Lately I have been sorting thru lots of things from my parents house. You can accumulate a lot over almost 50 years. And what they had was ‘inherited’ from their parents’ or aunts’ homes. One item that I had growing up, that entered our sphere from my mom’s side of the family, was an old Firemans Call Box. Before telephones and 911, these were placed around neighborhoods so residents can pull the lever and let the firemen know that there was a fire. He had a key to ours, and I used it as a safe of sorts to keep stuff in. Although sometime after my freshman year of high school I lost the key. But it kicked around in the attic, after I moved up there sophomore year, until this past November when I brought it back with to Virginia. I had always been curious what I had in there, I remembered some notes that were passed in class being saved in there, and I thought my signed Sidd Finch baseball card was in there too. So I pulled out the lock picks we had given to Liam one Christmas and tried to open it.

Raise your hand if you have ever successfully picked a lock. Spoiler, I am not raising my hand. Enter the electric drill…

After drilling out the lock, I was able to open up the box and unload the contents. What you can see are all the elements that are important to a nerdy middleschool/beginning high schooler. And definitely not things you would think about saving for the future.

Some comic books, first issues of a variety of random things, that are invariably not worth much. A bunch of miscellaneous coinage, mostly half-dollars, 1976 quarters, and British coinage. (anyone know the current value of a Shilling?) Some locker combinations, one for my locker by the scene shop at ORPF, and another lock combination. Neither of which happen to be for my blue Gym combination lock.
It did have my High school yearbook from 1987-88. Which is something I was never missing or looking for. But there you have it. As it happens I now am in possession of all my high school yearbooks, which is not a testament to how I hold onto my high school years, but how much my parents kept track of my childhood.

Which I can kind of get. In phone conversations over the years, when I am now a parent talking to my dad, he mentioned that raising his kids was some of the best years of his life. And I can agree with him on that. While I don’t want to return to the past, or do X, Y, or Z over again, I am thankful that how the past has gotten me to where I am now. Mistakes and all. And seeing the kids as they grow older has made me think about life in a totally different way.

Speaking of mistakes:

Did I not know I had curly hair? I definitely did not know how to take care of it. Dude.