I’m cheating; it’s not the ring I’m interested in. It’s resting on a tool I used to make it: a screwdriver made in 1900, which belonged to my great grandfather, an engineer.
The wide, heavy tang stamped with its date of manufacture looks unbreakable; the wooden handle is oily-dark from four generations of hands; the flattened, splayed base has been struck with a hammer many times. This is a true tool.
But what really interests me is the way family history reduces us all to fragmentary, one-line lives. My great-grandfather: chief engineer on the RMS Mauretania; died bankrupt. My grandfather: engineer and entrepreneur; insisted on paying off his father’s debts before marrying my grandmother; my father: soldier and banker; I'm too close to say what else.
Together, these biographic synecdoches become our roles in a family narrative. It’s curious to think that the elements of my life that will join that narrative may not yet have happened. Or worse, they may already be behind me.
OT, great series of posts.
ReplyDeleteWere you ever a client of Sulka on Old Bond Street?