Moving Day Sentimentality

Sometimes I forget that the TransWorld I work at is the same bigger-than-life TransWorld that I was obsessed with back in high school and through college. The spell it held over me started to wear off after the first year working here, but only out of familiarity, not because it had lost any of its magic.

This past week, we’ve been pulling together all the pieces of TransWorld getting ready for the big move from its humble beginnings in this old building in an industrial park in Oceanside, California where it has been for I’d guess twenty-plus years. We’re moving to a new, futuristic, e-building with more video editing bays, live broadcasting abilities, faster internet, a new skatepark, and leaving behind the leaky ceilings, maze of office/huts, and a lot of history.

But just today, I sort of hit a breaking point. I feel like Steve Martin in The Jerk, grabbing at all the artifacts of snowboard history on the walls, all the drawers full or mystery videotapes labeled “Mack Dawg” or “Steve Graham interview” or “Standard originals.”Despite the terse note from the corporate headquarters stating that, “Our warehouse is limited and will not accommodate sentimentality.” Call it what you want, it’s coming with us. Here’s an example of the sentimentality in question:

A box of old race boots. When was the last time you saw a race boot?

OMG! A Burton Air. (With K2 bindings?)

A K2 with my all-time favorite TransWorld shirt/sticker design. It was called “the answers.” See below.

The answers: “No I don’t ski anymore.”

We’ll find a place for this old Vision with mystery bindings.

Another old-school K2.

We’ll make room for this Kidwell. I guess the Morrow Lunchtray can come, too …

We don’t discriminate against raceboards especially with graphics this cool …

I blew out the pic, but this top boot is an OG Scott Downey Pro Flex 1 Sorel, those blue things are Airwalks, that brown one is something called a Boon’s?never heard of it. Those things you only see the top of are maybe 1st generation Airwalks with weird metal clasps.

A box full of old posters. Get it Tom Routh?Break Free!

The scale of the attic situation. I’ll confess to leaving all the step-in stuff behind. It should’ve never happened, let’s just pretend it didn’t.

Back issues from the early days.

This is the lunch room. Take it, leave it?

Keep it, ditch it?

Well, that’s the situation here at TWS headquarters, hope you’re getting some turns in. I’m itchy as hell and I probably got some airborne disease from rooting around in the attic. Gotta go. Have a good weekend.

“And that’s it and that’s the only thing I need, is this. I don’t need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that’s all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that’s all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that’s all I need. And that’s all I need too. I don’t need one other thing, not one - I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that’s all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.”?Steve Martin, The Jerk