10 Things I Still Have That I Had When I Was 10

Here’s an idea I had that I’d like to share with you, and hope you will share with me. I was listening to a radio program discussing materialism and they were talking about what we tend to hold onto and what we tend to discard. I then wondered about the things I still have in my possession that I had when I was 10 years old. I also wondered what those items might say about me. So I searched through my memories and the hidden places in my house and I’m presenting a list of 10 items I have managed to hold onto for 38 years now. I’d love it if others shared. It doesn’t have to be exactly ten items, and it doesn’t have to be from when you were 10, just share what you’ve held on to and why you have.
1.       Pocket knife. My dad found this at the Fourth Sand Beach near where my mother was born. It was important to me because that beach is one of my favorite places in the world. It’s also important to me because my dad gave it to me when I was maybe 8 years old. It was a sign that he trusted me with something that was sort of on the grown up side of things. He felt I was responsible.2.       Tales Of Edgar Alan Poe. My brother Rick gave this to me for Christmas. Again, this was another token of my advancing maturity. While the book had illustrations by Arthur Rackham, it was a fairly serious book for someone of my age.3.       Justice League of America issue #101. I’d like to be able to say I still had issue #1 of Swamp Thing, but I sold it years ago along with most of my other comics to finance a trip to a music festival in New Jersey. But I never got around to selling my JLA comic. I got it in a trade with my friend’s brother and it still has his name on the front cover. It was part of a 3 issue story that included the Justice Society and The Seven Soldiers of Victory. This was as epic as it got to a 9 year old.4.       A special die (2 or more are dice, the singular is die). It had a hole drilled perpendicularly through it which caused speculation when it came up a good number during a game of Monopoly or Risk. I believed it was the lucky talisman that would enable me to hold on to Ukraine or Central America despite having a smaller army. It’s so easy to believe in things like that when your age is in the single digits.5.       Hank Aaron’s baseball card. No explanation necessary.6.       The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis. The first album I ever bought.7.       Star Wars card. I used to own the entire first series, but I only have one or two left. It was a very important movie to me at the time.8.       Glass piggy bank. At one point it was full of wheat pennies. There’s still some change in there but I have no idea what it is. I’ll have to smash it open someday.9.       A book entitled A Pictorial History Of Horror Movies. I think I managed to take over possession of this from one of my older brothers. If you want it back, just ask.10.   A pair of walkie talkies. I had no idea I still had these after all these years. Probably not as cool anymore now that everybody has cell phones, but back in the day these made me feel like a superagent spy.

I’ll leave it to others to figure out what that says about me. Assuredly I am a pack rat with a fondness for the past. But I don’t think as long as I live I’ll ever forget the feeling of finding a Hank Aaron card in a newly opened pack of cards, nor the smell of the gum that was included in every pack. And while I guess I’ve stopped thinking about it, there is a part of me that would like to gather the family together again for one more game of Risk, provided I’m allowed to use my lucky dice.