Fragile Existance
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this is a photo book. (with a few childhood memories)
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Table of Contents
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Amusement Park
Days of Candy
You Gotta Laugh
20 22 24 Kicking High
Easy Feeling
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Christmas Time
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Beginning of the Band
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Barb Marner
“One memory that I have that was a very happy experience is a sixth grade class trip that we took to Cedar Point. It was probably 1980 and I remember we had to get up super early to get on a couple of buses to take us to Cedar Point. Cedar Point wasn't as big back then as it is now I mean it was very popular but it didn't have the number of roller coasters and things. I hung out with my three best friends Stephanie, Janie, and Cheri.
I was given some spending money for this trip by my mom and dad. I chose for a souvenir one of those dog leashes that actually looks like there's an invisible dog on the end. I really only remember this well because at one point my friend Stephanie grab the leash when she saw a couple of nuns sitting on a park bench and she acted as if the dog walked over to the nuns and relieved itself on them. She literally tip the collar as if the dog was lifting its leg to use the bathroom.
We went on so many rides things like the antique cars, the little sports cars the Tilt-A-Whirl, scrambler, the ferris wheel, and many more. I remember this first trip to Cedar Point we went on the Blue Streak I think this may have been the only roller coaster they had back then it seems small these days but it was pretty amazing back then. I remember being super scared and super excited all at the same time but we all really enjoyed it.
That day was a lot of fun and more fun because I spent it with some friends it was also a brand new experience for me because I had never been to Cedar Point before. We got home that night probably at midnight and I think most of us we're falling asleep on the bus ride home it has been a great day.�
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Amusement Park
“I remember being super scared and super excited all at the same time but we all really enjoyed it.�
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Days of Candy
“Was really bad that I did that to him because I think it messed him up a little bit�
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Kendal Exelby
“When I was maybe nine or ten and my little brother was three or four. We were in the house I grew up in. We were always coming up with new games to play and different activities to do since we were from a smaller suburban neighborhood we had to create our fun.
As far as I can remember my brother was never opposed to getting dressed up cute and begging for candy with me. All of the neighbors seemed to be okay with it. They definitely thought it was a little wired though, because it was summer time rather than Halloween. It was a bonding experience that I’ll never forget. He probably wanted the candy just as much as I did.
I remember I would dress up my little brother Palmer, in my princess costumes and make him a little bed out of old pillows and blankets in our red wagon. I would parade him around the neighborhood going door to door asking for candy even though it was the middle of the summer. It was nowhere near Halloween. I think because we were so cute and young people would still give us their leftover candy. We’d always get twizzlers and stuff. And it was really bad that I did that to him because I think it messed him up a little bit, but it was fun because we got to share the candy in the end.
When I ask Palmer if he remembers when I would dress him up and take him door to door to get candy he says he never remembers. I think he just doesn’t want to think about how I would force him to dress up. Other than that it was really memorable to me. It was all my idea and it was nice having someone to go along with my little plan just to get some candy. I’m glad my brother is younger than me because I could tell him what to do. If it were switched around who knows what kinds of things he would make me do.”
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“My brother was tickling me so hard that I threw up all over my bed, and I wasn’t even mad about it.”
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You Gotta Laugh
Clay Sturgeon
“Every night when I was a lot younger, my mom, my brother, and I would all go into my room. Usually these nights were extremely late, and I shouldn’t have been up that late when I was so young. We would talk for hours before we went to bed. We would have conversations about everything, not really knowing where it would take us each night. I would be acting all weird and doing crazy stuff and make them laugh, because I loved entertaining them.
sticks in my head because of how much my family made me laugh. I didn’t know I could laugh hard enough to through up. It also didn’t help that my brother was tickling me as hard as he could. I didn’t like the tickling as much, but I loved the laughing part. It’s good to have these memories still in my head because they don’t happen anymore. My brother has moved out and it wouldn’t be as funny as it used to be. I still bring up the fact that I threw up because of all of the tickling and laughter. They still think it is just as funny as I do. I’m glad we could share that bonding experience with me and I didn’t feel embarrassed about it. We all kind of just laughed it off and went to sleep. It was a good day to be a kid and not worry about being embarrassed of puking in front of other people.
They would make me laugh more than anyone else I knew. My brother Zac, would always tickle me too. We would just hang out there all the time. One time my brother was tickling me so hard that I threw up all over my bed, and I wasn’t even mad about it. I just kept laughing, I thought it was funny, but I was also crying at the same time because I had just threw up. My mom cleaned it up for me and then eventually everybody went to bed. I only threw up that once, but it 17
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Kicking High
Amanda Bilancio
“Okay one time when I was a kid...I don’t remember where we were but, me, my mom, my brother, my dad, and my sister, all took my brother to taekwondo camp. We all loaded up the car and started heading to his campsite. I think it was in Tennessee or someplace close to that. We had to stay the night at a hotel which we were kind of sad about, when we found out, because my brother had to stay at his taekwondo camp.
and said we wanted to join taekwondo and learn how to be just as cool as him. I knew that it would be good for all us of because then we have a bonding experience together as a family. We went on so many more trips because of taekwondo and it brought us closer to together than we had ever been. We loved taekwondo. We made so many memories of us in taekwondo together and it grew us into stronger people. It developed our bond together and watching him at that taekwondo camp we knew that we would enjoy being together.
