It was late, late at night. My wife had long since gone to bed. Yet here I was, conducting what I realized was archeology in our son's toy box.
During the last two weeks of August my parents were kind enough to take the kids so I could get the paper together and then get caught up on life a bit. They got to spend some time gardening with my dad, then went to Yorkton and finally the cabin for some fishing with my sister. While the kids were away, the parents will play.
That is, if you consider redecorating two bedrooms playing.
I like to think I have a lot of good characteristics, but being a neat freak is not one of them. Of course my children have picked up that same trait. Their rooms were so scary, I was afraid to enter. Walking meant placing one foot gingerly at a time and listening for one of two sounds: the crunch of a toy, or your own scream as you stepped on a Lego. Katrina had long since figured out the "shove everything into the closet and under the bed" trick when she theoretically cleaned her room. Spencer? He didn't even try anymore. I felt like I had failed as a parent, and my house might be condemned.
Thus before they went Katrina got the gears to clean out her room so that we could paint it. She got some done, but that some might have been 20 per cent. My wife Michelle hauled out the rest when they were gone.
What they did not know, and won't know until the long weekend, is that we're doing a switcheroo. Spencer's current room is larger than Katrina's. Being older, she is also now much larger as she's in the midst of a growth spurt. So not only is she bigger, but everything she has, i.e. clothes, etc., are also bigger. After six years, it's her turn for the larger room.
This meant cleaning out not one, but two rooms, painting each their chosen (opposite of existing) colour, shampooing the rugs, and putting everything back.
Well, not everything. Maybe half. Maybe a third. It depends if I run out of garbage bags.
While Michelle cleaned out Katrina's room, I did Spencer's. Our kids have been blessed, or cursed, by the fact that their dad kept all his important toys from when he was a kid, namely every block of Lego, every G.I. Joe and Transformer. Some of the Star Wars toys disappeared, but I have most of the men. Over the years they have inherited all this, plus been spoiled with more Christmas gifts than any sane man should buy.
The "action figures" have mostly gone over to Spencer now. Both have now totally fallen in love with Lego, which satisfies me to no end. Before they were born, I had enough to cover a pool table four inches deep. We've since bought more.
But that means that all this has to end up somewhere. Unfortunately, a lot of it piled up in Spencer's room.
In cleaning, I refused to reprocess his stuff again. Whatever left the room either would be kept or pitched.
This had me reminiscing over each and every "action figure" I picked up. I remembered repainting many of the G.I. Joes camouflage with model paint. Oh, how I loved my toys, and was very careful not to break them.
Spencer, on the other hand, seems to destroy everything he touches.
Thus most of his Transformers are in pieces and need to be re-assembled. Many of my old ones have fallen to pieces. One of my absolute favourites, Jetfire, was found in seven separate pieces. I knew he was barely holding together when I gave him to Spencer, but it was now time to pitch him.
The wooden toy box has long been the repository of all the leftovers, knick knacks and parts. That included a whole bunch of G.I. Joe parts and weapons, and scads of Lego.
While Spencer might not appreciate them the way I did, I'll be damned if I'm going to throw them out now, or ever let a single Lego end up in the garbage can! They cost over 10 cents each, you know!
So here I was, making multiple scans of the four inches of detritus at the bottom of the of the toy box, sorting, categorizing, reminiscing. Nearing the end I resorted to using a dust pan and a toy fork to scoop up and then sift through the last of it.
"Very much like an archeologist," I thought. "There's another 1983 vintage G.I. Joe AK-47. It's 32 years old!"
The irony of all this is there is one toy that Spencer never puts down, that trumps all my years of memories fighting toy battles in the basement. I could get rid of all else, as long as I kept that one toy for him:
His iPod.
- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
