Last Tuesday, Mary Ann had a cleanup day in the storage barn behind our property, with lots of its contents sent to the front curb for garbage pickup.
It was already dark when I got home that evening, so I didn’t get a good look at the stacks by the driveway. But the next morning, I walked over to take a look and wound up snapping a picture with my phone.
There were two items on their way to the landfill that brought back grand memories. One was the first chest of drawers we bought for John when he was about 2 or 3. Or was it for Thomas? The other was the rolling container in which Audrey kept all her Barbie dolls and other small toys when she was a little girl.
John’s light brown chest was a cheap little thing. If memory serves, it cost $99 back in the very early 1990s. It was perfect for a little guy like him, and he used it for a long time.
Audrey’s container was the size a dresser drawer. It was white and had a handle on one side. We kept it under her bed, and she could pull it out and grab whichever Barbie struck her fancy. I definitely remember that she had a slew of them.
John is now 33 and, except for college summers, hasn’t lived at home for 15 years, when he took off for the University of Alabama and then a job in Houston. The chest of drawers completed its mission long ago. Otherwise it would not have been in the barn.
Audrey is 27 and left her Barbies behind long ago, too. She traded them in, I guess, for a baby boy of her own. Her son Henry is now 18 weeks old and doing just fine. But her Barbie Box had done its job, just like John’s chest, and it too had been out in the barn for several years.
Suddenly this is turning into a “Toy Story 2” column. That’s the one where Woody and his bunch of toys worry that Andy, who’s growing up, will forget about them one day.
I was sentimental about these two items because they were visual reminders of all the fun times we had with our kids when they were young.
Once your kids are past the infant stage, things get interesting. There definitely is a heavy load of frustration, but the fun stuff outweighs it.
I can remember 11-year-old John, given permission to take apart our old computer, calling out excitedly, “Look, Dad! The motherboard!”
And Thomas, the way he would curl his tongue outside his mouth as he worked on children’s jigsaw puzzles. He must have put together his Free Willy puzzle a hundred times. Even as a 5-year-old he was able to figure it out.
And Audrey’s glee when, at about age 4, she got a doll named Oopsy Daisy, because when the doll fell over, its electronics allowed it to climb back to its feet all by herself.
She never could pronounce the doll’s name correctly, and even today one of her family nicknames is Oopie Daydee.
I have no specific sentimental memories about that chest of drawers or toy container. It’s just that putting them out for the Waste Management museum was a sign that time is marching on, that our family dynamics will change greatly in the coming years, and that you can’t keep everything.
I got the idea to write about this on Thursday morning because of something else in our house that I really like.
In my parents’ bedroom, there was a sturdy upholstered blue chair, and as a teenager I would sit in it and watch TV when my parents were watching something else in the den.
This was the 1970s, when most houses had only one or two TVs, and there were only five or six broadcast channels to choose from. Cable was a few years away. Streaming was four decades away.
I would pull the chair a few inches away from the wall and lean it back as I watched TV. Today I don’t recall anything that I watched, but the memories of that chair are vivid.
In the 1990s, my brother was living in the house and put the chair out on the porch for Goodwill or someone to pick up. I saw it first and brought it to McComb.
Mary Ann got it redone with a lighter blue-green fabric and put it in our bedroom. Lately I have taken to sitting in it each morning as I brush my teeth, just a couple of minutes to relax. It’s still a good fit, and I am grateful to have the chair and use it.
Those little things — the chest, the toy box, the chair — they move me. They remind me of all that has gone well in life.
