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Recently, a box of goodies from the old house arrived at the Workshop. Along with my Superman lunchbox, I found these:
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Wow. There it is. My entire childhood, in one box. I can tell you a lot about these toys. Much like my memories of Sideswipe, the memories that these old toys stirred up were *very* strong. R2D2's head is held on by medical tape from grandma's house (where it popped off during a fight with a styrofoam container.) Darth Vader's head was held on with a piece of clay. When I lost it for good, the Great Mazinger filled in for him. I didn't even know that was his name! I had no idea what he was. I found out as an adult. As a child, he was just 'robot darth vader.' They were the same to me. The blue zybot rested in my pocket until 4th grade, played with every recess (and sometimes in class). He was a friend. I got the red one as an upgrade, and he was worn out on the playground too (along with 'Trailbreaker', my blue convertors truck there missing his arm).
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I was so young! Clearly, these toys of mine were well-loved. They *flew*. Literally, in the case of the x-wing. I remember a particularly rough landing when I broke the s-foils and could no longer lock them into attack position. I was devastated. My Father took the thing apart, deftly crafted a replacement bit, reinstalled the wings... and it worked again! To my tiny eyes, he was a God amongst men. He could fix anything, even a starfighter from a galaxy far, far away.
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As to why I 'customized' the X-wing with paint: after he repaired it, I learned to be more careful. My x-wing never 'flew' without my hand firmly attached again. To add to dad's miracle, I decided my new and improved x-wing needed some paint to make it go faster in my imagination. This was one of the first things I did in my father's Workshop:
 Obviously, it was very well played with for years after the custom paint job... hmmm. You know, I would bet that *this* might count as my first custom project. 'Fred-5 Standing By...' |
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One final item: I wrote a message to my future self! Not to be opened until the far-away year of 2001. What could it be? For once, I had no guesses. Too-clever for my own good, I suppose. I opened the envelope and found:
 YAY! A flying car thing. What the heck? Was this a blueprint for the flying rocket car that I wanted to own (that we *still* don't have!?) A message to my adult self to remember the joy of being a child with a limitless imagination? The future is so much cloudier now that it's my present. Things were much clearer in the past. I'd like to go back and give that small child a hug. Tell him that even though his dad is gone now, his memory lives on. The Workshop goes on. I'll work on my time machine now. I'll make a *new* envelope. I'll write down the URL to this website, and put 'do not open until 2045' on the envelope. I have no idea what future me will think of that message; hopefully he can come back to ask me. But then again, he won't have to. After all, I've just traveled from the past to the future in one night with the help of my memories. Thanks to these toys, he'll do the same.
I look forward to it. |
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