In my father’s workshop, there was always a container, usually an empty coffee can, full of ordinary things – things he found on his job sites, out in the fields, in parking lots, and lord only knows where. These were mostly bent nails, screws, bolts and nuts; the stuff of hardware store bins, the carpenter’s bits and pieces, the detritus of the blue-collar working man. Sometimes there were washers in the can, too; perhaps the stubby end of a well-used carpenter’s pencil or flints for his Zippo. We kids liked to dump the can to search for any coins Daddy might have found, which were always destined for the lucky box, never spent. We always put them back, after jingling them in our hands for a few seconds, but not before imagining how we would spend them, if only they were ours.
The can and its contents always smelled of old motor oil or tar, I suppose because of where they’d been found. Of course, Daddy worked on motors and big machines as part of his work, and tinkered with all sorts of things in his shop, so the oil might have come from his hands. My brothers played in Daddy’s workshop anytime they wanted, but I had to wait for an invitation – or sneak in when no one else was around. One of my jobs, when I was allowed in, was to straighten the bent nails. I was good at it, if I do say so; better than my brothers, even.
Now that I have a workshop of my own, I also have a lucky box. It started out as an empty jelly jar; then it spilled over into a large spaghetti sauce can. Last summer I had to find a larger home for my stuff. That’s it, above; a metal candy box. It contains many of the same things my father would have had in his lucky boxes, and a few things that never would have made it into his shop (starting with a bright red, heart shaped candy tin!). Among the things that are different are orphaned earrings, a huge rust-encrusted railroad spike, an assortment of keys (some from cars I no longer own), two headless toothbrushes, three crow feathers, parts to a broken pipe wrench, a tube of raspberry-flavored lip gloss, a couple of seashells and a broken blue-tooth ear piece – which might have been in Daddy’s box, had it been invented then.
Oh, yeah…and $2.17 in coins. All rescued from sidewalks and parking lots, all permanently housed in my lucky box.
12 comments:
Lucky Boxes are a great idea. Mine is full of feathers (mostly magpie) and strange smooth stones that I occasionally find on my travels. They are all very tactile.
My grandfather had about ten such boxes and jars on the shelf in the back of the garage. You think pack-ratting is genetic? I know I have to watch myself. I love boxes and containers.
I haven't been to your blog in AGES. I haven't been to anyone's blog in ages actually. Just somehow never seem to find enough time to read everyone I like anymore. Hope life is good on your side of the world.
Lovely. I grew up with such boxes and jars. Tink and Addie's house was such a collection. My step-dad has an entire barn dedicated to his collection. One needs a barn for such when collecting stuff like plywood pieces and 2x4s.
But the money in a jar. The lucky money. I, too, find money, mostly pennies, sometimes other coins, the evening before last brought a whole buck. The best was $100, but I spent that on gas and groceries in 1980.
Having become somewhat mindful of cash here in my molden years beginning, I cash it in at one of the grocery store change counting machines about twice a year. The lucky money combined with the collected pocket change sponsored some Christmas gifting at Amazon last year.
I really shouldn't mix the lucky money with the pocket change. Perhaps one day, I'll start remembering to ward the one. However, I like to think, at least for the now, that I'm bringing the lucky money back into the fold where it can fulfill it's destiny bringing treats to smiling children and Diet Cokes to occasionally embittered old men.
Totemic. Practically mythic.
Yes, I went through a jar phase back at the previous house where I had a 1½-car garage and harboured pretensions to playing the DIY game. Alas condensation in the jars caused the contents to rust into an artistitic but otherwise useless blob. These days I use a special wall-mounted rack that holds plastic bins (perhaps bin-ettes) which, given your phenomenal exertions with posts seemingly directed towards my sphere of interests, deserves a post of its own. You have often alluded entertainingly to poverty but the bit about straightening nails certainly hammers home the point. Which is more than one could do with the straightened nails, I suspect.
