Pieces of my past

While I was messing around in the garage this afternoon, I opened up a drawer to a small cabinet that I have. I store various little things inside the cabinet; old knives, some incense, lighters, an old can of snuff, and a few keepsakes from my childhood. As I browsed through the drawers, a small matchbox sized cardboard container caught my eye. I pulled it out and slid the outer cover off to reveal the treasures hidden inside. Two old crawdad pincher's, a piece of quartz, an old dog's tooth, and a piece of Mica. None of it holds any monetary value, only sentimental worth. I collected these things when I was just a young boy traipsing through fields and woods around my home place. They meant a lot to me when I was a young man and I've held onto them all of these years. I was taught by my dad at a very young age to always keep an eye open for things lying around on the ground. He always seemed to be lucky in finding little hidden gems, a $20.00 bill on the ground, lost fishing lures, arrow heads, fossils, coins, etc... We didn't have a lot of money growing up so things like that felt like a real treasure to us.

Also inside of the cabinet was an old fishing lure. It used to belong to my dad. You can tell by looking at it that it has a homemade paint job on it. I remember when my dad painted it. We still lived down in our old 4-room cinder block house. He spread a piece of news paper out on the kitchen table and painted several old fishing lures. He then hung them from a wire that he stretched above our old coal stove, to let them dry. I can remember gazing at the colorful lures hanging there and feeling really proud that my dad had painted them. I just knew that come summertime he would be catching all kinds of fish with them. I can't remember if he ever caught anything on them after painting them but sometime through the years he gave me this one. I haven't used it to fish with, I just hold on to it for old-time's sake. I would be devastated if I tried to use it and lost it. Sure, it isn't doing anything but taking up space, but the journey of memories it takes me on when I look at it is worth more than all of the money in the world.

I wonder sometimes if my kids will have fond memories of their childhoods like I do. I hope so. I know life sure is flying by. I can hardly believe that I am already 42-years old and next month my wife and I will be celebrating our 24th wedding anniversary. Where has the time gone? I wonder if 30-years from now, if my son will be sitting around writing about the pieces from his past?