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I’m still tremendously enjoying my brief Texas vacay but thought I’d drop by for a minute to regale you with a little late 1990’s-early 2000’s nostalgia brought on by a highly entertaining discussion at last night’s dinner with my dear friends. I think these few things just about sum up the gradeschool experience of any child who attended school in San Antonio between 1993 and 2001.

First, we have the popcorn shirt. This was fashion excellent at its trendiest. My friend Julia from Wisconsin wasn’t familiar with this sexy style. Apparently this was a Texas thing? The best part was that it started out itty bitty and stretched to fit you. We saw a lady wearing one last night and it brought back all kinds of stylin’ memories. If you were a kid growing up in San Antonio, don’t even pretend that you didn’t own or seriously wanted to own one.

Do you remember the ever-popular rainbow pencil that was sold for $0.25 out of a pencil machine at every single elementary school in south-central Texas? They were top-notch and cool enough that they were actually prone to being stolen by your peers. You definitely didn’t lend these babies out to your friends. If you had these, you were officially rad. These little gems ranked right up there with glittery gel pens and mechanical pencils, which were about the hippest thing ever to an 11-year-old. Last night Emily divulged that she used to participate in the black market purchasing of mechanical pencils for $5 per pencil in elementary school. They were that cool. She said that $5 per pencil seemed reasonable at the time. I about died laughing.

Ah yes, the power bead bracelet. Another must have accessory. Again, don’t pretend you didn’t own at least 5 in a variety of colors and wore all five daily because they brought you powers such as stregth, patience, grace, wisdom, and skinnyness.

Here we have The Battle of the Alamo Imax film that played at Rivercenter Mall’s Imax Theatre. If you went to gradeschool in San Antonio, you DID see this film. If you were extra lucky, as many of us were, you saw this film every. single. year. for six years in a row. You had it memorized. You preffered field trips to the actual Alamo, The McNay Art Museum, The Witte Museum, the HEB Treehouse, The Children’s Museum, The Tower of the Americas, The Magik Theate, The San Antonio Missions, and even the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra performances you were dragged to, but let’s be real, if anyone escaped their schooling years without seeing this cinematic masterpiece at least once (you didn’t), you must have been home schooled. This film is still playing 15 years later.

Pogs and slammers. I have to be honest – I have absolutely no idea what the point of these were, except that you played some kind of game with them (that I obviously don’t remember) and you traded them back and forth and they were a blazing hot commodity. As kids we had millions of them in every imaginable color and pattern and you traded for prettier ones and kept them in special pogs scrapbooks. They were glittery and metallic and the biggest waste of space and time ever. I cannot get over how big the obsession with these things was. I had them, but what was the point of them again? It was just one of those things you had to have in order to exist as a kid in San Antonio.

Watermelon lollipops covered in chili powder, Lucas, and Twang. Nowhere else on Earth other than in Mexico and Texas would it occur to people to coat everything from fruit to lollipops to pickles in absurdly spicy, salty or sour candy powder that, like an acid, eats away at your intestines. This stuff was addictive. It could be purchased at the sketchy south-side Walmarts, from gas stations, street vendors, and the gradschool black market where kids bought it and sold it to other kids for a $0.25 profit (so you could in turn buy a metallic rainbow pencil). You’d think these were drugs and not candy. Unless you’ve had this before, I don’t think I can explain Lucas to you. It’s red and spicy and sour and hot and to automatically decrease the nutritional value of nearly anything, you just spinkled this on it. I may have to buy some today and bring it back to Ohio so Ted can experience the life of a child in San Antonio.

Along those same lines were the most popular after-school snacks for San Antonio school children, all of which were sold at the school by the cafeteria ladies – giant sour pickles spinkled with hot sauce or (what else?) Lucas and Twang, the rainbow popsicle, and Flaming Hot Cheetos. Please keep in mind the organic nature and excellent nutritional content of all these healthy snack choices. Flaming Hot Cheetos are ridiculous. They turn your fingers and tongue bright red and even for me they still require the drinking of milk afterward to tone down the fire in my mouth. Sour pickles are still a guilty pleasure of mine. I love them. Most kids after-school snacks consisted of something like this. Welcome to San Antonio. Be jealous.

While we’re on the subject of food, I’ve had two “Of course. I forgot this is Texas” food moments this weekend. Yesterday morning I bit into what I thought was a lemon poppyseed muffin, only to discover that it was, in fact, a jalepeno cornbread breakfast muffin. Then I remembered I’m in Texas and that of course that wasn’t going to be a lemon poppyseed muffin. What was I thinking? Clearly, I’ve been away from Texas for too long if I couldn’t expect a jalepeno cornbread muffin for breakfast at a buffet. And last night at dinner I ordered a watermelon margarita. When it arrived, the rim of the glass was glistening with what I assumed to be crushed orange flavored sugar crystals to compliment the watermelon flavor of the margarita. I immediately began sucking the sugary powder off the edge, like any normal person, only to be slightly taken back by the discovery that it wasn’t orange sugar at all, but chili powder. Because here in Texas (see chili watermelon lollipop above), we line our magarita glasses with Lucas. Note taken. Now I remember. You know you’re in texas when…

Stay tuned for recaps of my trip to texas!