my mom has been nagging me for years, eric, when are you going to go through all your boxes in the attic?. she’s also been nagging me, eric, when are you going to come back to indiana? and eric, don’t you love your family anymore? see, when i moved out at the age of 18, i raided the house, and took pretty much any belonging of mine with any sentimental, emotional or resale value. i made sure of it—i like to keep my life tidy and organized and portable.
everything else was put away in boxes, and for the past 10 years these boxes have been sitting up in the attic. crawling up the attic stairs this morning, before the hot afternoon heat set in, i found 20 21 22 boxes. what’s inside? no idea. why don’t you look with me, which i’m sure will be as exciting and as long-winded as when geraldo broke into al capone’s vault…
box #1: 1000s of baseball cards, once valuable, now all bent and moldy. i’m guessing the childrens [sic] of 2005 don’t spend much time playing with pieces of cardboard with photos of steroid users on them? treasure: nothing.
box #2: wrapping paper [huh?] and blacklight posters. i don’t really remember having a blacklight. treasure: nothing.
box #3: 8×10 photos of eric in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade. not for sale, but saved for safekeeping, for potential use in upcoming jonny moirée: behind the music special. local newspapers from 1993, featuring dorky interviews with me, with titles such as sommer auf deutschland. star trek books and disturbing books with terrorism themes [e.g. black sunday and the president has been kidnapped!]. empty piggy bank, pinewood derby cars which never came close to winning any races cuz my dad wasn’t that technically inclined, mess kit from boy scouts, probably with mummified peach cobbler inside. 1991 upper deck hologram baseball cars [ebay says they're worth something]. treasure: photos of 8/9/10yo me, $180 worth of baseball cards.
box #4: back issues of boys life magazine [for boy scouts, silly!] and nintendo power [maps of zelda and tips on how to get to the minus world in super mario bros]. gonna keep a few of these for retro kitsch value. trapper-keeper binders from high school. an angry letter i wrote in to the local newspaper, complaining about class size, financial problems, dress codes, drugs, attendance policies, gangs, fights, suspensions, beepers… american schools are falling behind. i was a pretentious faux-foreigner back then, too. term papers on the works of kurt vonnegut. treasure: 1 issue of nintendo power.
box #5: awards: kiwanis scholar, presidential academic fitness, calculator mathematics olympiad, a blank certificate congratulating me for exceptional service in ________ [yet signed by the principal], academic super bowl, science olympiad, german club, honor society, young scientist, teacher’s pet. and like 100 medals from science olympiad. treasure: nothing except the inner geek.
box #6: a few old-school xeroxed zines that i subscribed to through BBSes [pre-interweb]. ooh, and a letter from lisa, this pretty girl whom i worked with at dairy queen, analyzing my flirtations with her and asking me out. via folded-up note. she writes, whatever girl wins your heart, remember to tell her that i wish i could be her. eek! she was the first girl i came out to at work. treasure: nothing except the repressed memories of that complicated summer.
box #7: more awards [geek!]. photo of me with a garter belt on my head, from prom? german magazines. stuff from the chicago cubs convention, 1993. boxes and boxes of baseball cards. most are worth only $0.08. i have notes on some cards listing their value as $125.00 but are now valued for $10. actually, wait, a few are listed at $100+! that’s jamba juice money, my friend! neon yellow sign stating the rules for entering eric’s room [enter at your own risk!!!], heavily worn boy scout manual [troop 10, killer whales!]. regarding drugs: when a junkie gets hooked, he can’t help himself. he must have more and still more. to get money he needs to by drugs from some other ‘junkie’, he may stage a holdup. he may even commit murder. boy scout beads, merit badges, belt. class of 1995 fluorescent pink water bottle… probably matched my l.a. gear shoes at the time. treasure: $500? worth of baseball cards.
box #8: photo of me in new york with my german friends in 1995, wearing a pansy division t-shirt with giant pink triangle. homo! tons of cassette tapes… mostly respectable: tom’s diner, motown philly, now that we found love, i got the power.. some not: unskinny bop, do the bartman, i wanna sex you up. my first communion prayer book and rosary. photos of my high school friends conga-dancing around a mexican restaurant for my 17th birthday, me with sombrero on my head. treasure: a few photos.
box #9: photos from when we snuck mike, our foreign exchange student from germany, to the canadian side of niagara falls, without a passport. jailarity ensued, and [apparently] i’m not permitted to ever go back to that border crossing. letter from q101 deejay samantha james, regretting she will not be able to attend our 80s-themed senior dance, but rather she put together a special mix tape for us with shout-outs from our favorite deejays and a remix of tainted love. photocopies of a dot-matrix, wordperfect printout of the rocky horror picture show script. original nintendo nes controllers and some bits from the power glove which i don’t remember owning. tons of comic books, mostly archie and jughead comics, some other random ones, apparently worth up to $100 each. treasure: $300? worth of comic books.
box #10: an appraisal from phil’s cards and collectibles offering to buy my baseball card collection for $100. funny thing, though, is that it’s dated 1996, when i was away at university. how thoughtful of my little bro to try to make some money off my junk. about 400 more comic books. i look up a few online and see them valued at $40-$100. i gently transfer them to a new box. treasure: $300? worth of comic books.
