Pictures of My Childhood

While I was out of country, my Mother discovered a couple of boxes of old things I had been storing in my brother's closet space for many years. (I am so evil) Upon removing them to MY closet, I started to go through them and enjoyed a voyage into the mind of a child. My mind, that is. When I was a child. (Would it surprise you if it wasn't all that different from how it is now? Some of you it might. Those who know me...maybe not...)

Click on any photo to enlarge.

Some somewhat detailed maps. I have not a clue what those acronyms mean. Your guess is as good as mine. I vaguely remember the MX-Men being something akin to Navy SEALS? Maybe?

Ah yes. Peregrine, later renamed Hawkman. Before his less cheesy costume. I think any boy who draws as a child is bound to try some kind of comic. And inevitably he will dream up some super hero. Most likely animal-themes, because that's what the best superheroes are (Batman, Spiderman, Hawkeye, Black Panther...the only exception being Captain America). Believe it or not, Peregrine's nemesis was a robot. A walrus robot named (*GASP*) Robo-Walrus. I was so creative.

Ah yes...the cave. One summer I decided I was going to dig a cave. It was going to be walled, floored, and roofed with plywood. It wasn't going to be 100% underground. So in that sense it was going to be a bunker? And I could have just dug it in the back corner where we threw all our leaves. I could have done it. No one would have cared had I taken action. But like the dutiful son I am, I had to ask permission from my parents. End result? No awesome bunker/cave in our back yard for epic snowball fights and secret club meetings and drawing and reading and bragging rights about having the only cave/bunker in the neighborhood. But I'm not bitter.

More maps. The first is a two-dimensional representation of the galaxy my first sci-fi stories resided in. The circles represent star systems, not individual planets. The little lines labeled IG Lane are the jumping points to other galaxies. There are a few random space stations thrown in there for good measure. I had completely forgotten about this map!

And this map too! My first fantasy world, spread across two notebook pages, heavily patterned after Lord of the Rings, as you can probably tell, but not nearly as imaginative. One thing I've been realizing is that I have a tendency to invent names for places and people that just sound jarring. In my current works, I've been trying to limit names to an easier, more believable timbre.

Well, that about does it for this walk down memory lane! Thanks for joining me. I think I actually learned something valuable about myself. My journals appear to be in the form of pictures and maps and schematics and fiction, rather than written words. Some day I will pull out all the writing samples I have and go through them and attempt to put them into some sort of chronological order.

Oh, and the image at the beginning? I dictated that to my older sister when I was three and a half. It all started when I was young. As far as I know, the Ogre is still in that dungeon.

~Tommy

P.S. One of these days, I am going to get a scanner and upload these images properly.