Toys in the Attic

There's a box in Mama's attic that's full of my old dolls, ruined but much-loved relics from many long ago Christmases. They were in a sorry state some fifty years ago, when they were unceremoniously dumped into a box and hauled up the rickety disappearing stairs; I'm sure Mama's moving them there was only a way to postpone the inevitable, which was to throw them away. It's the old Scarlett O'Hara "I'll think about it tomorrow" mindset: when you can't make up your mind about whether or not to dispose of something, just put it in the attic, and that way, decisions can be deferred for years, decades, maybe even centuries.

Pat, the baby doll I got when I was two, has a cloth body and molded head, hands, and feet. We went everywhere together, until the next Christmas, when Patty Cake, the bride doll, came along and gave Pat some serious competition for my affections.

There was a Tiny Tears doll for Christmas one year, and the new version Tiny Tears the next; I cleverly named them "Tiny" and "Teeny". They were fed with a baby bottle filled with water, and they wet their diapers and cried real tears from all the appropriate places. Tiny fell into disfavor after I put milk in her bottle instead of water; she smelled sour from then on.

There's the Betsy McCall doll named Betsy and the Barbi doll named Barbi and another doll that I strangely named Tootles. None of my dolls were shelf-sitters; they all played first-string for a lot of years.

I think that I'll go back to Mama's attic with a nice new box, and I'll pack up Pat and Patty Cake and Tiny and Teeny and Betsy and Barbi and Tootles, and put them all in MY attic. Then I'll decide what to do with them tomorrow.