A Saturday Story

by skillzy

I had originally planned to write something here about Internet friendships and relationships, but never really came up with anything cohesive after kicking it around all week. Then, this morning, as I was searching for a hammer to fix some damage the little fartknockers next door had done, I remembered a story, and thought I’d share it with y’all.

This happened sometime while I was in high school. We were making a float at school for some kinda parade, homecoming I guess, and I needed a hammer. So I went into my Dad’s little workshop and picked out a hammer. There were two there – an old wooden one and one with a fiberglass handle. Since the fiberglass one looked a little newer and nicer, I took the wooden one. Spent the afternoon banging on the stupid float, and got ready to head home. Couldn’t find the hammer. Looked all over the place, under, over, around, no hammer. Asked around, no hammer. I finally gave up and headed home.

I don’t remember how the news of the disappearance got passed on to my family, but I do remember my Mom talking to me. Daddy was either so pissed or so upset that he didn’t talk to me for a while after I lost that hammer. Because that wasn’t just any old beat-up hammer, it had belonged to Pop. And now it was gone.

Remember in Ava’s Man when Charlie dies, and all he has to leave to his family is his toolbelt and roofing tools? Well my grandparents, Big Mama and Pop, weren’t a whole lot different than Charlie and Ava Bundrum. They were a little better off, because Big Mama had steady work at the mill, and Pop worked as a carpenter. See, that hammer wasn’t something that sat in a shed, occasionally coming out to build a birdhouse, or hang a picture. That hammer helped to feed and clothe a family that was coming out of the Depression. That hammer was worth way too much to be so easily lost by a stupid kid.

So if, someday, God comes to see me and says, “You know what? I’m feeling magnanimous today. How’d you like a couple of do-overs?”, I’d settle for just one.