My most vivid childhood memory of my grandfather is of him sitting in the sun next to my aunt’s house (a barrack left over from the Japanese Interment camps) working on a piece of wood. A red and white Cudahy Rex pail waited next to him. It held his drinking water. I know this because many times I’d be scurrying across the yard, trying to keep out of his line of sight, but he’d see me and he’d call out requesting that I get him water from the pump several feet away. I have to confess that I didn’t want to haul water but it never occurred to me to refuse him. The elderly were to be respected and Grandpa George was already in his eighties.
Dad’s father was an old time Indian. What I mean by “old time Indian” is that he made bows and arrows and dolls, wagons — toys — the old fashion way, with his hands, his knife and hatchet. Everything he made started from scratch. For Christmas the boys received bows and arrows that looked like the kind used in the bygone days. I don’t recall what wood he used for the bow but I remember him shaping the bows. And I can’t give detail on how he constructed them. It was so long ago and I was just a little girl. We had plenty of arrow weeds around the place. He used those for arrows, and for some reason I’m thinking he fletched the arrows with goose or turkey feathers.What he used for arrow heads, I’m unsure. But the bows were always painted red and had mysterious designs on them. How I wish that someone in my family had the foresight to keep at least one of his creations. He was very good at carving and making things and he always wanted his grand kids to have something from him Christmas morning.
The dolls he also carved out of wood. Not Kachina dolls but dolls with faces, black hair, bright dresses, and shoes, all painted on. He gave us concho belts when he could afford to get them, which was rarely. They were cheap those days but of real silver. How stupid not to have kept them. And I remember a string of different colored beads that he had strung for the girls. Precious gifts that are long gone. I regret so much that nothing from him was ever saved. He worked long hours on these gifts and how little we understood what he was giving us. His love and himself.
He’d carve out boxes and paint them, putting beautiful designs on them. All gone. The small toy wagons and horses were magnificent even today in my memory. I didn’t appreciate them when I was growing up but if I had them now, they would be the most precious things I would own.
When my dad was getting on in his years he would attend gem shows and buy turquoise and coral, drill holes in the turquoise if they didn’t already have holes drilled in them, and string them into necklaces for his daughters, even his grandsons and granddaughters. Maybe Daddy was thinking of his father who lived to be 90 years old. I still have what my father gave me. I was older and began to understand the value of such gifts. I know that things made by the hands of loved one are heirlooms. They may not be the most expensive item, or the most beautiful, but they are the most precious.
Keep them, if you are fortunate to possess such treasures. Appreciate them. I do. I’m a collector these days. I have been for a long time now. Even such things as my son’s baseball jackets, from Little League, Pony League, High School, College, and professional ball. I kept these for his son before he had one.
***It was my intention to post this for Christmas but my house is nuts during the holiday, so I’m posting the day after Christmas. So Merry Christmas and Happy 2016 to everyone!
