Nostalgia and guilt.

I had this exact same music box when I was really little.  It's called a Pocket Radio, it plays "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", and it is was made in 1972.  The lyrics and an illustration are printed on the back and when you turn the knob on the front, a wheel turns in the little arc-shaped window while whimsical images pass by: little kids with umbrellas, frogs, puddles.  And to top it off, there is a small plastic carrying strap.  I remember loving to carry the Pocket Radio around, holding tightly onto the strap.

I had a lot of toys I don't remember, but I never forgot about my Pocket Radio.  What is it that burns some things into our memory, while others fade away?  In this case, I know the reason.  

One day I decided to see what would happen if I pressed the tip of an orange felt pen against the images inside the arc-shaped window as the wheel turned.  I was amazed to see the orange line from the felt pen get thicker and thicker and I delighted in watching the lines zig and zag as I moved the pen to and fro.  I wound up the Pocket Radio again and again and soon I ran out of white space and the wheel was almost completely covered in orange felt pen.  I stopped.  I watched the wheel turn, the images of the kids with umbrellas now tainted orange.  I placed my finger against the images as they spun.  I looked at my finger and the tip was orange.  I looked back at the images and they were still orange, the ink now smudged.  I licked the tip of my finger and tried again, but I only ended up with more ink on my finger.  

I remember carrying the Pocket Radio (not by the strap, but holding it with both hands, like a patient) to the bathroom and trying to remove the ink with dampened toilet paper.  A lot of the ink came off, but the wheel was still orange and I think it was then that I realized it would stay that way.  I don't think I knew what to think.  So instead of being upset about it, I proceeded to cover the entire toy, the wheel, the plastic front and the images on the back in different coloured felt pen.  It was unrecognizable.  I never played with the Pocket Radio again, and I don't know what happened to it, but I assume it was thrown out.  I've always found it interesting that ruining the toy didn't seem to affect me at the time, but years later when I thought about the Pocket Radio, I was overcome with nostalgia and guilt.  Guilt!  As if it was a kitten I'd abandoned instead of a toy ruined with felt pen.  

Earlier this year, while cruising ebay, I finally came across the treasure I'd been looking for: my treasured Pocket Radio.  It was being sold by a woman in Alberta and I bought it from her for ten bucks.  Money well spent.  It arrived in the mail a week later and Sonja bombarded me with questions and practically salivated as I opened the package.  I took the Pocket Radio out of the box and it was perfectly worn: the edges were scuffed and the embossed printing on the knob was slightly rubbed off by the hands that had wound it over the years.  It looked exactly like the memory I had of my own Pocket Radio.  I looked Sonja sternly in the eye.  "You are welcome to play with this music box," I explained, "but it belongs to Mama."  She blinked.  "Do you understand?  This music box is  mine."  Sonja reached out and gently took the Pocket Radio from my hand and looked up at me again.  "It's Mama's?" she asked.  "Yes.  But you can play with it as long as you're careful, OK?"  She nodded.  

Sonja doesn't play with the Pocket Radio too much, but I love when she comes across it while playing with her other toys, because she always turns to me and reiterates that the music box belongs to me, then brings it to me so that I can play with it.  The tinkling rendition of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" is an anthem of my pre-Kindergarten days and has been in my memory for over thirty years.  Perhaps when Sonja and Haven are older, the sound of the Pocket Radio will be as nostalgic for them.