I recently purchased an old Sci-Fi art book, “Space Wars: Worlds and Weapons” by Steven Eisler. I had the book as a kid and I used to go through it again and again. I lost track of the book somewhere about 40 years ago. I didn’t notice until someone on FB started posting pics that had been in the book. I got such a kick out of it that I went online and bought a used copy.
I did the same thing a few years ago when I encountered an old copy of the D&D module, “The Village of Hommlet.” I bought it instantly and have pored over it purely for the memories. It was my first encounter with D&D. I don’t expect to ever use it. Just to enjoy it.
What items from your childhood have you bought just for the memories?
Not from my childhood, since I can’t find Bosco anywhere, but I’m about to buy a game I bought about 20 years ago. I still have the CD, but my computer won’t let me load it. I found it online, and I figured it was worth a few bucks. The last few levels go better with a big screen, and I just got a gigantic one from my son-in-law who was not about to schlep it to Belgium.
When I was a teen, I discovered my dad’s old Heathkit shortwave radios and got one working again. I don’t remember whether it was a 54 or a 64 so now I have one of each, though I don’t really do anything with them.
Funny. Thanks to Steam, I was able to start playing “Age of Empires II” again after a few years of not being able to install it from the old CDs. It was sooo sweet when I got it going and played that first game after so long. It has once again become a real time sink.
I bunch of years ago I bought a copy of the National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Universe (link to reddit post with some good images on the content). A childhood friend had this at their house, and I was obsessed with it.
A ring identical to my mom’s that she purchased in Mexico in the late 1990’s.
My now wife and my mom and I took the trip. After my mom passed, I found the ring in my moms stuff and gave it to my wife (wouldn’t fit me). She wears it on her right hand ring finger. I bought an identical one (bigger of course) and wear it on my right hand ring finger.
Turquoise and silver. It’s just a way to say that we will never forget her.
My nostalgia purchases are of things I wanted when I was a kid; not stuff I had. Most of these things were vintage items when I was a kid. Many, many back issues of comic books that I could not source, let alone afford, back then. A Fender Twin Reverb amp. Vintage surfboards. The entire run of Galaxy Science Fiction. The wrist rocket sling shot my mom would never let me have in a million years. A Pac Man cocktail table. All of these scratched an inch for a disappointingly short amount of time and I have shed myself of all except the amp and one old surfboard.
…Oh! One thing I bought that I did have a kid: A Toas-Tite. That one went to Goodwill sometime last year.
If they were still around, I’d buy some Flav-R Straws. These were straws that flavored milk when you drank through them.
When I was quite young, I was very sick with something. My bed was moved into the living room so my mom could keep an eye on me. I was even told that I could ask for anything I wanted, and I asked for Flav-R Straws (chocolate). I see online that they were discontinued in 1961, so I couldn’t have been more than five years old. They live only in memory! Anyone else remember them?
This might be a Canada only thing, but I had one of these within the last 5 years. Could be a different brand though. Strawberry was my flavour of choice!
Ernest Callenbach’s Living Poor with Style, a sort of anarcho-eco-hippy how-to manual published in 1972. Loved it when I read in 1974, bought a copy a few years go, still found wisdom in it. Callenbach is probably better known for his novel Ecotopia and as the editor of Film Quarterly for many years.
Heh. I have that. And the issue with “The Martian Way” on the cover is signed by Isaac Asimov. Gold misspelled his name, and he was still pissed when he signed it.
When I was a kid I never conceived of full runs as a thing.
Not quite from childhood, but early to late teens. I stumbled over a vintage wood Majerajah slalom water ski at a garage sale and bought it, just because it reminded me of those years of carefree waterskiing. I’ll never use it, but it still makes me smile every time I see it in my workshop. Fun times.
