My Old Spoon Ring

I was recently digging through some of my old treasures from decades ago. But when opening up little boxes and containers it seemed like only yesterday I saw them last. Actually, there’s been a whole lot of life lived between then and now.

My girls made fun of some of the things I kept. I admit they are kinda weird. A red Cookie Monster puppet with a deflated ping pong eye. A dog head puppet that is now as hard as rock. A stuffed koala named Cory, that is missing a couple of his plastic paws and his nose.

My candy stripe uniform from when I volunteered at the hospital. My one-piece gym suit. Lovely. My tonette, of which I can still play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. A creepy smiley face I made, raccoon teeth, and my Born Loser comics.

One of my favorite baby dolls was in that box too. Oh, my how I loved that baby. I took her everywhere. I guess I was practicing loving on her so I could love on my own real babies years down the road.

When I tell people how scary I look in the morning, I describe my hair as that of a doll that’s been left in an attic for 50 years. My baby’s hair isn’t too bad when you think she’s about 54 years old. But then mine is a whole lot longer. Pretty darn scary, fellas. Maybe this explains why I don’t have a man. 😬

I also found a painted egg that my friend, Judy Lynn, had made for me. She took a needle and poked a hole at each end and blew the egg out of the shell. Then she painted it. After all these years it’s still intact. I store it in a Blue Jeans cologne box. Remember that cologne?

I guess the creepiest of my toys were the Thumbelina dolls. You pulled the string in their back and they’d roll their head around in a circle. One of them hummed inside when the string was pulled and my girls found that quite disturbing and made me stop playing with it.

All of these treasures brought back great memories of a childhood long gone. Seeing this stuff made me feel a little homesick. But in a good way. As we grow older I think sometimes we want to go back to our roots. At least revisit them. Long before my mom passed she desired to have her ashes spread at the Chiricahua National Monument located in the southeast corner of Arizona. She loved that part of the country. But at the very end of life, she just wanted to go home. And that being Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

I finally dug through small containers that held my jewelry. This is when I found my spoon ring. I think I bought it around the age 15. I guess that means about 45 years ago. I held it while I thought about my life back then and the all friends I hung out with when I wore it. I thought about my friend Ronnie, the wild boy in the neighborhood with the big red truck and the baby blue Galaxy 500 convertible…the first boy to steal my heart.

I tried on the ring and it fit. Okay, okay…I had to open it up slightly to make it fit better. I cleaned it up with an old toothbrush and my stove top cleaner and got it shining pretty good. I slipped it on my left index finger and there it’s stayed. And I love it. I really don’t care if it looks tacky. It means a lot to me right now. Maybe with my dad’s passing recently I’m even a little more homesick. This ring is about as close to home as I can get. Home being the sweet memories of time with my family and friends in the ‘70’s. Ahhhh….what a decade that was.

I repacked my boxes of treasures, and set them back in the garage. I will go through them again another day and pitch what I really don’t need to keep. You probably have an idea of what all that might be.

It’s nice to reminisce once in awhile. I hope you enjoyed my little blast from the past. Just please don’t tell me my old spoon ring looks tacky. LOL ♥️

Andi