Digressions: My Life in 500 Words or Less

Last weekend my oldest sister found a game piece that had been lost at our family home for more than 40 years. The game piece is a thin grid transparency with letters on it representing the four main navigational directions. It had been lost since probably sometime in the mid- to late-'70s.

Well, maybe "lost" isn't the right word. I knew generally where it was: in the basement of our family home; I just couldn't get to it. It had fallen under or between the workings of the central heating and air conditioning unit or under the washer and dryer. It had been so long I couldn't remember for sure which.

I remember being in that basement as a kid, getting into the Wide World game that included the transparency. The game had been kept on a shelf near the air unit and washer and dryer. I believe I was with my little brother, Victor. At some point the transparency ended up sliding right into some inaccessible space. I have only the vaguest memories of the incident.

Wide World is a game I remember playing as a child with my siblings back in the '60s. It was one of several I have fond recollections of, a board game that brought family members together.

Parts of the game had survived the years, namely the board, the jet-shaped markers and some of the cards. I have kept what remained of the game, but I lamented the loss of that transparency.

Last weekend I was at our family home with my girlfriend, Rebecca, and my oldest sister, Sandy. We were sorting and packing things when Sandy found the transparency in the basement.

Apparently, during work being done on the air unit or at some point when the washer and dryer was moved, someone had found it. It had been placed with a picture frame on a shelf in the area near the air unit and washer and dryer. I have no idea how long it sat on that shelf.

When Sandy showed me the transparency, I was inexplicably overjoyed. I say inexplicably because, I mean, after all, it was just a thin, scuffed,, chipped piece of plastic. The game isn't even complete enough to play.

But that discovery made me so happy. I literally couldn't stop smiling about it.

Why?

I've been thinking about it. I think it has less to do with what it is and more to do with what it represents. It's part of a happy memory, a part that wasn't so much lost as made inaccessible. That, in turn, somehow made the memory incomplete or fractured. Since I knew that piece was there somewhere, it was all the more frustrating.

It might be just a piece of plastic, but it was an important piece of my family history. It might have been a thin transparency, but it was filled with warm memories.

Some of the most ordinary things have more to them than meets the eye.