(267): What About People Who Collect Their Childhoods?

My husband bought a pair of 1970s mushroom plaques at an estate sale the other day. They’re kind of faded from their original 70s orange, yellow, brown, off-white color scheme glory of yesteryear. But I can get the idea of, say, a kitchen built around them, a wood paneled office with these plaques hanging in an offhand corner, perhaps by the typewriter (remember those?).
But the plaques are faded, as are my memories of the 1970s, no doubt. When I see memories of that decade, I sort of think in terms of the moderately washed out Instamatic camera snaps or Polaroids that make up much of my chronicles, haphazard as they are. But certainly the real, living me that populated the “Me” decade could see in perfect 20/20, so the colors were sharp.
That mushroom plaque would have been new around, say, 1974 (mushrooms were big in the 70s, haven’t you heard?). So it wouldn’t have had time and wear to fade to its sad 2017 state. And, of course, I was 9 years old at the time, and I, too, have changed. My brain is aged over 50 years, and it is crowded in there. The visual data from my childhood might have been compressed, simplified, only the sharp standout points retaining pride of place in the caverns of grey matter.
I think I have often held on to physical markers of certain times; usually it’s pictures, but sometimes it is media or a particular piece of clothing. I have a pair of old Brittania jeans from 1979 on which Dickey Betts wrote his name. Or was that a shirt? Well anyway, Dickey Betts wrote his name on an item of my clothing; it is long since worn off, but whenever I see those jeans, that’s what I think of.
I think I tried to hold on to early youth through clothing as well. I had a pair of purple shorts. In fact, I think I posted a picture of me wearing those shorts on one of my other posts. I can’t remember when I got them, but I do remember they were a size 6X (children’s). I stretched them and stretched them until they grew with me, and I managed to keep wearing those shorts until I was in high school. But by then, they were no longer suitable for polite company.
Was I trying to retain a part of my true childhood as late as I could into my teen years? I couldn’t hold onto it that long. Let’s say a man out there remembers that he used to spend happy days back in the 70s doing ‘shrooms and staring at a couple of bright mushroom plaques like the ones pictured above, thinking great thoughts. And now, as he is getting close to his 70s, he wants that memory marker back again. So he goes shopping online for a pair of mushroom plaques of a certain kind — the kind that will spark the memory he craves.
The thrill might be there for a few moments, especially when he unwraps the plaques and sees the characteristic 70s colors and style. But in the end, he is surrounded by the 21st century; that youth Is gone except in memories. But what he might not remember are the difficulties he had back in the day; perhaps he had severe money problems or a psychotic girlfriend or car troubles, things that drew his focus to the here and now back in the then and gone.
That life was rich, and certainly I can understand the desire to regain a piece of it through a talisman from the past. But in the end, it is a mere thing, weathering the time-stream simply by sitting around in someone’s attic for awhile, passively moving along via online sales venues, and ending up in the man’s possession again. It is a sort of magical thinking — obtain the talisman, regain your youth, or at least the memory of it.
Well, that’s all I got for tonight; gotta put up the faded mushroom plaques and get some sleep. ‘Night y’all!

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