The summer after I completed the first grade I spent several weeks at my grandfather Link’s home. Our family went “over home” for Sunday dinners on a regular basis Relatives who joined us around the green table in the kitchen were a happy group and the afternoons were always filled with laughter.
My grandfather was a blacksmith by trade whose hobby of growing tomato plants earned him the respect of victory gardeners in the area. I knew that many people stopped to purchase his plants as soon as his sign went up in the front yard so I didn’t think it unusual when he suggested I sell plums for him in that front yard. Looking back I now know it was his way of keeping me busy by picking up the plums that had fallen in the yard from two large trees. Sitting beside my “Plums For Sale” sign I was at least occupied.
When customers did not appear I soon turned to other forms of amusement. It was dusty at the side if the road and I scooped up some dirt but for some reason, to this day I do not know why, instead of making a mudpie with my drinking water, I fashioned a man’s head. After patting forehead, cheeks, nose and chin, I stood up to admire my creation.
That is when I noticed a young boy a few years older than myself looking at my sign and the dirt face on the ground.
“I just made it.” I told him.
He laughed and without saying a word, lifted his foot and stomped the face flat then continued on down the road.
Watching him walk away still laughing, I began to understand that smaller people need an “equalizer” although at the time I did not know to call it that. I lived in a neighborhood of older boys and after returning from my grandfathers house that summer I put a brick in an old play purse that I carried. I only had to hit one boy with the purse and the word got around “She’s got a brick in that purse!”
Thereafter I didn’t have to carry the brick. The empty purse worked just fine.