Oh dek, the wonders that lie in wait for you.
CI - I not only have boxes, I have tables and book shelves and kitchen counters - I never realized how much. What is happening now is fun. My five grandsons are beginning to tell me what they want. My sister thinks it's morbid, but actually it's fun, and it's kind of nice knowing that at least some of my stuff will be kept. Although they'll probably hold a garage sale.
I once heard the governor of Texas before Bush - the admirable Ann - being interviewed. She said when her mother died it was up to her to sell the house, and she held this gigantic yard sale. She decided to add her things to it, and asked her kids first what they wanted. What she learned was that they really didn't want much, and she had accumulated so much more than she thought she had, that she really made some money on the sale. So I guess that will be my legacy - whatever you make on the sale of whatever is yours, kids. Meanwhile, it's still here, each with a story.
In a bedroom in a house, just off the town's Center Street, near the corner where you can see the big ball field next to the woods and ice-skating pond, in the middle bedroom's closet under the floorboards on the left hand side, tucked way back in, is a cigar box, in it is my childhood.
There are peewees, glassies and shooters, a metal soldier on a home-made parachute, a poem about the ocean marked with an A+, two big crayolas (orange, yellow,) Indian head pennies, a Hank Aaron baseball card, and one of all the Cincinnati Reds, a piece of tiger's eye, two pins from the Olympics, some stamps from a place I can't recall now, in fact, all the list is fading. There used to be much more that I remembered putting in that time capsule, but the days have flown away with two-thirds of all the memories.
I remember thinking that maybe someday when they are tearing that house down, some guy would find my box still tightly wound with the twine and he'd take it home to show his kids. I remember thinking that I'd like to have back none of it except perhaps the ocean poem.
Joe
PS: I haven't thought about that box in over forty years. Thanks for bringing up secret boxes and their contents.
I know mamajuana
I good friend of mine was deliberating living in New Zealand for a year (something I would like to do myself as it happens) but was reluctant to go because of all the "stuff" he had, I pointed out to him that the majority of them were just objects that he didn't need to keep, the important stuff, things with memories could more easily have been either stored away or taken with him.
It's amazing the amount of things we accumulate
well written Joe, I could also be there
This is indeed a beautiful thread.
I feel like I've had a glimpse of all of you as kids and how it shaped the adults you are now. I feel a strange contentment just knowing that we all made it.
I will be 63 this month; do I still qualify as a kid?
As I've said before, my life is an open book. Most of my life have revolved around world travel, and I have literally tons of photos filed into photo albums to show where I've been and seen. All around our house are art works, coffee mugs, and even a portable bar from Thailand. My wife, although not a jewelry person, has jewelry from around the world. The last one is from Cape Town, South Africa, where I visited last year, and purchased a .98 point yellow diamond. The jeweler told us that one in 10,000 diamonds are colored. I'm sure our sons will inherit all of this one day, and what they do with them will be entirely up to them. I still gaze through my photo albums and look at the art works to bring back the memories. That's enough for me. c.i.
