I have always thought that it is good to have a kid around that is both attention deficit and hyperactive in case you ever were to lose anything.  There is something about these children that seem to be able to not only know where said lost thing is, but can most likely take you to it.

It's their keen sense of observation.  I think it is because most ADHD kids spend most of their early existence bored out of their minds.  I wish I could tell you I know about this because I have studied a great deal about the disorder while in college, or because I have an ADHD child or two or three.

Although each of those things is true, I have to say that the reason I know this is because I was an ADHD kid. Blessed at an early age with the disorder, I spent most of my early life bored out of my mind, shaking parts of my body until I was numb, humming, chirping and basically driving my parents crazy.  

When I was sleeping the whole house got to sleep.  When awake, god bless the poor person trying to sleep.  The only real way to keep something from a kid like this is to lock it in a steel box and keep the key on you at all times. Because let’s face it, we ADHD kids are damn curious all the time. Our little minds are racing and we pick up on subtleties that most people miss. Likewise, we have no boundaries and no hiding place is truly sacred.

For instance, where is the best place to hide a large stack of Playboy centerfolds?  Some would think that the best hiding places are in plain sight.  Like, say a husband is trying to hide a stack of centerfolds from his wife.  He might place said folded pictures of naked ladies in a non-descript car parts box on a high shelf in the garage with other like boxes.

A good wife would take a casual glance in her man's work area, see a bunch of dusty old boxes and move on.  Not an ADHD kid.  For a kid like me, there were treasures in every non-descript box, shelf, cabinet, drawer, purse, wallet, etc.  So when I came upon this brown, cardboard box on a high shelf in the garage, I treated it with the kind of awe and respect one would treat a minted and rare postage stamp perched on an ancient envelope from some era in time when they used horses to deliver the mail.

It was 1975, I was 9 years old and a rather lanky kid with thick, horn-rimmed glasses that weighed down on my nose so much I usually had a lightly bruised feeling in the front part of my face. For some reason my hands were as calloused and dry as a grown man's would be, had he spent the entirety of his life on the range, gloveless. I looked rather like a colorful Q-tip as a boy of 9.  My head was larger than my body, and my body was thin and featureless.

I had seen my Mom's bare hip one time at the age of 7.  It was the most I had seen of the female form in person, up until then.  She had bared her hip to me to prove that she too had gotten a shot and that I was not the only one suffering after that particular doctor's visit. I agreed that her war-wound was as grisly as my own and that I did not have so much to complain about that day.

Aside from the bare hip, I had seen everything the sponsors would allow on the TV show The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Cher would often wear strapless blouses and mid-riffs and short skirts and such.

So I pretty much had a good idea of what a clothed woman looked like, but...   I was curious about what was under the clothes.  I am not sure if that had as much to do with being ADHD as just being a boy who had already seen what a boy is made-of first hand.

Dad was at work.  It was Summer, and Mom was at work in the home doing her usual cleaning.  There was a door between me and her. To reach the boxes I had to climb on top of Dad’s workbench, and stand on the edges of my toes.  After grabbing a box, I would work it off the shelf, squat down and place it on the bench, hop off of the bench and then bring the box down to floor.  The first couple of boxes each had their share of cool surprises.  One was a greasy heavy car part that came off of an engine.  I remember making grooves in the dirt with my one good finger-nail, having gnawed off the rest.  Some of the dirt crumbled off onto the floor of the garage.

I placed the part back in the box and placed it back on the shelf exactly how I had found it, making sure to rub a little of the grease onto my hands.  After all I was a mechanic just like my Dad at the age of 9 and mechanics get dirty.  It was fairly easy to place it in its exact spot, because the settled dust had left a perfect outline on the shelf around the four edges of the box. 

The other box was half-full with stacks and stacks of receipts and other paperwork.  I looked over a few with a serious studious face as if somehow my understanding of these documents had something to do with my place in the household.  I imagined myself exchanging money for a piece of paper like the one in my hands and in the box, oh how the sales person and folks in line marveled at the large wad of money I pulled out of my pocket (mostly ones).  I placed the papers back in the box adding a few smears of grease to the top sheet as I placed it exactly where I had found it and closed the lid.

