There is no quicker route to memory lane than opening a box of childhood goodies. The pack rat gene runs rampant in my family so I have a plethora of trinkets from the 80s and 90s that are meant to symbolize, somehow, my childhood. After some reflection, I find this very true. No matter how bizarre the item, I can somehow relate it to my childhood. Hindsight certainly helps in navigating the strange box and assists in weeding through the useless and the priceless. Here are a few items that have survived the purges over the years and my first thought as to how they symbolize my childhood. Fair warning - this isn't all bunnies and rainbows.
1. A 3-inch tall gold trophy... sort of. In my box I have two parts of a trophy. The bottom part lists the team and the year. The top part is the gold baseball player from the shins up. He's posing to swing like the true slugger he originally was intended to be. I don't remember when my little trophy stop being a trophy. I remember it was glued for a long time, but that too eventually broke. Why keep a broken trophy? It was the only one that I ever got. It was a HUGE deal to me because my brothers seemed to have hundreds. It didn't matter what sport they played and which team they were on, they always managed to have a coach or group of parents that cared and spent the money on trophies. I wasn't so lucky. One trophy - that's all I got in all the years of playing sports. When I was a kid, I loved baseball. LOVED it! In my head and heart, I knew I could be the first woman player in Major League Baseball. I had dreams of playing for the Chicago Cubs. And I was good at it - so good. I could pitch very well. I threw a no-hitter once. And won $10 off my Dad when he hollered at me, "$10 if you hit a grand slam" as I walked to the plate with the bases loaded. I did hit that grand slam! I was good! But I was a girl, and when puberty hit my dad told me that I could no longer play with the boys. So, a broken trophy is fitting I suppose. Cut-off at the shins - unable to play.
2. A purple pinewood derby car and an orange bubble gum machine - The pinewood derby car probably gives this away as being from my days in the Boy Scouts. Yes, Boy Scouts. I had a slightly disturbing childhood growing up in the shadow of my two older brothers and these two items stand testament to that. What do you do with the third wheel? I was the tag-a-long kid. What my brothers did, I did, including making pinewood derby cars and bubble gum machines. I remember a house full of Boy Scouts and not really being allowed to participate with them. After the fact, I got to do the same project. I remember losing pathetically the day of the pinewood derby car races. Stupid purple car. I wanted to learn how to camp, make fire, pitch tents, ward off bears, but when it came time for that I couldn't participate - I was a girl. And even though I was in Girl Scouts - there was nothing scout like about them. Our patches were for sewing, baking, and other domestic duties. It's no wonder I willingly bailed on the green vested cookie enablers.
3. A Small 3 Ring Binder of Colorado History - By small, I mean small. About the size of a 5x7 photograph and about 3 inches deep, this binder holds my first sojourn into Colorado history. In 4th grade I was introduced to Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Bent's Fort, the Utes, and the columbine, blue spruce, and lark bunting. I had been looking forward to 4th grade because 2 years earlier I had watched my mom frantically put together two binders about Colorado history for my brothers. She did all the work, I'm not sure why, other than a mother's undying love for her slacker sons. She used neon paper and color cutouts - the 1980s version of scrapbooking without the fancy gadgets and computer printouts. The covers were about 11x14" pieces of wood (that my dad had made) and the books were laced shut with leather straps or something. THAT is the kind of Colorado history project I wanted. Instead I got some stupid recycled mini-binder donated from some local company. Our pages were dinky and we had to use the pages they gave us so the whole project was ugly and pathetic. I was utterly disappointed by 4th grade. And I have that crappy little binder to remind me of that! I should burn it.
More and more I'm realizing how disgruntled I am about having grown up with two older brothers whose shadow it often feels like I've yet to escape. I'm sure I'll find more goodies that are less depressing to think about. I hope.
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