A scribe’s tool chest

When my grandfather worked as a tool and die maker in the ’40s and ’50s, he was expected to supply some of his own tools.

Having your own gear marked you as a solid pro, a guy the shop foreman could hire and not worry about.  Which meant you always had steady work. And for my grandfather, who went shoeless in the Depression, steady work was the holy grail.

He showed up for the job with his dies, taps, mill files, micrometers, bits, gauges and rules stowed in a rugged oak tool chest.  The rig had cost him a half week’s wages.  It was built by Gerstner, I think.

That same chest sits on my desk right now. It is permanently smudged with machinist’s fingerprints and smells faintly of shop oil.

And in the drawers are the tools of my trade.  One stapler.  Twenty-two bulldog clips, a nine-year supply of paperclips, USB and Ethernet cables, iPhone charger, an extra mouse, linty post-it notes, 94 business cards.  My Mac OSX CDs.  Strunk and White.

There’s also a small card my grandfather left in the chest maybe 50 years ago.  A note to penciled to himself, in Russian.  I have no idea if it’s a to-do list, cheat sheet or driving directions.  I’m saving it just in case.

I keep the chest for continuity, so I can say it’s still in the family and still serving an honest trade.  (Although my grandfather never quite understood what I did for a living.  “So who reads what you write?”  “Nobody,” I said.  “It’s advertising.”)

I like having the tool chest here.  It brings a workmanlike feel to what I do.  Like a pro getting a day’s work done.  Turning out finished pieces, each with the corners square, burrs removed, surface polished, with just the right heft to it.  And all the bad ones tossed in the scrap bin.

That, my grandfather would get.