Best Picture of 1995: Braveheart
Billboard Top Single: Take a Bow - Madonna
TV: Friends, Seinfeld.
I’m setting myself up here for catastrophe: the hardest year to remember, the longest ago, is the one I’m going to write about first. But on the surface, I remember 1995 because it started the last year at Saint Pauls, where I had been since Kindergarden. There were about 30 or so students in my grade. This was the year I developed my first crush (but I didn’t act on it until 1996, so check back tomorrow!…). Of all the things to stick out, using the Internet at school is probably one of the strongest memories. We were on the Internet early, relatively speaking, perhaps as early as 1993. Going to the computer lab was always the highlight of the week. With nostalgia, I remember how much fun it was to find new websites in Computer Shopper (which, I remember, cost $6, and seemed like an outrageous sum to pay for a magazine!) and PC Magazine. It’s clear now how early I was exposed to computers and how lucky I was.
It’s tough to believe that 1995 is a full two years before Griffin was born, and obviously, 1995 was also the year Max turned 4. 1995 was also the year I went to summer camp for the first time, going a whole two weeks without television. Hearing strange new words used freely for the first time: words like shit, and damn, and occassionally, fuck.
That means 1995 was also the year we went to Yellowstone, getting lost along the way, arriving at the park at 2 in the morning, sleeping 10 in the Winnebago because bison were along the road, having Nicholas (my youngest cousin, who must’ve been 3 at the time) wet the bed we were all sleeping in. And “the line”, which still gets a laugh whenever we talk about this at family reunions.
Nonnie (my grandmother): I’m going to the bathroom.
Me (mostly asleep, relieved that I finally have room to spread out on the bed): Take your time.
Does it sound funny now, on paper? No, definitely not. But that line sums up the whole trip for me. And it still makes me laugh when I think about the context I said it in.
Of course, who can forget the 10th birthday celebration? Bern’s steakhouse: A Tampa tradition. I remember Mom telling me it was time to go, walking outside, and having A LIMO there. A stretch. Little sodas to drink on the way to the restaurant. My best friend, Jordan and I, totally “ten-year-old-we’re-in-a-limo-with-a-TV†excited, almost to the point of giddy. Getting caught in traffic on the way back. Max (still only 4 at the time) saying “Cheese!†to the video camera. The limo getting pulled over on the way home.
If I focus real hard, I can remember the little moments too. When it was still OK to hop in Mom and Dad’s bed in the morning before Sunday School. When I still wore a matching set of pajamas. When I tried to convince my mom that I needed to start wearing boxers, because tighty-whities were for losers. I remember having a “grown-up†conversation about the Oklahoma City bombing at school. How awful it felt to have to put a check mark next to my name on the unruly behavior board. Coming home at the end of the day and being able to change into play clothes.
That’s what I miss the most, I think: Coming home, changing, grabbing a snack, and watching cartoons. Of all the things I could possibly miss, that feeling, that knowing that it was OK to put off my homework for 60 minutes to watch an episode of Doug followed by the Rugrats, that’s childhood, for me.
Of course, I can do it now. But it just doesn’t feel the same.
Filed by Adam College at 11:40 am under Life
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