The clock repairman's daughter

I have two plastic figures resting on my fireplace mantle. They aren't there by chance. I have a boxes and boxes of toy soldiers in the basement, all left over from the business and that burst of second boyhood that took over the house and my life ten years ago.

No, those figures were pretty special. Duplicates, twins of two others that took off into the night not too long after the last toy soldier show left town three years ago. I don't know why they were out, how I managed to find those two pieces out of the countless thousands that I own. Frankly, I was giving always giving you things at that time. Little things. Silly stuff. Sort of like Boo Radley did with the kids in To Kill a Mockingbird, but I had the grace of not leaving them in the knot hole of a tree by your home. I was lucky enough to be able to put them in your hand. I placed those soldiers in your hand that night and you were pretty happy to get them.

What's funny is where they eventually landed. And now that I have the clocks that were in the tale that I told you that night, I think I might have my two figurines land in a clock as well. See, I know where they live in your house. Inside a mantle clock. One that your father repaired. Of all the places to put them, in a spot that is regularly seen by everyone, in a place where no one else would ever think to find them, above your firebox, in the midst of all the action.

Not too much unlike where my clocks live. In the hustle and bustle and slipstream of my life. We both had plenty of clocks in our lives. Yours was due to your father's profession, mine due to my mother's jones. I can only imagine the thrills if those two had met, the conversations they could have had. I know what sort of competition ran in my family over clocks and all things collectible. Family member's eyes would light up at the mention of new acquistions. I'm sure in your family it was a different thing altogether. Items would come into your life due to, what? Lack of payment? Someone selling something off? Just due to the fact that it looked pretty and sounded nice?

I know that my clocks came into my life due to the fact that they were part of the larger family mythology. Yours came into your life due to love and caring and a remembrance of what your father did for a living. What was it again? Jeweler? Watch repair? Clock restoration? Small business owner? I believe all of it, for as you once put it in a letter, that you thought it was the best thing in the world to have a jewelery store owner for a father.

So, my clocks now sit on top of two hutches and on a wall up in the front rooms of the house. Those two figures, one a red Marxman Zouave, standing firm, rifle slung in a fashion that says "stand fast and hold back", and the other a silver Dulcop Maid Marian figure, tall, regal, sniffing a rose, are destined to reside as yours do, in one of my mother's clocks. Those clocks came along with a tale of family sorrow and stupidity. I wanted them around not so much because they are collectible or remind me of my mother, but to impart lessons, to show me every day that family matters more than things.

I essentially lost my grandparents for the last part of my childhood due to greed and selfishness, not clocks. Not so much on the part of my mom, either. She and her mom had a not too pleasant relationship to begin with, but they got along for the sake of family and appearances. But the clocks were a trigger point. They had just come into the house that day, a swapmeet find that was, truly, the deal of the week, maybe the year. It was a hot, sunny Saturday. My mom had just gotten home and my grandparents arrived right on her heels. Lots of joy on my mom's part, sharing her finds, but that mechanism in my grandmother, the one that demanded obedience, the one that said "give me or else" suddenly kicked in. She asked for the clocks and was rebuffed. She demanded the clocks and was turned down. She and my grandfather left before the hour was up. They never stepped foot in that house again.

After my mom passed away I knew I wanted very little of hers. My house is full and doesn't lean too much towards Victorian kitsch anyways. But those clocks. I wanted to see what it was like to have them around. To feel the impact of owning them. How I would react if anyone ever asked to buy one, to have me give them one. A friend of mine did the other night in a playful kind of way. We goofed over that for a couple hours. Funny, I was taught that in all jest there is some truth. What if she really did want one of them? What if I had just said "yes, please, take one". Would that have somehow bought that wandering soul that is my grandmother a bit of rest?

So, clock repairman's daughter, do your soldiers still peek out at you? Do you see them in the back of your mind's eye every now and then or is the thought of them hidden away as well? I know that for me to forget all about toy soldiers would be to empty out half my basement, a good portion of my boy's room and to forego our upcoming trip to Chicago next September to the annual Old Toy Soldier Show. Can't even begin to see that as being a possibility. Besides, I already unloaded over a thousand vinyl records for you, but that's a line in the sand that we'll never have to cross again. No matter, I suppose, I was paid handsomely for them. Good for me all the way around.

As for those soldiers, I'll tuck them away in a clock tonight. I want to see them, as I wish to see those memories of ours, as something I stumble across someday. I want to be pleasantly surprised, have a story to tell about a gal I once knew who's father loved clocks, loved them enough to gift her girl with a box full of them. How she had one on her mantle and how the man in her life, filled with love and tenderness and devotion for her, found two figures to give to her, to watch over her.

My heart, like that Zouave, still stands firm and at the ready, always watching over that silver maiden. Foolish? No. Selfish? Not like the selfishness I learned to loath as a boy. No, those figures, like my adoration for you, are timeless, still and in hiding. Someday, maybe, they'll find their way out into the light again. If not, time will move forward and so will we, only to be rediscovered later on, just like those soldiers are meant to be.

Your WHMB