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halfshellvenusChildhood Treasures
Idol Wheel of Chaos | Week 17, #3 | 1424 words
6 7
x-x-x-x-x
It was never a time capsule, no matter what Bobby Lockerby said. It was a memory-box, where Jake kept souvenirs and other special things.
Jake was 6, almost 7, when he started collecting those things. It all started with a pretty little red rock he found down by the creek one day.
.
There was a four-leaf clover, dried and flattened, and the ticket stubs from the first ballgame Jake ever went to with his Dad. There was a trilobite fossil, a squashed souvenir penny from a trip to Disney World when Jake was eight, and a Kingfisher feather as blue as the sky.
Jake kept all of them in a metal Superman lunchbox in his closet, with Jake's–Keep Out! written on the top. The note was mainly for Jake's younger brother Eddie, who had no respect for privacy. Mom said it was because Eddie was only five, but all Jake knew was that he didn't want some little pipsqueak pawing through his stuff.
It was a miracle Jake ever had time to find any of the cool stuff he did. It seemed like Eddie was always there, following him everywhere he went: "Whatcha doing?"
Sometimes, Jake just wanted to explore quietly on his own. You saw more of what went on that way– animals weren't so afraid of you, and nobody was there to distract you. A little brother with non-stop talking was just about the biggest distraction there was.
And when he wasn't out exploring, Jake would rather be playing with Bobby Lockerby or one of his other friends.
"Mommmmm," Jake would moan. "Why can't Eddie go bother someone else?"
There was a wooded area at the end of the street that the neighborhood kids liked to pretend was a forest. They made up adventures and expeditions for themselves, drawing maps with special rocks and trees as landmarks. All the kids liked playing "pirates", with diagrams for finding buried treasure. The "treasure" was usually an assortment of bottle caps or loose change, planted only to give the other players something to unearth.
Jake loved everything about the house and neighborhood they lived in. He was thoroughly shocked when his father announced that they were going to move.
"What?" he said. "Why would we want to leave here? It's perfect!"
"I'm sorry, buddy," his father said, "but I'm being transferred to Baltimore."
"But what about the woods?" Eddie piped up. "And our sledding hill?"
"I'm sure you'll find new fun things to do in Baltimore," their mother said. "And you'll make lots of new friends there, too."
"I don't want to make new friends," Jake muttered. "I like the ones I already have."
All through the rest of the summer, Jake kept telling himself that it wasn't true, that they weren't really leaving. He kept it up right until the day before the move, when they were packing the last of their things into suitcases.
I could never leave my memory box behind–it's the most special thing I've got. So, if I hide it in the forest, the four-leaf-clover will bring me luck and make sure we don't have to move.
Jake took his memory box and buried it at the base of the "slingshot" tree, the oak with two arms that looked like a giant letter Y. He was utterly astonished when his family got up early the next morning and drove away after all.
He tried to get it back. "I left my special box behind. We have to go back for it!"
"Nonsense," his mother said. "I checked the whole house before we left, and we took everything."
"Not in the house!" Jake said. "It's in the woods!"
"We're not going back, Jake," his father said. "We've been planning this for months, and you know it. If the box was that important to you, you would have packed it."
"Besides," his mother said, "you'll find other special things for a new box where we're going."
Baltimore turned out to be okay, though it wasn't Cleveland. There were no woods nearby, and the yard was smaller, but Jake's room was bigger. Plus, there were a lot more kids on their street and the next. Jake made friends with a boy named Chuck Spivak the second day they were there, and there were even some little kids around for Eddie to play with.
Jake didn't like his new school as much. He'd really been looking forward to being in Mrs. Wilson's class for fifth grade. She was pretty and nice, and everyone knew her class got to play softball. His fifth grade class in Baltimore was still playing baby games, like Red Rover and Simon Says. And in the sixth grade in Cleveland, Jake could have applied to be a crossing guard. His new school only let adults be crossing guards.
His mother took him and Eddy to the park sometimes. One day, Jake found the tiniest pine cone he'd ever seen there, and he put it in a new box when he got home.
Over the next year, he added another four-leaf clover from the school playground, and a sand dollar from the beach. By the end of middle school, the box also contained a bright red cardinal feather and an MLB lanyard for the Orioles.
Jake thought about the box less and less as he got older. By high school, he hardly ever looked at the box's contents, even though he added the stubs for his first prom tickets (Sally Frazier, junior year) and his first rock concert (The Police, 1982, Landover) to it.
