Don't ever change a book I never wanted to make: a true story about some paper I thought I set aflame.

That poor guy up there is not me. Nor is the one on the opposite page. But they both capture something about high school that I can't really articulate with words.

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I had an idea for a book I thought would be fun. The book would be a compendium of notes written to people in their high school yearbooks. I even had a tentative title: Boy, We Sure Were Dumb. This would be especially fun because I would be revisiting other people's pasts and avoiding my own. That was not to be the case.

After making a few phone calls to friends, I realized that not everyone had lugged their yearbooks with them after moving away from home. In fact, no one had. Soliciting notes would be a lengthy process. It would probably take many days, if not weeks. That amount of time far exceeded my attention span. I wanted the book Now. And then I realized if I wanted the book now, I would have to find my own yearbooks.

My chances of finding my yearbooks were slimmer than a shadow. Late in high school I went through several purging sessions. My agenda was to erase the symbols of my youth. So I tore down all the posters in my room, trashed my photographs, incinerated six paper bags of notes and then tried to rid myself of my yearbooks. You might call it-memorabilia-cide. But thanks to my mother, and ...