Toys In the Attic

Spent the majority of today writing, and one of the things my character was focused on was a toy from childhood and that special toy, small and worthless as it is, is invaluable to her. It's a key to so much...

It made me think about that one thing, the one special thing, that I have from a time almost before I have memory.

It's a pair of boats, simple boats, made of wood. One's painted green, the other a mustard yellow.

Both were made by my Dad, one for me, one for my brother. The paint on the bottoms of both is mostly worn off, but not the our names written in indelible ink.

It was only about a year and a half ago that my brother and I looked at them very closely and discovered that if you look carefully under the paint on the smokestacks, you can see, stamped and stenciled in tiny letters, that my father named those boats after our Mom.

What's your special toy? What's that one thing that you have that's the key to that special place, days of endless summer or never-ending dreams?