Save Old Toys

Save old toys in a time capsule for your grandchildren to play with in the future. When I was a young teen, my parents had some friends that they hung around with a lot.  Their names were Doug and Mary Jane.  Mary Jane grew up in the country part of Missouri on a farm.  Even as a young teen, I can remember visiting their farm with them and playing in the fields and barns.

I can remember one time we all went tubing down a river.  The farm hands drove us in the back of their pickup (When you could still ride in the back) to a drop-off location.  We all got into our inner tubes and floated down the river, through some rapids, and around trees and rocks for a couple of hours to a pickup location.  It was a wonderful relaxing time.  No canoes, no paddles, just the quite of the river, the voices of friends, and a day on the water.

A few years after the river trip, Doug and Mary Jane were cleaning out one of Mary Jane’s dad’s barns and found some old rusty toy trucks.  They weren’t much to look at, and they were really nothing more than trash.  There were no wheels, and the paint had completely come off.  They had been left in that barn for many years, and the moisture and exposure to the other elements had left them in bad disrepair.  Still, before throwing them away, they asked about them.

Treasures from your Past

They were informed by Mary Jane’s mom that the trucks had been her dads.  He had played with them as a child and wanted to give them to his children.  Over the years, they must have been put into the barn and forgotten.  That is when the plan began.  They decided not to throw them away, nor tell her father about them.  They simply took them with them.

Over the next few months, they took those old trucks to many different specialists.  They were sand blasted, sanded, primed, painted, and restored from other original parts that would have been on those trucks in the beginning.  It took much more money to restore them than they were worth!  By the time it was all said and done, they were able to salvage 3 of the toys and they looked spectacular!  They were all original, except for the paint, and they looked brand new.  That year, Mary Jane presenter her father with those trucks as a birthday present.

Now, Mary Jane’s dad was not an emotional person.  He was a good man, and loved deeply, but he was not notorious for sharing his emotions.  He was also not a man who would be easily silenced.  He had an opinion about everything, and had no problem sharing his opinion.  I can still remember when he opened the first box.  He lifted the lid, removed the paper packing and peered into the top.  His eyes filled with tears as he pulled the metal truck, a dump-truck style ice truck, from the box.  He set the box on the ground and just looked.  He looked at the top, all the sides, the bottom, front and back.  Even with the tears in his eyes, there was a smile on his face.  After what must have been 10 minutes of silence, he looked up and said, “I played with a truck just like this when I was a child.  It was the same color and everything.  I probably still have it somewhere.  How did you know?”

Preserving Old Toys and Memories

The room erupted in laughter as they realized he didn’t know this was actually the truck he was talking about.  They explained they had found them in the barn and the condition they were in.  They explained about the restoration process and even gave him a photo album of all the different stages of the restoration.  Those tears just kept getting bigger and bigger and rolled down his face.

Mary Jane’s dad lived another 15 years after that day.  He treasured those trucks and was even seen actually playing with them like a child from time to time.  He would get them down off the shelf and play with them with his grand-kids even.  They became one of his most prized possessions.  After his death, they found a letter he had written to them and never sent about how much he loved “receiving the toys of his youth” back as an adult.  He talked about the memories that were attached to them as a child and how they were one of the few things that really meant something to him in this world.

Save Sentimental Toys in a Time Capsule

This is a time capsule at it’s finest.  A real time capsule is not just the information that is inside, although that is important as well, but more about the emotions that are involved.  What would give to have a letter from your Great-great-grandmother?  What would you want to know from them?  What were they thinking when they first saw you in the hospital?  When they first held you?  What was the first toy you loved?  Your first pet?

These are the moments that make you who you are.  These are the joys that you bring others that you do not even realize you are bringing.  These are what our memories are made of.

Today is the day to save a memory.  Today is the day to save something special for the future?  Today is the day to start your time capsule for your precious moment!  Don’t let your toy trucks stay in an old falling-down barn to be destroyed by the elements.  Instead, make your time capsule and protect your precious memorabilia.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Mark