I always knew this day would come.
On Saturday, my wife and I were cleaning out the garage. As usual, the kid’s toys were a big part of the endless mess out there. So once again we called the kids out and had them help us sort through their toy boxes, stacked in two industrial-gray shelving units.
This ageless ritual involves untangling various mismatched and sometimes broken items, presenting each to them, and asking, “Do you still play with this?” Any toy separated from its long-lost, yet essential accessories—a Little Pony without its pink hair brush, for example, or a Ninja Turtle sans plastic numchucks—is in dire jeopardy of being tossed in a garage sale box, or worse, the trash can.
While Jules went through the toys with Billy and Annie, I busied myself organizing other shelves crammed with old camping gear, boxes of past tax returns, and computer equipment obsolete since the Eisenhower administration.
Then I overheard the words—the words I always knew would some day come, but which instantly triggered in me crushing waves of sorrow and loss.
“Do you still play with your G.I. Joes?” Julie asked Billy.
“Um, not really much,” replied my pragmatic 10 year-old.
“Wait,” I said, catching Joe mid-air on his way to the garage sale box, and the life of neglect and despair that surely awaited him at the bottom of that cardboard purgatory. “I’ll take that.”
His painted hair was a little scuffed. A few holes in his olive drab fatigues. But otherwise not in bad shape for having served so valiantly. He has reconned the jungles of the backyard, traveled hundreds of miles in the back seat of a Honda CRV, fought hand-to-hand with Star Wars figures (half his height, sure), and sat through the inevitable tea party with his sister’s Barbie (for which he earned a Medal of Valor).
But lately, Joe has been sent to the rear. Replaced by increasingly complex Lego sets, and, sadly, a Sony Vaio home computer.
MacArthur once said that “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” And so now Joe too must fade.
Up on a shelf in the back of my closet is a dusty box. Inside rests a small squad of G.I. Joes from 1966 or so, once beloved by another little boy. But that was a long time ago. And on this shelf I will now make room for another box. A box for Billy’s G.I. Joes.
Well done, Joe. Thank you for your years of service.
On Saturday, my wife and I were cleaning out the garage. As usual, the kid’s toys were a big part of the endless mess out there. So once again we called the kids out and had them help us sort through their toy boxes, stacked in two industrial-gray shelving units.
This ageless ritual involves untangling various mismatched and sometimes broken items, presenting each to them, and asking, “Do you still play with this?” Any toy separated from its long-lost, yet essential accessories—a Little Pony without its pink hair brush, for example, or a Ninja Turtle sans plastic numchucks—is in dire jeopardy of being tossed in a garage sale box, or worse, the trash can.
While Jules went through the toys with Billy and Annie, I busied myself organizing other shelves crammed with old camping gear, boxes of past tax returns, and computer equipment obsolete since the Eisenhower administration.
Then I overheard the words—the words I always knew would some day come, but which instantly triggered in me crushing waves of sorrow and loss.
“Do you still play with your G.I. Joes?” Julie asked Billy.
“Um, not really much,” replied my pragmatic 10 year-old.
“Wait,” I said, catching Joe mid-air on his way to the garage sale box, and the life of neglect and despair that surely awaited him at the bottom of that cardboard purgatory. “I’ll take that.”
His painted hair was a little scuffed. A few holes in his olive drab fatigues. But otherwise not in bad shape for having served so valiantly. He has reconned the jungles of the backyard, traveled hundreds of miles in the back seat of a Honda CRV, fought hand-to-hand with Star Wars figures (half his height, sure), and sat through the inevitable tea party with his sister’s Barbie (for which he earned a Medal of Valor).
But lately, Joe has been sent to the rear. Replaced by increasingly complex Lego sets, and, sadly, a Sony Vaio home computer.
MacArthur once said that “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” And so now Joe too must fade.
Up on a shelf in the back of my closet is a dusty box. Inside rests a small squad of G.I. Joes from 1966 or so, once beloved by another little boy. But that was a long time ago. And on this shelf I will now make room for another box. A box for Billy’s G.I. Joes.
Well done, Joe. Thank you for your years of service.
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3 comments:
Man, is it totally lame that I actually got a little choked up at your post. I got to thinking...where the heck are mine? They're probably over in my mom's garage. Thanks for the tears of masculinity.
need a Velveeta box?
I loaned my GI's out to a friend when I was 12. Never got them back. I get choked up when I take a sniff at the plastic toy and it still has a faint scent of that first time, out of the box smell. That Christmas morning smell.
A few years back, when Allison (12) boxed up her Barbies for good, my then 8 year old daughter said in a tearful voice, "why are you boxing up your Barbies"? Luckily, I had the brains to videotape both of the girls playing together with their Barbies 3 years ago. I didn't know that this would be the last time Allison's Barbies (or playing Barbies with her sister) would be seen in her hands.
That's the weird thing about small children, you never know what moment will be the last time for something. Like the last time they would ever ask to play on the playground equipment at the park. That last moment might be that very day you're at the park, or bicycle ride, or giving in to playing tea party when you've got yard work to do.
Each day is one drop closer to adulthood.
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