Those Were the Days...

As a young lad, I dreamed of the day when I would one day have the privilege of wearing the sacred blue and orange, owning the rights to being a die-hard Mt. Crest mustang. But then for some reason my parents decided to relocate to Roy, and it’s all been downhill ever since.

Kidding. Come on Royals, take a joke.

It’s not that Roy is one of the ugliest places to live in the entire western hemisphere, it’s just that I didn’t want to leave Nibley/Hyrum. I had a plan for what I thought my life would be like in Cache Valley, and I didn’t want to have to miss out on so many great things happening to me.

For full effect, download “I Swear” by All for One and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of these posts. The background tones this week have been chosen from forged memories of bad 90’s music as far back as I can recollect. There’s a NKOTB song brewing somewhere around here.

I loved my childhood, I really did. I forged some great bonds and memories on the playgrounds of Millville Elementary. And yes kids, this place actually does exist. Let me clarify something, if you have had the privilege to be a part of the horrorfest storytelling hour that I resurrect every October to entertain my friends, you know all about the deathly hallows of Millville Elementary, and the Legend of Tara Turley.

For the record, every detail in the stories that I tell are hauntingly accurate. My best friends were Chuck Burtis and Tosha Welch. We did have a climbing club during recess. Tara Turley, Mrs. Cadez, Laredo Rich, all of the characters are real people. Aside from that, the rest is an elaborate lie. No Tara wasn’t a witch who wore black every day to school, no she didn’t bury a cursed oak box in the sand underneath the giant football-shaped jungle gym we played on, and no, Chuck did not have a seizure that morning and drown in a bowl of lucky charms. Those are all bits and pieces that I’ve added to instill fear in the back of your heads and make you afraid of the dark.

If you haven’t heard these stories, well, hit me up one day. I’ll scare your pants right off.

The reason I bring up this hoax of a horror story is that these things are all memories for me. Good ones, I might add. I L-worded my time as a mustang-loving, borderline A.D.D. little rascal who ran around pretending to be a ninja turtle. Some of my best memories happened during my time as a Millville Cougar. I remember when we all sat around and watched Cameron Bodily destroy the Number Munchers school record on our school computer. I remember when Danielle Hancey kicked a soccer ball further than her cousin Nick Ropelato and rubbed it in his face all year. Heck, I even had my first actual crush on a girl, Kasey Critchfield. Boy, those were the days.

All of this means absolutely nothing to you. None of this does. Heck, this entire blog is just a gigantic compilation of my entire life wrote with a very sarcastic, selfish tone. I honestly don’t know why you’re still reading this. It’s not your life, it's mine. I should offer you condolences for sticking with me 300 posts strong, and not a single post has been about you. So thank you dear reader, you do such an astounding job of making sure that I have an overly enlarged social media ego.

The point is this. These are my memories. And I L-word them, every single one. I truly tear up when I drive down Hollow Road and see the creek we used to ice skate on, or when I pass the mansion that my deranged piano teacher used to live in. Heck, I’m damming back an entire flood of tears every time I see the house I was raised in, the house my Dad built with his own two hands. These are my memories, and I L-word them to death.

At this point you’ll probably have stopped reading, have tilted your head just a bit to the left, stared up at the ceiling, and started reminiscing about your own childhood memories, (I also think that at this point of the blog, the closing chorus of “I Swear” should be just wrapping up, great timing, I know).

That’s great that you’re remembering all of the things that have happened in your life that have made you who you are. Those are YOUR memories. Not mine, not your cousins, not anybody else’s, YOURS! Those are some of the most important truths you will ever know. Make sure to hold on to those bottled up memories and value every experience that you have ever had.

Especially when they happen where you don't expect.