My wife tells me that I am a packrat. I consider myself a collector of memories.

I have a lot of wrist watches, including six Disney ones.

I collect pocket knives. Some are quite old and some of those I have had since I was really young.

There are a lot of things in my small home office. Some of the things would be considered junk by most people. Some may be worth a few bucks. To me they are all valuable.

Hanging on the wall in front of my desk is a gold framed shawdowbox with all the pins from all the Apollo Space missions mounted inside. Above the shadowbox are two shelves holding thirteen diecast 1.24-scale metal trucks. Most of the trucks are models of vehicles made between 1900 and 1947.

Behind me are six long shelves covered with all kinds of items.

I made the shelf array. I took a trip to a ladder supply company and bought a 20-foot-tall one-piece wooden ladder. I cut the one large ladder into two 7-foot 4-inch ladders. I sanded the two sections, stained them a nice honey color and then attached them to the celing so they would be perpindicular to the rear brick wall of my office. Then I took the six pine shelves, stained them a rich Hunter Green and placed them across the rungs of the ladder sections.

On these shelves are more model trucks, cars and a few motor homes. I have signed baseballs (one with Roy Hobbs' autograph), a lot of paperback books including the complete works of D. Francis, (I read my first Francis novel when I was about 13), all the Harry Potter novels, the complete Lord of the Rings as well as the Chronicles of Narnia . Sitting alongside of the books are their DVD collections.

I have on display Pez dispensors, ceramic and plush Disney characters, a collection of books and DVDs about the Civil War and World War II. There is also a number of telephony novelty items like a wind-up walking telephone.

I have an old small horseshoe that I keep on one of those shelfs. On the wall of my office, just to the right of those shelves, is a wooden plaque made by my father. Two things are mounted on this plaque. One is a small brass plate with my name and birth date engraved on it. The second item, above the brass plate, is a wooden carving of a Conestoga wagon. This carving used to be mounted on the headboard of a wagon wheel bunk bed.

The bunk bed belonged to me when I was a young boy back in the late 1950s. I slept in that bed under the same-style bed spread that was on Beaver Cleaver's bed. I had a model of Nellie-Belle, the jeep from the Roy Rogers' show on my dresser along with a model of Trigger, Roy Rogers' horse.

Just before I went to bed I would remove my Hop a Long Cassidy wristwatch and place it back in its saddle-shaped box that was on my desk. Also on the desk was my horseshoe with my name engraved on it. This horseshoe came from Williamsburg and was bought during a first or second grade field trip.

The Roy Rogers action toys have long disappeared and so has the watch. The horseshoe and the wagon carving, I still have. They remind me of a time that was so much simpler than it is now. It was a time when it was easy to tell the bad guys from the good ones because the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys black. Back then TV was black-and-white and no one disagreed that father knew best. I keep the horseshoe as a reminder of summer vacations without a care in the world, as well as no air conditioning. I keep the plaque to remind me of the time we played outside, and everyone one knew everyone else in the neighborhood. I keep it to remind me of baths just before bedtime, half hour news shows, trips to Highs Ice Cream, or to the drug store for a Cherry Coke.

I keep the horseshoe and that wooden wagon carving to remind me that yes, a long time ago, I was once a young and happy kid.

Gramps