The Box

I unearthed a box in my parent's basement about a month ago. It's been in my car since then and last night I finally decided to haul it's heavy ass into my house. I knew it enclosed old photos, cards, yearbooks, stuff dating back to the early 80s and usually I love sorting through it all. But this in conjunction with my slightly chaotic attic meant major reorganization and was why I let it collect more dust in my car for the last 5-6 weeks.

I'm looking through old stuff. I found some old sticker books and back packs and photos from my days in kindergarten. I found letters my 3rd grade class on Long Island wrote to me after I moved back to PA. Just now I went through a stack of letters - they were all from 1996 and 1997. Letters from Becca, Aileen, Beth, Brian, Chris, Cameron, the gang at Deck the Walls...all of us talking about our first year at college and wishing each other well. This was prior to web enabled email, when we all had our .edu addresses but it required hauling across campus to a computer lab or calling on a network admin to connect one's desktop to the university's server and then we might access Polaris or Telnet. This was when letter writing was still an art form.

The old 80s stuff is cute...but the college stuff is still fresh in my head. It was 10 years ago. A decade (which seems frightening) and yet I recall so vividly how I felt that first year...the excitement of receiving a letter...the time it took for me to feel safe and secure in a new place...the trips I took...the friends I had...some I wonder - where are they now?

Now that I've resurrected these treasures, I may need to scan a few and post them.