Attic Adventures and the Box of Doom

All throughout the past week, my son has been begging me to take him up into the attic. I tried to warn him that it wasn't as exciting as he hoped. I knew what he was thinking. I knew he expected to find buried treasure or dinosaur bones or an antique elephant gun. "There's nothing much up there," I said. But I was his age once. I knew eventually he'd have to see for himself.

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.

I had intended to take a quick peek into the attic. I never even thought we'd get off the ladder and climb in there. But there were old coats to examine and a little track for toy race cars. Pretty soon we were both digging through little bits of the past. And that's when I saw something I had completely forgotten. Something I had constructed long ago and had never planned to see again. Yes, my friends. I had rediscovered the Box of Doom.

I built the Box of Doom with my childhood best friend. It was pieced together out of scraps of wood, a rusty door hinge, and an old lock. We spray-painted it grey and added suitable warnings to would-be trespassers.

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.

The Box's title was clearly written in blood, presumably the blood of my enemies. I was always a very serious child. But best of all, the BoD contained my comic book collection, a series of ancient tomes that had been thought lost to the annals of mankind.

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 spent many glorious summers with friends in Hutchinson, KS, wandering trails and splashing in swimming pools. But in the quiet and slow hours of the afternoon, I often found a lonely spot and jumped into the magical and dangerous world of King Arthur. And suddenly, a 31 year-old man in his dusty attic had returned to that ancient realm. And he was thinking of taking his son along with him.

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.