What's Missing

More than me missing my parents, Edson Carl Beck, my mother Sybil Miner Beck, and my wife Cynthia Morrison Beck, there are several unsolved missing items that move to the front of my mind. I know where my parents and my wife are now, heaven. They are safe and I know they are in Heaven.

These two missing things have haunted me over many years. One mystery that has never been solved is just a small frivolous item; a tiny pouch with a thin pull string to close it. The bag originally contained bubble gum. The pink pieces of chewing gum were covered with a hardened gold colored coating of sugar. The gum was to look like prospector's gold nuggets.

Every once and awhile as a child I could convince my parents to buy the linen-hued sack with the bright red pull strings. The happiness of having the bubble gum didn’t end when the last bubble had burst and the gum was tossed into the trash.
The drawstring pouch became a storage place for plastic figures, ball bearings, marbles, lucky stones, or money. My family wasn’t a wealthy one, but when I could gather a penny, a nickel, a dime, and a rare quarter, it would find its way into the sack. The little bag became a repository for this young man’s treasury. My stash needed to be guarded and hidden. That was the rub. I'd hidden it so well I could never find it again.

The second missing mystery involves a handmade game that I shaped for my dad as a Christmas gift. It was fashioned after the old games of Parcheesi or Pollyanna. Some people might be old enough to recall gathering around the table, rolling the dice, and moving the pieces until they were safely home. The game board was about 25 inches square with a raised wooden border. The spaces around the board and into the home goal were laboriously drawn and hand painted. In each of the four corners contained a circle with a barn, shed, or pasture with fencing to reflect the theme of a farm design. I painted each circle to match animal figurines. Each animal about three quarter of an inch high: sheep, cows, pigs, horses; four each. They were also cut and painted. The board could be stored on the wall like an art piece with the animals and dice perched in display on the frame.

Somehow this potential heirloom disappeared and remains missing.