When I was eight years old living in Germany back in the 1970s, a kid I knew was moving back to the ‘States to a warm location, so he sold me a red plastic sled (actually a toboggan) for one dollar.
Over the next two decades that sled moved with our family from Germany to Texas to California to Texas to Tennessee to Illinois, then back to Germany (two different houses), and finally to Virginia, where my former stepfather was going through and getting rid of all my childhood possessions after a divorce from my mother. Right before I left, I saw that sled in pile of things to be donated with my name still written on it with magic marker.
That was 20 years ago. The sled is still in my basement. I pulled my son around on it when he was little.
Guess what I didn’t find in Virginia? All of my childhood books. Those meant more to me than any sled. It’s the main reason I haven’t spoken to my former stepfather in 20 years. Well, that and the fact that he was an abusive POS to me growing up.