My cousin gave me her old wood burning set when I was a kid — at least I think it came from her. Anyway, I made a couple of things. And of course my mother kept them. Judge for yourself, should I have kept it up? Did I show promise?
I have, once again, taken all the stuff out of my attic closet in the hopes that at some future time I will have a nearly empty closet. Yeah, that’s going to happen.
One of the things I have kept, for unknown reasons, is a small box from the Joseph Spiess Company store in Elgin. It was a gift from my best friend at the time, Cindy. I think it either held my POW bracelet or else a gold metal mesh belt ring. Cindy wrote, “That’s a put-on!” on the cover of the box because she purchased the gift somewhere other than Spiess and used the box in which to put the gift. Spiess was an upper-end store — somewhere we certainly didn’t shop, and I guess Cindy’s family didn’t either, very much.
Inside the box now are three apparently random items.
One is a white decapitated ceramic figurine in a dress, holding a basket. I have no idea where it came from or why I kept it in the box. I vaguely recall finding it in the dirt somewhere.
Another item is a one-eyed plastic monkey with a hole in its head which probably once held a tuft of hair. The monkey probably came out of a gumball machine, but I have no recollection about when it.
The third is a spark plug.
The only item I know for sure why I kept was the spark plug. I kept it because my dad used to give me old spark plugs to play with. I guess I liked the combination of ceramic and metal. Or something.
These are going in the trash today. Honestly. Three down and 10,000 things to go.
Dear Grandma Green,
Even though you have been gone a long time I still feel guilty every time I think about breaking Grandpa’s tall beer glass with the mirror (and breaking the mirror too) when I tugged too hard on the stuck drawer of the chest of drawers in your bedroom the summer after Grandpa died and I spent a few weeks with you in Chetek.
I don’t think of it often, only when I see a very tall beer glass like the one to the left or when I hear about one like the one I am reading about in Charlotte Gray, one of my “read-a-shelf” books. I may also think about it when I struggle to open a dresser drawer or see a broken mirror too. I know I thought about it when Clare did something similar with a case holding all of my glass unicorns.
Here’s what happened. I needed something out of the chest of drawers (notice I am calling it a “chest of drawers” like you used to call it) and the drawer which held that something was swollen and stuck fast to the rest of the dresser. I shook the drawer which made the mirror that was tilted at the back of the dresser tip forward onto the very tall beer glass in its wooden stand. They both fell down, shattering the beer glass and breaking the mirror.
When you heard the crash you came running into the bedroom. I believe you said “shit” or some other colorful word. You also mentioned how much Grandpa liked his very tall beer glass. You were momentarily angry at me, but I think you understood it was an accident. I don’t remember if I cried or not. I was 17 years old, so I may have. I probably said something about it being an accident and you may have said I should have been more careful.
We cleaned it up and never spoke of it again. I meant to buy you a mirror to replace the mirror I broke, but never did. I don’t know that I ever apologized for breaking the mirror and very tall beer glass.
Grandma, I am sorry I broke the mirror, but more sorry about the beer glass since it was Grandpa’s and it was something he really liked. You’d just lost him, now you lost something he treasured. As a 17 year old I don’t think that registered with me. I only thought about you being upset with me. I know you forgave me long ago, but I just wanted to get it out in the open.
Love,
Dona
PS I miss you
Clutch Cargo Lips 