6:2012

Recently I unpacked a few boxes I'd stored in my parents' garage before moving to California. I was able to donate some stuff and get reacquainted with a few treasures from my younger days. Most importantly, I came across a few pieces of bubble wrap taped to the front piece of a Cap'n Crunch box. I picked it up, thinking, "Oh man, I packed trash again?" and then realized it was the greatest treasure of all (even better than the boxes full of Beanie Babies).

I used to go on trips with my Dad's parents every summer, accompanied first by my older sister and then, as she got more involved in high school, by my younger brother. A lot of these trips involved a few days spent at their house in Cobleskill, New York. My favorite years were the ones where I got to stay in the bedroom that had been my dad's. Not because I was super-stoked on the uncomfortable sofa bed, but because of the neat things his parents had left in place: his pet rocks, campaign memorabilia, and the amazing Beatles cutouts that he'd stuck to the front of his bedroom door as a teenager.

My dad used to tape Beatles albums for me. I have a vivid memory of sitting in our rapidly-emptying kitchen during a move with headphones plugged into my cassette player, listening a new-to-me copy of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. My dad walked through, probably carrying a box, and said, "Pretty weird, huh?". The Beatles were my favorite band ever, although they were occasionally briefly tied with Hanson, Backstreet Boys, or Nsync. 

I always told Gramma Jo that I WANTED THAT DOOR. I would have settled for just the decorations, but she was an artsy kind of lady and scoffed at the idea of removing them from the door. Why not just take the whole door, cover it in resin, and slap some legs on? COFFEE TABLE, she says. I loved it, it would fit in perfectly in my London apartment that future rich me would be able to afford. 

Gramma Jo and Grampa Jay died within a year and a half of each other and the house in Cobleskill was sold. I was in college at the time and couldn't make it from Florida to New York to help. My mother was not persuaded to bring a door back along with the collections of stamps, paperweights, and owl knick-knacks. But these pieces of cardboard? Someone took them down, wrapped them up carefully, and tucked them away for me. Wherever I go, they're coming with me.