After retuning this box to the top shelf, I grabbed the next non-descript box and shifted it off of the shelf.  As I did this I nearly fell off of the workbench due to the extra weight.  It was definitely heavier than the others.  I remember thinking the good stuff is in here.

I wrestled the box to the floor.  The box itself was square and about 10 inches on each side.  It was about a foot deep and the four flaps on top were configured in such a way as to close the box without tape or any kind of fastener.  I sat on the garage floor, with the box flat on the ground in front of me, my legs resting on each side of it, and tugged upwards on one of the corners causing the other flaps to suddenly rise up and open the box.  Dust particals filled the air and I breathed in enough of the dust to make me sneeze out loud.  Even more curious, I wiped at my face with the back of my hand as I peeled the top of the box open to get a good look at what was inside.

My curiosity subsided when I saw the stack of papers.  More Papers.  I remember thinking I should seal these back up and place them on the high shelf rather than waste my time looking for treasures, but there was something different about these papers.  They were shiny and uniform, not like the receipts I had just rifled through.  The top sheet was white with black print on it, and it was crisp and sharp looking, not like newspaper or like a receipt would be.

I reached inside casually and pulled out the top sheet.  It was thick, and obvious to me that this was only a part of a larger sheet of paper.  It was folded into thirds.  I tried to read what was written on the sheet, but as I opened up the paper to see it in full size I realized that there was color on the other side.  Bright, beautiful colors.  This was a picture, and one from a magazine obviously.

I remember opening up the large piece of paper and then turning it over to reveal a bright, glossy image.  I sat there staring in awe.  I don’t know for how long.  After awhile I realized that what I was looking at was something I should not be looking at – something I would not be allowed to look at had my parents known.  I quickly folded the image up and put it back in the box.  My heart began to race and I started to look around quickly.  I wanted to make sure no one had snuck into the garage with me.  It was quite possible that Mom had come into the garage in that one moment (or was it several minutes?) while I was staring at the girl, and she could be sitting right behind me on the floor watching me, catching me.  I would have been so embarrassed.

I quickly turned to look behind me.  No one.  I sighed heavily, swallowed hard, shifted a glance around the room and pulled the centerfold out of the box to peak at the image again.  Skin, lots of skin, and hair -- hair in places I had no idea people grew hair.  I decided that I could look at this image, but only in increments, because if I heard anyone coming I would have to return it to the box and pretend that I was doing something else entirely.  The truth is, I had no good plan for getting caught.  Anyone walking into the garage at that moment would have caught me with my hands in the cookie jar.

I visited the box regularly that Summer and the following year.  At the age of ten I could actually read the interviews of the girls in the pictures and understand them a bit.  Sally liked long walks on the beach and a brisk game of Croquet on cool spring evenings with a glass of wine.  Maria loved family and spent her Summers at home in Puerto Rico with her abuelita and also riding horses.  So much to learn.  These were the first books I read as a child, the first stories I learned along with the misadventures of Curious George, Dr. Seuss, and other Children’s readings.

Each woman was an individual, each beautiful in her own way, and each naked and smiling, as if pleased to be able to show this young man what all the mystery was about.  I remember feeling close to those women and knowing them by name.  I made several trips to the garage in that year and a half or so, and I never got caught.  No one ever walked in on me whilst I was learning the ladies.  No one ever seemed to suspect that this 10 year old had so much knowledge about women – more than a ten year old should.

It was the Summer of '77.  I would turn 11 in 3 days, but there was an early birthday present waiting for me in that garage.  It would be to my great disappointment that I would find a clean 10X10 square framed in dust on that high shelf above the work bench where the box used to be.  The box was gone.  It had disappeared as surely as it had once arrived, suddenly and without announcement.  Lacy, Terri, Sally, Maria, Anita, Jennifer, Theresa -- all of them – gone from my life like forbidden friends.  I had no one I could go to and request their return, no missing persons reports to fill out, no one with which to bemoan my loss with.  This was my little secret and I kept it all to myself.

In the Summer of '75, I uncovered a mystery in the box.  In '76 I made friends with the people in that box, and in '77, I lost them all.  I was 11. :)