Back when I had cable television through a wire and a box I watched a number of episodes of ‘Hoarders.’ People who had homes full of stuff. Lots of stuff. Some had obvious mental problems and rotting food and rodents. Others were simply ‘hoarders’ who had lots of things, not so much trash as useful things perhaps at the right time but just too, too much. Sometimes I’d watch one or two episodes on a lazy afternoon and then get up and do a little cleaning of my own place. Maybe do those dishes piling up on the wrong side of the kitchen sink.

One of the sweetest and easiest to understand was a woman who was in her fifties and lived in an matriculate tidy home. She had worked as a secretary or bookkeeper and had been laid off. Her ‘thing’ was going down to the local thrift shop or second hand charity store and rescuing any cloth dolls. She sewed them back up and rehabbed them. She had hundreds of them neatly in closets and cupboards and in boxes under her bed. In her attic there were boxes and boxes of mended dolls. The ceiling was sagging from the weight of the dolls. How nice it would be to match that woman up with a doll museum or perhaps a doll design shop to use her extensive skill. I suppose she could design her own at home on a computer and have it produced.

That br ings me to – myself. I am quarantined in my five room apartment. I am not alone. I have toys. Lots of toys. I have a few toys from my own childhood. I have toys from my son.

My two daughters and other girls have left me surrounded with doll houses. There are many worn out Barbie dolls around. Why do little girls like to cut Barbie’s hair?

I taught some middle school introduction to technology classes and have models and devices that are akin to toys. I taught technical drawing on draft boards with pencils and on computers with CAD and I have models in wood that were used in technical drawing.

I have a collection of wooden model sailing ships. (Note: Not my actual collection)

I have a collection of die cast model cars. A good bunch from the early days of automobiles and a sample of models from just about every decade. (Note: Not my actual collection)

I have a few model airplanes – the Spirit of St Louis – a small model of the Wright Brothers airplane.

I have a rag tag set of HO scale trains with a passenger car that lights up, but I have to push it around the circular track with my finger tips on the top because there is no motor car. (Note: not actual HO trains – a wish for xmas that did not come true)

When I think of all the events I’ve gone to on a subway train…

In the front room where the sun shines in the late afternoon I have a shiny wooden door from the th

ird floor clamped to the coffee table to create a vast battlefield for 2-1/4 inch plastic soldiers. There is a Marx company Fort Apache, actually, two.

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Under the wooden table is the strategy board game Axis and Allies.

I haven’t played that game in thirty years. Thank goodness for computer games that have some similar elements. Still, nice to have the physical board game to set up and remember things past.

A few weeks ago I took out a plastic tub from the cellar that had a plastic castle from Germany that I got for my son in the mid 1970’s at Boston’s downtown Jordan Marsh department store.

I just went to see if I could find anything like the castle I have set up in the other room next to my stand up writing desk. My heart leaped when I saw the exact castle. I even have some knights like the ones in the picture above.

So I am stuck in a castle with toys looking out my window getting ready to say, “Who is stealing my roses?”

All these toys, and no one to share them with.

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