He also never felt the same way about it as the original memory box. That first box meant more than just the contents Jake had lost. It was a symbol of his perfect childhood, of the boundless hope and innocence that had never quite made it to Baltimore with him.
Years later, after he'd married and had children of his own, Jake's family was on a driving vacation going from Pittsburgh to Chicago. Jake and his wife, Kathy, agreed to drive a little further to Cleveland, so the boys could see where their father grew up.
Jake found his old street pretty easily. He'd never really forgotten it.
The street hadn't changed much, except that all the trees were bigger. The swing set was still in the front yard of his old house, looking a little rustier than before.
"And that window there, on the top left? That was my room when I was just a little older than Randy here."
"What about those woods down there?" Matthew pointed to the end of the street.
"Oh, those were special. We played there all the time–pirates, jungle explorers, Davy Crockett, you name it. We had so much fun there."
Jake walked his family down to the corner for a closer look.
"I even left something behind here when we moved away. Though I'd be surprised if someone hasn't dug it up and run off with it by now."
"What is it?" Randy asked, his eyes huge.
"Well, why don't we go see?"
Jake walked into the woods, looking for a boulder with three smaller rocks in front of it. When he found it, he turned left and kept going until he came to a large black oak with branches shaped like a Y.
"This is where I buried it," he said. He found a large stick, and used it to dig in the dirt in front of the tree. It wasn't long before the stick hit metal, and Jake shoved the dirt out of the hole until he could get at what was inside.
"It's still here!" Jake said. "This is the memory box where I kept all my special things."
He opened it slowly. The boys moved in closer to get a better look.
"Oh," Kathy said. "It's a perfect time capsule of when you were a little boy!"
Jake remembered hearing those words before, and they didn't seem so wrong anymore. He thought about all of his adventures back then, and all the friends he'd shared them with.
It had been magical growing up there, a childhood he'd been lucky to have even though it couldn't last forever.
Jake looked at the wonder on his sons' faces as they carefully touched the red rock and the blue feather that were as vivid as ever. The only thing more amazing than his childhood was this: having the chance to do it all over again, this time as a parent instead of a son.
–/–
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Idol Wheel of Chaos | Week 17, #3 | 1424 words
6 7
x-x-x-x-x
It was never a time capsule, no matter what Bobby Lockerby said. It was a memory-box, where Jake kept souvenirs and other special things.
Jake was 6, almost 7, when he started collecting those things. It all started with a pretty little red rock he found down by the creek one day.
.
There was a four-leaf clover, dried and flattened, and the ticket stubs from the first ballgame Jake ever went to with his Dad. There was a trilobite fossil, a squashed souvenir penny from a trip to Disney World when Jake was eight, and a Kingfisher feather as blue as the sky.
Jake kept all of them in a metal Superman lunchbox in his closet, with Jake's–Keep Out! written on the top. The note was mainly for Jake's younger brother Eddie, who had no respect for privacy. Mom said it was because Eddie was only five, but all Jake knew was that he didn't want some little pipsqueak pawing through his stuff.
It was a miracle Jake ever had time to find any of the cool stuff he did. It seemed like Eddie was always there, following him everywhere he went: "Whatcha doing?"
Sometimes, Jake just wanted to explore quietly on his own. You saw more of what went on that way– animals weren't so afraid of you, and nobody was there to distract you. A little brother with non-stop talking was just about the biggest distraction there was.
And when he wasn't out exploring, Jake would rather be playing with Bobby Lockerby or one of his other friends.
"Mommmmm," Jake would moan. "Why can't Eddie go bother someone else?"
There was a wooded area at the end of the street that the neighborhood kids liked to pretend was a forest. They made up adventures and expeditions for themselves, drawing maps with special rocks and trees as landmarks. All the kids liked playing "pirates", with diagrams for finding buried treasure. The "treasure" was usually an assortment of bottle caps or loose change, planted only to give the other players something to unearth.
Jake loved everything about the house and neighborhood they lived in. He was thoroughly shocked when his father announced that they were going to move.
"What?" he said. "Why would we want to leave here? It's perfect!"
"I'm sorry, buddy," his father said, "but I'm being transferred to Baltimore."
"But what about the woods?" Eddie piped up. "And our sledding hill?"
"I'm sure you'll find new fun things to do in Baltimore," their mother said. "And you'll make lots of new friends there, too."
"I don't want to make new friends," Jake muttered. "I like the ones I already have."
