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This blog is being written after a journey in an old time machine.  Unlike the H.G. Wells machine of the 19th century, this one only allows a person to go back in time.  But, this one is real.

With the recent move we’ve been deciding what goes and what stays.  In a cosmic trick of fate, we had just 7 days to vacate our old home and move into the new.  The temptation was to use a bulldozer and just shove everything into the moving truck to be sorted later.

The one item I wanted to keep and bring with me was the time machine.  It has sat moldering in the garage for 8 years.  Before that it had been stored at my parents house.  There just didn’t didn’t seem to be a place for it, but I was determined to bring it into the new home. 

With the exception of an outer cleaning, the machine was packed as it was onto the trailer and hauled to the new house.  Another cleaning and a few cuss words and it was carried into the home to be placed in the den, by a window.

Today, being Sunday, I decided to take a trip back to the 1970’s.  Elvis was alive, kinda…Happy Days was on TV, and my folks bought me the machine.  They were auction hounds in those days so I don’t remember who owned the machine first.  My guess is that some craftsman built it in the 1930’s. 

I sat at the machine today and began to explore the past.  My journey included things I’d forgotten from those days.  Images of my first Pinewood Derby race in Cub Scouts, the Homecoming Dance, and a Ball State acceptance letter. 

There were things I’d forgotten like the nameplate from a Gremlin or a pocket knife given to me when my Uncle Harold died.  I’d ruined the blade using the sharpener behind a can opener and tucked it away. 

The journey through time was surprising.  It ended in the 1980’s when I was at an Associated Press convention in Indianapolis.  For some reason I’d saved my name badge and placed it inside the time machine.  22 Years later on a sunny Sunday afternoon I found it again.

I’m writing today’s blog on the desk that contained a lot of hopes for a kid.  Some of them didn’t come true, but many of them did.  When this desk sat in the corner of my old bedroom I’d have never imagined working in radio, counting as friends people I admired then, and being married to a wonderful woman. 

I can’t take long trips in the machine again.  Some of the things are now in the trash outside.  However, I saved enough things to take a little journey every once in a while.  Starting today, I’ll put a few things into the desk…so a 60+ year old Leland can take a trip or two back to 2008.