Found in My Attic: Random Stuff, Labeled “Knick Knacks, 1988”

Plush Toy Music Box (Airplane) Large Conch Shell, Homemade Vampire Doll, Astrology Globe
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For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.

– Jean-Paul Sartre

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I haven’t posted here lately because we have been amongst construction materials and hearing the sounds of construction, and cleaning up the dust of construction. My life has been consumed with construction.

We had part of our large attic area converted into another bedroom, in addition to a new roof and new siding.

 Still more to be done: new paint and new flooring in the other upstairs bedroom and a remodeled bathroom.

Also, we have been preparing the new (and smaller) attic area for re-storing our books and stuff. This has involved serious weeding (off to the thrift shop or garbage) and repacking the remaining stuff in a more sensible way, such as creating numbered boxes and developing a kind of inventory list.

Well, the other day, I found the last old attic random “stuff” box, marked “Knick Knacks, 1988.” Contents:

• A metal doll bed with mattress.

• A plush toy music box airplane. When the propeller is wound, it plays “Fly Me to the Moon” (You can't make this stuff up) – I have no memory of this possession, but I know it’s something I acquired. Jerry. Just. Wouldn't.

• A homemade vampire doll, made by one of my husband’s “Literature of Terror” students.

• A humongous conch shell (Larger than a human head); I thought I had lost it (Well, in a way, I did – in my attic) – glad to have it again! Funny. I bought this shell for $10 from the Sioux City, Iowa, Museum Gift Shop, I think our first year of marriage (1984). Question from hubby: “Why are you buying this in the middle of the country?” (As if it would be more valid buying a conch shell at the seaside). My answer: “Because I like it.” This question and answer “dance” would repeat itself throughout the years, LOL. Now it’s “Why are you buying rocks ‘Made in Brazil, China, Russia, Madagascar, etc.’?” My answer remains the same.

• A vintage astrology globe, presumably made in Italy, given that the text is in Italian.

I think I may be keeping this stuff, for this box represents a snapshot in time, packed in summer 1988, as we prepared to store our possessions before our BIG Yugoslavia adventure.

Neither of us had even been to Europe before, and we were headed for Socialist Yugoslavia.

Nothing like jumping in with both feet, LOL.

Ah, to be young and adventurous again!