"Makin' their way, the only way they know how..."

When I was a good young boy, I generally loved three things: baseball, fishing, and The Dukes of Hazzard. The Dukes had it all - a cool car in my favorite color, Catherine Bach in short shorts and heels, an awesome theme song, and unapologetic redneck humor.



There were two ways in which I remember my love for the Dukes manifesting itself. I clearly recall some extended period of time (it seemed like months to a six-year old, but it was probably more like a week or two) that I refused to enter or exit a car but through the window. It really only seemed awkward when my parents were dropping me off at Sunday School.

The second was the ultimate display of devotion for someone in elementary school - The Dukes were on my lunchbox. Mixed in with the Star Wars and Strawberry Shortcake boxes at our table were Bo, Luke, Daisy and The General. I loved that lunchbox, so much so that I can't recall any other, although I got a new one each school year. There might've been a Knight Rider or a Scooby Doo box at some point, but I really can't place them.

I loved my Dukes lunchbox so that at the end of its tour of duty, it was repurposed at home. It probably held Matchbox cars or crayons or baseball cards or perhaps all three at some point in its life with me.

That would've been a fine destiny for any proud lunchbox of its age, but mine... mine was destined for stardom.

My mother was a career educator, working for over forty years in various schools in our county's school system. At one of her stops in the mid-late '80s, she mentored a college student intern. In the course of their work together, the student mentioned to my mother that he collected lunchboxes. I don't recall the details or the exact moment I found out, but my mother GAVE him my Dukes lunchbox from years earlier. Why not? It was just holding my baseball cards (which she likely threw away in order to clean it out). ;-)

Several years after that, I'm a senior in high school getting dressed for school one morning. The TV is on in the background as the anchor teases the next segment of the Today show... "Remember that I Dream of Jeannie lunchbox you had as a kid? You won't believe what it's worth today! We talk to a leading collector of children's lunchboxes after the break..."

My neck snapped around to the TV so quickly that I still wonder how I avoided whiplash. I called my mother to the TV. Naturally, the "leading collector" in the next segment was THE SAME GUY! Not only that, but one of the prize pieces of his collection was a DUKES OF HAZZARD lunchbox, which he said was worth several hundred dollars. Yes, Katie, hundred. I sat there stunned. I pointed at the screen... "That's my... That was... (and then at my mother).. And YOU!... You GAVE...."

Although I really wasn't pleased at the thought of my mother giving away a $600 lunchbox, I somehow managed to forgive her. ;-) The story of how my lunchbox wound up on the Today show pops up once or twice a year and has become one of my favorite memories of her.

So why am I remembering her now?

Because I had a birthday a couple weeks ago, and another special woman in my life finished off a string of thoughtful gifts with something I didn't recall ever telling her about...
















*speechless*