January 13, 1991

California, here we come!

Great. The very first page and already I’m ahead of myself. So give me a moment to explain.

So where do I start. At the beginning. Let me see here.

Okay, here’s the beginning:

Picture it. The Kate Collins School library. I was in 7th grade…

Thanks, Thirteen. I’ll take it from here.

(That “picture it” part? That’s a Golden Girls reference, in case you didn’t catch that. Sophia was awesome.)

First off, Thirty-Eight just wants to say that with a few bright exceptions here and there, seventh grade royally sucked. I mean, I doubt it’s a great time for most people — middle school/junior high is one of those horrendous transition periods of life, and nobody tells you that (especially if you’re a girl), hey, you know all those great friends you had in elementary school? Half of them are probably going to turn against you for no apparent reason, because you’re all trying to figure yourselves out in relation to everybody else in your social circle, and you’re going to spend way too much of your time trying to figure out what’s the mature cool thing to like and what’s the babyish kiddie thing to like that’s going to make you an outcast, and the rules are constantly changing and you can’t win, and it’s all sort of a massive waste of time anyway, and sometimes the best thing that happens is that you survive it, but nothing much is really going to make it better while it’s happening.

So. Yeah.

Looking back, I’m actually pretty grateful that I can say I had mostly one bad year in my school life. For some people, the bad years stretch on a lot longer and contain things infinitely worse than what I went through, so don’t get me wrong here — I’m not claiming any medals just for surviving basic adolescence. That’s just a setup to the fact that some of things I liked weren’t exactly considered trendy and cool.

Like cartoons.

Back to the school library. I ran into a friend there while I was looking for a magazine article for my research paper.

As I begin looking for a certain article, she says, “You mean you’re actually working on that?” She hands me a magazine. “Here,” she adds, “look at this.”

I look at what she is handing me. It’s an article about something called Tiny Toon Adventures. Intrigued, I read on.

The article was part of a insert celebrating Bugs Bunny’s 50th birthday. Years later I found a commemorative magazine that also included the same piece. Here it is from that source (click to enlarge).

As I look back, I wonder what I saw in the show. Maybe it was because the characters were cute. Maybe it was because I’ve always loved cartoons — Looney Tunes especially. Maybe it was because I’m weird.

(I can’t decide, now, if I meant that last line in a joking, self-deprecating way, or if I was actually remembering that year and being sarcastic. I think it was the former, but either is entirely possible.)

Later on, I saw an ad in TV Guide for the show’s premiere, which the Internet helpfully tells me would have been September 14, 1990. I watched the first episode, I loved it, and I had no idea how much that show was going to influence the next few years of my life.

Yeah, eighth grade was going to be a whole lot better.

 

(Up next: A drawing on notebook paper provides the spark.)