a life in 10' X 6' metal box

Music: Consolidated: Play More Music (1992)

In the humid Georgia heat at a "Pack Rat" storage facility between Loganville and Snellville, my mother and I loaded up the panel van with a dining room table and a bedroom set, a few things I remembered from my childhood (an art deco coffee perc and a ceramic parrot), and some chairs. Granny said on the phone that she and my grandfather bought the bed and dresser when they married over sixty years ago; it needs some TLC and refinishing, but that's a good summer project.

My grandfather died when I was barely a year old; they said he died of cancer, but he was a major, abusive alcoholic and there are hints he died from the bottle. He was an airforce pilot in the second big one. My cousin, a marine and helicopter pilot, took all of my grandfather's things. No one wanted much else of the things. Boxes of shoes, clothes. Dishes, bath towels older than I am.

I was astonished to see how little my grandmother had; everything fit into a small, metal box. The box was not even half full. I grew up in her small house, and it always seemed, from a kid's eyes, like so much. "87 years of life; they never had much," my mother said. I was surprised to see her secretly crying. I was surprised that I did too. I didn't know to expect this; maybe I did. I don't know