Back of the Closet

For all but my first year of life, I lived and grew up in the same house, that one that sits smack dab in the middle of The Valley. At the end of the sixth grade year, the elementary school held a softball tournament, with teams formed from us graduating sixth graders. It was an annual tradition. The ball shown in the photo suggests that it belonged to someone who played on the team that won the championship in 1974. That softball was mine. On it I had written the names of my classmates / teammates, and the positions each played during the game; some of the names were as clear as if they had been written a year ago, while others had become so faint with time that they could no longer be read. This past weekend, another one during which, a portion of Saturday was spent ripping up old carpet, laying paper atop the wood flooring hidden underneath, and sorting through years and years of accumulated stuff, this softball turned up in the back of a closet in, as it turns out, my sisters' old bedroom. Not sure how it worked out that way, but there it was found. Now that I think about it, that old .22 ended up there as well. Apparently my sisters closet became the go-to collection bin at some point after we had all left the roost.

I would have like to have posted about some great old bicycle ephemera from days of yore, but alas, the only thing I have unearthed has been the packaging from an old tube of inner-tube glue - K-mart special priced. It does remind me, though, that twenty years after the softball win, I was lucky enough to win a brand spanking new, blue, machined aluminum Bullseye hubset. Top quality stuff at the time. One was used to build up a new rear wheel; the front one, however, was simply kept as a memento in lieu of an actual trophy. It occupied a distinguished spot in the cycling room (the downstairs bathroom), alongside photos, various posters and other paraphernalia. It hasn't been there in a while now, and I wonder that at some point in the future it may be found at the deepest darkest back of a closet by some descendant cleaning out my home. Will they wonder how it got there, and why? 

That is all, just a curiosity, wondering how little things of random insignificance survive the passing of years, abandoned and forgotten, only to bring forth a bursting memory, like the flash of a strobe, from a fleeting moment in time.