Sharpening Knives and Picking Up Chestnuts

My grandfather's job when he was a teenager was helping his uncle at a butcher shop. There he learned the skillful and delicate art of sharpening knives. A skill he taught my father, who still can't do it half as well as grandpa could. Growing up, my paternal grandparents lived five hours away in Northern Ontario. They had a house on a lake - a house that is now my cottage. When they would visit us my dad would always have grandpa sharpen our knives. One Christmas he gave my dad his very own knife sharpening tool.

Tonight my dad was sharpening a knife to carve a roast with. The sound of blade grinding against the honing steel is familiar to me. It reminds me of visits with my grandparents - visits which were so few and far apart when they lived up north.

Another thing that I do each fall, or at least every fall since my grandfather passed in 2007, is pick up chestnuts off the ground. My grandfather always got a new chestnut every autumn for his pocket. It was his good luck charm.

[If I were in Inception, my totem would be a chestnut.]

I never asked him why he did this. It just made sense to me as a kid. Maybe his father did it? Or his uncle? Maybe his Grandfather from Pennsylvania, or his other Grandfather from Glasgow? These stories are lost with them.

So I pick up chestnuts every fall, and my dad sharpens knives.