(Pic1. “My little sister, Jaclyn, our Mom and Me.”)

“As a child in the 1980s, I loved growing up in Orange County. There was the sunshine and
beaches, Disneyland, and my favorite Mall -The South Coast Plaza. Everything was new, the
homes, schools, roller skating rinks, movie theaters, shopping centers, and the man-made
lakes. It was where my Mom, a stylish, blond, valley girl, drove her daughters around in a
burgundy Datsun 280zx blasting Madonna and Heart. When it was just the three of us, we were
happy, and that’s how I liked it. Also, the 80’s just slayed.
One cool 80’s thing my mom had was a glass brick. It had a hole at the top. She put transparent
glass pebbles at the bottom and stuck pens inside. She displayed it on the kitchen counter next
to our cordless landline phone.

At school, the cool things for kids to collect and display were pencils with toppers- a little toy or
charm at the top of the pencil. Kids kept their pencil collections on top of their desks held inside
a clear, plastic, rectangular container.
Most of my classmates went to this stationary store called “LMNOP” to buy their pencils and
containers. A talented woman with a steady hand customized your container by writing your
name on it with paint pens and adding Sandylion or Mrs.Grossman stickers of your choice. I
loved seeing my name written on my container adorned with a Palm Tree sticker. I loved my
pencils. Each one was a personal, special treasure.

(Pic 2.“Some of my 80’s nostalgia collection surrounding an illustration of what our plastic pencil
containers looked like. The font of the child’s name was written in a connecting dots font using
two colors. The stickers were minimal to showcase the pencils inside. In writing this article, I
discovered that these boxes still exist and are called “Amac plastic containers”. I will be ordering
a few a.s.a.p.!”)

My favorite kinds of novelty pencils were by Russ. Russ pencils had a name or phrase engraved
on them with a cute or interesting topper. My Mom would give me one on every occasion like. For Halloween, I got the pumpkin, ghost, and black cat. I had a purple “Good Luck Troll” and a
Santa Claus Pencil. The “Ted D. Bear ” pencil had a brown, flocked bear wearing a red bowtie. He was exquisite. I also loved “Putt Putt Putt ”. It had a yellow, flocked car on top with plastic
red wheels. My favorite pencil had an actual mini spinning pinwheel on top. My second favorite
had a flexible pink hand on top. The fingers could bend to sign “Hang Loose ” and of course
“Fuck You”. The Russ pencil designs were so clever, and I got so much joy staring at them
because life had been hell.
In 1988, my Mom, sister, and I had just moved to a hip apartment complex called Vista Del Lago.
We had spent the year before living in a house with her long-term boyfriend, who I hated. In a
word, he was “Putrid,” and that’s how I refer to him because if I actually said his name, it’s like
what Stewie Griffin says “I would not stop throwing up!”
For some reason, no matter what nasty, mean, or violent thing he did, my Mom would always
take him back. Maybe she was attracted to him because he was the opposite of my Father, who
was a Mensch and the perfect Dad. But even when I was 5, I knew Putird was no good and that
we would never be safe or happy as long as he was in our lives.

Finally, when I was eleven, my Mom came to her senses and broke up with Putrid. He stayed in
the house we had shared and the three of us ladies moved into Vista Del Lago. It was way
better.
One school night, my sister and I were excited because our favorite Aunt from L.A. was over to
give us dinner and stay the night while our mom went on a date with her newest boyfriend.
While my little sister watched TV and played, I had to convince myself to do my math homework.
I always hated math, but I hated the feeling of showing up to school without my homework
completed even more. I sat at the counter in one of the barstools and forced myself to get it
done.
When I finished, I placed the papers inside my Supershades folder with a graphic of a toucan
wearing sunglasses in the corner. I zipped up the folder and my Math book inside of my
acid-washed denim backpack, ready for the next day. Then I joined my sister and aunt to eat
tortellini and watch TV until bedtime- feeling relieved and proud of myself.

In the morning, my Mother was back. I went downstairs to give her a hug. She had a stack of
developed pictures to show us of where she had just been. It turns out her date had been a 24
hour trip to visit a 100-acre ranch in Texas. She smiled while she showed us pictures of the animals, goats, swans, and a llama, the two lakes, the wooden bridge, and an enormous white
house which sat at the top of the property.
Then she asked in her soft, calm voice, “Do you girls like this place?” My sister and I were like
“Yeah, it looks nice.” “Well”, she continued, “that’s going to be your new home. And we’re going
now. So go pack some things because a limousine is on its way to take us to the airport!”
My sister and I were shocked and disturbed. We didn’t want to go to a ranch in Texas, even if it
was in a limousine. And now? Why now? Our Mother’s behavior, the smile, the pictures were
just a ploy to introduce her next bad idea revolving around a man. I felt betrayed.
Our Mother had found a rich boyfriend who wasn’t Putrid. But rich or not, why did she think it
was a good idea to impulsively rip me and my little sister away from everything we had known to
be with him?
I was angry, but I was a compliant child. I had learned that my opinion or feelings never mattered
when it came to adults. They were going to do what they were going to do. My Mother would
consider me ungrateful and ridiculous if I told her how I really felt. That this was wrong. That I
had heroically forced myself to finish my math homework the night before, for what? What about
turning in my homework? What about my school? What about my friends? What about my Dad,
my Step-mom, and my baby brothers? What about our clean, fresh start at Vista Del Lago?
On that random weekday morning in 1988, I left California without a word to my friends, school
or Dad- with only a few belongings in a bag. My heart ached. And my precious pencil collection
sat abandoned on my desk at school.
When we made it to the ranch in Texas, we saw the land and the animals and picked out our
bedrooms in the humongous house. Then our Mom and her boyfriend had us come into the
office with a Marlin Hanging on the wall to call our Dad. They told us not to tell him where we
were. Not just because it was against California Child Custody laws to take a child out of the
state without permission but because this was all so wrong on so many levels, and they knew it.
I spoke on the phone cautiously to my father, and I felt like a liar and an obedient child at the same
time. But when my little sister got on the phone, she couldn’t help herself. She was brave and
took the only chance she could to tell our Dad we had been taken away to Texas. She got on
the phone and said, “Hi Daddy! We’re in Texas!”
The events that followed after that phone call were filled with so much confusion, heartache, and
trauma that my sister and I only need to refer to this time in our lives as “Texas.”
In Texas, our Mom and her boyfriend constantly fought, partied, and left us for days on end with
strange people who were not fit to look after children. And while I was there, I felt the child in me
die. I couldn’t play pretend anymore. I didn’t remember how. I started having panic attacks on

