On a shelf in the garage sits my Ore Ida French fry box. Inside, I store the tokens of my high school career: trophies, certificates, my graduation mortar board, four yearbooks, a disintegrating album with all manner of now embarrassing photos, plus miscellaneous stuffed animals, pins, and, well, stuff.

The summer after my high school graduation, my family moved out of our townhouse and into a nearby apartment. I brought the Ore Ida French fry box home from the bowling alley where I was working that summer. When I filled it full of my precious tokens, I had every intention of unpacking it “someday” when I would be out of college and living on my own.

Four years passed, and I moved out on my own. [Read more…]