My sister and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. The campsite was beautiful. The trees were all so luscious and green and the sky was the bluest I’d ever seen it. There was also a zipline, where we got to see him go down it. We were a little bummed out that we couldn’t go on the zip-line with him. We saw him doing different kind of taekwondo moves and hanging out with his friends. That’s when we decided to join taekwondo. We walked up to him after he was done doing something with his friends, then we bowed to him
Eventually we stopped going maybe four or five years later, but we still to this day hold on to the memories we made while we were doing taekwondo together. There were so many vacations and fun trips we took just because of taekwondo. I’m so glad we had the opportunity to do all those things together, as a family.”
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“My sister and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.�
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He’d just come up with some of the most imaginative things that I’d ever heard at the time.
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Easy Feeling
Melissa Bilancio
“One of my favorite memories was when my dad would swing me as a little kid in our backyard. It was my brother and I just swinging together at the same time and he would tell us all these madeup stories. Usually he would swing us at golden hour so it made the ambiance so much better. The stories that he would say to us were always right off the top of his head, and they were always different, but usually it had something to do with traveling to another place. He would pretend like the swings were our way of transporting to another location.
let my imagination take over and think of all of the stories in my head while he would push me back and forth. It was something that I think expanded my imagination to this day. Swinging outside is still one of my favorite things to do. Whenever I see a swing or get the opportunity to swing I will always take it. When I swing back and forth I still imagine what my dad would say to me and how vivid he made the stories. Even though I’m now an adult, I still will get warm flashbacks of the time I was a kid and everything was new to me.
While he would swing us back and forth he would say something along the lines of “we are now getting on a plane, we’re headed to California and we’re going to jump off this plane, we’re going to dive into the ocean, we’re going to pick up a shark and eat a pizza on top of it.” He’d just come up with some of the most imaginative things that I’d ever heard at the time. I would either close my eyes and listen, or look up at the sky as he was talking to us. I would just
I always thank my dad for doing that for us because it made my childhood a lot more interesting. It’s crazy how when you’re a child some of the littlest things can mean so much to you. If my dad wouldn’t have told those stories I don’t know if I would be the creative person I am today. He really helped me open my mind to a whole new world of imagination.” 23
Beginning of the Band
Drew Biggs “The band has played a really big role in my life because it lasted eight years. When I think of the people that spent the most time with me collectively over the most transitional periods of my life or even the people that I think of the most without really even needing to see them, is the people I was in the band with. Eight years of being in a creative work environment while also being friends was just a very interesting dynamic. The band was this really definitive part of my working career as a creative, but also the thing that set up the closest friends in the world.
brother that played bass, Sam Mead played guitar, Dylan played drums and then we got this kid named Jacob Shook, and he was the shittiest guitar player I’ve ever heard in my life and he was our rhythm guitarist and we had a piano player named Keith. We prepped all fifth grade year and we played the two biggest shows we could imagine. The first one was the talent show all over again, and it was kind of a big deal because everyone went to these talent shows in elementary school. It was the biggest night of the year. We played “TNT” by ACDC, that song is like an anthem. We don’t really know what we’re doing with the equipment, we’re like fifth graders, we are having our parents set up the equipment for us. There’s just this weird moment where everything is set up and ready to go. It’s really quite but we knew they were about to open the curtains and we were going to play. The idea of it was like the super bowl of a fifth graders life. As we were playing my friend yells at the top of his lungs “they rock for life!” So we play the show and instantly it’s a classic, everyone loves it, we were known as the band kids now.
It all started through a mutual contest, because there was a talent show at my school and I was performing a “KISS” song by myself. It was really jazzy, I had a fedora. I threw it out to the crowd as I sang this song and at the end of the show there was a band called foursquare. It was a drummer and a guitarist and they ripped hardcore. At the end of it, I knew Sam and Dylan but I hadn’t really like known they were musicians. At the end of the show, with out parents present, we’re like “ hey yeah we should like start a band.” There was this very odd period where we had a singer a guitarist and a drummer and we were wondering who else was going to join the band. My twin brother decided that he needed to get a bass and that was hilarious because Mitch swooped in there really quick.
Looking back on it, that was the best part of the band. It was before trying to get gigs and setting expectations. The band starting was like a symbolism for how much I wanted to be in creative endeavors.
This was the fourth grade. Then in the fifth grade we really got everything up and running. So it was me, my twin
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“The idea of it was like the super bowl of a fifth graders life.”
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“Well after eating all this it took about one hour later and I started to get dizzy�
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Christmas Time
Jeff Marner
“One of my very favorite childhood memories was when I was nine years old. It was Christmas time, no school, two weeks off. My parents always had a huge tree in our family room decorated and lighted. With piles of presents underneath it except there were always special presents that would appear be there by Christmas morning. This one particular Christmas we just had dinner. All my siblings were there. Two sisters and one brother. Plus their boyfriends and girlfriend and of course, me.
hugged me and made sure to tuck me into my bed so I could rest and be ready for presents in the morning. If my dad wouldn’t have caught me in the act of puking I probably would of just thrown up all over the floor and someone else would have to clean it up. I’m so glad my dad was there to help, otherwise I probably would of gotten yelled at by my mom. Without my dad I wouldn’t be the man I am today. I think a lot of my love and support for other people stems from following in my dad’s footfrints. This is only one time of many times my dad was there for me throughout my life. My dad has always been a big inspiration to me and I am forever indebted to him and will love him the same. Miss him every day since his passing 10 years ago.”
I was downstairs watching TV with them and after a movie we all wanted snacks and of course, I chose ice cream and a bowl of whip cream. After eating all this, it took about an hour later, and I started to get dizzy and went to see my dad who was doing puzzles with my uncle and by the time I got to him I was falling over and my dad caught me and he knew somehow what was going on and took me to the sink just in time for me to puke my guts up. 30 minutes later I was feeling better and my dad 29
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don’t stop imagining
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