Random Thoughts - A Middle School Memory

Every once in a while, a random thought invades my mind, bringing back a long forgotten event from my past. Usually, they're not anything significant & are usually forgotten again just as quickly as they were remembered.

This afternoon, I remembered one of those fads that went around when I was in middle school...Slam Books! Anyone remember those?

A Slam Book was a small stack of notebook paper stapled together or a spiral notebook. Each page was blank except for a topic at the top & numbers listed along the side. On the first page, you wrote your name beside a number of your choice. Then on subsequent pages, you were to write something next to that same number that went w/ the topic at the top of the page.

For example, say I chose the number 15. On the first page I would write my name next to 15. The next page's topic is Name Your Favorite Movie & I would write Somewhere in Time next to number 15 (of course back then it was probably something w/ the Brat Pack like St. Elmo's Fire or Sixteen Candles...I was a tween & teen in the 80s, of course!) This would go on for maybe 15-20 pages & my answer for each topic would go next to the number 15.

Topics would include things like Who Do You Think is the Cutest Boy in the 8th Grade?, What's Your Favorite (Song, Color, Book, TV Show, etc.)?, What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?, etc. They were fun ways to get to know your friends & acquaintances better.

Now that I'm remembering all this, I wonder if these might be early versions of some of the fun memes that go around these days & that's why I like to participate in them so much!

NOTE: I just did an online search for Slam Books & apparently some of them were not as nice as the ones I remember participating in. One site said that they were used to write mean things anonymously about other students...80s bullying tactics, I guess. Some of those commenting said that the ones they did were not that bad & were just surveys of their friends (like what I remember). Others said they went all the way back to the 40s & 50s.