Relics from a childhood found in a time capsule buried in 1969 when I left home for college and life on my own at age 17. I never looked back, nor regretted leaving.
- A copy of Shep, a book about a boy and his dog with white paint on the cover where someone used it to prop open a newly painted window.
- A very narrow gold tie with tiny paisleys outline in black, the first tie I ever owned.
- A tiny, empty paint container from a paint-by-number birthday gift.
- A newspaper clipping of the TV schedule listing: “The Legacy of Greece and Rome,” taught by Dr. Lionel Casson, which I watched at 6:00 in the mornings before getting on the bus for high school.
- A soft downy feather from the new pillow that was burned when my brothers set fire to our tent.
- The fish hook that became stuck in my cheek when I walked to the pond to watch my father fish. He never tried to fish again.
- A small, slender piece of window glass, about one by two inches, with a flower painted on one side and a string attached at the top with a drop of glue, left over from the wind chimes I made when I was 12.
- A cake decorating tool that looks like a tiny umbrella used as the flat surface on which to make roses out of frosting to use to decorate a cake. My success in that, at age 13, was the only thing my mother praised me for.
- A diaper pin used to attach cloth diapers together, which I had to master when I was six and changing my younger brother’s diapers.