A walk down memory lane...

In my anual retreating-from-the-world fest I always have at the beginning of summer, I journeyed back home to my folks place, which is pretty much like cutting off all communication with the world, especially with a 28.8 modem on dialup (it's perpetually 1997 in Fort Dodge). But currently, the folks are trying to get me to clear out the last vestiges of my stuff that is still stored there, which is actually pretty fun, because it's like looking into the deep recesses of my past, but all conveniently located in the attic.

For example, I found my most beloved child-hood stuffed animal, a unicorn named Mr. Unicorn (I wasn't a very creative child). For years now I thought he was lost to the ages, but this was a momentous find, for my love for unicorns cannot be overstated, but that's another post for another day.

But even more exciting was cleaning out a box of stuff from college in which I found my first-ever anonymous death threat, another great artifact I had feared lost. Not only is it the first, but I would argue it is the best, and not just for sentimental reasons. I found it stuffed under the door handle of my car one day. At that point in my life I was driving a very tiny Ford Festiva that I had festoned with all sorts of spray-painted messages against the war. I bought the car for $100, so I figured I might as well make it into a driving billboard of my political beliefs while I'm at it. Well, this letter came from someone bravely identifying themselves as "Anonymous USAF" (funny thing about death threats is that the cowards never have the guts to use their names, just further filling out the ridiculousness of their actions).

Highlights of the letter include the author claiming that "I die so people like you can bitch about things you don't undertsand" (which again makes this one of the best threats ever, because it apparently came from a ghost) and a great number of factual innacuracies, such as "SADDAM HUSSEIN [sic] has killed millions of people including Americans on Sept. 11th," although to be fair, this was only a year into the war, so the fact that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 was information only a year and a half old.

By the end of my undergrad years I ended up getting a good number of death threats, but none are ever as special as the first, which now sits in a beautiful frame next to my computer, reminding me that I must be doing something right with my life...