The past is in the box

Resslin' Around by Casey Ressler

Come get your stuff, the order came from my parents. A month shy of my 30th birthday, I figured it was about time to get my baseball cards out of their closets and into mine.

When I got to my parent's house, they had everything set out in my childhood bedroom. The baseball cards were spread out everywhere, but the two brown boxes captured my attention first.

On top were three high school yearbooks and inside were memories that last a lifetime -- pictures of long-ago proms, a note from an old high school girlfriend, pictures of school trips and even a receipt for the first case of beer bought with a fake ID -- not that I'm advocating that or anything.

As I sorted through the pile of mementos, I couldn't help but think of the past. But I also thought a lot about the present, and the future. In one fourth-grade photo, there were seven guys in the picture.

Two of the "boys" were ultimately in my wedding, another one of those "boys" lives about 200 yards up the road from me, I see another around town quite a bit and the other two I don't even recognize. The fact that five of the seven boys in a photo taken in fourth grade are still friends is pretty decent, though.

Pouring through the old photos and notes I realized why I love living where I do -- the people, and relationships you build not in years, but in decades. In my mind, you begin to define a life through relationships, and the strength of them, not through "status symbols" such as a fancy car or expensive toys. How you are as a friend and as a person defines you, and long-term relationships are a big part of that.

My buddy Charlie was in that fourth-grade photo, taken after a game of recess football on the playground of Snowshoe Elementary. Now, he lives up the hill from me, and I'm pretty sure I've got some good stories his wife hasn't heard, and he surely has a couple about me my wife doesn't know. I just smile as my daughter plays with his two boys, two decades after their dads played together on the playground. Our past is their future.

My daughter found one of those old photos, pointed to a skinny blonde kid and asked me who that was. "That's Uncle Aaron," I told her, much to her disbelief. Aaron isn't really her uncle, but as a friend he's as good as a part of my family. That's the way friendships are supposed to be -- the line between friends and family should be blurred.

I finally gathered all the old trinkets and mementos together into a giant box and taped it shut, threw it in the back of my truck and ultimtely tucked it away in the corner of our "junk" closet.

I promised myself I'd pull it back out again and show all of the items to my daughter when she's old enough to comprehend her dad's childhood.

There was my past in the box, and my future sitting right beside it, and it was then that I realized I'm completely happy with both.

"Dad, let's get some ice cream and not tell mom about it," Madison said.

The future is bright.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor. After perusing eBay, he just realized his baseball cards are essentially worthless.