The Dynamite Club (copied from the Rasmussen Blog)

This blog post was written as a submission to my family's blog, but because it's my personal memories I decided it belonged here too. (Thanks to Emma for the writing prompt.)

The Dynamite Club

When I was in elementary school, one of my very favorite things was to place a book order. Book orders came every couple of months. They were printed on thin, possibly recycled, colorful paper and smelled like newspaper. Page after page (well, maybe only four to six pages) of wonderful things to consider for purchase. And Mom usually let me buy something, probably because the prices were pretty cheap. Sometimes I ordered books. Sometimes I ordered posters. I loved getting posters of cute, fluffy little animals to tape all over my walls. Except taping anything to my walls was actually forbidden, so maybe I’d get away with one or two on the back of my door, and the rest of them I’d keep in the book and look at every once in a while.

The book club companies are smart—they put more than just books in their order forms. Sometimes there are little toys. Sometimes cool pencils or erasers. The parents know that most of the toys are cheaply made, won’t look as good in person as they do in the catalog, won’t hold up very long, and will almost certainly be lost to the recesses of a child’s closet, the garbage can, or boredom within a week. But the kids don’t know this. All they know is everything looks wonderful and the possibilities seem endless. On the back page of the book order, next to the actual order list to be filled out and turned in to the teacher, are the special items. Collections of books by the same author, books about parties and the supplies you need to have one, craft items, and magazine subscriptions.

Later, in my middle school years, I continued to get the more grown up version of book orders. I remember once ordering a book about becoming more popular, which gave good tips such as “Look up when you are walking down the hall, instead of at the floor,” “Say ‘hi’ to people you know, and be sure to remember their names,” and “Smile!” To a painfully shy kid, these tips were revolutionary ideas and may actually have been tried on occasion. I ordered different sets of posters now, with pictures of my favorite teen actors like Rob Lowe and Ralph Macchio. And then, on the back of one predestined book order that made its way into my tween-aged hands, was a subscription to the Dynamite magazine.

The Dynamite Magazine, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, was popular in the 1970’s and 1980’s as a guide to popular culture for children. It had articles about TV shows, movie and music stars, and advice columns. It had recipes, games and contests. The back cover had activities like items to punch out or assemble. The magazine usually had a poster or a card inside as a bonus. I don’t particularly remember any of these articles, but I remember that I loved the magazine. And one day I came across an invitation to join “The Dynamite Club”.

A CLUB! Just what every pre-teen, self-conscious, awkward middle school girl needs. I immediately sent in my order form and waited.

When it came in the mail, it was everything I hoped it would be. A big fat envelope stuffed full of papers I could use for things like club meeting notes and agendas, ideas for activities, punch-out membership cards and name tags, stickers and note cards. It was wonderful. I belonged to a CLUB! Well, actually I was going to the president of the club, once I invited some members. Problem: I’m too shy to actually invite anyone, and part of me wonders if it’s uncool. So, being the oldest of several children, I decided to condescend to inviting them to be members of my club, and of course make myself president and generally bossy leader of all of them.

And so it began. There is a picture, sometime in the early 80’s, of a meeting of the Dynamite Club happening in the driveway of our home. Shelley sitting in front, and David, Matt and Maren fanned out in front of her in a semi-circle. I don’t remember what we were talking about that day, but I had them.

Meetings took place “under the house”. In what is now the downstairs laundry room, there is an access panel to the crawl space under the house. Part of it had an old carpet for covering, part of it was just dirt. It was cold, rather stale smelling, and everything a secret club house should be. It was full of boxes of Mom and Dad’s stuff, and boxes and boxes of canned food storage that lived there for so many years that it eventually all got thrown out. But the boxes were laid out in such a way that you could crawl around and find any number of places to sit and hide things. We had mailboxes down there in the food storage boxes, and left messages to each other. We had our planning meetings there. It was wonderful.

Parties, which were the main reason we had the club, were the best activities. I would plan games and treats and prizes for the kids. I would walk to “the pharmacy” (further away from home than I would let my children walk nowadays, and far enough from home that I got hit by a car once crossing the road on the way to the pharmacy, but that’s another story) and buy penny candies for the prizes. Well, in the 80’s they were probably nickel and dime candies, but there were lots of little plastic boxes all lined up under the counter, and you could buy tootsie rolls, sweet tarts, suckers and such for just a few cents. I would load up, and probably score a few extras for myself, and head for home. Sometimes the candies would be given out one at a time for trying at balloon tosses, hula hoop contests and egg rolling contests. Sometimes they would be put into a home-made (and not very good) piñata. Once, when I had decided I was finally old enough to part with my 100 or more plastic Smurfs, they went into the piñata too. Now I wish I had them back. If you don’t know what a Smurf is, I’m sure the internet can help with that.

I don’t remember when the club meetings and parties ended. It probably just faded away as I got older and developed other interests and new friends who weren’t my siblings. Once, many years later, I decided to hold a reunion. This time, there were a few other sisters to invite. I have a picture of the sign on the door that leads to “under the house”, and all the siblings sitting on the stairs. The only thing I remember about that reunion was winding a skein of yarn for each person all around the back yard with a treasure attached to the end, and they each had to follow it to the end. Unfortunately, Maren’s had been left half finished as I had been interrupted and forgot to go back and finish it. Disappointment on her side, guilt on mine (to this day). One of the perils of being smack dab in the middle of 7 kids, I guess.

The Dynamite Club ran its course. It was put to rest many years ago, and only now and then is resurrected by a random memory. The Smurfs are all lost, the club agendas and note cards likely in a land fill somewhere, and the pharmacy is no more. But my siblings and I still have a club of sorts. We don’t call it a club, and we don’t have punch-out membership cards, and we certainly never meet under the house. But we often have meetings and parties, and we are all members of a wonderful group of beautiful, funny, talented, smart (and humble) people. We call it family.