![\"The](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/scrapbook.jpg\")
<\/a>The Time Capsule<\/p><\/div>\n
I pride myself in being someone who doesn’t hang on to “things”<\/strong>. \u00a0My philosophy is that if I don’t use something in a year or so, OUT it goes! \u00a0So it was with some embarrassment<\/strong> that as I was cleaning closets the other day I found a box full of “things”. \u00a0From the 60’s<\/strong>. \u00a0Not my age – the decade. \u00a0It was like opening a window to the past, a rather ridiculous past, but past none the less. \u00a0Most of the “treasures” were found in scrapbooks from high school.<\/strong> \u00a0It was a virtual time capsule from those years, so what should have taken 10 minutes morphed into three hours<\/strong>. \u00a0Mostly, I wondered why I had kept some of these things to begin with. \u00a0After all, raffle tickets to unnamed events, Greyhound bus passes<\/strong> and newspaper clippings from an Easter hat competition really\u00a0shouldn’t have been that noteworthy. \u00a0Clearly, my “throw everything out” philosophy came long after high school.<\/p>\n The Junior MIss trophy<\/p><\/div>\n I decided that I would only keep the most sentimental items<\/strong> so I started discarding the low hanging fruit<\/strong> – photos of people whom I no longer remember. \u00a0Heck, these days I might not recognize<\/strong> people I met just last month so people from high school are clearly beyond my recall abilities. \u00a0Next, I went through some of my sports memorabilia. \u00a0There wasn’t much of note. \u00a0I got rid of ski lift passes (although it was amazing to see that at one time you could buy a full day pass as Squaw Valley for $6<\/strong>) \u00a0and the\u00a0one\u00a0<\/em> blue ribbon I won on the swim team. \u00a0That pretty much took care of the sports section. \u00a0Next I threw out all the dance cards, cheerleading campaign buttons<\/strong> and programs from my choir and piano concerts. \u00a0Nothing makes me cringe faster that to think of all the poor people who suffered through me pounding on the piano<\/strong>, desperately searching for the right key. \u00a0Which brings me to the next thing I found in the box – my Junior Miss trophy from 1968. \u00a0For the “talent” portion of the program I played\u00a0<\/strong>Clair de Lune<\/strong>. \u00a0<\/em>I thought I did a fairly decent job until a boy came up to me at school the following Monday and told me that his dad (a musician) had said I played it like a fourth year piano student<\/strong>, at which point I crowed, “Great! \u00a0I only took two years of lessons!”<\/p>\n It was three hours well spent. \u00a0Not only did I get to go down my own personal Memory Lane,<\/strong> but I got to go back in time for a while. \u00a0When things were simpler, a bit more elegant, and wine was cheap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Suzanne Sparrow Watson I pride myself in being someone who doesn’t hang on to “things”. \u00a0My philosophy is that if I don’t use something in a year or so, OUT it goes! \u00a0So it was with some embarrassment that … read more<\/a><\/a>Next, it was on to all of the miscellaneous items<\/strong> I’d thrown in the box. \u00a0These were mostly mementos from places I had visited. \u00a0A coaster from the old Hippo\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>restaurant in San Francisco, an autograph from Matty Alou<\/strong> of the SF Giants and a menu from the high school graduation trip I took to Hawaii on Pan American airlines. \u00a0Yep – that’s right – they used to give you a full color brochure of your dining choices – in\u00a0<\/strong>coach<\/strong>. \u00a0<\/em>Better yet, drinks were fifty cents, beer and cigarettes just a quarter. \u00a0No wonder so many people got drunk on planes! \u00a0Most of my fun came in looking at a couple of old menus I had from two classic dining houses – Sabella’s of Marin and #9 Fisherman’s Grotto<\/strong>\u00a0in San Francisco. \u00a0The menu I had from Sabella’s is actually the\u00a0wine\u00a0<\/em>menu (God only knows how I got my hands on that!). \u00a0It’s fun to see that in the heart of what is now known as “wine country” there were only three California wineries<\/strong> listed and the wines were Sauterne, Chablis, Rhine, Burgundy, Chianti and Rose. Not a Merlot, Chardonnay or Cabernet<\/strong> to be found. \u00a0And the prices averaged $3.00 per bottle<\/em>. \u00a0The dinner menu<\/strong> from Fisherman’s Grotto was equally depressing – entrees ran from $2.50 for fresh Monterey Abalone<\/strong> to the outrageous charge of $4.00 for Lobster Tail. \u00a0Best of all, ice cream was only 30 cents.<\/p>\n