Now, it's one thing to discuss climbing into a dark attic. It's another thing to actually do it. I mean, who knows what's up there, right? Sure, there could be treasure. But isn't there a chance there are ghosts? Not to mention rats or skeletons. "Are you sure it's safe?" Jono asked. But his curiosity was much stronger than his fear.
Jono scaled the ladder, cautiously shining his flashlight into the mysterious darkness.
"There's nothing up here," he said.
I thought, Yep. Life's full of disappointment, kid. But what I said was, "Shine the light in there a little farther. Let's see what we can find."
"STAR WARS!" Jono shouted. He scrambled into the attic and grabbed a box.
And sure enough, we had found treasure. Namely, my brother's Chewbacca/C-3PO Christmas ornament. Judging by Jono's reaction, it may have been made entirely of gold. I was starting to get a little excited about this journey, too.
At this point in our Attic Odyssey, I stopped chuckling at Jono's cute and naive excitement. Things had just gotten real.
"JONO!" I hollered. "This is my BOX!"
"What box?" he asked.
What box? Only the box that sat in my room for a decade or more. Only the box that contained my greatest treasures and darkest childhood secrets. This is no ordinary box, my son. This is the Box of Doom.
And just like that, there ceased to be a man and a child in the attic. There were two children crawling among the rafters. One of them young and adorable, the other old and bearded. Both excited at what they might find next.
The Box of Doom was marked with ancient hieroglyphics, depicting my primitive love of baseball.
And there was more. Baseball cards were tucked into the box. I found one of my favorite books, a children's version of the Arthurian legends.
I think everyone has a Box of Doom. I mean, not literally. We weren't ALL psychotic children. But we all have real or imagined boxes that hold the most important parts of our childhoods. We can't really go back to those times and places we knew when we were young. But sometimes it's enough just to remember them. Sometimes it's nice to blow the dust off our collected memories of past summers. It's hard to resist the urge to be a better man when you think about the boy you once were. Hopefully the best of you can be passed on to your own children. You can at least hand them your favorite book.