Until a few years ago, a handful of JAJ/PYREX cups, like the one in the photo, used to reside in a cupboard in the kitchen. I think they occupied a kitchen cupboard in just about every house I've ever lived in, but I associate them with two in particular - this and the previous one. At some indeterminate stage they disappeared (given, I suspect, to a relative), but I recently acquired a replacement set on eBay.
Just looking at them brings my childhood back to me in a rush, and I'm once again a 10 year old boy in the kitchen of the house I lived in at the time; or a 14 year old teenager in the home I currently occupy. It's almost a mystical thing, this sense of 'time-travel' on such occasions, and I'm sometimes amazed at how even one item can conjure up memories of entire periods of one's past life to mind.
So I've now had a cup of tea in one of my 'new' cups, and lingered in yesteryear for a spell. Is there any specific item from your youth that you'd like to have again, to help recall a particular period in your life with a keenness and clarity that, somehow, only a tangible object can bestow?
The comments section awaits.
13 comments:
I always thought those cups were really classy - a glass bowl thingy inside a plastic holder. If I could have one thing from the past I think I'd choose something representing Marvel UK in the '70s because I have nothing from those days. I did have a Hulk mug circa 1978 which got smashed ages ago so I'd like that back again - that mug reminds me of sitting up in bed drinking a mug of tea and watching 'Hart To Hart' on my portable TV (..."When they met it was moider"). And I agree about the sense of "time travel" - just yesterday I was reading the Back In The Bronze Age blog (successor to Bronze Age Babies which you stopped reading a couple of years ago) and they showed the cover of 'Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu' from April 1979 - I bought that comic along with a bunch of others such as Ms. Marvel #23 (the final issue) and Uncanny X-Men #120 (my first ever X-Men comic) - seeing that MOKF cover again was like being hit by a juggernaut (OK, not quite) and took me back instantly to that day in WH Smith's when I bought all those American Marvel comics !
Why don't you get the first Planet of the Apes comic you had, CJ? If I remember rightly, it was #4, and the very first Marvel comic you ever bought. I know you've got access to all the comics on the POTA sight, but trust me, if you had the actual comic sitting on a table in your room, you'd be back in the past quicker than a fart from The Flash, and it would seem much more real to you, too. Or maybe you should get a replacement Hulk mug? Honest, I'm still tripping around the '60s and '70s because I've got these cups in front of me.
Kid, you're almost right - my first Marvel comic was POTA #5. I've mentioned before why I wouldn't try to acquire it again - it wouldn't be MINE, it wouldn't be the actual one I owned back in 1974. I know that doesn't matter to you but it does matter to me.
But it would BECOME yours, CJ - it would BECOME the actual one you owned in 1974. Try it - it's magic.
A time travel trigger for me would be any Sparky annual from 1967-1970. Particularly the 1970 one with Keyhole Kate featuring on the cover.
POTA number one would be another,released a few years later,poster included. Foolishly,on a whim,I gave away the whole set to a mate of my brothers a long time ago. The covers mentioned though,instantly imbue me with such a heady sense of nostalgia that I once again become that young lad that inhabited that far off land we call the past.
And yet,here I am 57 years old,still the same person in the respect of DNA,flesh,blood etc,yet feel a stranger to the young boy that was me,so seemingly long ago.
I hope that when this flesh gives up my soul/spirit,I don't know what,..it will consist of the greater part of my younger,more innocent self,and not the old angst ridden,cynical pessimist,that I've become.
I've got that Sparky 1970 Annual, Moony, so remind me to show you it the next time you visit. Also, I've got POTA #1, so remind me about that as well (although you've probably seen the cover and poster on the blog).
As for feeling a stranger to young boys, there's a joke there somewhere, but I ain't going near it. However, I know what you mean, but sometimes I feel like the same person I was as a kid, other times - like when I see a photo of myself from long ago - I feel I'm looking at a son I didn't know I had.
Having said that, even 'though I know I'm a fast-fading old fart, I still want to live forever. I better get back to working on that elixir of life.
Look forward to that Trip down memory lane Kid.
It's a long lane, Moony. One day, we won't have enough time to get from one end to the other.
A time travel trigger for me would be a story I've never yet managed to track down - it was in a mid-80s UK annual, possibly the Beezer or Topper or maybe something else completely. One of the strips was a b&w strip about a boy inventor who knocked up a wooden Police Box in his garden, he said it was his version of "Dr What's spaceship", and somehow got concussion and wandered out of the box thinking that he was on an alien planet. No idea what the strip (or annual) was called, but I've been trying to find out for years. Reading that again would take me right back to memories I have of lying on the living floor in front of the fire on a cold post-Christmas afternoon.
I don't suppose it rings any bells to anyone...?
Now I can't help wondering where that strip appeared, DD. If you ever find it, let me know so that I can get a copy for myself. It might be worth going onto one of the Dr. Who sites and asking if anyone recognises it, as they're usually aware of Who 'connections' like that. That's what I miss - being an adult (allegedly), I can no longer lie on the floor in front of the fire reading my comics. (Namely because I wouldn't be able to get up again.)
We had those cups in my dad's house! My mum still has the Teddy Bear cereal bowl I had as an infant. I am hugely moved whenever I see it.
Claim that bowl back, Dougie, before anything happens to it. I've still got my infant's spoon and fork set; apparently they didn't do knives for weans for some reason.
POTA 'sight'? What was I thinking in my response to CJ's first comment? That should obviously be 'site'. My bad.
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