ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 8, 1996 TAG: 9612100175
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: New River Journal
SOURCE: GERRY DAVIES
Among the aging appliances, moldering suitcases and old paint cans in my basement is a small wooden box where my Christmases live.
Not much bigger than a shoe box, with rope handles and a military-green paint job, it's a pretty unimpressive place to keep such an impressive holiday. But it works for me.
That's because my father made it for me for Christmas 30-some years ago.
It was a footlocker for G.I. Joe, complete with a tray for his miniature M-1 rifle, hand grenades and helmet. I must've used it for four or five years before it - and Joe - disappeared into the attic, outgrown and forgotten.
When Mom was cleaning out a few years ago, I got it back, along with G.I. Joe and most of his stuff. Even the little burlap sandbags Mom had made were there. She'd stuffed them with newspaper and stapled the seams, because while Mom is good at lots of domestic things, sewing isn't one of them.
(Not that it ever bothered me. If you had to choose between a mom who could cook and one who could sew, which would you pick?)
If not for my emotional attachment, I guess I'd consider the box an unremarkable thing. It's pretty simply constructed. And Dad's a tool-and-die maker. When he built it he was also making rocket parts for General Electric, so it's not like it drew heavily on his talents.
But Dad is from that generation of men who didn't get mushy with their kids - or even reason with them. To the contrary, his most memorable words were "stop crying before I give you something to cry about" and "because I said so." Fighting was never a good idea when Dad was around because he never wanted to hear who started it. He just whacked everybody.
(Mom was softer, but then she always had Dad to fall back on. Her most memorable words were "wait till your father gets home ... " More frightening words were rarely uttered.)
I figure guys like Dad showed their love by working hard, providing as best they could, whacking you when they thought you needed it, and maybe once in a while making something like a G.I. Joe footlocker out of some old pine and fiber board.
Something that, 30 years later, I can hold in my hands, though that wasn't his intention.
He just thought his kid would like it. So he built it.
Maybe I read an awful lot into a simple box. But it makes me remember a guy who worked a lot of overtime, sometimes even two jobs, and commuted a couple of hours a day, and who took the time to make his kid a footlocker.
I also remember a woman who was raising four boys and keeping house and trying to make ends meet who took the time to make a bunch of miniature sandbags.
(OK, so she stapled them. They're still holding.)
I don't want to get too sentimental, but I recall love and sacrifice - though I didn't recognize them at the time. And not just that Christmas, but many before and since.
As Christmas themes go - as Christian themes go - love and sacrifice work pretty well for me. After all, it started with those.
And for me they're in that box.
I don't know whether I'll ever give my kids something like that box. I don't have Dad's skills. The teepee I made for them two years ago tilted. The playhouse my daughter wants looks way too complicated. And in general, Lowe's leaves me feeling inadequate.
But I'll bet I could staple something.
Gerry Davies is night metro editor of The Roanoke Times.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 linesby CNB