Going through the belongings of a recently deceased loved one is an odd experience. The amount of things to sift through can be overwhelming — even if the loved one in question wasn’t a pack rat.
My granddaddy passed a few weeks back, and after all the condolences and fried chicken faded away, it was time to go through his stuff. He didn’t collect anything or have any hobbies. Until age 75, his hobby was work. He liked being home and never understood why anybody would want to go on a vacation.
I tried to explain to him on more than one occasion that most people like to get away from their responsibilities every once in a while, but I think all he heard was the voice of Charlie Brown’s teacher.
The closest thing we found to a collection was a plastic bag containing eight old watches. These weren’t antiques or anything, just run-of-the-mill Timex fare. The older ones were covered in scratches as they were worn during his working years. The only digital watch in the bag was there because he spotted it in a ditch while driving a tractor. He put me in charge of getting a battery for it, as he suspected that’s all that was wrong with it.
Sure enough, it fired right up when the new battery was installed, although when its alarm started beeping at midnight, my grandparents initially thought the fire alarm was going off.
Getting a song on the radio or a column in the paper was never that big of a deal, but when I was able to make the watch stop beeping, you’d have thought I’d cured dandruff. Suffice to say, I ended up with the alarming watch.
In his storage room, there was a glass pitcher full of nuts, bolts, nails, springs and various ephemera. He was occasionally given a hard time for keeping that pitcher of “junk” around, but it had a purpose. At least 10 times during my tenure with the administration, I was sent to the house to retrieve that pitcher when something either broke down or needed to be invented.
One time a winch motor was acting up and I was sent after The Pitcher. The winch itself was probably built sometime in the mid-1980s, while I doubt anything in The Pitcher was any manufactured past 1968. Nevertheless, something was pulled out of The Pitcher and screwed/hammered into the winch that fixed the problem.
When I found out The Pitcher was probably going to be jettisoned, I immediately requested it. I don’t have the mechanical acumen to fix anything more complicated than a sandwich, but I didn’t want it to disappear.
Anyone who stuck their hand in The Pitcher was usually mutilated by all the sharp edges therein, so it could be a valuable DNA source if the need were ever to arise.
Another oddity I requested was a wedge pillow that had a home on his couch for I’m guessing a couple of decades. In the days when we were still working in wood stick tobacco barns, we’d come in for dinner around noon. The food lovingly prepared by my grandma would usually be inhaled so we could fit in a 15-minute nap.
Granddaddy sat in a recliner (covered with a series of towels) and I got the couch (covered with a series of towels). The wedge pillow seemed to have ether in it, and I would sometimes get emotional when I had to leave it and go back to the field.
I also ended up with the apron he wore when chopping up barbecue, a pair of his overalls and his remaining dress hats. Even with a shaved head, my noggin is too big to wear any of his hats, so right now they’re sitting in a chair next to a framed tobacco leaf. The pillow aside, I have no idea what I’ll do with any of this stuff.
These items may end up in a box that’ll sit on a shelf in a closet, but I’ll feel better knowing they’re there.
Jon Dawson’s columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase music, books and parts to a 1953 Farmall Super A at jondawson.com.