Retrieved Memories

Clockwise: My first grade report card, my high school grad pic, my character Bright Blade (now called the Bladesmith) from 1989, me in prom-wear, a Corey Hart concert ticket, and a Linda Hamilton trading card from Terminator 2.

Vinnie of Comic Quest told me last week that old shop members will be getting special prizes if they present their old membership cards as part of their 20th anniversary celebration. I knew I saw mine some time last year, but I couldn’t exactly tell where I put it. So I rummaged through my ever-trusty wooden cabinet, which had gotten really crowded since I last cleaned it up (well, kind of) a year ago.

All sorts of interesting junk, as well as wonderful, forgotten valuables have gathered there through the years, most of them now smelling of a weird mixture of naphthalene balls and newspaper ink. I took the opportunity to sort out the mess, which triggered the recollection of many interesting memories.

I neatly stacked over three years’ worth of newspapers (ones where my articles appeared in), school memorabilia, and a lot of artwork and other paper clutter in separate plastic bags. I discovered old school retreat letters from people whose names I can’t really give faces to anymore. I found decades-old report cards, a box containing around ten medals won from high school art contests (several of them poster and slogan-making competitions) and a mix of good and horrible college thesis plates. There’s a sense of disconnection when I unearthed old love letters, unsent missives, and personal notes that were seemingly written by an altogether different person (well, in a sense, many of us aren’t the same persons we were even just a few months ago, but I digress). I saw ancient pictures of old lovers, friends, acquaintances, and even Manila Bay (for a worthless college subject), tons of photocopied pages of both published and unreleased Alamat projects, original characters drawn on index cards, tryout pages for American companies that went nowhere, a clipping of a prayer to St. Jude, a ton of action figure blister cards, dozens of food delivery receipts, empty foil packs of fantasy trading cards (remember them?), a Corey Hart (Never Surrendeeeerrr!) concert ticket, two cool paintings by John and other stuff that mean nothing to other people.

Wow. My life is simple and I’m generally a quiet person, but looking at these pieces of evidence from my forgotten and not-too-distant past, I'm reminded that I really experienced an assortment of silent upheavals and victories as a teen and beyond, necessary chaos that still shape me into who and what I am now. Sifting through all that really felt strange in good, funny, and even embarrassing ways.

After over an hour of looking, I found a membership card… a Filbar’s card. But it was okay. I was having fun dissecting my different mindsets with every significant object I encountered. I did find my old CQ card eventually, stuck in an old notebook that was pinned down by a couple of VHS tapes and ratty X-Men comic books. I was member # 040.