I suppose it was in the early 1950's that I first paid attention to the little cedar chest that sat in the storage area of our weird attic. Most of that attic had been converted into bedrooms for myself and my brothers. The storage area was the remainder, and was reached by way of two doors opening from our bedrooms. The little chest sat in one end of that dark storage space, lit only by a dim lightbulb hanging from a rafter. Without the light turned on, that area was as dark as Tom Sawyer's cave at midnight. Even with the light on, it was still dark enough to be scary to a little boy. Heck, the mere fact that this mysterious storage area opened to the room where I was sleeping was enough to keep me awake at night! It made a great place for me to scare my little brother...but that is a different story.
Shaped like a small foot-locker, the little box was made of wooden slats and painted chimney-red by someone in a long-ago age. It sat inconspicuously among numerous articles of what I considered junk, but what were probably cherished valuables to my parents. I did not consider the chest to be junk, though. It contained memories of my parents' youth and treasures that provoked my overactive imagination of what life was like in "ancient" times. Among the items that my parents had saved were a number of drawings in my father's sketch books and loose papers.