Ephemera I wish I still had

Obviously, I've saved hoarded a lot of paper stuff over the decades, as witnessed by this blog. Inheriting family papers that weren't otherwise wanted added to the pile that I'm trying to reduce and "resimplify." But there are some things that I wish had been hoarded, or saved or tucked away in a box. I think that might have been more likely if I hadn't moved a dozen times since 1980. There are no more family attics or cellars that could hold dusty treasures of the past.

These are things I think about sometimes and that, for the most part, can never be retrieved. It's interesting how many of them are from between ages 7 and 12. 

• The psychedelic posters that Mom had on her bedroom walls in Rose Valley as a young woman. I wrote in 2023 about my quest to rediscover that vibe.
• Circa 1981, my Pappy took me for a walk one afternoon and bought me a digest-size Richie Rich comic book at a corner family store. I wish I still had it.
• I also wish I still had the comic books my parents bought me during a multifamily trip to the Jersey shore in the late 1970s. I was never much of a comic book kid growing up, but I have fond memories of that trip and those comics, which included Star Wars, the Sub-Mariner and Doctor Doom.
• A "newspaper" I wrote in third grade on an 8½-by-11 sheet of paper. The lead story was Buddy the cat upsetting a tray of cooling cookies in our kitchen. Dad made photocopies of it at work, and I mailed some of them out.
• Also in third grade, I wrote a short sequel to Watership Down for an assignment in class.
• And my third-grade class group photo with Mrs. Winston, taken on a sunny day outside my Clayton, New Jersey, elementary school. (I really need to do a post on that school. I can't believe I haven't yet.)
• A short horror story I wrote while in fourth grade. I don't think it was for an assignment.
• A blue-cover notebook that I filled with the details of a D&D world I created circa 1982, complete with maps and details about the inhabitants.
• My college newspaper clippings from The Daily Collegian, most of which were sportwriting. I kept them for the longest time, in case I needed them for job applications. But eventually, along came a move or pruning — I can't even remember which one — that they didn't survive. It's not like they took up much space.
• One of those Scholastic Books or Weekly Reader order catalogs that we happily anticipated each month during elementary and middle schools. 
• Monster finger puppets I made circa 1979.
• In the late 1970s in Clayton, my friend Mike and I would use color markers to draw pictures of the Phillies and list out their starting lineups. 
• In the early 1980s, I had a small metal box full of Phillies newspaper clippings and other Phillies-related ephemera. 
• Some of the elaborate spaceship, tank and airplane drawings I made as a kid in the early 1980s. I spent a lot of time drawing through middle school.
• Infocom game boxes and also the box for Ultima IV that had the cloth map and other trinkets inside.
• Booklets I created on my Commodore Plus/4 and printed out on its dot-matrix printer.
• Early 1980s copies of Sunday Grit featuring full coverage of the previous day's Little League World Series championship game in Williamsport.
• A cookbook that my first-grade class (Mrs. Miller) in Montoursville compiled, featuring family recipes from all of the students. Mom contributed "Mommy's Favorite Hamburger Hash," which, to the best of my recollection, was ground beef, cream of mushroom soup and chopped-up hard-boiled eggs poured over toast. 
• School yearbooks! I only have my 12th-, 11th- and eighth-grade yearbooks. I wish I had others. I know I had fifth- and sixth-grade yearbooks from C.E. McCall Middle School, but can't fathom why they were tossed.