Recovering the Past

From the time I was born (early '60s) to the time I graduated high school (late '70s), my family had moved nine times.  It wasn't out of necessity, nor due to job obligations (except once).  My mom was just never satisfied with any house that we ever lived in.  On their 40th wedding anniversary, my dad calculated that they had, by that time, moved a total of 42 times.  Once, they even moved out of one house and into the house next door.  I had struck out on my own by then - to the opposite coast (where I've been settled in the same spot for the last 30+ years).

One consequence of this constant moving is that I have almost no childhood mementos.  You see, every move was an opportunity to "downsize", so non-essential things tended to get left behind.

The only possessions I managed to hang on to are a copy of a family "newspaper" I made when I was 11, a typewritten collection of my grandmother's poetry, and a shoebox full of photographs.

The saving grace in all of this is that I still have vivid, near photographic memories of all the things that were important to me during the first 18 years of my life.  I have been blessed to find exact duplicates of most of these things, 40-odd years later.

What strikes me is that my most cherished possessions turned out to be rather ordinary things.

For example, there was this very specific, red and grey 3-hole paper punch:

My dad brought it home from work one year, along with a couple of 3-ring binders which became my personal scrapbooks (if only I still had them!).  The punch has "Property of General Electric Co." stamped on top of it.  General Electric is where my dad worked (as did I at one point, many years later).  I found the one pictured above on eBay from a seller in my home town.  For all I know, it may actually be the same one I had those many years ago, since it has a scratch in the same place that mine did!

Then there was this Ace Pilot 404 stapler:

I found this one at Goodwill.  It's the same model as the one my dad gave me (again, brought home from work).  I remember using this to staple my home-made newspapers together, as well as school reports.  It has a very satisfying "thwack" when hit (but it has also drawn blood on occasion).

Of course, there's the typewriter that got me through high school, a Smith-Corona Galaxie Deluxe:

I picked up this identical model for $25 from a lady in the next town.  I don't remember how I got my original typewriter.  It came to me about the same time that puberty hit, so that period is a bit foggy.  I think it was a present from my parents, but it may also have been a hand-me-down from a relative.  

Then there's my grandmother's typewriter, a Royal KHM:

She let me play with it each time I visited her.  It's the first typewriter I ever touched (probably around age 7).  My grandmother was a bank vice president and part-time poet.  She even had some of her work published, and I have all of her originals, each one typed on this machine (it was already over 30 years old at the time).

The one pictured above showed up on Craigslist about a week before Christmas last year.  I showed the ad to my wife, mentioning that it was identical to my grandmother's typewriter, while hoping that she would get the hint.  She then showed the ad to my daughter-in-law and, to make a long story short, it turned into my best Christmas present last year.

Then there are these two PaperMate Contour pens:

These were my prized possessions in elementary school, even though they probably cost only a dollar apiece at the time.  I just loved the way they looked, felt, and wrote, and nobody else I knew had one - which made them even more special.  It took me quite some time to find these in the exact colors I had way back then.  They seem to be rather rare.

Another cherished piece was this Swingline Tot 50 stapler:

It really belonged to my mom until I commandeered it.  It was just the right size for small hands, and it fit inside my pencil box, unlike the Pilot 404 which was relegated to a desk.

Here's another favorite pen, the Bic 4-color:

Amazingly, these are still being sold new.  I would draw on loose-leaf paper with this pen for hours on end, making creative use of the limited color palette.  Car caricatures were a frequent subject, as were Snoopy and his doghouse.

And then there are the PaperMate Flair felt-tip pens:

I remember having only 4 colors:  red, blue, green, and purple.  The purple one saw the most use. I had to hide them from my sister, as she would invariably smash the tips.  These, too, are still being made, though the barrels have a slightly different design than the ones I had as a child.  I feel spoiled having Flairs in more than 4 colors now.

Well, that's more than enough material for one post.  I may continue this at a later date.