Back to Cupertino, Hello Apple

Hun­dreds of early Apple employ­ees are con­ven­ing in San Jose CA this Sun­day for a long-awaited reunion. Although atten­dance is lim­ited to peo­ple who worked for Apple in its first ten years, hun­dreds of us are head­ing to Cal­i­for­nia, some from far-flung places — like a for­mer boss who is fly­ing in from New Zealand.

Sharing Memories and Memorabilia

We’ve spent the past week or so, dig­ging through old boxes, bureau draw­ers and other places where we may have stashed Apple apparel, mem­o­ra­bilia and those beloved Apple tchotchkes. We’re busily pho­tograph­ing, scan­ning — upload­ing dig­i­tal images to share with friends and for­mer co-work­ers.

Years later, we’re still hold­ing on to those old T‑shirts, plaques, clocks, decanters, pins, but­tons, and even office sta­tionery. It’s been quite a trip down mem­ory lane, to see the stuff that every­one is post­ing on our Face­book Group.

I have found my share of T‑shirts and mem­o­ra­bilia, includ­ing two lead crys­tal apples: one by Tiffany and one by Steuben. The qual­ity of what we have kept from our Apple days is amaz­ing. Those of us who still have our employee badges will wear them to the party.

I can’t wait to see every­one in per­son, and learn how we have all weath­ered the years since Apple. Face­book has been a great place to share mem­o­ries in snip­pets, but it’s no sub­sti­tute for the sto­ries we’re going to tell at the reunion (and in the local bars after­wards, I’m sure!)

We were spon­sors at early TED con­fer­ences

Crys­tal apple from Tiffany

Badge from an inter­nal Apple event

Employee badge