the blue barrel...

Sorting through the blue barrel in Grandma's attic brings to memory scenes from "Toy Story" and "Night at the Museum." It animates memories of our younger brothers Steve and Kurt playing games with their friends. It mixes the histories of peoples and nations and eras...warriors and adventurers of every time....metal figures, some sculpted and cast by Steve, colorful plastic figures, some flexible and some brittle and breaking with age...tall ships and covered wagons and torpedo boats, dinosaurs and a plastic arsenal of guns. With these, Grandma's yellowed warning note, "Hands off! (Steve's marionette project.)" as well as Daddy's cast-off reporter's memo book -- first entry dated 18 Sept 1948, a few blank pages nibbled by silverfish...some dust at the bottom of just this one barrel.