stories

When I was a boy, my dad worked for a local propane company, where he was the branch manager. And with the job came many keys – the keys to the building, the tool room, his office, the shed out back, the garage where they repaired the trucks… so many keys.

He had a giant keyring he carried on a clip on his belt that jangled when he walked and had another, larger keyring with more seldom used keys on a ring clipped to the emergency brake handle on his truck. One of the strongest sounds I associate with my dad was us in the truck and him pulling the brake handle to release it, and the keys jangling.

One day when I was maybe eight or nine, I asked Dad why he had so many keys. He told me that each key represented a responsibility he had.

That answer was almost throw away, but over the last five years as a homeowner, it came home to me. I had the keys to the front door, to the basement, to the tool shed, to the car, the office, the church, the chicken coop. With every new responsibility came another key., until my keyring was full.

Then we moved to another city. I turned over my house keys and my work keys until all I had on my keychain was the key to a 12-year-old, paid-for car and an apartment we rent, that someone else is responsible for. Two keys, virtually no responsibilities.

Sunday I got my set of work keys – four of them. I am up to six now, as responsibilities come creeping back.

My grandfather, my Papaw, was a gruff man. He was kind to me, but he did not suffer fools lightly, and he did not do things he did not want to do.

He was a Navy UDT frogman in WWII (the precursors to the Navy Seals), then transferred to the Navy Aircrew in the Korean war, where he was shot down over enemy lines and lived off the land for more than a week before being rescued.

He gave zero thought about what you thought about him.

I loved him so much and wanted to just be in his presence.

One day we were sitting on his back porch. I was maybe 12. My grandmother came out and said that a neighbor had just called and wanted to borrow a hundred dollars. She had told the neighbor probably, but she would talk to Papaw and get back to him.

“Nope. We aren’t doing it.”, he said.

“Why not?”

“Tell him my ax is dull,” he said.

“OK,” she said and went back to the house to call the neighbor.

I had to ask.

“Papaw, what does your ax being dull have to do with you not lending him money?”

Papaw smiled. “Nothing, Hugh Lawson. But if I don’t want to do it, one excuse is as good as another.”

Keys

My ax is dull