Boys and Toys

We cleaned out the basement.  It was an ALL day job.  And as I sifted through broken furniture, Christmas decorations, and outgrown clothes I couldn't help but marvel at the tiny shorts Parker had worn just last year.  It seems like we've been picking out man-sized clothes and shoes forever now.  I shook my head and folded them into the Giveaway box.
When we got to the boxes of old toys that Parker had culled from his bedroom during his last Big Clean Spree, I called him in.  He began to sort...Out went the GI Joe doll, the rubber track that fit together like puzzle pieces, and the various toy guns he had "modified" with string and duct tape.  He graciously agreed to donate his magnetic construction set, toy motorcycles, and matchbox cars of every shape and size to my first graders for indoor recess play.  Although he did keep three of his favorite metal jets for old time's sake.
The garage filled up...trash on one side...things to haul to Goodwill on the other, and we took a break. (I had collapsed on the couch prompting Parker to sense trouble like a well-trained seizure dog saying, "Mom, you need to eat.  Go eat something before you get grouchy.")  Hubby presented Parker and the neighbor boy with an old non-working tv set and instructions to take it apart piece by piece.
This new "toy" occupied them for hours...

And by the time they were finished they had rigged the speakers from the old tv together with another old speaker Neighbor Boy had gotten from his dad.

And finally....hooked it to the ipod touch...producing their own Redneck Speaker System.

After dinner, Hubby and I made a run to the local home improvement store for a few last minute organizational tools..leaving Parker and Neighbor Boy at home throwing the now-empty plastic tv frame from the upstairs deck over and over again in order to complete the tv demolition.  As I walked down the chain and "S hook" aisle my phone rang.  "Ms. Fonda..." came the plaintive little boy voice of Neighbor Boy's 5 year old brother.  "You know that stuff in your garage?"
"Which stuff?" I replied.
"Those toys...?" he said.
"Yeah."
"Can I have them?"
"Of course!" I exclaimed.  "You take whatever you can find!"
And he did.
And "everything old is new again"...