I have so many childhood memories and some of them after all these years that stand out are about some homemade toys I used to play with in a dirt pile. Of all the toys I had my favorites were an old logging truck, an orange bulldozer and a crane, most handmade and hand painted but some were very old heavy metal types that made Tonka toys look like tinfoil. And then there was my favorite Ford tractor my father gave me which is extremely life-like.

As if it were yesterday I remember the day my mother and father and I were visiting some of my parents best friends when I was eight years old. I was walking around exploring their house while they were having coffee and cake in the living room. When I walked by an open door of what was a meticulously kept room I could tell it was a boy’s room but I didn’t remember any boys lived there from prior visits we had made there. Then I saw some toys sitting in the window by a desk all lined up so I walked over to look at them. They were the neatest toys I had ever seen, all hand painted and with great detail. They looked as if they had never been played with and I remember how I thought how much more real looking they were than any Tonka toy I had ever seen. I was just standing there looking at them when I heard a soft woman’s voice ask, “Would you like to play with them?” Startled I spun around to see my mom’s friend standing in the door way. She helped me get them all down and I stayed in the neatly kept bedroom on a braided rug on the hardwood floor in the center of the room and played along with the “Rum Rum” roar of diesel engines coming from my throat as I climbed make believe mountains.

It was later that evening after dinner as we got ready to say good bye and leave as we walked to the door I noticed a cardboard box sitting next to the door and there inside of it where the toys. I remember the tears in her eyes as she bent down and helped me put on my rain coat and asked me a question, “Gary, if we let you take those toys home would you take good care of them and play with them and enjoy them?” Boy was I ever excited and could hardly wait to get them home and into my room.

On the way home I asked my mother “Where is their little boy? Did he already grow up or something?” Then my mother told me how they had lost their son in a boating accident when he was my age. Then as best she could my mother and father did their best to attempt to explain to an eight year old how hard it was to let those toys go but at the same time they wanted them to have a good home.

I loved those toys for many years and they got plenty of use and even as a young boy growing up I often thought about the other boy who had played with them before me. I can remember at times on my hands and knees in an old dirt pile playing with them along with the imaginary boy who had owned them before me. I was never really ever alone when I played with them and I would like to believe he can hear me when I say “Thank you for sharing.”