my cedar box of weird.

whilst digging through some unpacked stuff yesterday in search of a hanging lantern cord, i came across my old cedar box. before i was born, my grandfather had a thriving furniture store in my home town. as a promotion one year, they gave out these little cedar boxes. my brother always had one when we were little, and i coveted thy box. my grandfather's sisters, elinor and lynn, also worked for the family business. they were very close and lived together ever since i can remember. lynn was once married, but after world war II her husband experienced some pretty severe post-traumatic stress disorder and divorced her. she never remarried, and she and elinor spent the rest of their days together. literally until death did they part.

when my great aunts moved into a smaller space in their later years, many of their things needed to be weeded out. my mom came across this cedar box and i instantly asked if i could have it. i haven't looked inside it in years, but i found some kind of weird and definitely random stuff in it.

the box:


and inside, the key, naturally:


a tiny measuring tape, i think it came with the box maybe:


a plaster mold of my bottom teeth, taken for a retainer when i was 9 (this is the WTF??? moment):


more happily met, a polaroid-esque (but is kodak) photo of me, my great aunt lynn, and my brother mykel - look at those pink on pink leg warmers!! i was probably 5 or 6, so this was around 1985:


and coolest of all, an old christmas card that my aunt elinor sent with her picture on it:


the back reads, "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Sure wish I could see you two lovely people."


what a great find. it's like a treasure box!! now i'll put everything back inside of it, thank you very much.