The Box My Father Made

My father made a box for me and taught me how this was the key to keeping bedrooms clutter free, that toys are tidied after tea. I used to keep tin soldiers there, my fluffy toys and teddy bears, a bow with arrows, Indian hair with banded feathers I could wear as Running Deer, Comanche brave, who fought so hard to try to save his way of life from constant waves of White Eyes seeking early graves. A water pistol, gala flags, some coloured marbles in a bag (for when we tired of playing ‘tag’) and bits of multicoloured rag collected over countless days to use as cleaning cloths, or blaze my secret trails and hidden ways that led to treasure, some would say. Some poster paints and rubber moulds, a bag of plaster, badly holed, for making statues that I sold for pocket money, I’ve been told. Some odds and ends, and remnant bits of model planes I built from kits and hung with string, a pair of mitts for Winter games of snowball ‘IT’. My football boots, without a lace, and masks to wear that hid my face at Halloween, that’s no disgrace, for ‘trick or treat’ was commonplace. I passed the box on to my son but kids have changed their ways of fun, computer disks have now begun to rule the world, but not a one can match the games that we once played when our imagination strayed to realms where wonder’s magic stayed and memories of life were made.