Broken pocket knives and watches, Indian beads from Boy Scout camp, a penny flattened by a steam locomotive, army medals, and a spent shotgun shell are a few of the things I valued as a kid. A rock fossil of a fern uncle John found had a place in my treasure box. Each of these treasures in my little box held a story. The penny dad gave each of us kids, was the penny I put on the railroad track at the train station to see it flattened. We were there to see the last of the steam locomotives.
Grandpa Sachin's pipe is one of the treasures I take from my dresser drawer every so often. He lives alongside the boy I used to be. My box is gone now, along with most of my treasures.
A few treasures that I still use, remind me of the lost one from my boyhood. Putting on Grandpa Sachin's tie clip takes me across town to his house on Palace Street, a brick bungalow where Grandpa Sachin lived with my Aunt Kathryn. I still see him at the green door with his pipe, smoke drifting out through the screen. Slim, very tall and always in a white dress shirt with reddish brown suspenders, his Sunday best. Putting his tie clip on, those Sunday visits are brought to mind. Behaving was the order of the day. Mom planted us younger kids on the sofa in the basement while the grown ups talked upstairs. Grandpa came down to grind his coffee beans and see how we were doing. The sound of him grinding coffee beans and seeing him at the basement stove is there in his tie clip. He liked his coffee strong, and brewed in an old dented coffee pot. Even now, holding that tie clip and his pocket watch I can see the smoke rising from his pipe as he stood in the basement grinding coffee beans, always brewing it himself.
He laughed and said Nelly's apples were better, they were from the tree in the yard. Wax apples were for show only. Your aunt Kay doesn't like teeth marks in her apples. He laughed again taking his pot of hot coffee up the steps with steam coming from the spout of that old pot. I could hear my parents as they sat around the kitchen table talking about things kids did not need to know. My aunt asking him, “Why can't you use the new coffee pot?” The sofa in his basement was where we sat every visit to keep us out of trouble and away from the wax fruit. Nelly was the horse who pulled the ice wagon he used to deliver people their ice with. Retired now, Grandpa would take Nelly an apple or two out to the farm where she spent her retirement days under the oak trees.
Grandpa Sachin's basement was very neat and clean. The walls and floor were painted grey. The floor was waxed and polished. In addition to the sofa, there was a round oak table with four chairs, a gas stove and a small workbench. His tools were neatly hanging on the wall over the workbench. His basement was nothing like our basement. Ours was full of dust and spiders. It was where Mom did the washing and Dad stripped the old varnish off woodwork. Us kids played hide the button there and spun around in dad's chair by pulling on the rope we tied to a post . Dad fixed our bikes and repaired car tires there. It's where I made western towns from the wooden orange crates I got from the back of the Kruger’s store.
When he visited us, Grandpa Sachin liked to sit on our front porch where he could smoke his pipe and get the latest news from passing strangers. He visited with our neighbors and talked about change. While mom was busy cooking dinner, I'd get to take a puff from his pipe as he told stories about ice coming from Minnesota and being stored in the old ice house. People kept their icebox on their back porches so the ice lasted longer. The melting ice dripped into a pan under the icebox and was used to water the window plants. He told me about his life as a kid in Luxembourg, and coming to America.
I reach for those stories he told me when I need something to paint. My new treasure box is now those memories and stories I have collected in my mind over the years. Holding Grandpa Sachin's pipe inspires me to sketch a horse, or a man peeling an apple behind his garage. I tell his stories with my paintings to those who wish to recall their own grandfathers and childhoods.