the way to school, but I didn’t know what they were. I just knew I had to handle it. I started
daydreaming. Maybe that was my new form of play, but it wasn’t for fun. It was for survival.

(Pic 3. “Me, age 11, dissociating on my Mom’s Texas boyfriend’s yacht in Cabo San Lucas,
Mexico”.)

After a few months in Texas, we were taken back to our apartment in California, just as abruptly
as we had left. It was scary to leave the small amount of stability I had known in Texas whether
it was stable or not, but I was relieved to go home back to California.
I returned to school the next day, to everyone’s surprise. My teacher had me come inside before
the rest of the class to speak with me. She said “Lauren, unfortunately we didn’t know if you
were coming back, so the class auctioned off all your pencils.”
I just stared at her face processing the information. What was she saying? An auction? We
never had an auction in class before. How did that even work? Like rabid scavengers they bid
on my special pencils? I couldn’t find the words to express my feelings because I had never
really done it.
Inside my mind I was thinking very clearly, “Ok, so then I should be given my pencils back,
right? Because I’m back. Give the kids back their money or whatever they used to bid on my
stuff and return my pencils to me!” My teacher just gave me a dumb look like “Gosh yeah, they’re gone. So… sorry.”
But they weren’t gone. They were at different desks in different pencil containers around the
classroom. My heart was honestly broken. Those pencils were mine. They were one of the few
things left that made me smile. Objects I loved had become my home, a focus. After all I had
been through they represented the last of any happiness I had left inside me to feel.
My teacher did not have the students give back my pencils and none of the students even
offered them to me. There was just an awkward silence at my return.
Things only got worse before they got better. After school I was disgusted and extremely
disappointed to find my Mother and Putrid together in the car. I had thought we had gotten rid of
him. They took me and my sister to Frozen Yogurt. As we sat there, I told my Mom about my
pencils. “Oh well, honey. I’m sorry.” was all she said.
And Putrid, who had no business being there anyway just stared at me, observing me with his
smarmy self-satisfied smile. He never smiled out of joy or kindness, always when someone was
feeling badly.
I felt so alone. The injustice of everything was beyond my scope of rationalizing. I imagined an
invisible grown up there in the yogurt shop with me. She knew this was totally fucked. She knew
I was right about everything and everyone. That all of these adults who never had my best
interests at heart were completely messed up. I wasn’t the ridiculous one.
My feelings about wanting my pencils back were valid. Feeling livid and defeated at Putrid being
back in our lives was valid. Feeling traumatized about having to leave my Daddy to go to Texas
was valid. Feeling ostracized at school because I was now “the girl who disappeared and
returned mysteriously” was valid. I was amazing and I didn’t deserve any of this.
Over the next year, our Mother bounced back and forth between Putrid and her Texas boyfriend,
dragging me and my little sister along. Every departure was abrupt, fueled by my Mother’s
passionate love or anger towards her partner. She took us back and forth to Texas twice before
she finally got rid of her Texas boyfriend. After that we moved to Los Angeles for my Middle
School years.
Then one night in L.A. he came back- Putrid. Our Mom told us she was taking us back to live
with him in the same house we had escaped years before. I felt like I was slipping down a slide
into a sea of lava. But this time, I couldn’t hold my emotions or words back. I was 13, but I
screamed and sobbed like a 3-year-old. I begged, and pleaded. As I sat in my chair, my legs
shook and bounced up and down, tears and mucus dripped down my face, and I did not care. I
didn’t care that Putrid was observing me and smiling sickly. I didn’t care if I was going to be
called ridiculous or if I was disobedient. I could not live with him again! And like all the times before and what I had already known was that crying, screaming, and begging did not change
things. Grown-ups were going to do what they were going to do.

Finally, one day, I became a grown-up too. A grown-up who is so effing rad! My Mother and I
have since made peace, and she’s grown a lot. She left Putrid years ago. I’m so grateful for the
relationship we have. I’m also grateful for the grown-up I turned out to be.
I got a Film degree from Calarts and I love to make movies with my Best Friend. But my day job,
my career is being a Nanny. I get to be the person I always wished was there for me, like the
invisible person I imagined supporting me in the yogurt shop when I was eleven.

Last year, I was looking at vintage pencils on eBay. Surprisingly, I found my old favorites. Ted D.
Bear, The Pinwheel, My Good Luck Troll, Putt Putt Putt and the rest. I hesitated about spending
money on pencils, but then I spoke to my sister. She said, “Lauren, if it’s going to heal a part of
you that you lost, Treat Yo’self!”

My sister gave me permission to buy my pencils back. So I did. When I finally had them all
collected, I put them in a glass brick with transparent glass beads. My heart swelled. Unlike other
nostalgia I’ve collected that simply made me happy to look at, these 1980’s Vintage Russ
Pencils represented justice. Justice I never got. That I now have given to myself.”