Priceless

The toy that defaults to the youngest in the family is a collection of fist-sized chunky plastic discs in yellow, white, and green, housed in a blue Lego bucket. The older children learn quickly that positioning the blue bucket in front of “Baby” means Baby stays out of the more interesting stuff: vintage Fischer Price, wooden blocks, and serious Lego.

Give the baby the bucket!

Jon-boy has the bucket. Some discs are stacked on top of the coffee table and some tossed on the floor to give him options. He pulls up to standing, enjoying the ups and downs of life pre-walking. The discs are easily grasped by small hands and can be dumped out, chewed, stacked, rolled, or dropped back into the bucket. They are substantial and noisy. What more could a small boy want?

Finally bored, he howls for help and Poppa leaves the table to check on him. Poppa sits down and handles the discs. Somewhere in the neighborhood of forty are in the bucket, on the table, and on the floor.

Memory kicks in and mists over the room. Each disc represents 100 feet of slide film, hand-rolled, shot, developed, catalogued, in print and still on the web. One blue bucket and thousands upon thousands of slides from all over the world. Fifty plus countries, forty years.

Images crowd out the little guy in a red sweater. Vivid green rice terraces climbing to the Philippine sky. Jammed Chinese and Japanese train stations with confusing signs. Narrow European streets dripping with cold rain. Blazing Spanish sunshine. Bitter Siberian and Kazak steppes swept with snow. African plains with herds of elephants. Snowy mountains driving north to Sidney. Babbles of languages. Faces, faces, faces of every color and ethnic mix. Fascinating people, each with a story.

A howl brings Poppa back to the present as a small boy climbs up his pant leg looking for attention. The memories fade gently into the present as he picks up the little guy.

“Do you know this is the most expensive toy in the house, Jon-boy? Each of those discs of film that I hand-rolled cost about $100. That’s $4000 you’re stacking on the coffee table.”

The promise of the future in Poppa’s arms crowds out the past. There will be time down the road to share memories with the big eyed little boy in the red sweater. He may never see all the pictures, but he’ll reap the benefit of where the discs took his grandfather.

Priceless.