Slave Tools...
at an auction in Albia, Iowa, Saturday, June 25, 2011
Old slave quarters in Violet, Louisiana, in St. Bernard Parish. WPA photo. Date unknown 1935-40. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Slave Tools
Old man Grayson in his overhauls, Red Wings,
and St. Louis Cardinal baseball cap grabbed my arm
at the “primitive” tool auction in Albia on Saturday
and said, “see that big ol’ mallet over there?”
And I nodded, looking where he pointed at a
rough old wooden mallet that was not from
this world but I didn’t know it yet that had
a hand-carved handle long as a broomstick,
thicker than the skinny end of a baseball bat with a
blocky oak head nearly the size of a concrete block.
I took it in my hands, shrugged, felt its weight, and
turned its business end to the ready and imagined
driving something with it, a big tent peg maybe when
Grayson said “my Granpa told before he died in 57
that that there mallet and those like ‘m was used to
drive timbers plumb and flush in the old coal mines,
like the Gold Goose he worked in the old days near
Hamilton, and all these old boys here at the auction just
think that these are mine tools but these here wood tools
are slave tools we brought with us from the plantations.
Or the idea of 'em anyway, ‘cause the plantation bosses
didn’t want black men with steel ‘cause steel was too
expensive to buy they said, but really with enough time --
and they sure had enough time -- a clever fella could make
a nice club or shiv outa steel and they didn’t want that, no sir."
And he looked at me and I said, “Oh.”
This story first appeared in my book, Deep Midwest: Midwestern Explorations published by my friend and fellow Iowa Writers’ Collaborativee member Steve Semken with Ice Cube Press. Be sure to check out his offerings. It’s always a good time to buy books.
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Friend and fellow Iowa Writers’ Collaborative member Phoebe Wall Howard has written one of the very best feature columns I have ever read in Putting miles on a 2013 Lincoln MKS saved his life: how Iowa man wants to thank factory workers who built the car. The Iowa man is my friend and fellow Iowa Writers’ Collaborative member newspaperman Doug Burns. Friend and Pulitzer Prize winner Art Cullen said he went through three kleenexes while reading it. It’s an amazing column. It’s so, so good that I’m having trouble finding the right words to describe it. Thanks Phoebe and Doug!
If you need a hug in these troubling times, my friend (yes, I have lots of friends!) and fellow Iowa Writers’ Collaborative member Nicole Baart has one for you in this brilliant column Gritty Hope: What comes Next. Thanks Nicole. Believe it or not my eyes are tearing up just writing this.
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You make "every day life" thought-provoking, inspiring, and beautiful. I loved this. And, like Phoebe said, that last line ... so relatable and the perfect ending. Oh, indeed.
The last six lines of Slave Tools are so simple and yet -- I re-read them again and again, stunned.
"Oh."