Thanks Lené, I need to write.
I don’t even know where the knife is anymore that the box was built to hold. It is a rough, unpainted wooden rectangular box about five inches long and made up of two halves about 1 1/2 inches high. An aluminum hinge at one end wasn’t my idea and was beyond my capabilities when the box was made, but it’s the perfect size and was carefully screwed in straight. A finishing nail in one half of the other end with a strip of leather opposite it that hooks over the nail to keep the box closed also wasn’t my idea. It’s cruder than the hinge, but does its job just as well.
The top of the box was roughened by my hands with a chisel. I suppose I thought it was decorative, but it just adds to the homemade appearance now. Inside, the wood was carved out to create a space in the two halves big enough for a jacknife. Thin, light blue cotton cloth was glued to the inside of the compartment.
Like I said, the knife that this box was built to hold was lost like most everything a boy loses. But the box has come with me to every place I’ve lived. It’s not decorative by any stretch of the imagination, so I don’t display it. It’s not good for holding much, so it usually gets stuffed in a corner or a box, to be seen only the next time I move or am looking for something.
But it holds one thing very well: the memory of being a boy, in my grandpa’s workshop which smelled of grease and heat. Of carving out a place in the two pieces of wood by myself. Of my grandpa coming along seeing what I was up to, offering to help with this pointless little task. Of he and I standing at the workbench and fastening that hinge and cutting the little strip of leather, gluing the old pieces of fabric in.
The more I think about it, it’s not the box that holds the memory, it’s the memory that holds the box…
RSS
What a great last line. I would love to “see” the story unfold–you as a child working when your grandpa came in–you all working together. What did you say, if anything? Or did you work together silently? Could you hear him coming into the workshop? How was it lit? Did the doorknob have a coating of grease that rubbed off on your young hands? I would love to feel the workshop and hear the story of how you carved the box together. I don’t know if you feel moved enough to write it, but it would make a great memoir essay.