Students find comfort in childhood items
Story by: Jeena Carter
Photos by: Ella Oakley and Jadin Smith
Design by: Madelyn Wilder
Editor’s Note: This article was originally released in Issue 20 of the WKU Talisman print magazine. In the print version of this story, source Thomas Witherington’s name was misspelled. The story has since been corrected. Talisman regrets this error. Click here to read more articles from the Talisman’s semesterly print.
For some students, their most prized possession coming to college wasn’t their laptop or planner. Accounting major Jenna Whitsell from Owensboro said that her childhood stuffed monkey, Georgie, represents safety and familiarity.
University, majoring in accounting. Whitsell said she has had her stuffed
monkey, Georgie, for 20 years. (Photo by Jadin Smith)
“When my parents divorced, Georgie was my constant, no matter where I was,” Whitsell said.
Georgie accompanied Whitsell to everything from houses to even Lexington for her state cheer competition in high school.
“It was a month after my Papa died, and I decided to spend the night at my Nana’s,” Whitsell said. “I was bawling my eyes out because I didn’t have Georgie.”
She said she tried to think of a way to get home to grab Georgie, then come back. Because of this, Whitsell said her grandma bought extra replicas of Georgie.
“I did steal the other ones from her house after that,” Whitsell said. “Georgie is the only one I have with me or take with me.”
Whitsell said that Georgie has been through a lot.
“Georgie currently has painted nails, remnants of a band-aid, and a couple of stitches,” Whitsell said.
When she was younger, she put a princess band-aid on Georgie, but later removed the princess part, leaving the adhesive on Georgie.
Similar to Whitsell, sophomore theater major Kynzee Schloss from Paducah, Kentucky, also has a sentimental childhood item, a blanket named Galankalank.
“My mom told me that’s its name because I couldn’t say blanket,” Schloss said.
When Schloss was younger, she said she was given the choice between this dinosaur blanket and one her grandma crocheted for her. She chose Galankalank.
“My great-grandma got it for me at a yard sale for a nickel,” Schloss said. “Ever since then, I’ve never been able to get rid of it.”
Schloss said the blanket features a baby dinosaur and a mother dinosaur with an egg in the corner. The backside of the blanket is made of a red quilted fabric. With Schloss having had this blanket since before she was born, she said its color has begun to fade. Knowing this, her parents decided to surprise her for her upcoming birthday.
“We found one [replica of the blanket] on Etsy,” Schloss said. “And so my parents bought it for me for my 19th birthday.”
When given the replica, Schloss said that it was cool to see the comparison. However, it just wasn’t the same as her Galankalank.
Schloss sleeps with the blanket nightly and says that the yellow dinosaur is her favorite.
“And so the yellow dinosaur is my favorite sport, and so it’s all worn out there,” Schloss said. “It’s just very comforting.”
nostalgic for him. (Photo by Ella Oakley)
Senior creative writing major Caden McGill from Georgetown, Kentucky, has a reminder of his own childhood with his Xbox 360 Slim. He said his parents bought it for him, and he and his siblings had many Halo nights growing up.
“Well, I’ve always loved video games, and it’s really nostalgic because on it are all the profiles that my siblings and I had when we were kids,” McGill said.
McGill said that they did eventually get other Xboxes, but he and his siblings never grew the same attachment to the upgraded versions. They decided to keep the Xbox 360 Slim because it was still working and now had nostalgia attached to it.
“This semester, I took it with me because I’ve had plans to play some old 360 games with my friends, and I brought four controllers so we can all play games together,” McGill said.
Sophomore Thomas Witherington from Clarksville, Tennessee, said he also has a nostalgic item, which is a childhood lamp featuring a baseball player and a mitt.
“It’s been important only because it’s been in every room that I’ve had since then, whether that’s here or home,” Witherington said.
Witherington said that his mom got the lamp for him at a yard sale when he was only 4-years-old, and he has held on to it ever since.
“It reminds me of being a kid,” Witherington said. “It was really cool to me as a four-year-old, you know, it has a baseball player with a baseball mitt. And it’s still cool.”
Despite never playing baseball himself, this lamp was still a part of his childhood in an indirect way.
“I didn’t really like going outside as a kid, so it was just there the whole time; it was all I saw,” Witherington said.
After this lamp became a part of every room in his childhood growing up, he said it’s hard to get rid of.
“The room I grew up in is different now, but I like remembering it because that was where I spent most of my childhood,” Witherington said. “I had someone tell me once that it reminded them of a childhood bedroom, and yeah, that literally is what it was.”
Coming to college, Witherington said the lamp shade got “smushed,” but he still kept it regardless.
“It’s nice to have a little reminder of home,” Witherington said.
Though these childhood items might be considered “silly,” as Schloss said about her blanket, the thoughts behind these items don’t take away the nostalgia students experience.