We all keep things.
Some of them are obvious like photos, letters, heirlooms we know we’ll never part with. Others stick around for quieter reasons. They get tucked into a box. Slid into a folder. Moved from house to house without much thought.
Years go by.
Then one day you open that box.
What’s strange is that the things we keep aren’t always the things we meant to keep. They aren’t always sentimental at the time. They just survive. And decades later, they become accidental time capsules.
Recently, I realized I still have a surprising number of items from my childhood. Most of these items are from the 1970s, things I’ve carried with me for 40 to 50 years. Not because I treated them like treasures, but because they somehow avoided getting thrown away.
Looking at them now, they tell a story I didn’t realize I was preserving.
Not a highlight reel.
Just a life, quietly documented.
The Things That Stayed
Here are 22 random items I’ve kept from my childhood. None of these were carefully curated. They just… stayed.
A wooden foot locker full of magic tricks from the 1970s, along with magic magazines, Mark Wilson’s Complete Course in Magic, and several other magic books.
A bird puppet named Emmett the Emu, bought around 1975, from the magic and puppet shows Stayton and I used to perform.
About 200 comic books, ranging from the 1950s through the late 1970s—mostly Superman and Action Comics.
A Hot Wheels Redline blue Classic ’32 Ford Vicky from 1968.
A green Sesame Street Oscar the Grouch finger puppet.
A marble collection, the kind every kid seemed to have at one point. I keep them in a retro red bubble gum machine.
Cassette tapes filled with band rehearsals, mixtapes, Boogie Check, made-up skits, and Dr. Demento recordings.
Letters from my sixth-grade pen pal in Korea, along with a knit hat and small wooden figures.
Baseball, basketball, and football cards, including Joe Namath and Pat Riley.
A photo of me unrolling my Farrah Fawcett poster at Christmas in 1976.
A real Neil ringer T-shirt, a two-color silk-screened design.
Cartoon park maps from Six Flags Over Texas (1978) and Mid-America (1976).
My mom’s 8mm movie camera, a Mansfield Holiday Electromatic 8.
Report cards from elementary school, junior high, and high school.
Lionel O-gauge trains with metal track.
A green rabbit’s foot keychain.
A plastic slot-machine bank from Las Vegas—the handle still moves and spins the reels.
A Radio Shack school calculator.
Two vinyl albums: Kansas – Two for the Show and a 10-inch Cheap Trick – Found All the Parts.
A single TV Guide from January 1978, with Kojak on the cover.
Two Mad Magazines from 1977—one regular issue and one special edition.
A KOFM window sticker signed by DJ Lester “Boogie” Michaels from the mid-to-late ’70s.
What These Things Really Are
Individually, these items aren’t rare or priceless. But together, they form something else entirely.
They’re proof of interests that came and went.
Of phases that mattered deeply at the time.
Of a kid experimenting with magic, music, art, humor, and creativity without realizing it was all connected.
What strikes me now is how normal these things were. None of them were saved because I thought, “This will matter someday.” They mattered because they were part of everyday life.
And somehow, they survived.
The Things I Let Go Of… and Found Again
What’s just as interesting are the things I didn’t keep but later went looking for.
Over the years, I’ve intentionally repurchased a few pieces of my past. Not to relive it, but to reconnect with it.
I found my old banana seat bike again.
I tracked down the same Grentech skateboard I rode as a kid.
I rebuilt my vinyl album collection.
And I found my way back to a red Kalamazoo electric guitar.
These weren’t impulse buys. They were quiet acknowledgments.
Not of nostalgia—but of continuity.
Those objects reminded me that the kid I was never really disappeared. He just evolved.
Why This Matters
We spend a lot of time talking about memories as things that live in our minds. But some memories live in boxes. On shelves. In drawers. In garages.
Sometimes the things we keep aren’t about the past at all.
They’re about recognizing the through-line.
The interests that never fully went away.
The curiosity that stayed intact.
The version of ourselves that’s been there all along.
And every once in a while, it’s worth opening the box and taking a look.
You might be surprised by what you’ve been carrying with you.
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