I did an interview this week with Pat Hazell, a former writer for "Seinfeld" who has created a one-man show about childhood memories from the '60s and '70s that opens tonight at City Theatre. He got me wondering what ever happened to my Partridge Family lunch box.

It had a squat Thermos, usually full of strawberry milk, and the box was held shut by a little plastic tab that gripped the lip on the metal lid, and every once in a while, something would snag on the plastic tab, the lid would fall open and the Thermos and the inevitable apple would bounce off in different directions. There is no better way to catch the eye of that special cute boy and make him snort orange drink through his nose.

My mom threw out my old lunch boxes, but she saved my baby teeth. Figures. Which would fetch more on eBay now?

The tooth fairy was very generous, possibly because I was an only child and therefore eligible for the entire dental compensation fund. But putting a tooth under the pillow and finding it miraculously replaced by delicious cash in the morning was just the grand finale of the tooth-loss drama. First you had the hint of looseness, then you had the increasing wiggle, then you had the one-thread hinge. That was the coolest, when you could get the tip of your tongue into the socket of the dead tooth and stick it out at people. Made you the hit of the car pool.

I put my teeth under the pillow in a plastic sandwich bag. We were all about hygiene. With my dad's horror of germs, I suspect it was spirited from under my head with tongs.

In middle school we had to wear awful green uniforms, pleated tunics with white blouses, and no sneakers except in gym class. Our leathery gym teachers would yell "Tie that hair back, Lady Godiva," as if you'd forgotten your clothes rather than your barrette.

The science teacher was rumored to have a fetus in a jar in her supply closet. No one ever saw it, but we were sure it was there, like the spider eggs in Bubble Yum.

And all those years, I rode the school bus, and I took the train, with my show-and-tell and my lunchbox and my Trapper Keeper and my change purse full of Wacky Packages in my bookbag, and I waited. I waited and waited for that magical initiation into the realm of freedom and coolness and adulthood.

Driver's ed.

Everybody has a driver's ed story. My friend Karen often mentions Mr. McDonough and his story about the careless boy who was driving with his arm around his girlfriend, got into an accident, reflexively jerked his arm in the excitement and broke the girlfriend's neck. Fortunately, the demise of the bench seat now makes it almost impossible to kill by cuddling.

He also warned students not to assume that following the rules would ensure safety: "You could be right -- DEAD right."

Ced the Post-Gazette Tech Man had a driver's ed teacher who'd take you out for a little practice and then decide it was time for pie and coffee, so he'd have you drive him to a diner.

The pie and coffee were for him. Not you. You got stories about his boat.

In my school, we had Wilson's Driving School. Mr. Wilson Jr. taught the classroom part, and Mr. Wilson Sr. took you out in the dual-controlled K car. At home, I was working with a 10-year-old Beetle with a "semiautomatic" transmission. It was considerably harder to drive than the K car, and while it wasn't dual-controlled, my mother did her best by grabbing any handles within reach.

But the best part about driver's ed was "Signal 30."

I have never actually seen "Signal 30." It wasn't required, and by the time it was screened at the end of the course, I had heard such dire things about its mythic goriness that I feared it might make me lose my nerve completely. I was scared enough of what my dad would do if I wrecked the car; I didn't need to think about being decapitated by steel rods -- though that might save me from the dad tirade.

I was a little shocked when Ced the Tech Man said, "Did you ever hear of a movie called 'Signal 30'?" Ced's got a good 10 years on me, which makes me wonder: How long has this movie been on the driver's ed circuit?

When was this flick made? What kind of cars are the bodies pulled from -- Model Ts? How relevant could it possibly be by the '80s if victims were being thrown from rumble seats?

I survived driver's ed. My dad took me for my permit test, and I aced it. But I'm really, really glad he didn't let me drive home.

We got rear-ended and the car was totaled.