Your First Poster
What Do You Remember About Your Space
I had a unique conversation with a bunch of folks at my library’s book sale the other day about posters we hung in our room as kids. As far as rites of passage go, that first poster hang is a big one.
And I don’t mean a framed picture, or lights, or letter boxes. A straight up, scotch tape on the wall, paper poster.
This all came up, as you might imagine, because one of my generous volunteers at the book sale thrilled Little Bean by giving her a large poster of a tiger. She loves it! She went home and taped it straight up on the door to her room. More on that in a second.
The conversation with mostly ladies around my age centered, as one would expect, on Shaun Cassidy as a popular first poster subject. My first thought was Charlie’s Angels, but upon further reflection I think my first poster was the one included in the Let It Be album. And from there, my room went mostly music - besides the Beatles, there was ELO, Deep Purple, Moody Blues and Black Sabbath. My dad even let me paint a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon spectrum on my ceiling.
In the case of Little Bean, when asked what to name the tiger, she said, “Well, it’s not Tigger,” then paused and exclaimed, “That’s it, Not Tigger is his name!”
So, Not Tigger becomes her first poster. I’ve already seen her touch Not Tigger on the nose as she’s leaving her room. A good luck gesture?
That space of hers is so important as a place that she can lay claim to. She’s in a place now where she’s beginning to search for ways to assert control, and making a space that’s hers allows her those first important feelers to finding her way. And surrounding herself in that space with images and music and books and, yes, rocks, provides comfort and ownership.
And so, we’d like to know, what was your first poster? What do you remember about your childhood room? Your space?
Well, this is a bit embarrassing, but one of my first posters was Miss Piggy from the Muppets! And one of Andy Gibb! I couldn't tell you which one came first but I remember both of them hanging in my childhood room. My college dorm had Jon Bon Jovi and Ralph Macchio (Karate Kid).
When I was very young, I loved Peanuts: in fact, I still do, and love reading old Peanuts cartoons. One day we were walking through a Hallmark store and I saw a poster of Charlie Brown with that pensive look on his face. Behind him were squiggly stripes in all the colors of the rainbow.
The kicker? It had a quote, in Charles Schultz's block handwriting that said:
"Every morning when I get up I feel like I'm over my head"
Talk about inspirational! I asked my mom if I could buy it with my allowance money, and she said "But it's so depressing," but I insisted it was actually happy because I would wake up and be happier than Charlie Brown. I thinik I'd say anything to get the poster, which I did. I have no idea where it is now, probably in my parent's attic, eaten by mice. But yes, I had that poster above my bed all the way until high school. And I don't thinnk it's message to me was ever a depressing one.