December 1996... seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?  Close your eyes and try to remember... there were NO CELL PHONES... maybe a handful of people had them and they were as big as military walkie-talkies.  ALMOST NO ONE had e-mail... and there was no MySpace, no YouTube, no Text Messages... yep, if you wanted to communicate with someone, you, like, had to CALL THEM AT HOME and if you wanted to meet somebody somewhere, you had to BE ON TIME and really stick to it!  It was amidst these primitive conditions that the idea for TBOX was born.  For those who knew me back in the day, starting in 1994, I hosted a "little party" in my Lincoln Park apartment called "Festapalooza" -- man, those were fun parties, but within a few years, with my crib being destroyed, neighbors and landlord hating me, it was time to look at doing something OUTSIDE the house... so the bar crawl was the logical place to turn, and I'd heard of this "12 bars of Xmas" idea... so I put the word out to my Accenture co-workers, and the date was set.  As is now stuff of legend, just 2 of my friends showed up at the first bar, making the whole crawl a grand total of Three People.  By the end, we were 60 or so strong, and the next year, when we decided to do it again, we probably touched the 80 mark or so.  Enjoy the pix below and honor our humble beginnings!!!

Historic Photo of Don, Chris, Ty on 14 December 1996, Goose Island Clybourn, 4:52PM

A Little Later in TBOX1

The End of TBOX1 (Note TBOX10 #1 Tony Y, Center)


The Beginning of TBOX2, December 13, 1997 (Note 1B Goze and 1C Bill Ford)

Later in TBOX2

The Third Year... TBOX3

December 5, 1998 was one of the big days in TBOX History.  TBOX1 and TBOX2 were cute, intimate little affairs (approx 60 and then 80 attendees per...), but things "jumped up a notch" the next year.  Thanks to this newfangled invention called "E Mail", all sorts of folks got word of our little shindig, and the buzz was on the street.  And when I woke up that Saturday (a little after 1 O'Clock or so ... that's right, TBOX didn't start until 4PM back then!!), I noticed, "hey, it's not freezing out" -- and not only was it not freezing, it was SEVENTY DEGREES (notice no coats in the picture below).  Bill, Goze, and a few other friends came over to my old apartment on Wrightwood about 330, we had a few peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, and headed out. This spring-like balminess brought EVERYBODY out of the woodwork, and as we arrived at Bar #1, we found, like, 100 people or so were there already!  We said, "Let's Count 'em!" But how?  Let's write on everyone's hand with a marker!  By the time we made it from Goose Island Clybourn, thru Lincoln Park, and to the former Gaslight Corner on Halsted, it was still crazy-warm, and we'd counted about 350 souls.  Some people even got crazy and wore Santa Hats!  And we signed certificates for people who had gone "wire to wire". And everyone said, "Great job, Chris!  This just can't possibly get any bigger though!" :)

o