. They were ubiquitous but still commanded insulting prices that almost made the tea-drinking worth it. Almost. I'd write about the other figures, but I managed to get poison ivy on my wrist, and this endless typing is making it ooze.

Pez

Year: 1994

Status: Sold

Here's another collection that I amassed over many years (1-2). I always wished I could have gotten the vintage ones I'd see in the collectors' books, but the next best thing was to just grab random ones and ask for them as Christmas presents. Aside from the usual standard packs, I did end up with a few unique items.

The Petz gum dispenser is very 90s, right down to the -z suffix. Others were mint on card, and a few had arms and legs! I think I even had an electronic dispenser that would fire the candies out. I let this whole lot go for $15, which was probably too low, but again. No room at the inn.

Misc Décor

Year: Various

Status: Some kept, some sold

You can begin to see some of the problem and why I allowed myself to just let go, if only for a brief moment in time. McDonald's toys, painted wooden ducks, sand art, figures from the War of the Stars… I knew someone else would care for them better, or at the very least they could clutter up their attic for another few decades.

My Old Pet Hermit Crabs

Year: 1990

Status: Thrown Out

Oh, a cute little box. Surely there's some ladybug magnets inside, despite the label indicating Macnets.

Wrong!

It's Spike and Colorgrain, my pet hermit crabs from 4th grade. You see, I just sort of never fed them and spent all my time picking out new shells for them to use once they grew. Then they died, and I felt so bad that I stored them away for 25 years. There's also a figure I made for a short-story project that same year, but I assure you those parts were locally sourced from the beach. It smelled wonderful.

Vacation Book

Year: 1996

Status: Kept

This is my sister's book. It's about some trip we took, the exact one of which I can't recall. I worry about the juxtaposition of getting home to a cat that hasn't eaten and planting flowers a week later. As far as I can remember, no cat died, but future generations won't know that detail, so I have a pang of guilt in that regard.

Drawings

Year: 1996

Status: Thrown Out

I think this is the most recent item in the bunch. Sophomore year of highschool, I believe. Our task was to draw something from a photo in different mediums. It's not going to win any awards, but I can't say I hate the result. Out of everything 'archived' here, I sort of wish I had photographed them with the one cellphone forgotten to history.

Custom Board Game

Year: 1994

Status: Thrown Out

Finally, the last one… for your sake and mine. In the early 90s, my brother and I were huge X-Men fans. So naturally the only way to keep the fun going short of actually buying comics was to make our own. The enjoyment extended mostly to creating endless characters and drawing them once on a trading card made from manilla envelopes. But outside that, we did end up creating a full board game.

Using a jigsaw that is still rusting in my garage to this day, we made player pieces and fleshed out a playing board using scraps from the house build and stray wrapping paper. I'm pretty sure the goal of the game was just to make it to the end without too many pitfalls, a la Candyland.

Over the bridge and across the lake, all the while sightseeing the local and not-so-local wildlife. I have no idea what frog points were or how the carrot people came into play. Never mind that the player characters were much larger than any of the movement squares. Never mind that we never convinced our parents to finish a game. Never mind that the board now suspiciously looks like it has dried blood on it.

This was our childhood.

Also, you can view a hi-res version of the playing board for when you want to recreate this at home.