The Origins Of A Cardboard Addict:I'm Missing You Like Candy

In the late 90's, we had a trio of young ladies making it into the music biz and had boys at my age crushing.

While most boys were throwing themselves at the likes of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, which I crushed on Britney for a little while, it wasn't until 1999 when the third girl came into the picture and she was the one for me.

The name Mandy Moore could be heard spoken by myself a lot in 1999 all the way through 2004ish.  I was super crushing and my dreams in my freshman year of high school was that someday we would get married.

I had it all planned out, I would go to Duke to play men's basketball (they were my favorite team at the time) or to Notre Dame to play football (same) and then I would skip over the pros and move to Hollywood to start my life with her. As with all big dreams when you are young, they don't always turn out as you plan.

I didn't play basketball once in high school despite some interest from the coach for me to and myself wanting to, it just didn't pan out. When it came to football, coaches didn't give me enough opportunities to show what I could do and one game when I finally got in I blew my ACL from a cheap shot and that dream was over. Instead I went onto working retail as a meat cutter/manager and it's where I met my wife all those years ago (and I wouldn’t change that as I am a lucky man)

Not quite the 90's plan I had, but sometimes God has other plans for you and they are always good.

I recently was reminded of all of this and my crush on Mandy when Wes sent me a card that brought back all of these memories.

This 2008 PopCardz of the one and only, Mandy Moore.

It made me dig through a tote of stuff I had stored away to find some of the leftover memorabilia I still had of Mandy from those days.

Her first CD. I must have sold off the rest. I had every CD and soundtrack she was apart of.

Teen People magazine cover

A poster

A singing poster. I am not sure what ever happened with the actual item. This is just a back cardboard piece. There was a time when companies found making cards and posters sing was a good idea. They aren't stuffed animals!!

Inside of a magazine.

 

And a clip from my local newspaper.

There were many other scrapbook pieces as well but just thought I would show off a few. Somewhere I bought a really cheap 8x10 autograph as well but not sure if it's authentic despite it coming with a guarantee from some guy who printed off a piece of paper saying so.

Since my crushing on her back in the day, Mandy has been married twice and moved onto doing movies and TV with the popular series This Is Us. She doesn't really do music anymore. And just this year received her due on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame with a star.

As for myself, I changed careers as well but am still married to the same person. I don't have a Hollywood Walk Of Fame star but do have a few minor awards in sport card blogging. That's gotta be close right? Maybe we need a Cardboard Walk Of Fame. What do you guys think?

The card from Wes also reminded me that I wouldn't mind hunting down the memorabilia card from that set of Mandy. I guess you can stick in on my want list among the many other dream cards. Hopefully I won't have to wait much longer on getting it though, because I am missing it like candy.