February 26, 2009
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Great Moments in Family Folklore
Years ago, when Greyfox, AKA ArmsMerchant, was new to our family — just visiting, actually, even before he became part of the family — and was also new to Alaska, Doug and I, in the course of our ordinary mother-son interaction, provided him with a memorable moment and a quote from me that is now part of our family lore.
For Doug and me, the moment came and went without notice. I was not aware of the impact it had on Greyfox until much later, when I was present as he told the story to someone else. It is not much of a story, really. When he visited us, the “guesthouse” in which we put him up was a pickup camper parked in the yard. Just aft of the over-the-cab bunk was a pair of bench seats flanking a table that could be lowered onto the benches to bridge the gap between them, and padded to make an extra bed.
I routinely kept the table up and used the space under it, up against the forward bulkhead, to stow my chainsaw. The three of us were sitting on the benches, Greyfox and I on one side, Doug (almost nine years old at the time) facing us from the opposite bench. With his bare toes, Doug was gripping the saw chain and turning it. It rattled, squeaked, clanked, and made a swishing sound as it slid along the bar. Thinking of wear on the saw’s internal mechanical parts and of a destructive interaction between cutting edges and bare toes, I uttered an offhand, “Doug, stop playing with the chainsaw,” and went on with whatever we’d been discussing. Since the rattles and clanks ceased and I could tell he had obeyed, I gave it not another thought.
Greyfox is a horror movie fan. Where I see a chainsaw as an essential tool, he sees it as a bizarre murder weapon. He says he had not previously noticed the chainsaw there in his temporary quarters. He had been wondering about the sounds coming from under the table, but was too polite to say anything. I would find this hard to believe, if I did not know him so well. He could miss noticing an elephant in the living room, I think. Even if he did see it, if nobody else saw fit to mention it, he would pretend it wasn’t there.
Comments (3)
I had a similar moment, and my girlfriend likes to tell the story. My son was about three, and we have always had odd taste in house decor. We (my son, my friend, and me) were all sitting in the cramped bedroom where my husband I had once lived. We had a very realistic-looking resin dragon bone head hanging from the wall that had two very long horns. The horns came off easily (they slipped right back on) and so my son liked to climb up and pull them off to play with them, even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to. So of course he did it that day, and in the midst of conversation I said “Jer, put the horn back on the devil dragon head”. My girlfriend burst out laughing and I was confused for a minute; that was a normal command in my house. She still tells the story to newer friends when describing me or my family.
The dragon head has since been packed away, but I still have to remind the kids not to touch the stone gargoyles on the book shelf. They’re heavy, after all.
Amusing story.
Chainsaws and pipe bombs and bears, oh my!!