Toys
Almost every place I ever visited as a child is defined in some ways by the toys that were there for me to play with. Every relative’s home, office I visited, restaurant, even schools and churches, had their own set of toys to play with. Maybe it is part of my generation, or an eye to things to come, but in many cases I remember the tyos more than the place, or the people in it.
Let’s take both sets of Grandparents, first my mother’s side, where I can tell you that she and Grandpa kept a big cardboard cannister of Lincoln Logs and a stack of comic books, handed down from my Uncle and older cousins in the hall closet. I remember nearly as much about those toys, as I can about her holiday dinners, but this is because NOBODY cooked like my Grandma Shaw.
Homemade southern dumplings aside, I remember what those Lincoln Logs looked like when Grandpa and Uncle Sonny set them all up at once, so it looked just like the cabin in the picture on the container, and I remember that it never seemed to look quite as good for me. I remember finding Superman and Batmanand the Justice League of America in already worn comic books, and reading through them like they were treasures, each and every time we visited.
At my father’s grandparents, there was a box of mixed dominoes and tinkertoys, among all the other toys that my dad had left behind, and a small wooden train, held together by magnetic hitches, which I would pull in circles around the lower floor of the house.
There is a couple that has been a friend of our family for years, as long as I remember, but one of my most vivid memories is the rubber Underdaog that we played with at their house.
So, those are the easy ones, how about the Doctor’s office, with the crayons and worn out kids magazines, or the barber shop, which had comic books. It has just sturck me lately as odd that I tie so many places from my past to the toys I was given at them, and makes me realize that maybe above all, I should be aware of the ones I can have for children that are around my own home, as well as a tool to define characters in my wtories.
Though I am way off daily goals, this story is becoming what it is supposed to be. The original short had gaps in it that ultimately showed, and kept it from being a good short story. Too much was going on there. Also, I find that elements of my first novel fit better here than in it, probably the flaw that never let me do it right yet, though delineating it with this story might make Familiar Territory work. As the words and story begin to come to me, and after finding ways to write while going through the first days with a newborn, I believe I am going to make the goal of 50K by the end of the month, as well as have a complete, if rough, story. 
