ROCKWALL, TX (April 11, 2014) I slapped the last touches on a chicken coop the other day, having designed the thing from the ground up and pieced together every board of the poultry palace. Like all building projects, I ran into an unanticipated challenge. Basically, I needed to rip (or cut long-ways) a skinny board. There was no way to do it safely, except with a table saw. Deep in my shed, under some camping equipment rested mine; well actually, it was my dad’s. They don’t make saws like that anymore, all steel, solid frame. I had actually considered selling it a year ago. Heck, I didn’t even know if it worked. I dragged the old thing out and memories flooded in. The deck that dad and I built at Reelfoot Lake, sign stakes we made from small boards for his political campaigns. I just recently lost the guy, the manliest man I’ve ever known.
It’s funny how when someone’s gone, you suddenly realize the preciousness of the items they’ve left. It’s like the objects themselves breathe, take on the life of the departed. When I’m not a school I carry his old pocketknife, a classic Old Timer I bought him for Christmas. It’s not some Bear Grylls hunting blade, just a little folding knife to cut a box open or trim a rope end. Pocket knives were our “love language” as they seemed to be a periodic gift we gave here and there at Christmastime. Like baseball cards, I had my own collection, 90% of which came from him.
As I write this I’m sitting at his desk. Now this isn’t just a common office desk, it is a piece of history. Dad was a State Legislator in Tennessee for 20 years and when he first won election in 1966, the House of Representatives had voted to refurbish the chambers. The legislators were given the opportunity to purchase the desk they occupied. Dad did, not knowing truly how old it was, and it sat in my parents’ house in the same corner all my life. Crafted with solid cherry wood, it still sports the nameplate with “Gill” on the front. I did some investigating and found that prisoners built it in 1900 making it 114 years old. Soon after I hauled it home, I received an email from the Tennessee State Museum wondering if I’d donate it to their collection. Maybe one day when I’m gone, but now it’s my muse of sorts.
Just above my desk are two framed political cartoons. Strange, I know, to have something like that framed, but when you look close you can see the caricature of my dad. I remember when both editorial cartoons appeared in the Memphis Commercial Appeal in reaction to some legislation he penned or pushed. At first, he fumed over the Bill Garner humor, but after a couple of official prints arrived in the mail, complete with Mr. Garner’s autograph, Dad framed them and hung them in his office.
Each of these relics tells the story of my dad: the saw, his craftsmanship; the pocketknife, his manly independence; the desk, his leadership; and the cartoons, his humor and ability to take a joke. In fact, each of these things holds memories that Alzheimer’s stole so swiftly from his mind, and each day I sit at the desk, or cut with the knife, smile at the cartoons, or even run the table saw, I’m given the blessing of being with him again, and I realized that maybe the old adage, “you can’t take it with you when your gone,” was not necessarily meant as a rebuke, that your stuff isn’t useful in heaven. Maybe, it’s because your stuff takes on a whole new life for your loved ones left on earth.
By Blue Ribbon News special contributor Scott Gill of Rockwall. a teacher, coach and author of Goliath Catfish. Follow his blog at scotttgill.tumblr.com.
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