When I enlisted at the age of seventeen, I had a sneaking suspicion that my personal belongings might not be too secure, so a few days before leaving for basic training, I stashed my collectibles in an old chest buried under mounds of stuff that had not been touched in decades in our garage. I felt sure that the cards and comics would be safe there for at least a few months. About five weeks into basic, a letter came with some cheery news from home, in which mom casually stated that she finally got the old man to clean out the garage and...imagine my horror as I read...she found the chest and had disposed of some ancient trash inside from my childhood. Mom has been gone for a long time and I never asked about it, but to this day I still wonder if she knew I had hidden those collectibles...ah, fond rememberances.
