this one's for the children

I bade farewell to my hometown of Carson City, Nevada this weekend. I suspect it will be the last time I will visit in... maybe ever. The experience was sort of nostalgic, sort of refreshing, sort of embarrassing. The hardest part was going through my closet and getting rid of old stuff I haven't looked at or thought about for years (decades?). Cabbage Patch Kids, VHS tapes of My So-Called Life, my high school "art" portfolio, a life size stuffed E.T. (the Extra Terrestrial), a Trapper Keeper with a cocker spaniel on it, and most shamefully: my New Kids On The Block memorabilia. I honestly don't know what I can say here to help you understand the sheer volume and magnitude of my New Kids collection. I was the kind of fan who accumulated not only the "normal" stuff, like gigantic photo buttons and tour booklets, but who kept the really weird crap… like two (2) tiny gift boxes full of multi-colored confetti, collected from the floor after my first New Kids concert.

Other discoveries:

My "creative" collages, constructed using New Kids photos, posterboard, and captions clipped from teen magazines like, "Make it Sizzle!"

A stack of tradable New Kids cards, held together with a Scrunchie made of thermal.

The empty box that once contained my NKOTB doll. I found his little Cosby sweater and one plastic loafer, but Tiny Jonathan is still missing. Call if you have information.

Seven school folders, labeled with subjects like "Science" and "Social Studies," all of which contained, not science and social studies schoolwork like you might expect, but magazine clippings and photographs of the New Kids.

Negatives from the photos taken at my first New Kids concert in Sacramento. Hard to see what was going on in each picture, but from what I can tell, I was wearing a denim jacket, four Scrunchies, and a face covered in tears of pure bliss.

If you talk to any former NKOTB fan, you'll find they have no problem naming their favorite Kid. Jordan and Joey were the most attractive and the most talented and therefore, the most popular. The edgier girls went for "bad boy" Donnie, the the blind girls for Danny, the "guy who sort of looks like an orangutan." Me, I went for the shy, slender Jonathan. Everyone else in my immediate circle of friends chose Jordan or Joey, and although I couldn't deny their charms, I didn't want to fight. Even at twelve years old, I was worried someone would be mad at me. So, I just pretended to like Jonathan best. And I have to say, I really committed to that. In my rifling, I think I counted roughly 2000 glossy photographs of Jonathan Knight, including one in a wetsuit.

As I sorted through the boxes of various keepsakes and childhood treasures, I found myself tossing more things into the "Trash" pile than into the "Keep" pile. I've been told (by Oprah) that this is a healthy thing to do. No sense in hoarding a bunch of junk you'll never look at and all that… but I think you're supposed to hold on to the things that mean the most to you. And while it bothers me to think that New Kids On The Block meant more to me than handmade gifts and childhood toys, I can't deny that it's true. Jonathan Knight was my first love. And who doesn't want to remember that?

P.S. NKOTB is staging a comeback. Who's with me?