box #11: rubber-banded cache of folded-up notes from my ex-girlfriend jennifer. she writes: sorry it took me 4 years to write you back, but my intestines fell out, on the titanic, p.s. i must commend you on your last kiss, oow!. floppy disks with games for my old 386. flag of germany. my eric bogs stationery from elementary school, which i used to correspond with penpals in japan and alaska and brazil. a very wrinkled warning: teenager lives here poster. calvin klein underwear advertisements [hmm...] dot matrix print out of local BBS numbers, with hours of operation and accepted baud rates. l33t! a light in the attic, a witty children’s book given to me by my loving grandma whom i lived with for a few years. keeping that one. more end-of-the-world books, e.g. star bright: planet earth is burning, every hour is now a lifetime! one day soon, there will be no future! colecovision donkey kong junior cartridge. garter belt, presumably from one of my 3 [females] prom dates? d.a.r.e. bumper sticker [dare to keep kids of drugs]. treasure: embarrassing photos, book from grandma.
box #12: my actual boy scout uniform. there are too too many badges on it, and i can’t remember what any of them mean. should i wear it in a doubly-ironic way? you know, making fun of all the gay boys who wear them, making fun of the boy scouts? ooh, and the matching red uniform beret. folded clean handkerchiefs, strange. sunglasses from the tom cruise-in-footloose era. pocket telescope [no longer works]. all of the youth for understanding manuals and paperwork from my trip to germany. big novelty eraser which says my brother doesn’t make big mistakes from my lil’ bro. 4 complete sets of baseball cards, probably worth $20. photo of my girlfriend jen hugging me, i have a naughty smirk on my face. treasure: boy scout uniform, baseball cards, embarrassing photos.
box #13: box of chinese checkers, unopened [what a boring game]. my capsela kit! capsela was the bomb. i used to make remote-controlled boats and robots and cars and all sorts of other things. vhs tape labeled german honors project with barry which was my good friend barry and me pretending to be german on film for 30 minutes. christian children books which don’t look the least bit familiar. dot matrix printout of how to configure ansi.sys in dos. photo of me when i had chicken pox. photo from 16 years ago of kevin [who is now dating my sister] kissing cathy [who visited me in london last christmas and whom i'm having dinner with tonight]. printouts of how to cheat in sim city and have infinite money. copy of pc magazine explaining the features of upcoming windows 3.0. chicago bears earmuffs. treasure: incriminating photos.
box #14: spirit of america remote-controlled boat which i used to race across wolf lake. missing the remote control. treasure: memories of when we lived next to the lake.
box #15: my first silkscreening project… a black sweatshirt with bart simpson spraypainting eric graffiti onto a wall. little league baseball mitt. cross country ribbons [orange means 14th place, i think]. trigonometry notebook. b96 bumper sticker from 1993. membership card to american coaster enthusiasts. my first pair of geeky eyeglasses. treasure: nothing.
box #16: complete set of how it works encyclopedias, as seen on teevee. i remember reading each new issue cover to cover, definitely helps to explain why i’m such a know it all. the “H – Le” edition was my fave. can probably find entire contents at howstuffworks.com. treasure: nothing.
box #18: approximately 25 trophies. they look nice. they make my mom proud. we’ll leave these in the attic. treasure: put back into storage.
box #19: more baseball cards. vhs tapes of when i was in germany, some converted to ntsc. the first cassette tape i ever bought [dick tracy by madonna]. i remember being at the mall with my friend matt and his mom… his mom made me call my mom and ask permission before i could buy it. my address book from before university. more comic books… many worth $40, $110. my admissions letter from caltech, dated on my birthday, with a little handwritten happy birthday! note from the director of admissions.
another letter from my ex-girlfriend jennifer. this one dated just after i started sleeping with her boyfriend, but before he and her broke up. i think i was trying to convince her to break up with him—eek! die fantastischen vier postermagazin. a letter from someone in germany named frank. sheet music for joseph and amazing technicolor dreamcoat. letters from different local organizations that gave me scholarships all those years ago. i owe them all a huge thank you for helping me flee indiana all those years ago. treasure: comic books.
box #20: cassette tapes: teenage mutant ninja turtles, california raisins, m.c. hammer, ghostbusters soundtrack, beach boys. 7th grade leaf collection. more photos from germany, high school. chicago cubs puppet, baseball hats which i’ll be giving to my baby sister. german newspapers. autograph from eric clapton. notebook with all my nintendo passwords. the best one is for faxandu: ipgIAItkCEAiEIQtCEA. you can use it if you’re stuck on level 17. junior achievement awards banquet [i help run a chocolate factory for two years in high school]. elementary school yearbooks. freshman speech on alabama, which starts although most of you probably think alabama is just a state full of whiskey drinking hicks, alabama is much more than that. alabama is a very important and interesting state. stuff from my science fair projects. catechism notes: we are to live as adult christians, saying YES to christ, then we will live as he directs us, caring for others as he did [in my own handwriting]. copies of the nintendo newsletter i made for my friends and my mom photocopied at work. hand-painted ceramic statue of e.t. from my babysitter. treasure: cubs stuff for sis, elementary school yearbooks, nintendo newsletters.
box #21: every photograph, film negative, train ticket, scrap of paper or used kleenex from my trip to deutschland in 1993. treasure: fond memories.
box #22: 100s of copies of video game magazines, and of my favorite catalog, 1001 things you never knew existed where i bought entirely too many magic tricks and practical jokes and spy watches and insect repellents and pocket fishing poles. treasure: memories of playing video games 16 hours a day for most of my childhood.
phew. exhausting. i’m not sure how we’re going to dispose of all of this crap… most of it is books and magazines, i wonder if it can be recycled? i’m taking away a small briefcase full of memories, of photos, of letters, of yearbooks. some cubs memorabilia for my lil’ sis [she's a huge fan, it turns out, her whole bedroom is done up in a baseball theme], and a cache of baseball cards and comic books, with an apparent value of $1000+, but which i’ll bequeath to my lil’ bro to sell.