As a forthcoming project why not a plan of your residence with coloured arrows pointing to where all your stuff is located. I'm terribly forgetful these days but have you ever mentioned having a stoop? If so I'd appreciate an evocative piece describing the ins and outs - I never truly grasped the concept.
Steve: I collect stones, too, usually smooth ones, as you, but I have a few weird ones in my collection. Re: tactile - I think that's probably why I keep the things I have, for their feel in my hands - and for the memories they evoke.
Michelle: Great to see you here. I must be a pack-rat, considering the boxes, tins and jars of 'stuff' littering my home and outbuildings. Life over here is pretty good. I'll drop by your place to catch up with you.
Jim: I like what you wrote about bringing the lucky money back into the fold. I hadn't considered that my lucky box coins might feel abandoned in their isolation.
Zhoen: In that my father's lucky box was a continuation of a minor tradition handed down from his elders, and that I associate the lucky box with the legacy of my father, totemic is a good word for it. Also, considering that in my present period of nostalgia, I am focusing only on the good memories, mythic is apt, too.
BB: It is serendipity and coincidence if what I write touches on your sphere of interests, but I'd love to read about your rack of bins.
I'm happy you were entertained with accounts of my family's periods of poverty. Not sure that was my intent in writing about it, but if you were pleased, then I must be, also.
My father learned to pick up still-useable bits of hardware stuff, including wire, from his father, who learned it from his Pap, who learned it from his Da, and so on back to the old country. I carry the tradition forward mostly because I am an inveterate collector/pack-rat by nature, but also as a pleasant reminder of my father. Done correctly, a straightened nail becomes work-hardened and is just as good as a new one. The steps to my workshop contain as many salvaged nails as new ones: not only did I design and build those steps, I also - as a matter of pride - straightened the nails I bent in the process; not from frugality, but because I could.
I grew up in the south, where we don't have stoops, although I know what they are: we have porches. The 'hoity-toity' have verandas. The difference between the two structures deserves its own post; perhaps I'll get to that this weekend.
I found something on Wikipedia about stoops, if you care to read it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_stoop.
I meant that you wrote entertainingly about poverty; the facts themselves were often stark. But this is often the best way of getting across a sad story - do it as a throwaway and let the reader supply his own emotions.
I'm astonished about the re-straightened nails but then I've never had a productive relationship with nails and am thus viewing the process from outer darkness. Now I think about it I feel there's some clever trick you've picked up which would certainly be worth a future post. As I cast my mind back I realise I have tried and failed to straighten a few nails (Why, I cannot imagine.) and became angry when I discovered that one large bend became two smaller ones.
I only encountered stoops in books; poor people sat on them and spat reflectively. The porch/verandah progression has class implications which fascinate me. I think the h on the end of verandah says it all. I shall now drop down a couple more posts and do some further apologising.
I have similar, but different, boxes. They are full of things I imagine I might use one day for some craft project: bits of fabric and ribbon, odd earrings, beads, string, safety pins, skeins of yarn.
My toolbox is full of the sort of things I also might need one day -- bits of wire, odd screws and brackets, bolts without nuts and nuts without bolts, zip clips and tape.
I probably won't ever get around to using the stuff in either box, but whenever I start to have a clear out I am so sure of how useful all these things are!
lovely-- totem, touchstone, whatever one calls it, these bricolage collections have a sweetness all their own and a connection that is, literally, palpable. nice post. thanks for this reminder of how things are special, regardless of how humble or ordinary.
BB: My father taught that the secret to straightening nails was patience, and several light taps while turning the nail. Took awhile for me to get the hang of it.
No need to apologize, BB. I must have been in a bad mood when I read your responses.
Duchess, your last sentence explains why we keep lucky boxes - surely there will be a perfect use of all the stuff we collect...someday. Maybe. Probably the day after we toss everything.
Harlequin, it seems the more common and ordinary an object is, the more I want to rescue it. What do you suppose Freud would say about that? Perhaps I'm trying to rescue myself, or find value in my ordinariness?
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