Inside, the attic was piled high with
cardboard boxes full of old dishes Carl and I used in college,
clothes long gone out of style, and books which we’d always
planned to take to the Church rummage sale. Everything was
covered with a thick layer of dust. Mom moved a couple of boxes
and an old lamp, declaring, "We’re going to have to do
some house cleaning I see. Well, Jimmy, if what you’re
looking for is anywhere, it’ll be inside of here."
Pulling off a dust cover she revealed the old trunk that Happy
Papa had bought from the junkman for seven dollars. The
imitation-antique finish that Dad had so meticulously applied
years ago had now become authentic. "Remember this old
trunk your Dad painted?" Mom asked, "I put your kid’s
stuff in it after I made Carl’s room my sewing room."
"Yeah, I remember this old thing, all
right," I said.
Opening it and looking in, between the Snoopy
piggy bank, Mad magazine collection, and miscellaneous junk, I
spied something else I hadn’t seen for a long time –
my old junior high scrap book.
"I thought I’d lost this," I
said, removing it, clearing a place to set it down.
"What’s that?" asked Mom,
pulling up a stool next to me, adjusting her glasses.
"It’s my old scrapbook, from junior
high," I said, opening the front page and reacting with a
smile at some pictures of Carl and me. In particular I laughed
at one showing us attending a Scout meeting with Dad the night
we’d entered our hand-carved, wooden race-car into the
derby. We lost, but our car, "the original silver-bullet,"
sure looked good. The photo showed Carl holding up the wheel
that fell off as it came out of the starting gate. There were a
lot of great pictures with Dad and me: where he taught me how to
shave, even though I didn’t need to; the time he decided to
be Dracula on Halloween; and when he’d taught me how to
drive a tractor.
Turning the pages, I discovered photos of my
friends from junior high school along with some bad poetry I had
written and even a blue ribbon I’d won for a drawing I’d
entered into the county fair. All of these were memories I had
often recalled and cherished as time went on. However, when I
opened a page near the center, it was like opening a floodgate.
A river of untapped memories rushed in. As if by opening up the
center of the scrapbook, I’d opened up a section of my
subconscious which I hadn’t accessed in many years.
