Today, I finally decided to repot some of my struggling houseplants. After searching around in the basement for a bag of soil, I realized I forgot to buy some. Slightly annoyed, I started back upstairs. For some reason, I turned around to the two crates atop a cabinet near the stairs. There are tools in them, Dad’s tools. My mother gave them to me years ago, when I first moved to my house. I hadn’t given them a thought in years.
Unpacking Memories
Before long, I’m rooting around in the crates and each item I picked up brought long-faded memories into sharp focus. Among the dozens of glass jars filled with nails, I found a particularly dusty one adorned with a hand-lettered “Nuts & Bolts” label. I recognize my handiwork and smile. There are hammers, metal files, and unopened packages of electrical tape among more jars. Finally, my hand reached the plastic case that housed Dad’s old soldering gun. Lifting the tool from its box, its familiarity—burgundy color, thick black cord at one end and two metal prongs at the other—brings a rush of recognition, a nearly physical sensation.
Tears welled up as my mind’s eye begins the movie. I’m back in the Brooklyn of my childhood. I see my father’s tall, slight frame seated at the chrome and laminate table in our kitchen, his thin shoulders hunched over a television he’s repairing. The TV’s back faces him, its guts exposed. I can almost hear the small radio playing next to him and Dad singing along. I also hear the soldering gun’s low hissing; I smell its slight burning odor as my father directs the prongs at some tiny wires. Wispy smoke rises from the tool’s metal tips.
A Dedicated Craftsman
Dad worked for RCA, putting up antennas on Manhattan rooftops and repairing TVs and radios at the company’s East 25th Street garage. His fascination with all things electrical and working with his hands continued when he was home, where he would either be constructing model planes and ships or fixing one of the many TVs or radios stacked around our three-room apartment. Whenever a friend or neighbor complained of a TV on the fritz, Dad always said, “Bring it over, I’ll have a look.”
Some nights after supper and with homework out of the way, my brother and I sat at the table with Dad while he worked. He gave us pieces of solder and we’d shape these thin, bendable bits of silver into rings and other gadgets. Our hands busy, we listened to Dad whistling and watched him work. It made us miss our mother, waitressing on the night shift, a little less.
Hands-On
Now, years later, I replaced the soldering gun in its storage box then looked in another crate. Hauling out my father’s tackle box, I’m transported to our fishing trips to the Rockaways. Alongside the tackle box are more boxes of nails, a small axe, assorted screwdrivers. On a small trowel, layers of dried plaster remain. I remember my father on a ladder, patching walls with Spackle, amid furniture and drop cloth covered floors. Picking up a linoleum cutter, I see Dad laying down new floor covering, carefully cutting around radiator legs and wall projections.
Carefully, reverently, I put everything back. Staring at the contents, I got a punched-in-the-gut feeling. I reminded again of how much my father would have loved my house. Describing his dream house, he declared, “It’s got to be old and have a wraparound porch.” My 116-year-old, porch wrapped house fits the bill. I often imagined my father coming over, patching, painting, cutting moldings, putting up a ceiling fan. He longed for a workshop where he could do his projects, instead of just a kitchen table in the small apartments we lived in. My house would’ve been his workshop, where he could cut, saw, rewire, and build to his heart’s content.
Last Legacy, or Lasting Legacy?
Sadly, my father never got the chance to have his own home or see mine. He died four years before I bought my house, from the lung cancer brought on by 50-plus years of unfiltered Camels. Simple repairs are all I’m capable of, so I guess Dad’s trove of tools will remain untouched, except for the occasional hammer, nails, or screwdriver I might put to use. But wait. It seems though, my son inherited some of Dad’s fixing and building genes. I should encourage him to use his grandfather’s tools. Maybe seeing them do their jobs again will help me rebuild my memories, and give my son, who never got to meet Dad, a start on building his own set of memories.
Dedicated to my dad, Pete, on this Father’s Day