My Childhood Is Now Antique Apparently

One of my Dad’s favorite stories he loved to retell was about my brother and me. We had just finished eating at a restaurant, maybe a Luby’s or a Furr’s, and Stephen and I went out ahead of my parents. When Dad got through the door, we were ahead of him on the sidewalk vigorously punching and kicking the air.

Dad said, “What are you two scrubbies doing?”

I turned and said, “We’re Bo and Luke Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard.”

The Dukes of Hazzard and The Incredible Hulk were on back to back when I was a kid, and of course, they were the greatest shows ever. Bo and Luke Duke—the wrong-side-of-the-law crime fighters versus corrupt officer Rosco Pico Train. (Wait, what? What do you mean that’s not the cop’s name? Okay, I confess. I was forty years old before I figured out that his name was Rosco P. Coltrane.)

We went to Pennsylvania this weekend to see Grant, Katy, and Lindsay, and upon arrival, the girls headed off to look at dresses for an upcoming formal. Grant was still working, so Graham and I walked to a local antiques shop to browse. Antiquing along the Susquehanna River is apparently a thing. So Graham and I popped in and began to browse. Almost immediately, we found this fine thermos that would have been highly coveted among my seven-year-old friends.

Guys who had GI Joe were the coolest. I didn’t have a lot of GI Joe stuff, and my parents didn’t let me watch the show often because I allegedly got too rowdy and violent after (but I could watch The Dukes of Hazzard and The Incredible Hulk . . . don’t ask me, I didn’t make the rules). Next to the thermoses were lunchboxes like these.

“Mine wasn’t Disney characters, but it was otherwise exactly like this,” I told Graham. Then I grabbed the thermos, opened the box, and put the thermos in. “You put your thermos here and your lunch on this side. Every kid had one of these. Or one of the metal ones. I always wanted a metal one, but my mom wouldn’t get one for me. I can’t remember why.”

Of course, it dawned on me that my childhood was being repackaged and sold as . . . antique! Readers, I’m forty-six. This stuff is like thirty-five, forty years old. We’re not talking about great-great-great grandpa’s Civil War kepi. We’re talking about my freaking lunchbox.

We moved on and found this gem from Return of the Jedi.

I didn’t have this, but I did have the Empire’s speed racers from the forest moon Endor. I half thought of buying some of this stuff, but to do what with? Graham is fifteen, and the adult kids do not have kids of their own yet. So we moved on, and we reached a collection of matchbox cars.

“My brother and I had dozens of these,” I said. “And race tracks for them. They were the best presents.”

And then I spotted it. We had only one in our house, though I’m not sure why we didn’t have more. It belonged to Stephen, which of course always made me a bit jealous (okay, maybe more than a bit). Of course, as on the show, it was indestructible. It chased all the bad guy cars. It was always doing leaps off the kitchen table and halfway across the kitchen. It had to do obstacle courses we built up in our garden—these were made of piled up dirt and mud, sticks, leaves, and rocks. It could never be destroyed and it always won. Do you see it? Are you sharp enough to find the true value in this picture?

Yes, folks, the orange car. But much more than a car. The General Lee. The 1969 orange Dodge Charger. (In filming, the show is believed to have destroyed more than three hundred Chargers.) Okay, fine, this one had lost its battle flag sticker on top and 01 racing number on the side, but it was, nevertheless, the real deal. And because young fools today know the value of nothing, it was $8. So I bought it. (Disclaimer: No, I do not espouse the values of the Confederate Battle Flag, nor do I venerate the real General Lee whom I consider inferior to General Grant and lousy in his views of humanity, nor do I approve of whatever the hell Tom Wopat was doing recently.)

What am I gonna do with this thing? I mean, as I said, Graham is fifteen. But you know, some day, there might just be a grandkid who needs to learn how to fight police corruption. And until that time, dude, Stephen, I got the General Lee, and you don’t. Suck it.

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