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Cooler temperatures, frost expected in the Wyoming Valley into the midweek

Asian stocks mixed as markets watch Clinton-Trump debate

<p>Would you believe I got a call from Heaven the other day?</p><p>I was so excited I completely forgot who the saint was, beyond a lower management level individual.</p><p>Anyway, what he had for me was that a new department had opened up in The Great Beyond, and he&#8217;d been placed in charge of it.</p><p>&#8220;I thought that, you being a journalist of sorts with maybe only a so-so amount of sins on your record, that you&#8217;d be interested.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Thanks,&#8221; I said. &#8220;It&#8217;s always comforting to be told you&#8217;re no worse than the average person.&#8221;</p><p>The gist of his news was that after decades of research and a lot of heavy lifting he and his crew had recovered tons and tons of stuff, that over the years, well-meaning moms had confiscated from their sons and thrown away.</p><p>Well, to make a long story short he arranged a warehouse tour for me.</p><p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t worry,&#8221; he grinned as we entered the huge double doors. &#8220;You&#8217;ll get back home all right, although you might not want to after you see what we&#8217;ve got.&#8221;</p><p>The place was, to put it mildly, enormous &#8211; whole city blocks long.</p><p>&#8220;Over here,&#8221; said the saint, ushering me toward rows of cardboard boxes piled high. &#8220;Remember your baseball card collection that got tossed out in 1955 when your folks moved? It&#8217;s in here somewhere, but we haven&#8217;t finished cataloguing. Lack of manpower. You might get to see it someday.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Only might?&#8221; I said to the saint.</p><p>&#8220;With journalists you never really know,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Let&#8217;s go down this way. We&#8217;re a little further along filing this stuff.&#8221;</p><p>He opened a box and told me to look inside. It contained carefully shrink-wrapped model planes, cars and ships, the kind I used to build.</p><p>&#8220;Ah, do you have mine?&#8221; I asked. &#8220;I had a work bench that looked like the Frankenstein lab, full of paint and sandpaper and everything I needed to build a nice display piece.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Very likely,&#8221; he nodded.</p><p>&#8220;But of course I&#8217;ll have to wait until I actually get here.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;If you get here,&#8221; he corrected me.</p><p>&#8220;I see it now,&#8221; I said. &#8220;This is a little incentive.&#8221;</p><p>He smiled and ushered me down an aisle into another section of the warehouse.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;If this doesn&#8217;t get you stirred up, nothing will,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Two men were sitting on a crate, reading comic books. Nearby stood a pair of hand trucks.</p><p>&#8220;You,&#8221; the saint shouted at them. &#8220;Don&#8217;t you have filing to do? Or maybe you&#8217;d like to do your reading in a warmer place.&#8221;</p><p>The men retrieved their hand trucks and moved toward an enormous pile of boxes that apparently had just arrived.</p><p>&#8220;I believe you liked &#8216;Weird Science&#8217; and &#8216;The Crypt of Terror,&#8217; didn&#8217;t you?&#8221; he grinned.</p><p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t tell me you &#8230;&#8221; I began.</p><p>&#8220;Yep, we&#8217;ve got &#8217;em,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Reams and reams of your favorite old comics, plus everybody else&#8217;s. We love moms, of course, but they were deadly when it came to ridding out literature like this whenever they thought the family needed more space, like maybe every couple of months. Our outreach to them came a bit late, unfortunately. I&#8217;ve placed a priority on recouping the 1940s and 1950s issues.&#8221;</p><p>I wanted to put in a plea to hang out there for a while. But next thing I knew I was back home.</p><p>If there&#8217;s a message, I think it&#8217;s &#8220;everything in due time.&#8221;</p><p>In any event, I&#8217;m keeping the phone line open.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Remember When </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/web1_TOM_MOONEY-2.jpg</photo0><caption0>Remember When </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Tom Mooney</p><p>Remember When</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Tom Mooney is a Times Leader history columnist. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Remember When: Boys and their toys —both of any age