My Life in 50 Objects: The Ring

             The ring sat among other rings in a cotton-lined box on a crowded counter in the gift shop. The shop was just a couple of blocks from campus, near the corner of Xenia Avenue, the main street in Yellow Springs, set back from the sidewalk behind a zigzag paved path amid bushes and flowers. The door tinkled from an overhead bell when Connie and I entered.

            Connie was my hallmate, another East Coaster, from Long Island, and it was just a few weeks after we’d arrived for our first year at Antioch College. On this warm day, we’d gone exploring, and here we were in an overstuffed gift shop, looking, just looking.

            The shop had a mixture of goods: scarves, vases, rings, earrings, tea boxes. I gravitated toward a ring. It had a green stone, mottled like the surface of a brain, in a round silver setting surrounded by a moat lined with a faint braid, further surrounded by 16 silver knobs, and its silver band was incised by curlicues. I tried it on, and it fit. Then I asked how much it cost.

            “Six dollars,” said the proprietor, a woman on the other side of middle-age with frizzy graying brown hair. Too much. (The equivalent of $51 today.) I put the ring back. That was too much. Connie came over and rummaged through the box of rings, while I wandered over to the tea table. There was a black and orange tin labeled Constant Comment, with orange rind and spices. That sounded tasty. I bought a tin. Back at our dorm, I noticed that Connie was wearing the ring I had tried on and wanted.

            The next day I went back to the gift shop and looked for the ring. The one with curlicues on the band was gone, but there was another one, almost the same except the silver band was plain. I paid the six dollars—and I still wear the ring, almost 60 years later.

Catching Up, III

-->

Today I transitioned, from family to friends. Over the weekend, my brother and his wife, two of my nieces and their significant others, my nephew, and two cousins were all in town for the memorial. They came from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, and California. They flew in, and they drove. Some I'd seen recently, others not for years. Some stayed at hotels, some with me. It was fun, but also wearing. Family interactions can be intense, with archeological layers,

It's interesting to see certain patterns emerge. When we visited relatives when I was a child, my father was the family handyman. People saved their broken appliances and electrical problem for him: "This radio hasn't worked in years"; "Can you move this outlet?"; "This TV only picks up static." My brother and his wife just gave me an electronic weather station, with indoor and outdoor thermometers and some sort of sensor that offers a forecast. Today my brother labored away at finding a location for the outdoor temperature gauge, installing it (masonry or metal were the only surfaces available, and he had to make a couple of trips to my building's handyman for the right kind of nail), and then setting up the indoor monitor. So he's filled the Mr. Fix-It slot our father used to occupy. (Jack would not have wanted my brother climbing out of windows and hammering into walls to set up some device he, Jack, didn't see any need for.)

Niece R. filled the computer tech slot previously occupied by my brother, though he added input as well, as we tried to divine how to download Jack's old Sent mail into a new e-mail client I wanted to try out. Helpful, yes.

The transition happened when niece and boyfriend set off for home, and brother and wife will leave too early tomorrow for me to see them again. So I went off to meet GirlGriot for a writing date, where I am writing these Slices. Friends and family came together at the memorial, and now move off into their respective worlds.