All through the rest of the summer, Jake kept telling himself that it wasn't true, that they weren't really leaving. He kept it up right until the day before the move, when they were packing the last of their things into suitcases.
I could never leave my memory box behind–it's the most special thing I've got. So, if I hide it in the forest, the four-leaf-clover will bring me luck and make sure we don't have to move.
Jake took his memory box and buried it at the base of the "slingshot" tree, the oak with two arms that looked like a giant letter Y. He was utterly astonished when his family got up early the next morning and drove away after all.
He tried to get it back. "I left my special box behind. We have to go back for it!"
"Nonsense," his mother said. "I checked the whole house before we left, and we took everything."
"Not in the house!" Jake said. "It's in the woods!"
"We're not going back, Jake," his father said. "We've been planning this for months, and you know it. If the box was that important to you, you would have packed it."
"Besides," his mother said, "you'll find other special things for a new box where we're going."
Baltimore turned out to be okay, though it wasn't Cleveland. There were no woods nearby, and the yard was smaller, but Jake's room was bigger. Plus, there were a lot more kids on their street and the next. Jake made friends with a boy named Chuck Spivak the second day they were there, and there were even some little kids around for Eddie to play with.
Jake didn't like his new school as much. He'd really been looking forward to being in Mrs. Wilson's class for fifth grade. She was pretty and nice, and everyone knew her class got to play softball. His fifth grade class in Baltimore was still playing baby games, like Red Rover and Simon Says. And in the sixth grade in Cleveland, Jake could have applied to be a crossing guard. His new school only let adults be crossing guards.
His mother took him and Eddy to the park sometimes. One day, Jake found the tiniest pine cone he'd ever seen there, and he put it in a new box when he got home.
Over the next year, he added another four-leaf clover from the school playground, and a sand dollar from the beach. By the end of middle school, the box also contained a bright red cardinal feather and an MLB lanyard for the Orioles.
Jake thought about the box less and less as he got older. By high school, he hardly ever looked at the box's contents, even though he added the stubs for his first prom tickets (Sally Frazier, junior year) and his first rock concert (The Police, 1982, Landover) to it.
He also never felt the same way about it as the original memory box. That first box meant more than just the contents Jake had lost. It was a symbol of his perfect childhood, of the boundless hope and innocence that had never quite made it to Baltimore with him.
Years later, after he'd married and had children of his own, Jake's family was on a driving vacation going from Pittsburgh to Chicago. Jake and his wife, Kathy, agreed to drive a little further to Cleveland, so the boys could see where their father grew up.
Jake found his old street pretty easily. He'd never really forgotten it.
The street hadn't changed much, except that all the trees were bigger. The swing set was still in the front yard of his old house, looking a little rustier than before.
"And that window there, on the top left? That was my room when I was just a little older than Randy here."
"What about those woods down there?" Matthew pointed to the end of the street.
"Oh, those were special. We played there all the time–pirates, jungle explorers, Davy Crockett, you name it. We had so much fun there."
Jake walked his family down to the corner for a closer look.
"I even left something behind here when we moved away. Though I'd be surprised if someone hasn't dug it up and run off with it by now."
"What is it?" Randy asked, his eyes huge.
"Well, why don't we go see?"
Jake walked into the woods, looking for a boulder with three smaller rocks in front of it. When he found it, he turned left and kept going until he came to a large black oak with branches shaped like a Y.
"This is where I buried it," he said. He found a large stick, and used it to dig in the dirt in front of the tree. It wasn't long before the stick hit metal, and Jake shoved the dirt out of the hole until he could get at what was inside.
"It's still here!" Jake said. "This is the memory box where I kept all my special things."
He opened it slowly. The boys moved in closer to get a better look.
"Oh," Kathy said. "It's a perfect time capsule of when you were a little boy!"
Jake remembered hearing those words before, and they didn't seem so wrong anymore. He thought about all of his adventures back then, and all the friends he'd shared them with.
It had been magical growing up there, a childhood he'd been lucky to have even though it couldn't last forever.
Jake looked at the wonder on his sons' faces as they carefully touched the red rock and the blue feather that were as vivid as ever. The only thing more amazing than his childhood was this: having the chance to do it all over again, this time as a parent instead of a son.
–/–
If you enjoyed this story, please vote for my Portfolio here!
no subject
Date: 2025-12-23 07:29 pm (UTC)I'm so glad all of that came through!
no subject
Date: 2025-12-23 08:55 pm (UTC)